Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:04, 10 July 2005

"Miscegnation"

Ah, wikipedia. Only you would have an asshole waiting in the wings to defend the use of a racist term like miscegnation because it was faithfully plaigiarized from a study! (And of course, a study that uses "miscegnation" as a term wouldn't be a wee bit biased or out of date, would it?) That's gotta be the most novel fucking excuse I've heard in *ages.* Kudos to the editor who kept that word out and refined my word flow.

--M.

Arab vs Palestinian

from talk:Anti-Semitism

I prefer to use the term Arab in preference to the term Palestinian wherever possible. Everyone knows who the Arabs are. It's not as easy to determine who a "Palestinian" is. Sometimes there has arisen controversy over this, and the 'pedia is better off not taking sides in any controversy. One way to sidestep the issue, using neutral terminology, is to refer to "Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza say X", or "supporters of the Islamic ideal of a Palestinian state say Y". Ed Poor, Friday, June 21, 2002

When it comes to the Israeli-Arab conflict, or anti-Semitism, who is confused about the word "Palestinian"? When people see this word on TV, the radio, the Internet or in print media, everyone knows who it refers to: Palestinian Arabs. Who else do people think it now refers to? Sure, in the past the word "palestinian" had a different meaning, but in modern every day conversation it now carries a specific meaning: Palestinian Arabs. In any case, Arabs don't all have the same government, beliefs, or tactics, and it frequently is necessary to use the terms Palestinian, Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese, etc, in order to describe who is holding a iven position. However, I totally agree with you that sometimes people use the term "Palestinian" when "Arab" should be used, and vice-versa, and that we should all be careful about using the word most fitting for the context. RK

Thanks to Uriyan and RK for clearing up the definition of "Palestinian". I might take a crack at refactoring the new info I got thereby, into the beginnings of an article like Palestine, Palestinian or Palestinian homeland. Ed Poor

I would be careful with that, Ed. Once again, the problem seems to be that you want definitions with sharp boundaries: i.e., this falls within the definition; this does not. The problem is, especially with such a contentious issue as what defines a Palestinian, is that the boundaries are not so clear at all. In fact, that is what all the contention is about. Danny

Thanks for the warning; I will heed it. As a software engineer, I spend the bulk of my professional life devising tests that distinguish between various categories: there IS or IS NOT enough money in the account, etc. Perhaps it is a vain hope that such thinking might apply to politics. Ed Poor, Monday, June 24, 2002

Discussion

The term Palestinian is millenia old.

In the Arabic speaking world, Filastini has long been used to identify people from Palestine. Filastini is a "nisbah", a peculiar Arab/Muslim custom of using geographical nicknames to identify a persons origin. Thus amongst Muslims who will see the use of surnames such as "Baghdadi", "Andalusi", "Rumi", "Jawi". The famous mystic Rumi is known as such because he was born in Turkey (the old Arab word being "Rum").

Evidence for the use of filastini can be seen in the following article excerpt:

"The ascetic `Abdallah b. Muhayriz al-Jumahi al-Filastini who lived in Jerusalem (and probably died between 88-99/706/17) became seriously ill during the Byzantine summer expedition." http://www.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/IAS/HP-e2/eventreports/Lecker.html

11.49, Monday November 3, 2003 (GMT+8)

How often want these uninformed fools spread Islamofascist propaganda? - 212.137.33.208 14:37, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Note that previous discussions on this topic are archived here:

Talk:Palestinian/Archive 1

Several administrators think that stating the facts is equal with "vandalism".
It is not allowed even to mention these facts:

The term "Palestinian" as a political factor was invented by Islamfascists (check the discussion and history page of Islamfascists and you see what I mean, if it was not already deleted by "administrators") after the Six-Day War 1967 to have a new instrument to destroy the Jewish state of Israel and to create an Islamic Palestine from the River to the Sea.

"Palestinians" are no nation but ordinary Syrians and Egyptians without citizenship.

An Arabic independent state called "Palestine" never existed.
It was in fact only an underdeveloped border region of Arab Syria.

Arafat is fomenting "Palestinian" chauvinism.

"Militant Islamic groups" is an euphemism. They are in reality Islamfascist murder gangs.

Obviously truth hurts.
Check the facts and you will find it out for yourself. - 195.218.116.8 12:51, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Okay, that's it for me till next week. Is everyone happy? Do we have a solid definition of who is a "Palestinian"? I guess that would be the Arab and European definition of West Bank + Gaza + refugees = "stateless Arabs of Palestine". Let me know what you all think.

And remember, I'm not in charge of this article. We're all equal here, signed-in or not. We all strive for a neutral article as defined at tedious length on the NPOV page. --Uncle Ed

I don't want to comment on the content of the page, just to point out the salient point that applies to disputes over whether a text is neutral: if there is in fact a dispute over whether a text is neutral, it probably isn't. That is because one side--who cares enough to be making the point--thinks that the article is making a point that other people would want to disagree with. If so, NPOV applies. I'd put this in blazing, flashing, annoying neon lights, if I could: == That something is allegedly a fact DOES NOT make the bald statement of that fact neutral!!! ==

Neutrality is all about presenting competing versions of what the facts are. It doesn't matter at all how convinced you are that your facts are the facts. If a significant number of other interested parties disagrees with you, the neutrality policy dictates that the discussion be recast as a fair presentation of the dispute between the parties. Larry Sanger

I have temporarilly removed the following, and am explaining why:

There has always been a Palestinian/Arab presence in Palestine. For all the invasions and changes in its rulers, the core of Palestine's population has been ethnically stable for millennia, posessing for the last thirteen hundred years a culture that has been unambiguously Arab.

This is illogical. The terms Arab and Palestinian are not synonomous. In fact, Arab historical sources deny the existence of Palestinians altogether. According to pre-1950 Arab history books, newspaper, academic journals and government documents, no such people or ethnicity ever existed. Even after the Arab-Israeli wars, when Arab grovernements suddenly began speaking to westerners (in English and French) about "Palestinans", they sometimes admitted publicly to their own public (in Arabic) that Palestinians were a total fiction, created solely as a way to fight the existence of the Jewish state in Israel. What pre-1950 Arab sources note the existence of an independent Palestinian culture or nationality? None. Have all Arab governments and historians been lying for the last 500 years? RK 19:44 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Many popular images of the Zionist movement portray the land as desolate or empty of a vibrant people and culture. Golda Meir announced that they never existed as evidenced in this famous quote "There was no such thing as Palestinians...It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." This kind of propaganda could never have been really convincing outside Israel because so many people - travellers, merchants, missionaries, and soldiers - had actually seen the Palestinians and knew that they existed even if they did not know much about them.

Um, you took her quot so badly out of context that it is badly misleading. She never denied the existence of Arabs in the middle-east, including Arabs in the former Bristish Mandate of Palestine. Her quote already is examined in context within a Misplaced Pages article. Without context, we are only left with propaganda, and that is something we must stribe hard to avoid. RK 19:44 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

There are now somewhere between 6.5 - 7 million Palestinians worldwide, some live as a minority in Israel proper, some live in the West Bank and Gaza portions of Palestine, most are refugees in many parts of the world (mainly the Middle East, Europe, and North and South America) living a life of diaspora, as displaced persons. Few Palestinians have assimilated to their host countries. Most feel too strong, a sense of identity, with their Palestinian nationalism.

Now this claim has some kind of data to support it, and we can work it into the article. However, note that these numbers are widely contested. In fact, even the United Nations says that the actual number of Palestinian refugees is much smaller if you use their normal definition of refugees. Curiously (many would say dishonestly) the United Nations then created a second definition of the word "refugee" which applies only to Arabs who used to live in Palestine. Hmm, why would that be?

In 1948 Palestine ceased to exist politically, however, its people remain a vital and integral part of the land, known variously as: 'the Holy land', Israel, Palestine, etc. They remain Palestinians awaiting their political and national rights.

