A television program was aired in Spain this past weekend, timed to coincide with National Day in Spain or what we call Columbus Day here in the States, exploring recent findings on the final burial place and ethnicity of one of Western history’s most famous figures: Christopher Columbus.

This post is not about that, per se. Instead, it is about how our media, once again, takes one crumb and builds a cake to further a specific, pro-Israel narrative.

We all know who Christopher Columbus was and his background, in a general sense, so I won’t belabor that. And we know that recently his role in the European expansion into the New World has been let’s say…revisited, becoming contested and controversial in its own right. I won’t belabor that either. Those are subjects for a different day.

What many perhaps did not know was that, historically, there has been some question as to where Columbus was born, what his ethnicity was, and where he was actually buried. Various claims to his origin and burial place have been made over the years, ranging from birth in twenty-five different European countries, to his being buried in at least four different locations.

In an attempt to answer these questions, José Antonio Lorente of Spain’s University of Granada was granted permission in 2003 to examine the remains held in Seville Cathedral claimed to be those of Columbus, where they had resided since 1899, and compare them with his son, Hernando, and Diego Columbus, who was thought to be his brother, but as it turns out, was possibly his cousin.

The initial study began with the exhumation of the remains. Many world renown geneticists assisted in the initial examination. However, within a short period of time, a significant number of those researchers left the project, having determined that the quality of the remains and the potential for meaningful and accurate DNA extraction was not up to their standards.

This, however, did not stop Lorente from plugging away at it for the next twenty years.

What did he find, and how do we know?

This is where we start to run into trouble. The headlines seem very straightforward. But something doesn’t pass the sniff-test:

The Legacy media knows that most people don’t read much past the headlines. Let’s look at a couple of them:
• Reuters: “Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe, study finds”
• NBCNews: “Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe, study finds”
• CNN: “Centuries-old mystery of Christopher Columbus’s true origins revealed in study”
• US News & World Report: “Columbus Was a Sephardic Jew From Western Europe, Study Finds”
• BBC: “Columbus probably Spanish and Jewish, study says”
• Fox News: “Columbus remains, verified after 500 years, show he was Jewish: documentary
Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe, new study finds”

Notice anything?

First, all of the headlines are either exactly the same, or some slight variation thereof. They are, in fact, all referencing one article from Reuters, or at best, two articles: the aforementioned Reuters piece, and one by Spanish newspaper El País.

Second, with the exception of the BBC which has the good-graces to say “probably”, all of them state unequivocally that Columbus was Jewish.

Lastly, the first paragraph of each story, regardless of the hosting website or byline, begins with some variation of the same words—“Spanish scientists announced in a new documentary that first aired on Saturday that DNA analysis shows the 15th-century explorer Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe”—indicating it was derived from the same source.

For the average reader who skims the headlines and maybe reads the first paragraph of an article, the matter seems settled. Let’s look at the beginning of the Reuters article:

Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe, study finds
By Reuters

October 13, 2024

MADRID, Oct 13 (Reuters) – The 15th-century explorer Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe, Spanish scientists said on Saturday, after using DNA analysis to tackle a centuries-old mystery.

Several countries have argued over the origins and the final burial place of the divisive figure who led Spanish-funded expeditions from the 1490s onward, opening the way for the European conquest of the Americas.

Many historians have questioned the traditional theory that Columbus came from Genoa, Italy. Other theories range from him being a Spanish Jew or a Greek, to Basque, Portuguese or British.

To solve the mystery researchers conducted a 22-year investigation, led by forensic expert Miguel Lorente, by testing tiny samples of remains buried in Seville Cathedral, long marked by authorities there as the last resting place of Columbus, though there had been rival claims.

They compared them with those of known relatives and descendants and their findings were announced in a documentary titled “Columbus DNA: The true origin” on Spain’s national broadcaster TVE on Saturday.

Well, there we are. Right?

Umm, no.

My doubts started to creep in when I read the story in full. The further into the article one goes, the more one sees that a great deal is being taken for granted, that the conclusions stated at the end of the article are not consistent with the assertions at the beginning, and the media is running with assumptions and reporting them as facts.

For example, later in the article Lorente is quoted as saying, “We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient.” Sufficient? For what? “…there are traits compatible with Jewish origin.” Compatible? Is that the same as definitive, as the headlines would lead one to believe? And my favorite: “…the outcome is almost absolutely reliable.” Almost absolutely reliable?

Call me a skeptic, but that sounds a great deal less certain than the Reuters headline: “Christoper Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe”.

It turns out, I’m not alone in my doubts. The first thing to note is that the actual DNA analysis and its findings have not yet been published, nor peer-reviewed. All of the “facts” reported in news come from the television program.

