Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=none, ), are an
ethnonational group descending from peoples who have inhabited the region of
Palestine over the millennia, and who are today culturally and linguistically
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
.
Despite various wars
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular ...
and exoduses, roughly one half of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the territory of former British Palestine, now encompassing the West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
and the Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
(the Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely: the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. The ...
) as well as Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. In this combined area, , Palestinians constitute a demographic majority, with an estimated population of 7.503 million or 51.16% (as compared to Jews at 46-47%) of all inhabitants, taking in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and almost 21 percent of the population of Israel proper as part of its Arab citizens. [Alan Dowty]
Critical issues in Israeli society
Greenwood (2004), p. 110 Many are Palestinian refugees
Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country over the course of the 1947–49 Palestine war (1948 Palestinian exodus) and the Six-Day War (1967 Palestinian exodu ...
or internally displaced Palestinians, including more than a million in the Gaza Strip, around 750,000 in the West Bank, and around 250,000 in Israel proper. Of the Palestinian population who live abroad, known as the Palestinian diaspora
The Palestinian diaspora ( ar, الشتات الفلسطيني, ''al-shatat al-filastini''), part of the wider Arab diaspora, are Palestinian people living outside the region of Palestine.
History
Palestinian individuals have a long history of ...
, more than half are stateless, lacking legal citizenship in any country. Between 2.1 and 3.24 million of the diaspora population live as refugees in neighboring Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
; over 1 million live between Syria and Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
, and about 750,000 live in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
, with Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
holding the largest Palestinian diaspora concentration (around half a million) outside of the Arab world
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
.
In 1919, Palestinian Muslims and Palestinian Christians constituted 90 percent of the population of Palestine, just before the third wave of Jewish immigration under the British Mandate after World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Opposition to Jewish immigration spurred the consolidation of a unified national identity, though Palestinian society was still fragmented by regional, class, religious, and family differences. The history of the Palestinian national identity is a disputed issue amongst scholars; the term "Palestinian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
" was used to refer to the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people by Palestinian Arabs from the late 19th century, albeit in a limited capacity until World War I.[ The ]dissolution
Dissolution may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Books
* ''Dissolution'' (''Forgotten Realms'' novel), a 2002 fantasy novel by Richard Lee Byers
* ''Dissolution'' (Sansom novel), a 2003 historical novel by C. J. Sansom Music
* Dissolution, in mu ...
of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
and subsequent creation of an individual British Mandate for the region replaced Ottoman citizenship with Palestinian citizenship, solidifying a national identity. After the Israeli Declaration of Independence, the 1948 Palestinian exodus
In 1948 more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of prewar Palestine's Arab population – were expelled or fled from their homes, during the 1948 Palestine war. The exodus was a central component of the fracturing, dispossessi ...
, and more so after the 1967 Palestinian exodus
The 1967 Palestinian exodus refers to the flight of around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians out of the territories captured by Israel during and in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, including the demolition of the Palestinian villages of Imwas, ...
, the term "Palestinian" evolved into a sense of a shared future in the form of aspirations for a Palestinian state
Palestine ( ar, فلسطين, Filasṭīn), officially the State of Palestine ( ar, دولة فلسطين, Dawlat Filasṭīn, label=none), is a state located in Western Asia. Officially governed by the Palestine Liberation Organization ( ...
. Today, the Palestinian identity encompasses the heritage of all ages from biblical times up to the Ottoman period
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
.[
Founded in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization is an umbrella organization for groups that represent the Palestinian people before international states.] The Palestinian National Authority
The Palestinian National Authority (PA or PNA; ar, السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية '), commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine, , officially established in 1994 as a result of the Oslo Accords, is an interim administrative body nominally responsible for governance in Palestinian population centres in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since 1978, the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
has observed an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People
The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People is a UN-organized observance. Events are held at the United Nations headquarters in New York, as well as at the United Nations offices at Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi. It is generally ...
. According to British historian Perry Anderson
Francis Rory Peregrine "Perry" Anderson (born 11 September 1938) is a British intellectual, historian and essayist. His work ranges across historical sociology, intellectual history, and cultural analysis. What unites Anderson's work is a preoc ...
, it is estimated that half of the population in the Palestinian territories are refugees, and that they have collectively suffered approximately US$300 billion in property losses due to Israeli confiscations, at 2008–2009 prices.Perry Anderson
Francis Rory Peregrine "Perry" Anderson (born 11 September 1938) is a British intellectual, historian and essayist. His work ranges across historical sociology, intellectual history, and cultural analysis. What unites Anderson's work is a preoc ...
'The House of Zion'
New Left Review
The ''New Left Review'' is a British bimonthly journal covering world politics, economy, and culture, which was established in 1960.
History Background
As part of the British "New Left" a number of new journals emerged to carry commentary on m ...
96, November–December 2015 pp. 5–37, p.31 n.55, citing Rex Brynen and Roula E-Rifai (eds.), ''Compensation to Palestinian Refugees and the Search for Palestinian-Israeli Peace,'' London 2013, pp.10,132–69.
