The news coming out of the Middle East is dreadful.

In order to make sense of at least some of it - I thought
it might be worthwhile to learn something about the
origin of Palestinians and their genetic relatedness.

From the little research that I've done thus far it appears
that many Palestinians trace their collective ancestry to
the Canaanites.

Britannica and other sources tells us that archaeological
and genetic data supports that BOTH Jews and Palestinians
came from the ancient Canaanites, who extensively
mixed with Egyptians, Mesopotamians and Anatolian peoples.

I thought it might help us understand things better if
we learned more about the people in these regions and
why the regions are so important as to cause such dire
conflicts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Palestinians#:

This is correct, Foxy.

Modern research shows that Judeans (now commonly called Jews) and Canaanites are one and the same, that they were never different people.

So most of the ones now calling themselves "Palestinians" are their descendants, Farming Jews/Judeans who never went to exile but remained on their land all along, even while most of whom later converted to Islam over the centuries.

Some Arab Bedouins/nomads also joined these Judean farmers as a minority.

Linguistic analysis of the native names of people, villages, hills and rivers in Israel correspond to the dialect of the Jews in the first millennium much more than to the Arabic language.

Yuyutsu, with my limited knowlege the history I thought it was along
that line. From what I read the Arab armies, which were then sent on
a mission to take Islam to the rest of the world.
Most Canaanites and Jews became moslems at the point of a sword or the Jizaz tax.

Actually Islamic terror it is still going on.
I have just read of an account in Mozambique and a record of the
slaughter in that country. There are dozens of raids on Christian
villages every year. It is the same religious hatred.
They kill from 10 to 100 each time.
Will they ever start on us if we do not convert ?

Dear Bezza,

«From what I read the Arab armies, which were then sent on
a mission to take Islam to the rest of the world.»

They couldn't spread Islam before there was Islam - they started as a heretic Christian sect which denied the trinity, claiming that God is only one, not three. It then took them some centuries to completely separate from Christianity.

«Most Canaanites and Jews became moslems at the point of a sword or the Jizaz tax.»

Most Canannites=Jews became Muslim by the latter, gradually, one by one, because they wanted to avoid the tax.
The Christians-turned-Muslims that conquered them preferred their money over their souls.

The tale of "Canaanites" was invented at the time of Judaic King Josiah (640-609 BCE), because the King and his priests were too embarrassed to admit the fact that all the Jews before them worshiped the local fertility idols in their temples, including the Jerusalem temple, rather than the new true god, so they claimed kind of, "those who worshipped the idols were not us, they were 'Canaanites' and we conquered them...".

«Will they ever start on us if we do not convert ?»

There are indeed some bloodthirsty people around who would try to kill anyone they believe to be weaker then them. We have seen time and again that if the ones they find to be weaker are non-Muslims then they will use the excuse of Jihad, but if they happen to be Muslims, or if they convert but do not exhibit total surrender and loyalty to their gang, then they will find some other excuse to do the same!

If you call these pirates "Islamic", then you deny the goodwill of all other Muslims, especially Sufis and Ahmadiyyans who also believe in the Koran but interpret it differently and peacefully. For example, they believe that "Jihad" means an internal war within one's psyche for one's good qualities to win against their evil qualities.

According to recent genealogical studies, there is good evidence that the Philistines, who of course gave their name to the region, were descended from Greek settlers. Greece, it is well known, went through a period of significant colonisation in the centuries around 1000 BC, settling in southern Italy, Sicily, southern Gaul ( Massalia ie Marseilles) and up into the Euxine and Crimea...and, it seems, in the region now called Gaza.

The Philistine culture was extremely successful. Its possible that they were the originators of the concept of an alphabet.

The rise of the Neo-Assyrian empire saw the demise of the Philistine culture and it disappeared into history, save for the name which remained a generic term for the region and was used by Rome to designate its province.

To Hell with the origins of Palestinians, you anti-Semite.