Pure PLO propaganda. No State of Palestine ever existed, ever. RK 19:44 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

As a disinterested Wikipedian -- i.e., neither a Jew nor a Palestinian -- I take issue with RK running roughshod over other Misplaced Pages contributors, in this article and in other articles. I say this after reviewing many of the articles to which RK has contributed.

Sorry, but your personal attacks don't override historical facts. You can't retroactively change what is in Arab textbooks by insulting me. Please stick to the issues, do some historical research, and maybe you can help out in a productive fashion. My concern is making this a respectable and reliable encyclopedia. We are obliagted to maintain a high standard of accuracy.RK 01:20 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

When the facts are in dispute, as they are here, the only way to honor Misplaced Pages's NPOV policy is to present the factual claims of *ALL* parties to a dispute in a "He said; she said" fashion, taking great care to state who said what. Moreover, engaging in personal attacks in re what is or is not the propaganda of other parties and/or removing the factual claims of others from an article is just plain wrong, no matter how wrong the factual claims of others may be. -- NetEsq 23:46 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

How can something be a "factual claim" and at the same time not be a fact? And it is a violation of Misplaced Pages policy to report minority viewpoint claims, when no evidence exists, on an equal basis with mainstream peer-reviewed historical analysis. Anyone could come here and write "The American people have lived in the geographical area of the United States for thousands of years..." and by your logic, we would be obligated to report this as a valid opinion. But that is nonsense. This is an encyclopedia, where we report confirable facts, not political propaganda. RK 01:20 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Now, we can note that there is a historical revisionist movement in the Arab community which is making these new claims, sure. But we would then also have to note that Arab (and non-Arab) historical sources provide no support for this view pre-1950. We would also have to note that some PLO and PA spokesmen since 1950 have, on occasion, publicly admitted that no ethnic Palestinian people has ever existed. This isn't about scoring points against me, or against the Jews. This is about responsible historical scholarship. RK 01:20 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think some scholarship is necessary on our part though: we're not obliged to report everything that's claimed as fact. If one side claims something that is generally held by historians/sociologists/etc. to be counterfactual, we should report it as such (e.g. " claim , but this is generally considered inaccurate."). We don't have to report as fact "the Iraqi Information Minister claims the US troops have not yet landed in the region", for example. And I'd argue a lot of claims in this article fall rather close to that level of ludicrousness (ludicrosity?). --Delirium 23:58 14 Jul 2003 (UTC)

<< We don't have to report as fact "the Iraqi Information Minister claims the US troops have not yet landed in the region", for example.>>

I wholeheartedly disagree. Indeed, that is an excellent example of a factual claim that should be reported concomitantly with the factual claims of other parties, such as the factual claims of embedded reporters who were present in Iraq while the Information Minister was making his bizarre assertions, ultimately leaving the reader to determine who is more credible. -- NetEsq 00:23 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps while things are actually happening we can say this, but at some point we need to make judgments as to who's more credible ourselves. Otherwise we'll be stuck with ridiculous things like reporting all the pseudo-science nonsense out there on par with real science, or reporting on the people who claim slavery never happened on par with those who claim it did, and so on. --Delirium 00:35 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

<< t some point we need to make judgments as to who's more credible ourselves.>>

As long as there are noteworthy groups of people who make factual assertions that the Earth is flat and/or that the world was created in six days, Misplaced Pages's NPOV policy obliges us to report these factual assertions and report who is making them. Indeed, it was not that long ago that the people who made contrary factual claims -- which are now the majority consensus -- were persecuted for making them. -- NetEsq 00:54 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No, Netesq, we do not have to report the claim that the Earth is flat in the science articles on the Earth or in Earth science. On the other hand, we certainly can report such views in our articles on conspiracy theory, or on pseudoscience. But to push such non-historical and non-scientific claims into our main articles on science and history would destroy the credibility of Misplaced Pages, it would be unjustifiable, and it would give a terribly distorted picture of what is accepted as factual, and what is historically provable. RK

In case you should misinterpret my future silence in response to your comments as taking offense, or as surrender, please be advised that I find your confrontational behavior quite amusing and see no point in attempting to engage you in dialogue, at least not at this time and not in this forum. Given your present disposition to engage in recklessly contentious behavior with others, it is only a matter of time before you find yourself ostracized. I've seen it happen countless times before. -- NetEsq 01:39 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Huh? I am trying to focus on our need for historical scholarship, and the need to differentiate mainstream historical views from non-mainstream views. I truly wish you would focus on the topic. Yet every few hours you come in, disrupt our discussion with personal attacks, and then (oddly) claim that I am being confrontational. It is clear to me that you do not possess the research skills and history background necessary to work on this article, and you are only contributing here because you have some dislike of me. The feeling is not mutual, but then, you seem to have your own non-academic agenda. Too bad. Bye! RK 01:44 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

And another thing! Does anyone know who did the makeup for the movie _Chicken Run_? -- NetEsq 02:15 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Depending on how one defines the word "refugee", there are now somewhere between one million to six million Palestinians worldwide. Unlike refugees from every other nation or locale in the world, Palestinians alone have a special definition of the term "refugee". According to the the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, "Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict". This means that any Arab that moved into this area and resided there for two years now counts as if they were an indigenous resident of the land who had lived there all his/her life. Israelis complain that this definition of refugee wildly exagerrates the number of Palestinian refugees, as a huge number of Arabs had immigrated into Palestine during this time period.

I removed the above text, since it is out of place in this article. It should probably be intigrated into Palestinian refugee. - Efghij 06:19 15 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I deleted the quote from Zahir Muhsein because it gives a false impression that such an opinion was common amongst the Palestinian leadership at that time. It wasn't. Zuhayr Muhsin was the Secretary General of the group Sa`iqa which consisted of mostly of Syrian Ba'athists and was established by the Syrian government in opposition to Fatah. His membership of the PLO was due to pressure from Syria even though his pan-Arab position (i.e. the Syrian position) put him at constant conflict with the mainstream Palestinian nationalists. At one point he even supported Syrian armed conflict against the PLO in Lebanon. In 1979 he was assassinated. Quoting him as indicative of Palestinian opinion is wrong wrong wrong. --bdm

This article did not claim that his view was indicative of Palestinian opinion, although it may well have been so at the time. Palestinian Arabs in the 1940s and 1950s certainly did not believe that they were part of some ancient Palestinian ethnic group that was somehow distinct from other Arabs in the region! Only their children and grandchildren, many decades later, began to believe this story. I was merely giving one example of an Arab Palestinian who admits that the Palestinians are not an ancient distinct ethnic group with their own distinct history and culture. What is the big deal? Many Arabs at the time admitted this; many still do. RK 23:56, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Before this quote was added, Misplaced Pages articles on this topic were biased, because they only presented propaganda-like views of Arab historical revisionsists, who were portraying Palestinians as an ancient culture or nationality. Today, millions of Arabs have been brainwashed into believing that Palestinians always existed in Israel, that "the Jews" today are not really Jewish, the Israelites never existed in the land of Israel, and that there are no archaeological sites in Israel that show any evidence of a Jewish presence in Biblical times, etc. Obviously, every one of these claims is false, and they all are rejected by mainstream historians. Even many Arab historians reject these claims as pure propaganda. RK 23:56, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The problem is that many Wikipedians assume that all Arabs fall for this conspiracry driven propaganda. They present what they believe to be "the Arab view", when in fact they only present the most stridently anti-Israel position. Misplaced Pages contributors somehow overlook the very sizable minority Arab positions that, while not pro-Israel, are nonetheless historically viable, non-propaganda ladden, and quite reasonable. The angry and uneducated Arab masses are often assumed to be the only "true" Arab voice, and any quote that in any way agrees with any mainstream historical view is assumed to be "pro Israel", and thus not truly Arab. Well, that is just not so. Arabs are not monolithic. There is a great diversity of views amongst them. Thus, this material should be restored, or at least similar views from other Arab statesmen or scholars should be added. RK 23:56, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Of course there never was a Palestinian state, but nobody ever claimed there was. All of the many (must be hundreds) of mentions of this I've seen are claims that there is a claim, not the claim itself. In other words, it's a strawman. Actually in many circles it is a deliberate strawman which serves to confuse people who might otherwise wonder what nation states, or nationalist sentiment, have to do with the right of people to live where they are born.