Etymology
The Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
toponym ''Palaistínē'' (Παλαιστίνη), which is the origin of the Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
''Filasṭīn'' (فلسطين), first occurs in the work of the 5th century BCE Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
historian Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
, where it denotes generally[With the exception of Bks. 1, 105; 3.91.1, and 4.39, 2.] the coastal land from Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...
down to Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
.Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
describes its scope in the Fifth Satrapy of the Persians as follows: "From the town of Posidium, ..on the border between Cilicia
Cilicia (); el, Κιλικία, ''Kilikía''; Middle Persian: ''klkyʾy'' (''Klikiyā''); Parthian: ''kylkyʾ'' (''Kilikiyā''); tr, Kilikya). is a geographical region in southern Anatolia in Turkey, extending inland from the northeastern coa ...
and Syria, as far as Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
– omitting Arabian territory, which was free of tax, came 350 talents. This province contains the whole of Phoenicia and that part of Syria which is called Palestine, and Cyprus. This is the fifth Satrapy." (from Herodotus Book 3, 8th logos
/ref>[Cohen, 2006, p. 36.] Herodotus also employs the term as an ethnonym, as when he speaks of the 'Syrians of Palestine' or 'Palestinian-Syrians',[Herodotus, ''The Histories'', Bks. 2:104 (Φοἰνικες δἐ καὶ Σὐριοι οἱ ἑν τᾔ Παλαιστἰνῃ, "Phoinikes de kaì Surioi oi en té Palaistinē"); 3:5; 7:89.] an ethnically amorphous group he distinguishes from the Phoenicians.[Kasher, 1990, p. 15.] Herodotus makes no distinction between the Jews and other inhabitants of Palestine.
The Greek word reflects an ancient Eastern Mediterranean-Near Eastern word which was used either as a toponym
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
or ethnonym. In Ancient Egyptian ''Peleset/Purusati'' has been conjectured to refer to the "Sea Peoples
The Sea Peoples are a hypothesized seafaring confederation that attacked ancient Egypt and other regions in the East Mediterranean prior to and during the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BCE).. Quote: "First coined in 1881 by the Fren ...
", particularly the Philistines
The Philistines ( he, פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Pəlīštīm; Koine Greek (LXX): Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''Phulistieím'') were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until 604 BC, whe ...
.[. Quote: "First coined in 1881 by the French Egyptologist G. Maspero (1896), the somewhat misleading term "Sea Peoples" encompasses the ethnonyms Lukka, Sherden, Shekelesh, Teresh, Eqwesh, Denyen, Sikil / Tjekker, Weshesh, and Peleset (Philistines). Drews 1993, 57 for a summary). The use of quotation marks in association with the term "Sea Peoples" in our title is intended to draw attention to the problematic nature of this commonly used term. It is noteworthy that the designation "of the sea" appears only in relation to the Sherden, Shekelesh, and Eqwesh. Subsequently, this term was applied somewhat indiscriminately to several additional ethnonyms, including the Philistines, who are portrayed in their earliest appearance as invaders from the north during the reigns of Merenptah and Ramesses Ill (see, e.g., Sandars 1978; Redford 1992, 243, n. 14; for a recent review of the primary and secondary literature, see Woudhuizen 2006). Hencefore the term Sea Peoples will appear without quotation marks.]"][The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe Ca. 1200 B.C., Robert Drews, p48–61](_blank)
Quote: "The thesis that a great "migration of the Sea Peoples" occurred ca. 1200 B.C. is supposedly based on Egyptian inscriptions, one from the reign of Merneptah and another from the reign of Ramesses III. Yet in the inscriptions themselves such a migration nowhere appears. After reviewing what the Egyptian texts have to say about 'the sea peoples', one Egyptologist (Wolfgang Helck) recently remarked that although some things are unclear, "eins ist aber sicher: Nach den ägyptischen Texten haben wir es nicht mit einer "Völkerwanderung" zu tun." ("one thing is clear: according to the Egyptian texts, we are not dealing here with a 'Völkerwanderung
The Migration Period was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories by various tribes, and the establishment of the post-Roman ...
' igration of peoples as in 4th–6th-century Europe") Thus the migration hypothesis is based not on the inscriptions themselves but on their interpretation." Among Semitic languages
The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...
, Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...
''Palaštu'' (variant ''Pilištu'') is used of 7th-century Philistia and its, by then, four city states. Biblical Hebrew's cognate word ''Plištim'', is usually translated Philistines
The Philistines ( he, פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Pəlīštīm; Koine Greek (LXX): Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''Phulistieím'') were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until 604 BC, whe ...
.
''Syria Palestina'' continued to be used by historians and geographers and others to refer to the area between the Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...
and the Jordan River, as in the writings of Philo
Philo of Alexandria (; grc, Φίλων, Phílōn; he, יְדִידְיָה, Yəḏīḏyāh (Jedediah); ), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt.
Philo's de ...
, Josephus
Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...
and Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...
. During the second or third decades of the 2nd century
The 2nd century is the period from 101 ( CI) through 200 ( CC) in accordance with the Julian calendar. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period.
Early in the century, the Roman Empire attained its greatest e ...
, Syria Palaestina became the official administrative name for the new province that encompassed most of Judaea
Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous so ...
, in a move commonly viewed as an action by emperor Hadrian to "disassociate the Jewish people from their historical homeland" or as a "punishment" for the Bar Kokhba revolt.[H.H. Ben-Sasson, ''A History of the Jewish People'', Harvard University Press, 1976, , page 334: "In an effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Judaea to Syria-Palestina, a name that became common in non-Jewish literature."][Ariel Lewin. ''The archaeology of Ancient Judea and Palestine''. Getty Publications, 2005 p. 33. "It seems clear that by choosing a seemingly neutral name - one juxtaposing that of a neighboring province with the revived name of an ancient geographical entity (Palestine), already known from the writings of Herodotus - Hadrian was intending to suppress any connection between the Jewish people and that land." ] There is no evidence as to when the name change was implemented or by whom.[: "While it is true that there is no evidence as to precisely who changed the name of Judaea to Palestine and precisely when this was done, circumstantial evidence would seem to point to Hadrian himself, since he is, it would seem, responsible for a number of decrees that sought to crush the national and religious spirit of thejews, whether these decrees were responsible for the uprising or were the result of it. In the first place, he refounded Jerusalem as a Graeco-Roman city under the name of Aelia Capitolina. He also erected on the site of the Temple another temple to Zeus."] Jacobson suggested the name to be rationalized by the fact that the new province was far larger than geographical Judea, with the name of ''Syria Palaestina'' already in use for centuries by the time the Bar Kokhba revolt took place.
