Plot twist! Palestinians have at least as much Jewish heritage as modern Jews do!

Misinai says that “more than half” of the Palestinians know about their Jewish roots, which include such Jewish traditions as lighting candles on Friday night, seven days of mourning (vs. the usual three in most Islamic communities), circumcision on the eighth day (brit mila), and even wearing Tefillin (phylacteries). The latter was done usually by someone who was ill, especially by those suffering from headaches. The rosh of the Tefillin would be placed on the forehead with the straps wrapped around the person’s head and tightened. Unfortunately, today, “other than among a few people, the true meaning of the Tefillin has been lost,” Misinai says.

“Several Palestinians have gone through formal conversion,” Misinai adds, while others have taken on Jewish practices and “say they don’t need to convert because they know they’re already Jews.” Several Palestinian families own ancient hanukkiot which they use in mid‐winter, usually around Hanukah time, Misinai says. Some homes have doorpost indentations for a mezuzah (although the scroll itself is usually missing).

Among the more knowledgeable Palestinians of Jewish descent are several large clans in the hills near Hebron and among the Bedouin in the Negev. Not only do they know of their heritage, they “even have family trees that document their roots…their neighbors would call them ‘the Jews,’ even though they were technically as Muslim as anyone else,” Misinai says.

In one of the Hebron‐area villages, a tribal leader describes his clan’s Jewish history. In a departure from Misinai’s main thesis, Muhammed Amsalem explained in an interview with Aharon Granot of Mishpacha Magazine, that ”our elders tell us our forefathers came to this land during the Spanish Inquisition, via Morocco. They settled in Ramle. Then the Mamluks forced them to convert to Islam, and they moved to the southern Hebron area.”

The ancient name of the Amsalem family clan — Maahamra — means “winemaker,” a trade that is forbidden by Islam. Because the Maahamras converted relatively late in history, even more “secret” customs have been preserved. One man in the Amsalem clan has a small Hebrew booklet of Psalms with which he continues to pray to this day.

In 1982, the leaders of the Palestinian village of Bidya offered to enlist in the IDF to fight in Lebanon. “The Jewish origin of many of Bidya’s clans is a well known fact, even today,” says Misnai.

Misinai once interviewed a Bedouin leader who said that his people “had no choice but to convert. This was centuries ago. I remember my mother and grandmother wouldn’t light fire on Sabbath and they had a special mikveh” (a ritual bath).

Even in Gaza, there are Palestinians of Jewish descent, Misinai says — even higher than the 90 percent he claims for the rest of the region.

We have corroborating evidence for all of this. For example:

“The closest genetic neighbors to most Jewish groups were the Palestinians, Israeli Bedouins, and Druze in addition to the Southern Europeans, including Cypriots,” as Ostrer and Skorecki wrote in a review of their findings that they co‐authored in the journal Human Genetics in October 2012.

“Karl and I are good friends,” Ostrer told Haaretz by telephone from New York. “We used somewhat different analytical methods—there’s no claim there for superiority, or one side versus the other.” In their results, as well, “there was really very little difference at all.”

(Source.)

Single‐step microsatellite networks of Arab and Jewish haplotypes revealed a common pool for a large portion of Y chromosomes, suggesting a relatively recent common ancestry. The two modal haplotypes in the I&P Arabs were closely related to the most frequent haplotype of Jews (the Cohen modal haplotype).

[…]

According to historical records part, or perhaps the majority, of the Moslem Arabs in this country descended from local inhabitants, mainly Christians and Jews, who had converted after the Islamic conquest in the seventh century AD (Shaban 1971; Mc Graw Donner 1981). These local inhabitants, in turn, were descendants of the core population that had lived in the area for several centuries, some even since prehistorical times (Gil 1992).

On the other hand, the ancestors of the great majority of present‐day Jews lived outside this region for almost two millennia. Thus, our findings are in good agreement with historical evidence and suggest genetic continuity in both populations despite their long separation and the wide geographic dispersal of Jews.

(Emphasis added. Source.)

\ Still unconvinced?

Watch these clips from the Palestinian resistance. They prove that Palestinians have the same Maccabean spirit that animated the Warsaw ghetto rebels, the Sobibór rebels, and the Red Army’s Jews. If those don’t convince you, nothing will.