What is true is that there have been people, overwhelmingly of Arab extraction, living in Palestine for centuries. They did not have a sense of distinct national identity though there were local cultural and linguistic characteristics just like there were in other parts of the Arab world. You can find these local differences described in countless sources of the time. (An illustrative aside: in 1918 Chaim Weizmann wrote to his wife that King Feisal had told him that he "is contemptuous of the Palestinian Arabs whom he doesn't even regard as Arabs".) The Arabs of Palestine shared in the growing Arab nationalism of the 19th century but it was only when the threat of Zionism became apparent (early 20th century) that a distinct Palestinian nationalism started to grow. Palestinian nationalism was a major factor in the "revolt" of 1936-1939 but even then a more pan-Arab viewpoint was common. The Nakhba of 1948 was the thing that most impressed the nationalistic viewpoint on the ordinary people, though little in the way of actual organization happened until the 1960s. The quote you had before is a minority viewpoint for the time and doesn't belong in the article when the majority viewpoint is hardly represented. If the history of Palestinian nationalism belongs in the article (not clear), that should be done properly and not by means of one or two misleading quotations. -- bdm

Overall this is a very poor article. Yes the word "Palestinian" has meant different things to different people but the differences were not really all that great. The only exception was the usage of the word by some Zionists as including only themselves. Otherwise it meant a person who lives in Palestine or whose ancestors lived in Palestine, with Israeli Jews excluded from the phrase during the years after Israeli independence. The rest of the story is just details--whether some minority ethnic groups were included and so on. Especially when it comes to the meaning of the word today, most of the "disagreement" is just huffing and puffing from people with axes to grind. In fact there is hardly any disagreement at all amongst Palestinians as to who is one of them, and that ought to be good enough. As Amos Oz wrote years ago:

He who declares on behalf of the Palestinians that they are not a group with a separate national identity but an extension of the 'greater pan-Arabic nation' is no different from Arafat, who presumes to declare that the Jews are nothing more than a religious sect and therefore unworthy of national self-determination. Just as I vehemently reject the religious decree of Rabbi Yassir Arafat in the question 'Who is a Jew,' I do not recognize the right of anyone other than the Palestinians themselves to decide for themselves, 'Who is an Arab' or 'What is a Palestinian'."

Btw, most Palestinians living in Jordan are Jordanian citizens despite the ignorant statement to the contrary in this article. - bdm

BDM writes "Of course there never was a Palestinian state, but nobody ever claimed there was. All of the many (must be hundreds) of mentions of this I've seen are claims that there is a claim, not the claim itself. In other words, it's a strawman. Actually in many circles it is a deliberate strawman ..."

I must strongly disagree. Many Arabs do claim that there was a distinct Palestinian Arab ethnicity, history, culture, etc. This is the basis of most Arab propaganda for the past 40 years. I agree with you that such claims are historically false, but these claims do exist, they are even taught in Arab school textbooks in the middle-east! This is by no means a straw-man; I myself have met many Arabs who believe that "the Jews" are trying to erase the existence of a historical Palestinian nationality! Their beliefs are paranoid and baseless, but they do exist. RK 14:04, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Is it so difficult to read what you are replying to? I wrote that nobody claims there was a Palestinian state. STATE, get it, STATE. Of course there are plenty of people who claim that Palestinians had a distinct culture and they would be right. They had distinct clothing styles, their own peculiar colloquialisms, and some differences in social customs. It is a matter of degree; do (non-French) Canadians have a different culture from Americans? The problem is not with the facts, it is the political purposes to which the facts (and distortions of the facts) are put. The only reason anyone except anthropologists and historians cares about the alleged lack of Palestinian distinctness is that it has been used by Zionists for more than a century to deny that the Palestinians had their own rights that couldn't be satisfied by doing deals with Arabs from elsewhere. The a-historical back-dating of Palestinian nationalism by some Palestinians is a defensive reaction.

You miss my thrust; I am refuting a different point. I agree with you that pre-Israel, the Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine had their own distinct clothing styles, their own peculiar colloquialisms, and some differences in social customs. However, I am responding to a different claim: Many Arabs today - including "professors of history" at Palestinian schools - deny what you write; instead, they claim that the Arabs of Palestine had a very distinct peoplehood, and that they were a distinct own Arab nation for hundreds, if not thousands of years. (They do not claim that they formally had their own recognized nation, of course.) Their pseudo-academic historical revisionism is so extreme, that some Palestinian Authority "academics", as well as spokespeople, claim that ancient Canaanite archaeological finds are "proof" of early settlement by the same Palestinian people that exist today! It is this pseudo-historical hogwash that I am disagreeing with. All of your points I agree with. Does this make sense? RK 14:06, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

BDM writes "What is true is that there have been people, overwhelmingly of Arab extraction, living in Palestine for centuries. They did not have a sense of distinct national identity though there were local cultural and linguistic characteristics just like there were in other parts of the Arab world."

I agree with you. No one disputes this. In fact, this is precisely my position, and I am arguing against the pseudo-historical Arab propaganda which denies what you state here. RK 14:04, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That's why the middle eastern articles are amongst the most useless in all the Misplaced Pages. Too many people think it is the place for conducting their personal crusades. It probably scares away the people who have genuine knowledge rather than political motives, and nobody is left to write straight articles. - BDM

BDM writes "The Arabs of Palestine shared in the growing Arab nationalism of the 19th century but it was only when the threat of Zionism became apparent (early 20th century) that a distinct Palestinian nationalism started to grow."

This is also my point, and this is something that even the most staunch pro-Israel supporters themselves agree with. RK 14:04, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

BDM writes "The quote you had before is a minority viewpoint for the time and doesn't belong in the article when the majority viewpoint is hardly represented. If the history of Palestinian nationalism belongs in the article (not clear), that should be done properly and not by means of one or two misleading quotations."

I think you still don't understand my point. After all, that quote agrees with your point of view. Maybe I can try another clarification: I did not add his quote to claim that Palestinian Arabs were not interested in nationalism. Of course they were. Rather, I added that quote only to prove that Arabs admitted that Palestinian Arabs were not some sort of separate ethnicity or nationality. RK 14:04, 3 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Unfortunately you don't seem to have a concept of how history is conducted or of how it is properly written. A quote from a maverick with an ulterior motive (in this case, Syrian patronage) proves nothing. It doesn't matter whether it is correct or incorrect, it is still useless as evidence. There is a vast amount of genuine historical research on the Palestinian people that could be cited in place of sporadic nonsense. Start with the standard works of Porath and Muslih; have you read them? -- bdm

BDM, he might have been considered a maverick for his political views, but that does not mean that every statement he makes is false. His view on this particular issue was that of many other Arabs... and in fact it is the view of moderate and educuated Palestinian Arabs today. Not all Palestinians believe their own propaganda, and many of them understand that they are a new nationality in development. In any case, I am sympathetic to your concern that due to his political leanings, people might disregard the point being made. Fine; we can leave it out. I am only saying that this article should have some quotes by Arab sources which refute pseudo-historical revisionism. Would you like to offer any? RK 14:06, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)

No, I am not prepared to play the quotations game that you seem to love so much. The only article I would be prepared to write would be one that tells a straight story as a narrative. Quotations only belong in unusual circumstances (only quotations from the main players in events are relevant and then rarely). Btw, I saw you defending Joan Peters in another place; this is positive proof that you know nothing about the subject, which is the conclusion I was tending towards. Actually you seem to be here purely for political purposes. People like you are the scourge of Misplaced Pages. -- bdm