The new administrative name was printed on coins, in inscriptions and even appeared in rabbinic texts
Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, is the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writ ...
.[Cohen, 2006, p. 37.] The Arabic word ''Filastin'' has been used to refer to the region since the time of the earliest medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
Arab geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...
s. It appears to have been used as an Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
adjectival noun in the region since as early as the 7th century CE.[Kish, 1978, p. 200.] The Arabic newspaper ''Falastin
''Falastin'' ( ar, فلسطين), meaning Palestine in Arabic, was an Arabic-language Palestinian newspaper. Founded in 1911 in Jaffa, ''Falastin'' began as a weekly publication, evolving into one of the most influential dailies in Ottoman and ...
'' (est. 1911), published in Jaffa by Issa and Yousef El-Issa
Yousef El-Issa (alternative: ''Yusuf al-‘Isa'') ( ar, يوسف العيسى) was a Palestinian journalist. He established the Filastin newspaper with his cousin Issa El-Issa in 1911, based in his hometown of Jaffa. ''Filastin'' became one of th ...
, addressed its readers as "Palestinians".
During the Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...
period, the term "Palestinian" was used to refer to all people residing there, regardless of religion or ethnicity, and those granted citizenship
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
by the British Mandatory authorities were granted "Palestinian citizenship". Other examples include the use of the term Palestine Regiment to refer to the Jewish Infantry Brigade Group of the British Army during World War II, and the term "Palestinian Talmud", which is an alternative name of the Jerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud ( he, תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, translit=Talmud Yerushalmi, often for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century ...
, used mainly in academic sources.
Following the 1948 establishment of Israel, the use and application of the terms "Palestine" and "Palestinian" by and to Palestinian Jews
Palestinian Jews or Jewish Palestinians were the Jewish inhabitants of the Palestine region (known in Hebrew as ''Eretz Yisrael'', ) prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
The common term used to refer to the Jewish commu ...
largely dropped from use. For example, the English-language newspaper ''The Palestine Post
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'', founded by Jews in 1932, changed its name in 1950 to ''The Jerusalem Post
''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the paper ...
''. Jews in Israel and the West Bank today generally identify as Israelis. Arab citizens of Israel identify themselves as Israeli, Palestinian or Arab.
The Palestinian National Charter
The Palestinian National Covenant or Palestinian National Charter ( ar, الميثاق الوطني الفلسطيني; transliterated: ''al-Mithaq al-Watani al-Filastini'') is the covenant or charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) ...
, as amended by the PLO's Palestinian National Council in July 1968, defined "Palestinians" as "those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father – whether in Palestine or outside it – is also a Palestinian." Note that "Arab nationals" is ''not'' religious-specific, and it includes not only the Arabic-speaking Muslims of Palestine but also the Arabic-speaking Christians
Arab Christians ( ar, ﺍَﻟْﻤَﺴِﻴﺤِﻴُّﻮﻥ ﺍﻟْﻌَﺮَﺏ, translit=al-Masīḥīyyūn al-ʿArab) are ethnic Arabs, Arab nationals, or Arabic-speakers who adhere to Christianity. The number of Arab Christians who l ...
and other religious communities of Palestine who were at that time Arabic-speakers, such as the Samaritans and Druze. Thus, the Jews of Palestine
Palestinian Jews or Jewish Palestinians were the Jewish inhabitants of the Palestine region (known in Hebrew as ''Eretz Yisrael'', ) prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
The common term used to refer to the Jewish commu ...
were/are also included, although limited only to "the Jews">rabic-speakingJews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the re-stateZionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
invasion." The Charter also states that "Palestine with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit."[ The most recent draft of the Palestinian constitution would amend that definition such that, "Palestinian nationality shall be regulated by law, without prejudice to the rights of those who legally acquired it prior to May 10, 1948 or the rights of the Palestinians residing in Palestine prior to this date, and who were forced into exile or departed there from and denied return thereto. This right passes on from fathers or mothers to their progenitor. It neither disappears nor elapses unless voluntarily relinquished."]
Origins
The origins of Palestinians are complex and diverse. The region was not originally Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
– its Arabization was a consequence of the gradual inclusion of Palestine within the rapidly expanding Islamic Caliphates established by Arabian tribes and their local allies. Like in other "Arabized" Arab nations, the Arab identity
Arab identity ( ar, الهوية العربية ) is the objective or subjective state of perceiving oneself as an Arab and as relating to being Arab. Like other cultural identities, it relies on a common culture, a traditional lineage, the com ...
of Palestinians, largely based on linguistic
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
and cultural affiliation, is independent of the existence of any actual Arabian origins.
