Answers to Quora Questions
Source: http://finjanisrael.com/wp-conte...
Photo depicts the ancient synagogue of Susia near Yata in the Hebron Hills.
The question was,
How do Jews justify the researches that prove Palestinians are the descendants of Canaanites?
There is no such proof.
DNA findings show that ever people in the region such as Kurds, Jews, and Turks, Arabs, and Palestinians have similar DNA combinations.
This does NOT mean they are related. It does show that they once shared a similar environment!
YDNA Jews (Rough Approximation from Different Studies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_studies_on_Jews
E1b1b1 (M35) 20%
G (M201) 7%
J1 or J* (12f2b) 20%
J2 (M172) 20%
Q1 (P36) 5%
R1a1a (M17) 12%
R1b1 (P25) 11%
The above figures are averages of different studies of both Ashkenazi and Sephardi.
Comparing with other peoples:
E1b1b1 is North African and Balkans (Greek) associated. Sephardim higher than Asheknazim.
J1 is Arabian peninsula dominant. Higher in Sephardim but not unduly so.
J2 is Canaanite-Lebanon, Jewish Cohanim.
Q1 is Siberian and Amerindian, assumedly Ashkenazi.
R1a is East European mainly Ashkenazim.
R1b is West European mainly Sephardim.
Palestinian DNA Y haplogroup distribution is similar to that of the Jews but less so than Kurds and the Turks of Turkey.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians#DNA_and_genetic_studies
Christian and Muslim Palestinians showed genetic differences. The majority of Palestinian Christians (31.82%) were a subclade of E1b1b, followed by G2a (11.36%), and J1 (9.09%). The majority of Palestinian Muslims were haplogroup J1 (37.82%) followed by E1b1b (19.33%), and T (5.88%). The study sample consisted of 44 Palestinian Christians and 119 Palestinian Muslims.[181Â
Haplogoup T is from Arabia and Ethiopia.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeogenetics_of_the_Near_East
Wells identified the haplogroup of the Canaanites as haplogroup J2 which originated in northern Mesopotamia.[28] The National Geographic Genographic Project linked haplogroup J2 to the site of Jericho, Tel el-Sultan, ca. 8500 BCE and indicated that in modern populations, haplogroup J2 is found primarily in the Middle East, but also along the coasts of North Africa and Southern Europe, with especially high distribution among present-day Jewish populations (30%), Southern Italians (20%), and lower frequencies in Southern Spain (10%).[29]Most Palestinians in Judea & Samaria were formerly Jews
By Rachel Avraham
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/most-palestinians-in-judea-samaria-were-formerly-jews/2015/01/06/
The American archeologist Eric Cline reported in his book Jerusalem Besieged: ‘Although some would disagree, historians and archeologists have generally concluded that most, if not all, modern Palestinians are probably more closely related to the Arabs of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, and other countries than they are to the ancient Jebusites, Canaanites, or Philistines. The major movements of those Arabs into the region occurred after 600 CE, more than 1,600 years after David and the Israelites had vanquished the original inhabitants of the land.’ This fact is confirmed by Sherif Hussein, the Guardian of Islamic Holy Places of Arabia, who stated that the Palestinians ancestors had only been in the region for 1,000 years.
There is NO REAL SIMILARITY between Jews and Palestinians other than that the relative percentages of each of the component types are roughly similar though each type is quite distinct. I would attribute this similarity to environment. Once DNA studies wake up and start factoring in the environment the similarity is liable to disappear altogether.
There are elements on both the Israeli Secular right wing and the Pro-Palestinian Left who each for their own reasons would like to see a stronger similarity between Jews and Palestinians. This however is not really there. I myself was approached by a political activist and asked to lend my weight to such an idea. Naturally I refused.
Were then do the Palestinians Come From?
G. Breuer in a Hebrew-Language article in"Mida Beitar" (26 February, 2018) gives a useful summary: The notes below are my own but based on the article by Breuer.
Yasser Arafat used to encourage the Palestinians to claim Canaanite ancestry.
Family traditions of the Palestinians however mostly claim that they came from Arabia. A minority claim Kurdish or Egyptian origins. A few allude to possible Jewish, or Samaritan, ancestry. None of them seem to mention the Philistines.
One family in Schechem that claimed Canaanite origin was traced back to Aleppo in Syria. Under the Ottoman Turkish Empire borders were quite fluid and people moved freely from one area to another. Most of the Arab Palestinian families traced themselves either to Northwest Arabia or to Yemen in the south. Even Christian Palestinians turned out to have traditions of Arabian or Beduin ancestry.
There was one family in the Arab village of Yata (in the Hebron Hills) who really do seem to be of Jewish origin. Two members of this family have converted to Judaism.
The Arab city of Hebron is divided between families of Kurdish origin and those who were Arab Christians before the coming of Islam. Families from Egypt also settled in Hebron.