Tsvi Misinai

As with other "Arabs" whose local indigenous non-Arab origins became relegated issues over time, the Hebrew origin of Palestinians also became a relegated issue over time. For the Palestinians, however, the additional emergence of Zionism in the early 19th century introduced a quandary complicating an unbiased assessment to either acknowledge or deny the local indigenous non-Arab ancestry of a culturally and linguistically Arabized people. In the context of the Palestinians, this quandary was a competing national interest in the land they inhabited. Arab nationalism for Palestinians would thus serve as a counter-force vis-à-vis Zionism. The topic of the Palestinians’ ancestral Hebrew origin thus became admonished. Then, the establishment of modern Israel by world Jewry, having transpired to the detriment of the Palestinians, transformed the topic of the Palestinians’ Hebrew origin into a liability in the historical narrative for either side to admit, ultimately becoming the object of outright hostility.

Misinai claims that the Descendants of Israel had ceased to call themselves Musta’arbim, when the Brethren of Israel returned to their homeland during the 18th and 19th centuries. Despite this, stories about the Jewish origins of the family were passed on among the Descendants of Israel, and a few Jewish customs were preserved. Both groups began seeing themselves as one people, although endogamous marriages with their own clans ensured the purity of their blood lines until very recently.

Later, as things improved in the 18th and 19th century, many of those who left returned from Persia, Yemen and Sudan, shifting residences between present day Jordan and Israel, with the former mountain dwellers returning to their ancient homes, and the Edomites, Moabites, etc., settling in the plains. It is these "Brethren of Israel", Misinai contends, who constitute most of the Palestinian population east of the Jordan river and the Palestinian refugees (both within the Palestinian territories and outside), while the majority of Palestinians who did not flee and remain in Israel proper, West Bank and Gaza area, are "Descendants of Israel".

Since the Edomites and Moabites ancestral lands were located east of the Jordan River, this made them more close to Arabia and more removed from the Jewish people. As a result, they were more susceptible to conversions to Islam, and hence, subsequently became Musta’arbim. When devastating famines broke out at the beginning of the 16th century, many among these Brethren of Israel emigrated to Persia. As a result of juggling different religious identities to avoid persecution, they eventually forgot their Jewish and Musta’arbi origins and became radicalised, and started considering themselves to be Arabs.

Tsvi Misinai has written two books on this subject, Hearing is Believing – The Roots and the Solution to the Eretz-Israel Problem explaining his thesis and detailing numerous testimonies, linguistic and name similarities, genetic and natural science findings, cultural and religious similarities, as well as a shortened version Brother Shall not Lift Sword against Brother. The former is available only in Hebrew under the title Ye’amen ki Yisupar – Ba’ayat Eretz-Israel, Shorasheha oo-Pitronah, with the latter being available in Hebrew and English, as well as an Arabic version which was released in 2010.

Among Bedouins, a key vocal supporter of Misinai's theory has been Sheikh Salem al-Huzeil, the head of the "Our State" Movement and a prominent leader of the Al-Huzeil tribe from Rahat. In October 2009, with the aim of furthering Jewish and Bedouin ties, Al-Huzeil organised a meeting with Misinai and the religious- Zionist “Hit’habrut” (Joining Together) Movement, in which he maintained that most of his tribal ancestors were Jewish prior to their forced conversion during the Muslim conquest approximately 1,300 years ago.

