Rav Kaufman, i dont mean to kauf with you, but what you are saying is what secular historians say, who KNOW NOTHING OF BASIC JEWISH LAW OR CULTURE, but yet they feel the right to talk about jewish history!
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FORCED CONVERSION – PERIOD! IT DOESNT WORK!
Yochanan did NOT convert the inhabitants of Edom (SEE BELOW**), but rather forcibly ENSLAVED (which is worse? idk….) them, which is fine in Jewish law. The Gemara says MANY times that Herod and his family were SLAVES!
From a secular historians perspective, enslavement LOOKS like forced conversion – forced Milah and forced following of commandments – but to say “forced conversion” is simply a LIE and a perversion of jewish law and culture, instead say “forced enslavement”.
(**who were NOT edomim, btw, as the Assyrians had mixed EVERYONE up centuries earlier. The real Edomim were moved to a province in modern Turkey which the Assyrians called Idumea. From there, refugees during the Trojan war (which is controversial itself) moved into Europe, all over – like all Phoenicians who founded European civilization, but specifically founded the city of Rome (Remus and Romulus – sons of RED Mars))