Palestine has undergone many demographic and religious upheavals throughout history. During the 2nd millennium BCE, it was inhabited by the Canaanites, Semitic-speaking peoples who practiced the Canaanite religion. The Israelites
The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...
emerged later as a separate ethnic and religious community in the region. Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
eventually formed the majority of the population in Palestine during classical antiquity
Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
, however the Jewish population in Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
and its surroundings in Judea
Judea or Judaea ( or ; from he, יהודה, Standard ''Yəhūda'', Tiberian ''Yehūḏā''; el, Ἰουδαία, ; la, Iūdaea) is an ancient, historic, Biblical Hebrew, contemporaneous Latin, and the modern-day name of the mountainous sou ...
never fully recovered as a result of the Jewish-Roman Wars. In the centuries that followed, the region experienced political and economic unrest, mass conversions to Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
(and subsequent Christianization of the Roman Empire
The growth of Christianity from its obscure origin 40 AD, with fewer than 1,000 followers, to being the majority religion of the entire Roman Empire by AD 350, has been examined through a wide variety of historiographical approaches.
Un ...
), and the religious persecution of minorities. The emigration of Jews and the immigration of Christians, as well as the conversion of pagans, Jews and Samaritans, contributed to a Christian majority forming in Late Roman and Byzantine Palestine
The Diocese of the East ( la, Dioecesis Orientis; el, ) was a diocese of the later Roman Empire, incorporating the provinces of the western Middle East, between the Mediterranean Sea and Mesopotamia. During late Antiquity, it was one of the majo ...
. In the 7th century, the Arab Rashiduns conquered the Levant; they were later succeeded by other Arabic-speaking Muslim dynasties, including the Umayyads Umayyads may refer to:
*Umayyad dynasty, a Muslim ruling family of the Caliphate (661–750) and in Spain (756–1031)
*Umayyad Caliphate (661–750)
:*Emirate of Córdoba (756–929)
:*Caliphate of Córdoba
The Caliphate of Córdoba ( ar, خ ...
, Abbasids and the Fatimids. Over the following several centuries, the population of Palestine drastically decreased, from an estimated 1 million during the Roman and Byzantine periods to about 300,000 by the early Ottoman period.[Broshi, M., & Finkelstein, I. (1992)]
"The Population of Palestine in Iron Age II"
''Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research'', ''287''(1), 47-60. Over time, much of the existing population adopted Arab culture and language and converted to Islam
Religious conversion is the adoption of a set of beliefs identified with one particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Thus "religious conversion" would describe the abandoning of adherence to one denomination and affiliatin ...
. The settlement of Arabs before and after the Muslim conquest is thought to have played a role in accelerating the Islamization process. Some scholars suggest that by the arrival of the Crusaders
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
, Palestine was already overwhelmingly Muslim,[Mark A. Tessler, ''A History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict'', Indiana University Press, 1994, ]
M1 Google Print, p. 70
while others claim that it was only after the Crusades that the Christians lost their majority, and that the process of mass Islamization took place much later, perhaps during the Mamluk period.
For several centuries during the Ottoman period
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
the population in Palestine declined and fluctuated between 150,000 and 250,000 inhabitants, and it was only in the 19th century that a rapid population growth began to occur. The migration of Egyptians and Algerians to Palestine during the first half of the 19th century, and the subsequent immigration of Algerians, Bosnians, and Circassians
The Circassians (also referred to as Cherkess or Adyghe; Adyghe and Kabardian: Адыгэхэр, romanized: ''Adıgəxər'') are an indigenous Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and nation native to the historical country-region of Circassia ...
during the second half of the century, also contributed to this population growth.
Pre-Arab/Islamic influences on the Palestinian national identity
While Palestinian culture is today primarily Arab and Islamic, many Palestinians identify with earlier civilizations that inhabited the land of Palestine. According to Walid Khalidi, in Ottoman times "the Palestinians considered themselves to be descended not only from Arab conquerors of the seventh century but also from indigenous peoples who had lived in the country since time immemorial."
In 1876, Claude R. Conder of the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) wrote that:It is well known to those familiar to the country that whatever else they may be, the Fellah
A fellah ( ar, فَلَّاح ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a peasant, usually a farmer or agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic word for "ploughman" or "tiller". ...
in, or native peasantry of Palestine, are not Arabs; and if we judge from the names of the topographical features their language can scarcely be called Arabic.
Similarly Ali Qleibo, a Palestinian anthropologist, argues: Throughout history a great diversity of peoples has moved into the region and made Palestine their homeland: Canaanites, Jebusites
The Jebusites (; ISO 259-3 ''Ybusi'') were, according to the books of Joshua and Samuel from the Tanakh, a Canaanite tribe that inhabited Jerusalem, then called Jebus (Hebrew: ''Yəḇūs'', "trampled place") prior to the conquest initiated by ...
, Philistines
The Philistines ( he, פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Pəlīštīm; Koine Greek (LXX): Φυλιστιείμ, romanized: ''Phulistieím'') were an ancient people who lived on the south coast of Canaan from the 12th century BC until 604 BC, whe ...
from Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...
, Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The ...
n and Lydian Greeks, Hebrews
The terms ''Hebrews'' (Hebrew: / , Modern: ' / ', Tiberian: ' / '; ISO 259-3: ' / ') and ''Hebrew people'' are mostly considered synonymous with the Semitic-speaking Israelites, especially in the pre-monarchic period when they were still ...