I have been politely working with you in order to make Misplaced Pages together. Yet you always respond with personal attacks. Unless you want people to simpl revert every one of your changes, please learn to work with others, and control your anger. RK 14:40, 5 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I'm not angry, and I'm perfectly willing to work with anyone who has the knowledge to write accurate and informative articles on mideast subjects. When I look around that section of Misplaced Pages, what I see is a small amount of good work that has been turned into a battleground by zealots who think they know a bit of history because they have a collection of "quotations" or read some trash like "From Time Immemorial". I'm not criticising only the zealots on your side of the fence, you just happenned to be the zealot around at the time. The zealots on other side aren't any better. The question in my mind is whether this is a permanent state of affairs that I'd be wasting my time trying to correct. -- bdm

Oh no, not another RK playground! Throughout the Mandate period there was a conflict between the the Palestinian nationalists and the pan-Arabists. This conflict continued until 1948 and to a much lesser extent even afterwards. Of course it is all too easy to find statements made by people on one side of that conflict and claim there was no other opinion. Scores of junk sites on the internet have done exactly that, for each side of said conflict. (But they don't do any actual research, they just copy off each other mistakes and all.) Misplaced Pages should strive for a higher standard. At a minimum we should expect writers to be at least a little informed, for example to have read a real history book on the subject such as the excellent book of Porath which RK cites but almost surely has never seen.

RK wrote (in the article, alas): Arabs who happened to live in Palestine denied that they had a unique Palestinian identity. The First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations (in Jerusalem, Feb. 1919) met for the purpose of selecting Palestinian Arab representative for the Paris Peace Conference. They adopted the following resolution: "We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds." (Yehoshua Porath, Palestinian Arab National Movement: From Riots to Rebellion: 1929-1939, vol. 2, London: Frank Cass and Co., Ltd., 1977, pp. 81-82.)
It is real chutzpah for RK to quote from a book called "Palestinian Arab National Movement" (Volume 2 even) in order to prove that there was no such thing. What RK doesn't tell us, probably because he doesn't know, is that the Palestinian nationalists had gained the upper hand by the next Congress (Dec 1920). They passed a resolution calling for an independent Palestine. Then they wrote a long letter to the League of Nations (which I have) about "Palestine, land of Miracles and the supernatural, and the cradle of religions", demanding, amongst other things, that a "National Government be created which shall be responsible to a Parliament elected by the Palestinian People, who existed in Palestine before the war." In this letter they even call themselves "Palestinians" (in which name they included Jews other than Zionists).

RK wrote (in the article, alas): According to testimony in British Peel Commission, local Arabs in the 1930s still did not have any sense of Palestinian identity; rather, they saw themselves as Syrians. "There is no such country {as Palestine}! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria." (comments by Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi to the Peel Commission, Jerusalem Post, November 2, 1991)
but so you would expect the General Secretary of the minority Istiqlal party (the only significant Arab party in Palestine with a pan-Arab platform at that time) to say. What does this have to do with "local Arabs" in general? Of course it is true that "Syria" encompassed a much larger area before WW1 including most of Palestine other than Negev. However, it wasn't the fault of the Arabs that the area was divided and quite illogical to pick one of the parts and deny it characteristics that are not denied in the others.

I wonder how RK would react if someone littered the Zionism article with "admissions" from Jews that Jews were not a nation? Finding a collection of such quotes from around the time of the Balfour Declaration would be no problem at all. I guess RK would be upset and might even accuse the perpetrator of nasty motivations. He would probably be right, and I would for once agree with him. Why is it then that RK cannot see he is doing exactly the same thing? -- zero 09:10, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Please do not personalize this. I agree with you that some Arabs during the 1920s did call for the creation of an independent Palestinian Arab nation. However, I think we somehow have missed each other's point. I agree with every fact you just stated. I am not denying that in this time period a new phenomenon developed, and that some Arabs believed that Palestinian Arabs should create a new Arab nation. I was hoping to be clear that I was speaking about a different point: Most of these same Arabs did not claim that there was a distinct Palestinian Arab nationality and/or ethnicity, with its own culture and history significantly different from that of their surrounding Arab nations. There is a big differnece between admitting that a new nationalist movement was being created at the time (I admit this) and claiming that the Palestinians always had their own very distinct ethnicity, so much so that they saw themselves as some sort of separate nation (I deny this.) RK 23:34, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

No one denies that over time a Palestinian nationality has been created. I have been trying to counter, waht seems to me, a very different claim - the claim that such a nationality has been there all along. No matter how many times I have tried to make this distinction, somehow people keep mixing up these two related but distinct points. RK 23:34, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, an Arab-American historian, stated "There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not." (Testimony before the Anglo-American Committee , 1946) -- I removed this because I looked through the transcript of evidence given to the Anglo-American inquiry and couldn't find Hitti at all. I also tried the records of the 1937 Peel Commission and he isn't there either. Hitti might have said this sometime, but without a more sound reference this quotation is out. This example is symptomatic of the whole article, which any day now I am going to replace completely. --zero 10:47, 10 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Not sure why this passage was deleted:

Before that date the state of Jordan acted as this legitimate representation. There are also Arabs in Jordan who still have not acquired Jordanian citizenship. Those Palestinians themselves don't consider Jordan a Palestinian state.

Which of the three points expressed here is disputed? --Uncle Ed 18:22, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The first sentence is meaningless because legitimate representation is not a defined concept. (Which competent body granted this legitimacy? Answer: none.) The second sentence is true but isn't connected to the first and the word "also" has no referrant. The third sentence is irrelevant to the article. Actually the Jordan=Palestine crap ought to be excised from this article in totality and I am sharpening my knife. --Zero 22:22, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

A hopefully non-conflict creating proposal for an addition to the article: The historical origin of Palestinians. I know there is debate among Palestinians over this. (To the best of my knowledge,) some maintain a purely Arab descent, while others claim a Canaanite (yet still non-Jewish) descent. I would venture to say that Palestinians are descended (primarily) from Canaanites/Jews, Greeks and Arabs. If a paragraph is dedicated to this, it must give several different theories. I'm tired of facts being distorted in the name of conviction. --D.E. Cottrell 07:59, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC)

This article's focus ought to be completely different. For what other ethnic group is most of the article devoted to examining the history of the name? This should be talking about (or at least linking to) Palestinian culture, cuisine, dialect, history, traditions... This needs a lot of work. - Mustafaa 18:32, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Definition of "Palestinian"

This was the intro paragraph:

A Palestinian is a native of Palestine.

Does this mean that there are Jewish "Palestinians"? How far back in history do you have to go to be an "indigenous people" as the link above says?

I don't think "indigenous people" or "native" is going to satisfy everyone. That's why I created an entirely separate article that deals with the 3 major ways the term "Palestinian" is used. --Uncle Ed 20:40, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Yes, there are Jewish Palestinians - so the PLO calls them, anyway! I don't know if they accept that identity, but it is certainly used to describe Jews who immigrated to Palestine in pre-Zionist times. - Mustafaa 17:37, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

What do we need a discussion of "Palestinian refugee" for here, when that has its own article? - Mustafaa 19:25, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm glad that the paragraph about ethnicity was deleted. I found it to be highly idiosyncratic. -- Dissident (Talk) 20:24, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

Is this article's neutrality still under dispute? - Mustafaa 23:59, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a Palestinian. Show references to term "palestinian" pre-1967. sayyed_al_afghani Sayyed al afghani 00:32, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Regarding the article's neutrality, IMHO the following points should be addressed:

