We all know about the bogus Khazar theory, that Palestinians and other Arabs use to claim that Ashkenazic Jews are not really Jews but were converts from Khazaria.
But that theory only works with Ashkenazic Jews. Most Israeli Jews have ancestors who lived in the Middle East, not Europe, so Palestinians need to be delegitimize them, too.
Enter Palestinian historian Dirgham Faris.
He claims that the Mizrahi Jews were descended from a similar mass conversion event, that of the Himyars in the fourth century.
He admits that the Jews came from the region - but Palestinians are the descendants of the Jews:
“Yes, Palestine is the cradle of the Jewish religion, where the Jewish religion reached its peak during the Hellenistic (Greek) period, specifically after the Maccabean Revolution.”He asked: “What is the relationship between the occupying Jews and the ancient Jews in Palestine? What is the relationship between the remnants of the Himyarite Kingdom, which converted to Judaism in 384 AD, and the remnants of the Khazar Kingdom, which converted to Judaism in 850 AD, and Palestine?”Fares said: “The ancient Jews are our ancestors. The Palestinian people are an extension of the original inhabitants from the Stone Age until now.”He added: “Most of us converted to Islam after Judaism and Christianity, and therefore everything on and under the land of Palestine is an integral part of our cultural heritage, and it belongs to the Palestinian people.”
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(The Himyar kingdom was a Jewish kingdom for a time, but it was conquered by Christians and any converted Jews there almost certainly became Christian afterwards. Interestingly, a few wealthy Himyar Jews did get buried in Israel but there is no record of a mass influx of Himyar Jews through the rest of the Middle East after the kingdom was defeated.)
So when Israeli archaeologists discover yet another proof of ancient Jews in Palestine, Faris just pretends that they were the ancestors of Palestinians.
I guess the Palestinians wrote the Jerusalem Talmud and those rabbis all converted to Christianity while they composed it and then to Islam. Sure.
The synagogues found in the Galilee, the yeshivas in Tzippori and Tiberias and Yavneh and Caesarea, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi and Resh Lakish - all of them are part of "Palestinian" heritage.
From everything I can tell, virtually the only Palestinians who really do trace their heritage to ancient times are the Christians who indeed did convert from Judaism. Most of the Muslims not only immigrated - they proudly did so, as most Muslim Palestinian families happily trace their ancestry to Arabia or Yemen or another Gulf country.
Here is a case where history is twisted to fit a political goal. Which is pretty much how Palestinians look at all history. Usually Palestinians even deny any Jewish connection to the land; Farsi realized that this made them all look like idiots by claiming that every single piece of thousands of architectural finds are fake, so he changed the rules to say - sure, they are Jewish, and our ancestors, but Jews are fake Jews.
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