, Amorite
The Amorites (; sux, 𒈥𒌅, MAR.TU; Akkadian: 𒀀𒈬𒊒𒌝 or 𒋾𒀉𒉡𒌝/𒊎 ; he, אֱמוֹרִי, 'Ĕmōrī; grc, Ἀμορραῖοι) were an ancient Northwest Semitic-speaking people from the Levant who also occupied la ...
s, Edom
Edom (; Edomite: ; he, אֱדוֹם , lit.: "red"; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom in Transjordan, located between Moab to the northeast, the Arabah to the west, and the Arabian Desert to the south and east.N ...
ites, Nabataeans
The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; Arabic: , , singular , ; compare grc, Ναβαταῖος, translit=Nabataîos; la, Nabataeus) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern L ...
, Arameans, Romans
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
, Arabs
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
, and Western European Crusaders
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
, to name a few. Each of them appropriated different regions that overlapped in time and competed for sovereignty and land. Others, such as Ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Persians
The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian.
...
, Babylonians, and the Mongol raids of the late 1200s, were historical 'events' whose successive occupations were as ravaging as the effects of major earthquakes ... Like shooting stars, the various cultures shine for a brief moment before they fade out of official historical and cultural records of Palestine. The people, however, survive. In their customs and manners, fossils of these ancient civilizations survived until modernity—albeit modernity camouflaged under the veneer of Islam and Arabic culture.
George Antonius
George Habib Antonius, CBE (hon.) ( ar, جورج حبيب أنطونيوس; October 9, 1891May 21, 1942) was a Lebanese author and diplomat who settled in Jerusalem. He was one of the first historians of Arab nationalism. Born in Deir al Qamar ...
, founder of modern Arab nationalist history, wrote in his seminal 1938 book ''The Arab Awakening
''The Arab Awakening'' is a 1938 book by George Antonius, published in London by Hamish Hamilton. It is viewed as the foundational textbook of the history of modern Arab nationalism. According to Martin Kramer, ''The Arab Awakening'' "became the p ...
'': The Arabs' connection with Palestine goes back uninterruptedly to the earliest historic times, for the term 'Arab' n Palestine
N, or n, is the fourteenth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet# ...
denotes nowadays not merely the incomers from the Arabian Peninsula who occupied the country in the seventh century, but also the older populations who intermarried with their conquerors, acquired their speech, customs and ways of thought and became permanently arabised.
American historian Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis, (31 May 1916 – 19 May 2018) was a British American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near ...
writes: Clearly, in Palestine as elsewhere in the Middle East, the modern inhabitants include among their ancestors those who lived in the country in antiquity. Equally obviously, the demographic mix was greatly modified over the centuries by migration, deportation, immigration, and settlement. This was particularly true in Palestine, where the population was transformed by such events as the Jewish rebellion against Rome and its suppression, the Arab conquest, the coming and going of the Crusaders, the devastation and resettlement of the coastlands by the Mamluk and Turkish regimes, and, from the nineteenth century, by extensive migrations from both within and from outside the region. Through invasion and deportation, and successive changes of rule and of culture, the face of the Palestinian population changed several times. No doubt, the original inhabitants were never entirely obliterated, but in the course of time they were successively Judaized, Christianized, and Islamized. Their language was transformed to Hebrew, then to Aramaic, then to Arabic.[Lewis, 1999, p. 49.]
Arabization of Palestine
The term "Arab", as well as the presence of Arabians in the Syrian Desert and the Fertile Crescent, is first seen in the Assyrian sources from the 9th century BCE (Eph'al 1984).[Eph`al I (1984) ''The Ancient Arabs,'' Magnes Press, Hebrew University of Jerusalem] Southern Palestine had a large Edomite and Arab population by the 4th century BCE. Inscriptional evidence over a millennium from the peripheral areas of Palestine, such as the Golan
Golan ( he, גּוֹלָן ''Gōlān''; ar, جولان ' or ') is the name of a biblical town later known from the works of Josephus (first century CE) and Eusebius (''Onomasticon'', early 4th century CE). Archaeologists localize the biblical ...
and the Negev
The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its sout ...
, show a prevalence of Arab names over Aramaic names from the Persian period
Yehud, also known as Yehud Medinata or Yehud Medinta (), was an administrative province of the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the region of Judea that functioned as a self-governing region under its local Jewish population. The province was a part ...
, 550-330 BCE onwards. Bedouins have drifted in waves into Palestine since at least the 7th century, after the Muslim conquest. Some of them, like the Arab al-Sakhr south of Lake Kinneret
The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest f ...
trace their origins to the Hejaz or Najd in the Arabian Peninsula, while the Ghazawiyya's ancestry is said to go back to the Hauran's Misl al-Jizel tribes. They speak distinct dialects of Arabic in the Galilee and the Negev.
Arab populations had existed in some parts of Palestine prior to the conquest, and some of these local Arab tribes and Bedouin fought as allies of Byzantium in resisting the invasion, which the archaeological evidence indicates was a 'peaceful conquest', and the newcomers were allowed to settle in the old urban areas. Theories of population decline compensated by the importation of foreign populations are not confirmed by the archaeological record.[Gideon Avni, ''The Byzantine-Islamic Transition in Palestine: An Archaeological Approach,'' Oxford University Press 2014 pp.312–324, 329 (theory of imported population unsubstantiated);.]
Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant by the Arab Muslim Rashiduns, the formerly dominant languages of the area, Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
and Greek, were gradually replaced by the Arabic language introduced by the new conquering administrative minority. Among the cultural survivals from pre-Islamic times are the significant Palestinian Christian community, roughly 10% of the overall population in late Ottoman times and 45% of Jerusalem's citizens, and smaller Jewish and Samaritan ones, as well as an Aramaic substratum in some local Palestinian Arabic dialects.
