By John Thomas Didymus
A researcher at the Hebrew University has published results of genetic research studies which show that Palestinians and Jews have a common ancestry in the Kurdish population of Iraq and Turkey.
Ariella Oppenheim, Ph.D. researcher at Hebrew University, who conducted the DNA studies, said that the results show also that the Ashkenazi Jews of Central Europe are more genetically related to the Palestinians than to the Jewish population of the Middle East.
Oppenheim’s study also included a study of the chromosome of the Kohen priests traced by geneticists to a hypothetical “Y-chromosomal Aaron.” Oppenheim’s study showed that many Palestinians also carry the Kohen chromosome and thus may be considered of the Kohen genetic line.
According to a documentary in which Oppenheim featured, the Palestinian city of Yatta, south of Hebron in the West Bank, which has a population of about 50,000 people, has 90% of its people with Jewish ancestry. According to a report by Mark Ellis of God Reports,
In some of the dry and dusty Palestinian and Bedouin villages they still circumcise their boys after the seventh day. Hidden away in some Palestinian homes are Jewish mezuzahs and tefillin. Some older residents an recall lighting candles on the Sabbath.
A report by Steve Hageman of the Turkish World Outreach, according to Mark, says,
Many of the Palestinians know it [that they have Jewish roots], but it’s not politically correct to acknowledge this publicly among Muslims…There are two houses of Israel in the Holy Land: one aligned with the West and primarily secular or Jewish and the other aligned with the East and primarily Islam.
A Jewish Rabbi Dov Stein explains Oppenheim’s startling revelation,
It becomes clear that a significant part of the Arabs in the land of Israel are actually descendants of Jews who were forced to convert to Islam over the centuries. There are studies which indicate that 85% of this group is of Jewish origin.
A documentary by Jewish filmmaker Nissim Mossek captured on camera a Palestinian home where the Jewish mezuzah (a parchment of scripture placed on the doorposts by pious Jews) is kept away from sight under a shelf and the tefillin (or phylacteries) hidden in a dresser. Palestinians who recognize their Jewish ancestry practice their religious way of life in secret.
Another line of explanation of the genetic links between Palestinians and Jews comes from Ancient History and explains that the genetic kinship between the Jews and the Kurds of Iran and Turkey may have it origins in deportation of the population of the Northern Kingdom of Israel to the Euphrates-Tigris region of Mesopotamia by the Assyrians in the eighth century BC
www.goddiscussion.com, September 19, 2011