Palestinian rights activists joined in the debate against Netanyahu, stressing that this is simply another tactic to erase Palestinian heritage and history.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is back again with attempts to erase Palestinian history, with claims that there is new proof that Palestinians were never from the land of Palestine.

Taking to Twitter, Netanyahu posted a study done by an Israeli team on a sample of DNA collected from the ancient Philistine site in Ashkelon, which supposedly shows that ancient Philistines were present in what is now modern-day Crete before migrating to Palestine.

A new study of DNA recovered from an ancient Philistine site in the Israeli city of Ashkelon confirms what we know from the Bible – that the origin of the Philistines is in southern Europe. https://t.co/bwmcPax9Jp — Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) July 7, 2019

Netanyahu continued with his rant on Twitter, claiming that the connection Palestinians have “is nothing” compared to what Jewish people have to the land of Palestine, and that this therefore supports Israel’s brutal regime against the Palestinian people.

The Palestinians’ connection to the Land of Israel is nothing compared to the 4,000 year connection that the Jewish people have with the land. — Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) July 7, 2019

Many, however, quickly rebutted Netanyahu, including many archeologists who claimed that this supposed study means nothing when it comes to understanding the context behind the history of Palestinians.

There's so much wrong here I almost don't know where to start. In antiquity the Eastern Mediterranean was a place of constant mixture, not bounded groups of "Europeans" and "Levantines" occasionally linked by "admixture" – that is just what we made of it.https://t.co/JOi4NcYUPc — David Wengrow (@davidwengrow) July 3, 2019

Just to be clear, for anyone not aware: material culture, settlement patterns, place names, and, yes, DNA, *all* suggest Palestinians are descended to a significant extent (like Jews) from ancient inhabitants of Palestine. (A couple of additional comments to follow) pic.twitter.com/JWLzQ52pQh — Michael Press (@MichaelDPress) July 7, 2019

This is no sense. To call old populations with names of political identities that did not exist, fosters the misunderstandings that fuel a manipulative reading of aDNA research in the present. @IncipitCSIC @archaeologyEAA @sciencemagazine @aberron https://t.co/2EDKuhpXMp — Felipe Criado-Boado (@FCriadoBoado) July 5, 2019

Palestinian rights activists joined in the debate against Netanyahu, stressing that this is simply another tactic to erase Palestinian heritage and history. One user Tweeted: “Even if Netanyahu were correct (which of course he’s not)…would it matter?”

Finally: Even if Netanyahu were correct (which of course he's not) . . . would it matter? I don't see how it would justify the destruction of 100s of villages, the forced removal of 1 million + people, and holding millions more w/o basic rights.

That's the real issue here. — Michael Press (@MichaelDPress) July 7, 2019

Your dad changed your family name to Netanyahu from Mileikowsky, which means from Milikow, a village in Poland. https://t.co/cN2UMXapkZ — (((YousefMunayyer))) (@YousefMunayyer) July 7, 2019

While Netanyahu has yet to address the flawed nature of the study itself, it remains deeply worrying when it comes to the Israeli government’s clear use of cultural genocide against Palestinians. Many pointed to the more serious implications of a study like this, which normalizes the erasure of Palestinian history.

This racial eugenics should be seen as laying the ground for justifying the expulsion of the Palestinian people. It’s a warning sign of genocide. But remember these are the #SharedValues of @EUinIsrael. https://t.co/Oe6m54BDWg — Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) July 7, 2019

The abuse against Palestinian history and heritage continues, with Netanyahu and Israel committed to erasing the Palestinian people, both culturally and physically.