• Instead of blaming Israel for all ills, shouldn't the article reflect the real reasons for misery of Palestinian refugees:
  • (a) inability or unwillingness of Arab leadership to compromise on any of numerous partitions,
  • (b) existential wars they waged on the Jewish state,
  • (c) using the refugees for blaming Israel or as a pawn in bargaining,
  • (d) legendary corruption of the PLO leaders.
• Remember what late Abba Eban used to say, "The Palestinian leadership has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity." Despite of massive international aid (Aid to Palestinians Exceeds Marshall Plan Aid to Europe), not a single Palestinian refugee has been moved out of this status. Why?
• IMHO, the article should mention the levels of genocidal (and self-destructing, BTW) incitement in the P. society. Results: YASSER ARAFAT AND THE PA CONDEMN A YOUNG GENERATION TO HATRED AND DEATH, 2003: 62% of Palestinians support suicide operations (81% in 2001, 24% in 1997).
• Just as an example of successful refugee absorption program, perhaps it's worth to mention www.jimena-justice.org: "In 1945 there were nearly 900,000 Jews living in communities throughout the Arab world. Today, there are fewer than 8,000. Approximately 600,000 were absorbed by Israel".
• There is already Palestinian refugee article. Why Palestinian#Palestinian refugees? --Humus sapiens|Talk 21:45, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I disagree with most of the above, but concur that the section Palestinian#Palestinian refugees does not belong in this article (as I stated previously). - Mustafaa 22:09, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The discussion seems to have stopped, now that the Palestinian refugees section has been put where it belongs. Is this article's neutrality still disputed? If no answer comes in the next day or so, I'll remove the tag. - Mustafaa 09:12, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

None has come, so I'm removing it. - Mustafaa 06:45, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

First, from the entire Muslim world, there were 1.2 million immigrants according to some sources. But this is pointless for the article, as it is about Palestinians, not Israelis. Second, I believe this article is not neutral, as too much credibility is given to Palestinian claims with no proof. For instance, with Palestinians claiming to be descended of Caananites, it should be noted that there is no evidence of this. Second, the removal of Jewish populations from the percentages of people living in the region should be removed. Its a worthless statistic, which makes Zionism look like even more of a takeover; there was a sizable Jewish population in the area, and until the twentieth century, Jerusalem had a larger Jewish population than Muslim.

Actually, not only is there evidence for the Palestinians' Canaanite descent, this evidence is given in the article. And this article deals with Palestinians, not with all inhabitants of Palestine irrespective of ethnicity; some proportion of the Jews in Palestine in 1918 (all, by the PLO charter) were considered Palestinian, but their descendants mostly reject this classification. - Mustafaa 07:25, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

With the PLO charter inclusion, I no longer have any issue regarding the "1918" tag. But I'd prefer not the reference to "Zionist invasion" and to mark the PLO defines Palestinian as, well, non-Zionists before 1947. Also, the fact Canaanites have no known descendants is another big point, because there is no evidence that Canaanites survived the invasions of Joshua, and if the Palestinians are descended from the Kingdom of Israel, it should be a note of the Aramaic tribes, not the Canaanites. Furthermore, the statistic of Demographics without the inclusion of Jews is unnecessary, since there were Palestinian Jews. This statistic would be neutral only if non-immigrant Jews are included, a small portion, and if only non-immigrant Palestinians are included (In other words, no Syrian Immigrants); only then can this statistic be fair towards the whole idea of "Palestinian". Until this is included, I dispute the neutrality of the article, as this statistic is inherently not neutral.-JMW000 (I am trying to use this instead of my IP address, but I'm not outrageously sure how to do this...)

You sign your comments with four tilde signs in a row, like this: ~~~~ Jayjg 15:40, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Kingdom of Israel was not Aramaic, it was Jewish. And indeed, it is extremely plausible that the Palestinians are actually of Jewish ancestry - but neither side wishes to opt for that interpretation of the data... However, it is not even disputed that the Canaanites survived the invasion of Joshua. (What is disputed, actually, is whether there ever even was an invasion of Joshua.) King David was still fighting them (remember the Jebusites?), and the Phoenicians were Canaanites, and called themselves Canaanites. Moreover, Hebrew is a Canaanite language; the fact that the Hebrews ended up speaking it implies a long period of coexistence. As for the demographic statistic, adding the Jewish population would not only be impossible (unless you have sources for the proportion of them that were recent immigrants), it would make comparisons with the current situation impossible, since most Palestinian Jews have rejected that identity. - Mustafaa 02:23, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The fact that there is no knowledge of what a Phoenician looks like is the point. Even if there is no invasion of Joshua, as it is disputed once again, what happened to the Canaanites since then? The reason I say Aramaic instead of Hebrew is based on the fact that the Palestinians would have descended, if from the Kingdom of Israel, from the Roman Empire (Assuming they weren't slaughtered in the Crusades) of people who spoke Aramaic. Furthermore, just because the Hebrews spoke a Canaanite language isn't relevent, because the Franks spoke both Frankish "German" and Latin, but mostly Latin, and the fact that conquerers can take on the language of the conquered shows that because a language is spoken doesn't mean that a nation survives. Furthermore, even the fact that Jews themselves are descendents of those from Judea is open to speculation, and reasonable speculation at that. And, once again, I point to the Phoenician ancestry being completely altered at some point between the Hellenistic Period and the British Empire to the point of complete assimilation or extinction. Therefore, there is once again no evidence that anyone is purely descended of Phoenicians, and therefore no Phoenician Canaanites-frankly, there is as much evidence of Italians being descended from Canaanites by this logic as well, but I will not go into immigrations into the Italian Peninsula (They're not needed) except that Semitic languages ended up there as well as Italian words. In other words, we have these possibilities:

Jews are descended of Canaanites

Syrians are descended of Canaanites

North Africans are descended of Canaanites

Greeks are descended of Canaanites

Turks are descended, Italians, et cetera...

Its an unfounded claim, as once again, very little is known about the population of the area beginning with the Roman period until the end of the Ottoman Empire. Pro-Israeli sources claim under 100,000 Palestinians were in the region in the 1800s. This could be cited also, which once again hurts the Canaanite claim because this figure seems untenable to be mostly Canaanite in lieu of Arab, Turkish, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Italian, Syrian dominance of the region. And furthermore, some Palestinians who claim that they are descended from Canaanites occasionally also claim that the Kingdom of Israel was located in modern Yemen. This fact, which is cited in pro-Israeli bias, makes the claim even more difficult. It is more likely that the Palestinians are descended of a mix of Hebrews, Romans, Greeks, Syrians, Arabs and other misc. groups. The only of these groups that would be descended possibly from Canaanites are the Hebrews, period, showing no direct, pure descending from any group.

But the reason I disagree with the calling of it a "Zionist Invasion" is just unnecessary for the article. It is harsh PLO rhetoric which can be softened bordering on anti-Semitism. This article isn't supposed to be endorsing PLO claims, or about the PLO, but rather about the Palestinian Identity; nor is it supposed to be about Israeli Identity (Minus Israeli Arabs). There are ways to put that in the article without inflammatory rhetoric. The PLO Charter is not a balanced source of definition for the conflict, and should be used as reference, but definitely not quoted as means of a valid definition. It should, in fact, be quoted only when mentioning an irreconcilable point or when referencing the viewpoint of the PLO (Not the Palestinians). It is pretty much accepted that the PLO is not the sole representative of the Palestinians among nearly anyone in the world today, as you have more moderate groups and more extremist groups competing for power today. It is tantamont to saying that the Nazis killed Jews to "irradicate Marxism"; the Nazis held the two as interchangable terms. One could easily make the point of the Nazis killing Jews without giving it any sort of justification based on the point of view of the killer. In reality, the Palestinians oppose Zionist Immigration, which they term an invasion. If you go with the PLO definition, furthermore, you allow it to be said that all immigration anywhere poses an invasion, such as a Mexican invasion of the south, such as a Jewish/Italian Invasion of New England, etc.

After all, Patrick Buchanan defines immigration as invasion. That doesn't make it neutral. Its a loaded word. It amounts to Immigration and what is summarized from the PLO charter as immigration.