In his book Brother shall not lift his sword against Brother, Misinai puts forward the following statistics pertaining to the proportion of the "Descendants of Israel" and the "Brethren of Israel" populations among the Palestinians and Arab Israelis, as of December 2007. It is detailed as four main areas (the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem, Gaza strip, East Jerusalem and Israel proper) and are as follows:

Misinai also cites the following three genetic studies as lending credence to his theory. Among the genetic studies referred to by him include recent genetic studies conducted by Professor Ariella Oppenheim of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on the male Y chromosome which revealed that the present day Jews and Palestinians represent modern descendants of a core population that lived in the area now constituting the state of Israel and the Palestinian territories, since prehistoric times. In 2001, the Human Immunology magazine published a genetic study conducted by Prof. Antonio Arnez-Vilna, a Spanish researcher from the Complutense University of Madrid, who discovered that the immune systems of the Jews and the Palestinians are extremely close to one another in a way that almost absolutely demonstrates a similar genetic identity. Furthermore, a 2002 test by Tel Aviv University researchers, determined that only two groups in the world—Ashkenazi Jews and Palestinians—were genetically susceptible to an inherited deafness syndrome.

Misinai is the founder of Sapiens International Corporation and served as its president until 1994. He embedded the principle of Positive Thinking in computers and invented the Rule Based Object Oriented technology for developing data processing applications, the development of which he started in the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1972.

Misinai first heard about the "Hebrew origins of Palestinians" theory from his father, Kha'yim Avraham, who served in the Royal Artillery in the Second World War. His interest was rekindled after the 1991 Gulf War, when there was talk about a new order in the Middle East. After the failure of the Oslo Accords that led to the commencement of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, he abandoned his career as a Computer scientist and devoted his entire life to investigating the Jewish roots of Palestinians. He now spends his entire time tracking down Palestinians who acknowledge their Jewish heritage, and lobbying ministers, ambassadors, religious leaders and activists in both communities. Misinai, and his team of Arabs and Jews, have embarked on a mission of trying to bring peace to Israel through a unique and controversial project called "The Engagement".

The majority of the Descendants of the Roman Army are presently in Jordan, and despite their long-standing seniority rights in Israel, they must remain there, as most emigrated to Jordan of their own free will after the Six day war of 1967. The only exception to this is specific cases of family reunion.

Misinai states it is this group that are the most anti-semitic and most active in terrorist activities in the intifada, with their objectives being to return to the lands they abandoned in 1948. He claims that the leadership of the Palestinian militant organisations such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah al-Islam, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, etc., are primarily internally supported by over 1,300,000 Brethren of Israel, who all reside west of the Jordan river. The victims of such terrorist acts tend to be the People of Israel, the Descendants of Israel and a small number of others.

According to Misinai, the Brethren of Israel are the smartest group among the Palestinian people and make up the majority of the Palestinian leadership. He states that the early leadership of the various Palestinian nationalist organisations such as Fatah, PLO, PFLP, etc., came primarily from among the Brethren of Israel refugees in the 1948 exodus. While he acknowledges that the Brethren of Israel have suffered more than any other Palestinians, he blames the Brethren of Israel leadership of perpetuating the problem for more than 50 years in order to gain camp followers both among those of their brethren who continue to suffer and among the Arabs and others who feel sorry for them.

Tsvi Jekhorin Misinai (Hebrew: צבי מסיני; born 15 April 1946) is an Israeli researcher, author, historian, computer scientist and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the Israeli software industry, he now spends most of his time researching and documenting the common Hebrew roots he believes shared by world Jewry and the Palestinians (including Arab citizens of Israel).

Tsvi Misinai was born in 1946 in Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine to Ashkenazi Jewish parents who immigrated from Ternopil in Galicia (now Ukraine) in 1939. He graduated in Physics from the Haifa Technion in 1968. He was the first Israeli to receive the Rothschild Award for industrial development in the field of software in 1992.

Misinai traces the beginning of the Arab–Israeli conflict and a Palestinian "Arab" identity to the simultaneous immigration of the Jews from various places and Brethren of Israel (from the east), to the land west of the Jordan river from 1840 to 1947. He states that by 1914 the Brethren of Israel became a very large group among Palestinians there and would remain so, until they were mostly expelled during the Palestinian exodus in 1948. He argues that these people have now returned to their ancestral homeland east of the Jordan river, and possess no right to the land of Israel.