Second, as regards the television program, Lorente says that independent analysis of the DNA was conducted at several labs around the world, including teams from the United States and Australia, but their results are not mentioned or referenced. Why? Did it not fit the narrative of the program?

Geneticist Antonio Alonso, former chief of the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences, sums-up the issue precisely:

Unfortunately, from the scientific point of view, no assessment can be made after watching the documentary, since it does not provide any data on what has been analyzed. My conclusion is that the documentary Columbus DNA does not show the DNA of Columbus at any given moment and scientists do not know what analysis has been undertaken.

source: El Pais

It gets worse: Forensic anthropologist Miguel Botella was there in 2003 when the alleged remains of Columbus were brought to the lab. Those present were expecting the body of the famed explorer. Instead, they were handed a small box containing little more than 150 grams of bone fragments and dust.

Using a laser scanner, Botella was able to determine the bones belonged to a man aged somewhere between 50 and 70 years old. “By the time the bones were exhumed in 2003, it was not possible to extract DNA from the bones, Botella explains, adding that he stopped collaborating with the team responsible for the investigation after his initial involvement, not wishing to participate further.”

Despite this setback, Lorente persisted and was able to extract partial DNA. This he sent to several geneticists, including Ángel Carracedo from the University of Santiago de Compostela, and Mark Stoneking, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Carracedo recalls that the DNA that reached him was tremendously degraded, and he too distanced himself from the project. Moreover, he refuses to comment on Lorente’s new results until there is a serious scientific study published in a specialized journal. The response of the Max Planck Institute geneticist to questions from EL PAÍS were similar: “I am sorry, my group stopped working on this in 2005 and I have not heard anything about the most recent results,” said Stoneking.

Source: El Pais

Furthermore, it is clear that Lorente is drawing sweeping conclusions from inconclusive evidence:

Antonio Salas heads the Population Genetics in Biomedicine team at Santiago de Compostela’s Health Investigation Institute. “The documentary promised to focus on DNA analysis, as suggested by its title Columbus DNA: His True Origins,” he says. “However, the genetic information it offers is very limited. Only at the end is it mentioned that the only thing that was recovered from the presumed remains of Christopher Columbus was a partial profile of the Y chromosome. The problem is that the Y chromosome represents only a tiny fraction of our DNA and our ancestry.”

“The documentary rushes to a conclusion that Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew originally from the Spanish Levant. This hypothesis is, to say the least, surprising: there is no Y chromosome that can be uniquely defined as Sephardic-Jewish,” argues Salas. “Even if all of an individual’s DNA were recovered, it would still be impossible to reach definitive conclusions about his or her exact geographic origin.”

Source: Ibid

In short, a modicum of due-diligence and skepticism (in other words, basic journalistic standards) would have precluded Reuters and other pro-Jewish media lap-poodles from sounding the “Columbus was Jewish” trumpets.

This is not the first time the Jewish community has tried to sing the “Columbus was Jewish” song during a time of need. Here is a news article, frighteningly similar to what is being reported today, published in 1934:

That’s right. 90 years ago—almost to the day—while Jews were facing struggles in Europe, low-and-behold we see them trying to claim Christopher Columbus as one of their own. What are the odds? And likely for the same reason: as Jews generally and Zionists in particular face struggles, ginning up support among non-Jews becomes one of the tricks of their trade. “See, we’re just like you” they seem to want say.

Which brings us to the heart of the matter: this latest attempt to claim Columbus as one of their own is not about Christopher Columbus. This is about yet another attempt by our Lamestream Media to shift focus from Israeli war crimes in the Middle East while trying to meet their quota of reporting one positive story a day about Jews or Israel: essentially, Hearts-and-Mind propaganda.

Although clearly released to coincide with National Day in Spain, it is not a coincidence that this program began production after the Israeli invasion of Gaza, or that our media is baking the pro-Jewish narrative cake out of the most meager of DNA crumbs at the same time Israel is ramping up hostilities and incidents of so-called antisemitism are increasing nationally.

And it was cleverly done: Lorente’s statements are equivocal enough that, coupled with a published peer-reviewed analysis questioning his claims (assuming such a review actually happens), he could easily backtrack and not damage his career.

Indeed, once the dust settles and the true findings have been released, I would not be at all surprised to see that there is still no definitive answer to Columbus’s origin or ethnicity at all.

But the damage has been done (or, from the Jewish point of view, mission accomplished): for those that skim headlines and move on – that is to say, most of the American electorate – Columbus will now be forever Jewish.

Amerika Erwache!