The Christians appear to have maintained a majority in much of both Palestine and Syria under Muslim rule until the Crusades. The original conquest in the 630s had guaranteed religious freedom, improving that of the Jews and the Samaritans, who were classified with the former. However, as dhimmi, adult males had to pay the jizya or "protection tax". The economic burden inflicted on some dhimmi communities (especially that of the Samaritans) sometimes promoted mass conversions. When the Crusaders
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
arrived in Palestine during the 11th century, they made no distinction between Christians who for the Latin rite
Latin liturgical rites, or Western liturgical rites, are Catholic rites of public worship employed by the Latin Church, the largest particular church '' sui iuris'' of the Catholic Church, that originated in Europe where the Latin language once ...
were considered heretics, Jews and Muslims, slaughtering all indiscriminately. The Crusaders, in wresting holy sites such as the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and the Church of the Nativity
The Church of the Nativity, or Basilica of the Nativity,; ar, كَنِيسَةُ ٱلْمَهْد; el, Βασιλική της Γεννήσεως; hy, Սուրբ Ծննդեան տաճար; la, Basilica Nativitatis is a basilica located in B ...
in Bethlehem from the Orthodox church were among several factors that deeply alienated the traditional Christian community, which sought relief in the Muslims. When Saladin overthrew the Crusaders, he restored these sites to Orthodox Christian control. Together with the alienating policies of the Crusaders, the Mongol Invasion
The Mongol invasions and conquests took place during the 13th and 14th centuries, creating history's largest contiguous empire: the Mongol Empire (1206- 1368), which by 1300 covered large parts of Eurasia. Historians regard the Mongol devastati ...
and the rise of the Mamluks were turning points in the fate of Christianity in this region, and their congregations – many Christians having sided with the Mongols – were noticeably reduced under the Mamluks. Stricter regulations to control Christian communities ensued, theological enmities grew, and the process of Arabization and Islamicization strengthened, abetted with the inflow of nomadic Bedouin tribes in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Palestinian villagers generally trace the origins of their clan (hamula) to the Arabian peninsula. Many avow oral traditions of descent from nomadic Arab tribes that migrated to Palestine during or shortly after the Islamic conquest.[Ted Swedenburg]
p.81
Some trace their origins back to the Saladin
Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سهلاحهدین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egypt and ...
's armies, downplaying his Kurdish ancestry. By this claim they attempt to connect themselves to the greater narrative of Arab-Islamic civilization, with origins that are more highly valued Arab socio-cultural context than to genealogical descent from local ancient pre-Arab or pre-Islamic peoples. Even so, these Palestinians still consider themselves to have historical precedence to the Jews, whom they regard as Europeans who only began to immigrate to Palestine in the 19th century.
Many Palestinian families of the notable class (a'yan) claim to trace their origins back to tribes in the Arabian peninsula who settled the area after the Muslim conquest. This includes the Nusaybah family
The Nussaiba Clan, commonly spelt in English as Nuseibeh ( ar, عائلة نسيبة; also spelt ''Nusaibah'' and ''Nusseibeh'') is the oldest Muslim dynasty in Jerusalem. The Nussaiba family has a long history and tight bonds with the Holy Land, ...
of Jerusalem, the Tamimi
Banū Tamīm ( ar, بَنُو تَمِيم) is an Arabs, Arab tribe that originated in Najd in the Arabian Peninsula. It is mainly present in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Algeria, and has a strong presence in Morocco, State of Pale ...
family of Nabi Salih, and the Barghouti family of Bani Zeid
Bani Zeid ( ar, بني زيد) is a Palestinian town in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate in the north-central West Bank, located northwest of Ramallah, about 45 kilometers northwest of Jerusalem and about southwest of Salfit. A town of ...
.[Bussow, 2011, p]
114
/ref>[Sharon, 2004]
p.41
/ref> The Shawish, al-Husayni
Husayni ( ar, الحسيني also spelled Husseini) is the name of a prominent Palestinian Arab clan formerly based in Jerusalem, which claims descent from Husayn ibn Ali (the son of Ali).
The Husaynis follow the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam ...
, and Al-Zayadina Al-Zayadina (singular: Zaydani or Zidany, also called the Banu Zaydan) were an Arab clan based in the Galilee. They were best known after one of their sheikhs (chiefs) Zahir al-Umar, who, through his tax farms, economic monopolies, popular suppor ...
[Joudah, 1987, p. 20.] clans trace their heritage to Muhammad through his grandsons, Husayn ibn Ali and Hassan ibn Ali
Hasan ibn Ali ( ar, الحسن بن علي, translit=Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī; ) was a prominent early Islamic figure. He was the eldest son of Ali and Fatima and a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He briefly ruled as caliph from Ja ...
.
Arabs in Palestine, both Christian and Muslim, settled and Bedouin were historically split between the Qays and Yaman factions. These divisions had their origins in pre-Islamic tribal feuds between Northern Arabians ('' Qaysis'') and Southern Arabians (''Yamanis''). The strife between the two tribal confederacies spread throughout the Arab world with their conquests, subsuming even uninvolved families so that the population of Palestine identified with one or the other.[ Their conflicts continued after the 8th century Civil war in Palestine until the early 20th century and gave rise to differences in customs, tradition, and dialect which remain to this day.][
]Beit Sahour
Beit Sahour or Beit Sahur ( ar, بيت ساحور pronounced ; Palestine grid 170/123) is a Palestinian town east of Bethlehem, in the Bethlehem Governorate of the State of Palestine. The city is under the administration of the Palestinian Nation ...
was first settled in the 14th century by a handful of Christian and Muslim clans (''hamula'') from Wadi Musa
Wadi Musa ( ar, وادي موسى, literally "Valley of Musa (AS)) is a town located in the Ma'an Governorate in southern Jordan. It is the administrative center of the Petra Department and the nearest town to the archaeological site of Petra. I ...
in Jordan, the Christian Jaraisa and the Muslim Shaybat and Jubran, who came to work as shepherds for Bethlehem's Christian landowners, and they were subsequently joined by other Greek Orthodox immigrants from Egypt in the 17th–18th centuries.
