Speaking of the pitfalls of popular reporting on historical research, a Spanish documentary received much attention in October because of its claim that new genetic evidence implied that Christoper Columbus was of Jewish ancestry. Mosaic noted reasons for skepticism on historical grounds. Razib Khan, a geneticist, points out the flimsy biological reasoning behind the claim:

Though [the documentary] showed that Columbus’s paternal and maternal lineage were compatible with Sephardi Jewish ancestry, it didn’t establish that he had clear Sephardi Jewish ancestry. . . . When it comes to famous figures, however, media outlets often elide this complexity,

It is true that [Columbus’s] paternal lineage, J2, is very common among Sephardi Jews. But J2 is distributed from eastern China to Spain. In Spain, its frequency is 10 percent in the overall male population and 25 percent in Sephardi Jews. In northern Italy—home to Columbus’s notional birthplace, Genoa—J2 is also 25 percent in frequency. A simple inspection of the frequencies of the J2 haplogroup should raise doubts about the Columbus documentary’s claims.

Though it is still possible that Columbus’s recent ancestors were Jews, it seems more likely that they shared the same deep ancestors, with both northern Italians and Sephardi Jews being the products of the world after the collapse of Rome.

In a recent episode of 60 Minutes, a former State Department official tells the interviewer that U.S. support for Israel following October 7 has “put a target on America’s back” in the Arab world “and beyond the Arab world.” The complaint is a familiar one: Middle Easterners hate the United States because of its closeness to the Jewish state. But this gets things exactly backward. Just look at the rhetoric of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its various Arab proxies: America is the “Great Satan” and Israel is but the “Little Satan.”

Why, then, does Iran see the U.S. as the world’s primary source of evil? The usual answer invokes the shah’s 1953 ouster of his prime minister, but the truth is that this wasn’t the subversion of democracy it’s usually made out to be, and the CIA’s role has been greatly exaggerated. Moreover, Ladan Boroumand points out,

the 1953 coup was welcomed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, [the architect of the 1979 Islamic Revolution], and would not have succeeded without the active complicity of proponents of political Islam. And . . . the United States not only refrained from opposing the Islamic Revolution but inadvertently supported its emergence and empowered its agents. How then could . . . Ayatollah Khomeini’s virulent enmity toward the United States be explained or excused?

Khomeini’s animosity toward the shah and the United States traces back to 1963–64, when the shah initiated sweeping social reforms that included granting women the right to vote and to run for office and extending religious minorities’ political rights. These reforms prompted the pro-shah cleric of 1953 to become his vocal critic. It wasn’t the shah’s autocratic rule that incited Khomeini’s opposition, but rather the liberal nature of his autocratically implemented social reforms.

There is no need for particular interpretive skill to comprehend the substance of Khomeini’s message: as Satan, America embodies the temptation that seduces Iranian citizens into sin and falsehood. “Human rights” and “democracy” are America’s tools for luring sinful and deviant citizens into conspiring against the government of God established by the ayatollah.

Or, as George W. Bush put it, jihadists hate America because “they hate our freedoms.”