In a recent interview with U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee in Israel, Tucker Carlson questioned the narrative of an exclusively Jewish return to the biblical land. He highlighted that local communities, especially Palestinian Christians, maintain a stronger ancestral continuity with the ancient inhabitants of the region than Israeli Jews of Ashkenazi origin. Although the initial focus was on Christians, the genetic evidence broadens the scope: Palestinians and Lebanese in general show a higher genetic correlation with ancient Levantine populations than the average contemporary Israeli Jewish population (Agranat-Tamir et al., 2020; Haber et al., 2017).
Several genomic studies confirm this remarkable continuity. Analysis of 73 ancient genomes from the southern Levant during the Bronze Age showed that Palestinians and Lebanese retain between 81% and 93% of their ancestry from ancient Canaanites, with minimal external dilution (Agranat-Tamir et al., 2020). More recent quantitative paleogenomic models indicate that the contribution of Iron Age populations to Palestinians exceeds 90%, clustering them very close to ancient Canaanite and Israelite samples (Permana, 2026).
In contrast, the contemporary Israeli Jewish population—where Ashkenazi Jews represent approximately 45%—exhibits an average Levantine continuity below 60–70%, due to significant European admixture (40–60%) accumulated over the diaspora (Behar et al., 2010; Ostrer & Skorecki, 2013). Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews retain a closer affinity to regional ancestors, but the national average remains considerably diluted (Khan, 2023).
The Islamization of the 7th century did not entail a massive population replacement, but rather a cultural and religious transformation of the same local communities (Haber et al., 2016). Therefore, Palestinians and Lebanese are positioned as the most direct genetic descendants of the ancient Canaanites and Israelites.
These genetic data do not resolve political or territorial conflicts, but they reveal a shared and complex genetic history that challenges essentialist interpretations of ancestral rights to the land.
ReferencesAgranat-Tamir, L., Waldman, S., Martin, M. A. S., Gokhman, D., Mishol, N., Eshel, T., … & Reich, D. (2020). The genomic history of the Bronze Age southern Levant. Cell, 181(5), 1146–1157.e11. DOI
Behar, D. M., Yunusbayev, B., Metspalu, M., et al. (2010). The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people. Nature, 466(7303), 238–242. DOI
Haber, M., Doumet-Serhal, C., Scheib, C. L., Xue, Y., Danecek, P., Mezzavilla, M., … & Tyler-Smith, C. (2017). Continuity and admixture in the last five millennia of Levantine history from ancient Canaanite and present-day Lebanese genome sequences. American Journal of Human Genetics, 101(2), 274–282. DOI
Haber, M., Mezzavilla, M., Xue, Y., & Tyler-Smith, C. (2016). Ancient DNA and the rewriting of human history: Be sparing with Occam’s razor. Genome Biology, 17(1), 1–6. DOI
Khan, R. (2023, December 28). More than kin, less than kind: Jews and Palestinians as Canaanite cousins. Razib Khan’s Unsupervised Learning. razibkhan.com
Ostrer, H., & Skorecki, K. (2013). The population genetics of the Jewish people. Human Genetics, 132(2), 119–127. DOI
Permana, B. (2026). Genetic proximity of modern Palestinians and Ashkenazi Jews to Iron Age Levantines: A quantitative paleogenomic analysis. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.29798.33609 (ResearchGate)