During the first half of the 19th century, there were several waves of immigration from Egypt to Palestine. They favored settling in already established localities. There used to be 19 villages in the southern coastal plains and near Ramla with families of Egyptian descent, and to this day, some villages in the northern parts of the region of Samaria, especially the 'Ara Valley, have a sizeable population of Egyptian descent. In addition, some rural and urban Palestinians have Albanian, Bosnian, Circassian, or other non-Arab ancestry due to the legacy of the Ottoman period, which brought non-Arab communities to the region in the 19th century.
Canaanism
Claims emanating from certain circles within Palestinian society and their supporters, proposing that Palestinians have direct ancestral connections to the ancient Canaanites, without an intermediate Israelite link, has been an issue of contention within the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Bernard Lewis wrote that "the rewriting of the past is usually undertaken to achieve specific political aims ... In bypassing the biblical Israelites and claiming kinship with the Canaanites, the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Palestine, it is possible to assert a historical claim antedating the biblical promise and possession put forward by the Jews."[
Some Palestinian scholars, like Zakariyya Muhammad, have criticized pro-Palestinian arguments based on Canaanite lineage, or what he calls "Canaanite ideology". He states that it is an "intellectual fad, divorced from the concerns of ordinary people."] By assigning its pursuit to the desire to predate Jewish national claims, he describes ''Canaanism'' as a "losing ideology", whether or not it is factual, "when used to manage our conflict with the Zionist movement" since ''Canaanism'' "concedes a priori
("from the earlier") and ("from the later") are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, justification, or argument by their reliance on empirical evidence or experience. knowledge is independent from current ...
the central thesis of Zionism. Namely that we have been engaged in a perennial conflict with Zionism—and hence with the Jewish presence in Palestine—since the Kingdom of Solomon and before ... thus in one stroke Canaanism cancels the assumption that Zionism is a European movement, propelled by modern European contingencies..."[
Commenting on the implications of Canaanite ideology, Eric M. Meyers, a Duke University historian of religion, writes:
]What is the significance of the Palestinians really being descended from the Canaanites? In the early and more conservative reconstruction of history, it might be said that this merely confirms the historic enmity between Israel and its enemies. However, some scholars believe that Israel actually emerged from within the Canaanite community itself (Northwest Semites) and allied itself with Canaanite elements against the city-states and elites of Canaan. Once they were disenfranchised by these city-states and elites, the Israelites and some disenfranchised Canaanites joined to challenge the hegemony of the heads of the city-states and forged a new identity in the hill country based on egalitarian principles and a common threat from without. This is another irony in modern politics: the Palestinians in truth are blood brothers or cousins of the modern Israelis — they are all descendants of Abraham and Ishmael, so to speak.
Relationship to the Jewish people
A number of pre-Mandatory Zionists, from Ahad Ha'am and Ber Borochov to David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the nam ...
and Yitzhak Ben Zvi
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi ( he, יִצְחָק בֶּן־צְבִי ''Yitshak Ben-Tsvi''; 24 November 188423 April 1963) was a historian, Labor Zionist leader and the longest-serving President of Israel.
Biography
Born in Poltava in the Russian Empir ...
thought of the Palestinian peasant population as descended from the ancient biblical Hebrews, but this belief was disowned when its ideological implications became problematic.[ Ahad Ha'am believed that, "the Moslems ]f Palestine
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
His ...
are the ancient residents of the land ... who became Christians on the rise of Christianity and became Moslems on the arrival of Islam."[ ]Israel Belkind
Israel Belkind ( be, Ізраэль Белкінд, he, ישראל בלקינד; 1861–1929) was a Jewish educator, author, writer, historian and founder of the Bilu movement. A pioneer of the First Aliyah, Belkind founded the ''Biluim'', a gro ...
, the founder of the Bilu movement also asserted that the Palestinian Arabs were the blood brothers of the Jews.[ Ber Borochov, one of the key ideological architects of Marxist Zionism, claimed as early as 1905 that " e ]Fellah
A fellah ( ar, فَلَّاح ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a peasant, usually a farmer or agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic word for "ploughman" or "tiller". ...
in in Eretz-Israel
The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine (see also Israe ...
are the descendants of remnants of the Hebrew agricultural community", believing them to be descendants of the ancient Hebrew residents "together with a small admixture of Arab blood".[ He further believed that the Palestinian peasantry would embrace Zionism and that the lack of a crystallized national consciousness among Palestinian Arabs would result in their likely assimilation into the new Hebrew nationalism, and that Arabs and Jews would unite in class struggle.][
David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben Zvi, later becoming Israel's first Prime Minister and second President, respectively, suggested in a 1918 paper written in ]Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
that The fellahin are descended from ancient Jewish and Samaritan farmers, " Am ha'aretz" (People of the Land), who continued farming the land after the Jewish-Roman Wars and despite the ensuing persecution for their faith. While the wealthier, more educated, and more religious Jews departed and joined centers of religious freedom in the diaspora, many of those who remained converted their religions, first to Christianity, then to Islam. They also claimed that these peasants and their mode of life were living historical testimonies to ancient Israelite
The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...
practices described in the Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
'' Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...
