Are modern day Palestinian's the descendants of Jews
forced to convert to Islam in the 7th century or are they Arab?

Dear michaelfeeney-ga

Thank you for allowing me to answer your interesting question. The
answer is both YES and NO. Let me explain:

?While most Palestinians define themselves as Arabs, their ancestry is
most probably a combination of many tribes that inhabited the region
over many centuries. According to one study:

The Palestinians do not have a common ethnic origin or a common
religion. What joins them together is simply the fact that they and
their ancestors have lived in the land of Palestine from as far back
as any of them can record. In their veins run the blood of the ancient
Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders and Turks ... It must be fully
conceded that the Palestinians are a very mixed group of people ...
each group of Palestinians traces its ancestry over differing lengths
of time.?

?The 1968 Palestinian National Covenant defines Palestinians as Arabs
who had inhabited Palestine before 1947, Jews who had inhabited
Palestine before the beginning of the modern Zionist immigrations, and
their descendants through the male line.?

?Under the British mandate period from 1918 to 1948, the term
"Palestinian" usually referred to anyone living in Palestine: Arab,
Jew or other.?

WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian

According to the Jewish Virtual Library SOME (not all) Palestinian
ancestors were in fact Jews who were forced to convert to Islam or
face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco (1275, 1465 and 1790-92)
and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).

JEWISH VIRTUAL LIBRARY
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf15.html

These people were offered a "dhimma" ("writ of protection"), which was
extended by Muslim conquerors to Christians and Jews in exchange for
their subordination to the Muslims. It is also theorized that over a
span of hundreds of years many of the descendants of the originally
subjugated second class non-citizens (basically slaves) who were
subjected to deprivation of any legal and human rights, eventually
embraced the majority religion and converted on their own.

I hope you find that my answer exceeds your expectations. If you have
any questions about my research please post a clarification request
prior to rating the answer. Otherwise I welcome your rating and your
final comments and I look forward to working with you again in the
near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.

Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga ? Google Answers Researcher



INFORMATION SOURCES

WIKIPEDIA: DHIMMI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimmi

DHIMMI: JEWS AND CHRISTIANS UNDER ISLAM
http://www.jewishmag.com/57mag/dhimmi/dhimmi.htm


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Modern day Palestinians are not descendants of Jew forced to convert
to Islam because Islam spread thru the freedom of your own beleif. 
THe reason Isla expanded to a great empire in the past is becaseu it
allowed different religions to practice their own faiths and it did
not force any religion to Islam.  Palestinians in themselves are Arabs
and Jews consider themselves isrealites.

The modern palestinians are not strictly arab as tutuzdad explained.
Some might be descendants of jews that lived there and later
converted.
Being palestinian myself i can tell you , and this is not widely known
, there are to this day jewish palestinians that live within the
modern day west bank. They are palestinians that descended from jews!

so the answer to your question would be some are and some arent , and
some are still jewish.

Cheers

If you read the answer you'll see that I never indicated that
"palestinians are not strictly arab". In fact I specifically mentioned
that "Palestinians do not have a common ethnic origin..." and "...SOME
(not all) Palestinian ancestors were in fact Jews..."

You obviously didn't read (or understand) the answer.