And furthermore, the deletion of the religion statistic is inherently anti-Jewish, because once again, Syrian Immigrants are questionably called Palestinian. Today they are accepted as such (as during the time of the immigration, there was no real difference between a Syrian and Palestinian, aside from Syrian living in Palestine), but on the time of the census of the region, they would definitely not be any more Palestinian than any immigrant would be to a new country. Even then, the definition of Palestinian was questionable, as did it mean person from Palestinian Arab or someone living in Jewish Palestine? The Palestinian Identity up until about 1920 was mostly Syrian, and only after this period does it break off (to deny a separate identity for Palestinians today is folly, as there has been nearly 100 years of isolation from Syria, and this is more than enough time-to say Palestinians do not exist is along the same lines to say that different Romantic Peoples are actually Romans...), but there was no definition for "Palestinian" except someone living in "Palestine" at this time. The Jews therefore could only reject their identification as "Arab", but not Palestinian. Jews also were not Arab, for they typically spoke Hebrew, or at least some other Jewish descended language. Therefore, Jews would have a typically different identity than the surrounding population, but so would immigrants to a large extent. The only way to neutrally omit the Jews from this definition would to basically rename the Palestinians "Syrian" which, of course, few Palestinians today would accept. And once again, I don't have the stats, but if stats can not be found, this is an inherently bias point of view, and should be omitted from this article, or mention of an uncountable large Syrian Immigration DILUTING this count significantly should be mentioned.Jmw0000 07:04, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Imagine a hypothetical population of 1 million men and 1 million women (all hetero ;-) who in each generation pair up at random and have two children each (so the population remains at 2 million). Now suppose there is exactly one Canaanite among them. After 25 generations, probably every one of the 2 million population will be a descendant of that single Canaanite. If you don't believe it, do your sums. Of course in practice population dynamics are much more complicated, but this just means it takes a few more generations to achieve the same mixing. Thus, if a single Canaanite went to China more than 2000 years ago and left descendants, then today essentially all Chinese would have a Canaanite ancestor. At the other extreme, some the modern DNA methods investigate only the single male line or only the single female line, out of the vast number of lines of descent we all have. So even defining the problem is not so simple. Some population studies use characteristics inherited from both parents then study them statistically so that one can say things like that most of the ancestors of most of one group come from the same place as most of the ancestors of most of some other group. Such studies tend to show Ashkenazi Jews and Palestinians closer together than Ashkenazi and Yemenite Jews are (for example). It's a field I don't trust much because the data is very irregular and multidimensional and this allows the wishes of the experimenter too much freedom in interpretation. --Zero 10:22, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This article isn't about the PLO Charter, or about calling Zionists Invaders. The PLO Charter is a bias source of data and its content need not be questioned. However, it is inflammatory rhetoric in violation of wikipedia policy. If you want to do an article on the PLO Charter calling the immigration a "Zionist Invasion" feel free to. It definitely does not belong here.Jmw0000 07:20, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Quotes don't have to be NPOV (they aren't even supposed to be.) The reason this quote is essential is because it is not clear whether by "Zionist invasion" they mean 1948, 1918, or even the "first Aliyah". If you can find a authoritative source that elucidates that point, then I could see an argument for replacing it. - Mustafaa 23:13, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Once again, that's Zionist Immigration, and the PLO Charter describes this as Zionist Invasion. Therefore, a neutral description is that the Palestinian Authority accepts Arabs before 1947 and Jews before the Zionist Immigrations, albiet this second point is unclear.Jmw0000 01:02, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, that would not be an accurate description. The whole point is that "Zionist invasion" might refer to the literal Zionist invasion of 1948, the literal but not entirely Zionist British invasion of 1917, or the figurative "invasion" of the beginnings of Zionist immigration. We have no business assuming we know which of these is meant without a supporting statement from the PLO. - Mustafaa 19:50, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There was a war in 1948, not really an invasion. What was invaded? Territory that was already Israel? Places where the Syrians and Egyptians came? Wouldn't that not make it a Zionist Invasion but a Syrian and Egyptian invasion? It might be unclear, but it definately points to pre-1948. Jmw0000 18:19, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Just A Side-Note

The text translates the Levant into al-Sham...shouldn't it be al-Mashriq? I'm not 100% sure about that, but that's how I've always known it... --Jad 08:07, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

ash-Sham is what it was called after the Arab conquest. That doesn't mean it wasn't called other things at other times. See History of Palestine for a bit more. --Zero 11:05, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but I'd see al-Mashriq as referring to a larger area than ash-Sham, including Iraq and maybe even Egypt. - Mustafaa 11:37, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

There seems to be a misunderstanding that the current predominant usage of Palestinian refers only to Arabs. Ignoring for the moment those Palestinians who regard themselves as Canaanite, the commonest usage of the term "Palestinian" includes (without being limited to) the pre-1967 inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including most Samaritans, and a couple of thousand Neturei Karta Jews consider themselves, and are considered by the Palestinian government, as Palestinian; and Palestinians often call the small minority of Israeli Jews whose ancestors lived there before the Mandate "Palestinian". You may find the Definitions of Palestine article informative in this respect, or indeed the remainder of this article. - Mustafaa 00:56, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC) ________________________________________________________________________

The date of Palestinian as pre-1918 is fundamentally flawed, as thousands of people considered Palestinian were descendants of Syrian immigrants in the 1920s and 1930s. With off-spring, this number ranges into the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians; therefore a more accurate definition would be 1948 and the creation of the Israeli state as non-Jewish immigrants. Also the word modern could be tagged onto it, as the modern Palestinian.

"during the centuries"

Why don't we change the phrase (note the the)

...the the people, mainly Arabs, whose ancestors had inhabited British Mandate Palestine during the centuries immediately before 1918...

to neutral: ...the people, mainly Arabs, who had inhabited the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine before 1918...

My reason: "ancestors during the centuries" is unnecessarily politically charged argument: the "Palestinians - from time immemorial, Jews - recent immigrants". Mustafaa says: "not unnecessary at all - without it, the definition would have to exclude almost half of all Palestinians alive today". I don't see how it excludes anyone: "the people" includes ancestors, no matter how long they lived there. As a matter of fact, the article should include the etymology of the term, the Philistines, Hadrian, etc. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 03:02, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

We can't lose "ancestors" or we lose almost all Palestinians. We can and should lose "British Mandate" because it didn't exist before 1918. ("Palestine" is less well defined but that matches reality in the definition of "Palestinian".) However, I think that "centuries" is unnecessarily restrictive. I suggest "whose ancestors had inhabited Palestine during the period immediately before 1918". --Zero 03:14, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to lose almost all Palestinians and think this is more neutral, thanks, Zero. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 03:23, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Zero's version works for me - I put "British Mandate" only to avoid accusations of partisanship. - Mustafaa 18:45, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"Israeli Arab redirect

I was redirected to Palestinian from Israeli Arabs. I was expecting though to find an article about arabs living in Israel though. Now correct me if I'm wrong but don't palestinians consider themselves neither israeli nor arabs? 02:15, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)~

You've got a point - Israeli Arabs are widely considered Palestinians, but given how different their situation is from other Palestinians' - and the fact that some of them really do see themselves as Israeli - one could argue that they deserve a separate article. However, I don't plan to write one anytime soon... - Mustafaa 23:15, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I made an article stub for Israeli Arabs. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mustafaa, but they are not identical with the Arabs you described in your Palestinians article. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 21:41, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Not identical - rather, they are a decidedly atypical subset of them. I've expanded the article a bit (but you know, it's poor form to have the only link in an article on this conflict be to a manifestly partisan site, though I do realize Google isn't very helpful in this regard.) - Mustafaa 22:08, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry: I agree about the "poor form" thing (makes me feel like Captain Hook being chided in Peter Pan). Thanks for noticing the stub so quickly and adding some balance. I cannot do this by myself! --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 12:33, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Possible 3rd party GNU FDL violation using this article.

Compare the paras that start with "As genetic techniques have advanced" here, and at globalpolitician.com. --mav 23:37, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Arafat as "Father' of "Palestinian Nation"

AFAIK, after Arafat's death he was lauded as "Father of Palestinian Nation". I guess that's correct because he imposed this notion in the 60s and 70s. --83.148.71.5 03:59, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"whose ancestors inhabited Palestine before 1918."

