...Ethnicity is a matter of culture and identity, not genetic ancestry. Most people, of course, share both their genes and their ethnicity with their grandparents, but few of us would care to live in a world where our ethnic identity was absolutely determined by who our grandparents were. In such a world no immigrant or grandchild of immigrants could belong fully to the nation of her birth. El Haj, is the child of Palestinian immigrants to the United States who lives with her Lebanese-British husband in London during summers and semester break. They have a child. Should British authorities test that child for genetic evidence of its descent from “Palestine’s ancient tribes,” and, if the test is positive, send the child back to its homeland of Philistia?

This suggestion is not only absurd, it is morally repugnant. That being so, why is Nadia Abu El Haj delivering papers on genetics with titles like “The Descent of Men: Genetics, Jewish Origins, and Historical Truths”? And why is she cooking the genetic data to a false impression that Arabs have a deep genealogical connection to the land of Israel , and Jews don’t?

The overt racial primordialism and overtones of racial essentialism in her work ought to frighten everyone who stands against racism.