Benjamin Netanyahu Image by Getty Images

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that Philistines were from Europe in response to Muslim political activist Linda Sarsour’s comment that Jesus was Palestinian.

Sarsour tweeted on Saturday that “Jesus was Palestinian of Nazareth and is described in the Quran as being brown copper skinned with wooly hair.” Netanyahu put out his own tweet on Sunday to rebuke her.

“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,” he wrote in the first of three posts.

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Therefore, he concluded: “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.”

The argument that the Philistines, known as rivals to ancient Israelites (the term is still used negatively, to mean non-sophisticated), have no connection to the Israel is a pseudo-scientific theory. Many in the comments criticized this as “race science” and “eugenics.”

Alyssa Fisher is a writer at the Forward. Email her at fisher@forward.com, or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

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