Isn't the definition of a Palestinian refugee someone who lived in Palestine before 1946? Jayjg 21:29, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The UN definition of a Palestinian refugee is "whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict", but I'm not sure this has any broader applicability. The PLO charter definition, however, might be good to quote: "The Palestinian identity transmitted from parents to children... The Palestinians are those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or have stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father - whether inside Palestine or outside it - is also a Palestinian. The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians." - Mustafaa 01:26, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Palestinian Constitution is more authoritative, but vaguer: - Mustafaa 01:36, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Article (12)

Palestinian nationality shall be regulated by law, without prejudice to the rights of those who legally acquired it prior to May 15 ,1948 , or the rights of the Palestinians residing in Palestine prior to that date, and were forced into exile or departed there from or denied return thereto. This right passes on from fathers or mothers to their progenitor. It neither disappears nor elapses unless voluntarily relinquished as provided by law.

No Palestinian shall be deprived of his nationality. The acquisition and renouncement of Palestinian nationality shall be regulated by law. The rights and duties of citizens with multiple nationalities shall be governed by law.

Article (13)

Palestinians who were forced out of Palestine, or departed there from as a result of the 1948 War, and were denied return thereto, shall have the right to return to the State of Palestine and bear its nationality. It is a permanent, inalienable, irrevocable right and shall not lapse by prescription.

State of Palestine shall strive to apply the legitimate right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes, and to obtain compensation in accordance with the United Nations Resolution 194 of 1948 , and the principles of International Law, through negotiations, and political and legal channels.

NPOV

This is getting absurd. What exactly is Jmw0000's objection to quoting one of the defining Palestinian political documents on the definition of a Palestinian? - Mustafaa 01:07, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

WikiPortal

Editors of this article may be interested in Misplaced Pages:Wikiportal/Palestine. - Mustafaa 23:05, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Immigrants after 1918 not Palestinian?

Since when are Arabs who entered after 1918 not considered Palestinian? The PLO Charter includes Arabs up to 1947 and I'm sure the current PA accepts this, so where does this idea that it only includes people up to 1918 come from??? Kuratowski's Ghost 21:10, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

1918 is the last date before which both Arabs and Jews are accepted as Palestinians by modern-day Palestinians. - Mustafaa 18:08, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ancestry

Looks like there are a deceptive half-truths in this section aimed at implying a continuity that does not exist in reality. Sargon settled Arabs in Samaria? Maybe if you really stretch the definition of Arab to mean people from regions that are today Arab. Besides these are ancestors of the Samaritans not Palestinian Arabs. Arabic elements in Nabatean and Edomite inscriptions, sure, but this does not mean that there is any connection to the current Bedouin of the region. The Edomites were converted to Judaism, they didn't become Arabs. The Nabateans assimilated into both the Jewish and Byzantine Greek populations after moving out of their traditional regions, the last identifiable Nabateans were a group of celibate monks at Petra at the time of the Islamic conquest. Kuratowski's Ghost 21:38, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The word "Arab" is first mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions, actually; I'm not sure why you think the Assyrians were "stretching the definition" in using it, nor what your evidence for their being ancestors of the Samaritans is. Incidentally, the Samaritans and Jews are, of course, among the ancestors of Palestinian Arabs; conversions to Islam were widespread. The Nabataeans are mentioned long after the Islamic conquest in Arabic texts; they were so widespread that their name eventually became a synonym with "peasant". I've never heard of an Edomite mass conversion to Judaism, but I'd be interested to read about it... - Mustafaa 18:07, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Both the Edomites and the Nabataeans, in fact, are good examples of the pre-Islamic Arabization of the southern fringe of the Fertile Crescent, which also led to the major pre-Islamic Arab kingdoms of the Ghassanids and Lakhmids in southern Iraq. This process is unquestionably relevant to the history of how Palestine got an majority-Arab population. - Mustafaa 18:22, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The mass Edomite conversion by the Hasmoneans is well known history and is recorded by Josephus. I have never heard of Nabateans later than the Islamic conquest, where are they mentioned? What evidence links them to modern Bedouin? (The appearance of Arabic like elements in inscriptions is insufficient.) I have always read that the Nabataeans assimilated into the general Byzantine Christian population before the Islamic period.

According to www.nabateans.org: "The Nabatean, who were tent dwellers for hundreds of years, began to build splendid houses at their transition to the life of farmers. By the third century C.E. the Nabateans lost their Aramaic language to Greek, and by the forth century the lost their pagan Semitic religion to Christianity." Kuratowski's Ghost 22:30, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This language claim, besides completely contradicting the Arabic sources (in which "Nabataean" eventually even became a general synonym for Aramaic-speaker, as noted in the Misplaced Pages article, from the 1911 Britannica), seems implausible on more general grounds. The language of the Fertile Crescent in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times was overwhelmingly Aramaic; I am aware of no significantly sized Greek-speaking regions there, in Jordan any more than in Palestine. - Mustafaa 00:03, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also early forms of the word "Arabian" denoted people of the Syrian desert who are not identical to the later Arab nation as we understand the word today which only emerged in Late Antiquity in the Arabian peninsula (a comparison usually given is that similarly the "Romanians" are not the same nation as the "Romans"). It is even questionable if the name of the ancient Arabians of the Syrian desert is identical in meaning to that of the later Arab nation or merely a coincidental similarity. Kuratowski's Ghost 22:13, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sargon didn't settle "ancient Arabians". Sargon's people were Akkadians, and they came from the Arabian peninsula. It could be argued that Akkadians are Ancient Arabians but the word Akkadian should be used. Whups, wrong Sargon Yuber 22:34, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"The appearance of Arabic like elements in inscriptions is insufficient." Actually, it's quite convincing proof that the people in question were speaking Arabic, and hence by definition Arab or Arabized - though not as convinving as the widespread use of an unquestionably Arabic language in the Safaitic inscriptions, in both the Negev and Nabataea proper.

But it is not at all convincing that there is any real continuity between these people and the the present Bedouins. We are talking about a gap of about 2500 years Kuratowski's Ghost 22:58, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The earliest Arabic inscriptions offer a seamless transition from Nabataean to Arabic script; indeed, it is frequently debated whether Imru' al-Qays's famous tomb inscription was written in early Arabic or late Nabataean alphabet. As for the Edomites, there seems to be some question about whether the attempted forced conversion was actually successful (),

Yannai's forced conversions were indeed denounced by Rabbinal Judaism, but the reality is that the Edomites ended up assimilating into the Jewish people. Edomites are no longer mentioned as a separate group to the Jews after Herod the Great who being of Edomite ancestry was derogatarily still called an Edomite. Kuratowski's Ghost 23:13, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That's not very convincing; if the Edomites are no longer mentioned, how does that indicate that they had all become Jews, rather than being assimilated to various different ethnicities? And a conversion of Arabized Edomites would be an excellent explanation of the Jewish Arabs mentioned below. - Mustafaa 23:57, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

but even if it was, there is no reason to believe this interrupted their Arabization; many notable Arab tribes, particularly in the northwest and the south, were Jewish at Muhammad's time, as Dhu Nuwas and Samaw'al ibn Adiya illustrate. The Arabs mentioned by the Assyrians lived in the same place and the same manner as the later Arabs, and spoke the same language (Gindibu is a good Arabic word, not as far as I know found in Semitic generally), and in all probability were, indeed, ancestral to the later Arabs - just as the Romanians are, indeed, among the Romans' descendants. As for Nabataeans, a quick search of alwaraq.com, a database of medieval texts, yields 276 hits for نبطي and 350 for النبطي from such texts as Tabari, Zamakhshari, Ibn al-Nadim, and suggests that many had assimilated to Syriac culture (they are often confused with the Chaldeans), but certainly not to Greek.

Incidentally, for another illustration of the Arabization of Nabataea, see Pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions (currently restricted to those in the Arabic alphabet).

PS: Yuber, you're mixing up claims here. The resettlement in question is by the Assyrians of Arabs; see Sargon II. - Mustafaa 22:50, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is this based on an Assyrian inscription or merely an interpretation of what the Bible says? The Bible has in the book of Kings "2Ki 17:24 And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria". These are all places in Mesopotamia. Kuratowski's Ghost 22:58, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Then that would seem to imply that it's based on an Assyrian inscription. I didn't write Sargon II, so I don't know. The Arab mention I'm familiar with myself is of Gindibu, from Shalmaneser III's reign. - Mustafaa 23:05, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Apparently, yes: . - Mustafaa 23:05, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Regarding Gindibu, from what I understand the Assyrian description of him means a person from the region of Arabaya in the northern Syrian desert. The name Arabaya may simply mean desert region or steppe and thus only indirectly related to the word "Arab" if the latter also comes from the same root although what I've read it is understood to mean "eloquent" the antonym to "Ajam". Kuratowski's Ghost 23:36, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Quite, but that more probably comes from the ethnic use, rather than being its source. What etymological justification is there for the idea that "Arabaya may simply mean desert region or steppe"? - Mustafaa 23:52, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The fact that `aravah means that in Hebrew. Kuratowski's Ghost 00:41, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Religion? Nation?

The text reads

The Palestinians .. designation is independent of nationality and religion (though the vast majority are Muslim).

to be absolutely precise, we should change this to

The Palestinian population is largely Sunni Moslem, with Orthodox Christian, Druze and Jewish minorities.

One problem with the current text as it stands is that it includes Sephardic and Mizrahic Israelis as Palestinians.

The second problem is that the Palestinian people, wherever they may born (ie including those born in exile), are indeed a nation. In this characteristic, they are much like the Jewish people.

Alternatively we can leave the italicised text out.

I wanted to check before jumping in.

Sorry if this is being petty. It's not always easy to be precise. I try to be where I can. --Philopedia 6 July 2005 09:32 (UTC)

The Palestinian National Covenant does officially define Palestinian as including, certainly not all Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, but all Jews whose ancestors lived in Palestine before "the beginning of the Zionist invasion", presumably 1918. However, I agree that "citizenship" should be substituted for "nationality". -

Sea People

I think the section on origins ought to mention the Sea People (also known as Philistines) who arrived from the Aegean in the 12 century BCE.

The Philistines occupied a thin strip along the coast from Gaza until somewhat short of the (present day) Lebanese border and figured prominently in the Hebrew Bible, especially during the early Kingdoms.

The Sea People seem to have worshipped bulls (drawings on the Temple of Knossos, Ariadne and the maze, invention of bullfighting, etc), so it is tempting to identify their influence with the story of Moses and the golden calf, although evidence that they had already established a presence in the Sinai at such an early date is lacking.

Another theory, which the Palestinians themselves support, identifies the them as a mixture between the Sea People and the Jebusites. The Jesubites were a Canaanite tribe and the original founders of Jerusalem. However, I am not aware of the evidence to support this theory. What's more the geography is wrong. Jerusalem was far away from early Philistine settlements, and the Jesubites are much more likely to have been vanquished and absorbed by the Israelites. So, IMO the claim is likely to be politically motivated.

So far as I can tell, accounts of the ancient Philistines stop shortly before the Babylonian invasion. Keenly valuing their independence, the Philistines would, presumably, have resisted and been defeated. Then it would have been consistent were they to have shared the experience of the Isrealites, many being taken into captivity in Babylon, some remaining behind and, like the Samaritans, mixing with exiles from elsewhere in the Middle East, and then, much later, with invaders from the Arabian peninsula during the Islamic expansion.

Could this be the make up of the Modern Palestinians? Much is speculation, but there must be an archeological record too. Does anyone know better? --Philopedia 7 July 2005 12:41 (UTC)

Firstly it is not known with any certainty if there really is a connection between the Sea Peoples and the Philstines, all that is known is that one group of Sea People the P-r-s-t in Egyptian has a name resembling Hebrew P'lishti for Philistine (Egyptian didn't have an l sound distinct from r). The earliest Philistines are called Avvites in the Bible which says also that they were conquered by newcomers from "Caphtor". Traditionally Caphtor was understood to be Damietta in Egypt, although there are other suggestions about where it was including Crete, Cyprus, Asia Minor, nothing can be said with certainty.

The Philistines gradually assimilated into the Israelites having disappeared as a distinct group already in the Persian period with the last pagans descended from them being converted to Judaism under the Hasmoneans. The Jebusites were conquered by the Israelites and together with the remnants of other conquered Canaanite people became part of the Jewish class known as the Nethinim having a specific religious role of caring for the Temple but who are no longer mentioned as a separate class already at the time of the Maccabees possibly having all been killed by the Seleucids. Clearly no direct connection to modern Palestinians who are separated from them by literally thousands of years of history. Kuratowski's Ghost 7 July 2005 13:18 (UTC)

My understanding is that Palestinians are far more likely to be descended from the Jews, the Samaritans, and any unconverted Canaanites than from the Philistines; the name is inherited via Greek, thanks to administrative boundaries in the early Caliphate, and there is no evidence of a distinct Philistine people by the Arab conquest. - Mustafaa 7 July 2005 18:41 (UTC)

So, the idea is that the original Sea People (Philistines) gave their name to the land, and then, much later, another, nameless, people appeared and took their name from that same land?

Could be, and I suppose it wouldn't be the first time that that happened. --Philopedia 8 July 2005 14:41 (UTC)

No reason to believe they were "nameless"; they just changed their name. It's scarcely unprecedented; look at the etymology of France. - Mustafaa 8 July 2005 20:21 (UTC)

I've heard of a few Palestinians claiming descent from the Philistines, but more claim descent from the Canaanites (even Arafat did at one point I think). The paragraph about to the possible origins of the people should be included in a shortened form . There should also be emphasis on the fact that it is a minority view that is almost impossible to confirm.Heraclius 8 July 2005 23:21 (UTC)

Well, if there is such a minority view, it should perhaps be mentioned; but if so, it must also be mentioned that this is really quite implausible. For a start, there were never any Philistines in most of Palestine; they occupied only the Gaza Strip and its surroundings. Second, the Philistines are not mentioned anywhere after Assyrian times (though the idea that they were destroyed by David is wrong; they are mentioned after David, if I recall.) - Mustafaa 8 July 2005 23:24 (UTC)

Word Palestinian similar to word American

There is a debate about who is or is not a Palestinian. There is a similar debate about who is or is not an American. But most people when they hear the word know what it means (even if they wish that word wasn't used to mean that). For some a Palestinian is defined by residency: a Palestinian lives in Palestine. The same is true of an American: he or she lives in American (that is, the United States). Today scholars research the origins of the Palestinians. In the future, historians may marvel at the diverse and varied origins of the Americans. Are the Palestinians a stateless nation? What then the Americans: a nationless nation? I've heard that there are no Palestinians, but only Arabs; that Palestinian is "made up". Are there Americans then? There are many people of the Earth with a long, unbroken, pure history of ethnicity reaching back into prehistory, but I wonder how accurate these histories are. I wonder if the Palestinian and the American pattern of national origin is not a fine human tradition reaching back through the millenia to our beginnings. -Acjelen 22:45, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Historical Section

The historical labeling of Palestinian was for Christian Levantines, not Muslims or Jews. Their ancestry in the region went back to the Philistines, which included brief periods of prominence at junctions in between. When Syria Palaestina was made Roman, it was for the "benefit" of the Hellenic population of Palestine. When the Kingdom of Jerusalem was made Catholic, it was for the "benefit" of Orthodox population. In any case, Palestine as a name is not Arabic or Hebrew. Philistines were the anciently resident Japhethic or Caucasoid citizens of the land, regardless of what is now going on with the Arabs and Israelis battling over it. This is like Galatia and Troy in present day Turkey. TheUnforgiven 23:04, 10 July 2005 (UTC)