.[ Gil, Moshe. ]983
Year 983 ( CMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Summer – Diet of Verona: Emperor Otto II (the Red) declares war against the Byza ...
1997. ''A History of Palestine, 634–1099''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 222–3: "David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the nam ...
and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi ( he, יִצְחָק בֶּן־צְבִי ''Yitshak Ben-Tsvi''; 24 November 188423 April 1963) was a historian, Labor Zionist leader and the longest-serving President of Israel.
Biography
Born in Poltava in the Russian Empir ...
claimed that the population at the time of the Arab conquest was mainly Christian, of Jewish origins, which underwent conversion to avoid a tax burden, basing their argument on 'the fact that at the time of the Arab conquest, the population of Palestine was mainly Christian, and that during the Crusaders’ conquest some four hundred years later, it was mainly Muslim. As neither the Byzantines nor the Muslims carried out any large-scale population resettlement projects, the Christians were the offspring of the Jewish and Samaritan farmers who converted to Christianity in the Byzantine period; while the Muslim fellaheen in Palestine in modern times are descendants of those Christians who were the descendants of Jews, and had turned to Islam before the Crusaders’ conquest." Ben Zvi stated in a later writing that "Obviously, it would be incorrect to claim that all fellahin are descended from the ancient Jews; rather, we are discussing their majority or their foundation", and that "The vast majority of the fellahin are not descended from Arab conquerors but rather from the Jewish peasants who made up the majority in the region before the Islamic conquest". Tamari notes that "the ideological implications of this claim became very problematic and were soon withdrawn from circulation." Salim Tamari
Salim Tamari ( ar, سليم تماري; born 1945), is a Palestinian sociologist who is the director of the Institute of Palestine Studies and an adjunct professor at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University. Rashid Khali ...
notes the paradoxes produced by the search for "nativist" roots among these Zionist figures, particularly the Canaanist followers of Yonatan Ratosh
Yonatan Ratosh () was the literary pseudonym of Uriel Shelach ( he, אוריאל שלח) (November 18, 1908 – March 25, 1981), an Israeli poet and journalist who founded the Canaanite movement.
Biography
Uriel Heilperin (later Shelach) was ...
, who sought to replace the "old" diasporic Jewish identity with a nationalism that embraced the existing residents of Palestine.
In his book on the Palestinians, ''The Arabs in Eretz-Israel'', Belkind advanced the idea that the dispersion of Jews out of the Land of Israel after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
emperor Titus
Titus Caesar Vespasianus ( ; 30 December 39 – 13 September 81 AD) was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death.
Before becoming emperor, Titus gained renown as a mili ...
is a "historic error" that must be corrected. While it dispersed much of the land's Jewish community around the world, those "workers of the land that remained attached to their land," stayed behind and were eventually converted to Christianity and then Islam.[ He therefore, proposed that this historical wrong be corrected, by embracing the Palestinians as their own and proposed the opening of Hebrew schools for Palestinian Arab Muslims to teach them Arabic, Hebrew and universal culture.][Israel Belkind, ''Arabs in Eretz Israel'', Tel Aviv: Hermon Publishers, 1969, p. 8.] Tsvi Misinai
Tsvi Jekhorin Misinai ( he, צבי מסיני; born 15 April 1946) is an Israeli researcher, author, historian, computer scientist and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the Israeli software industry, he now spends most of his time researching and docum ...
, an Israeli researcher, entrepreneur and proponent of a controversial alternative solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, asserts that nearly 90% of all Palestinians living within Israel and the occupied territories
Military occupation, also known as belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is the effective military control by a ruling power over a territory that is outside of that power's sovereign territory.Eyāl Benveniśtî. The international law ...
(including Israel's Arab citizens and Negev Bedouin)[The lost Palestinian Jews]
- 20 August 2009 are descended from the Jewish Israelite peasantry that remained on the land, after the others, mostly city dwellers, were exiled or left.[A tragic misunderstanding]
nbsp;– Times online, 13 January 2009.
According to Israeli historian Moshe Gil
Moshe Gil ( he, משה גיל; February 8, 1921 – January 23, 2014) was an Israeli historian.
Academic career
Moshe Gil specialized in the historical interaction between Islam and the Jews, including the history of Palestine under the Islami ...
, in order to accept the theory of the Jewish origin of the Palestinians, it must be assumed that there was a mass conversion of Jews to Islam at some time, but according to him "there is no information in the sources - Jewish, Christian or Muslim - about a mass conversion of Jews to Islam in any place and at any time, unless it is a case of a forced conversion," and in any case "there is no such information about the Land of Israel" and therefore "there is no reason to think that the Arabs of the Land of Israel were descendants of Jews".
Many Palestinians referred to their Jewish neighbors as their ''awlâd 'ammnâ'' or paternal cousins. Some Palestinians claim descent from Arab tribes who entered the region during the Islamic conquest, and consider themselves to have historical precedence to the Jews, whom they regard as Europeans who only began to immigrate to Palestine in the 19th century. By such a claim, they inserted their family's history into the narrative of Islamic civilization and connected themselves to genealogy that possessed greater prestige than that of ancient or pre-Islamic descent. Several Palestinian extended families, most notably the Makhamra family
The Makhamra family ( ar, المخامرة), also Muhamra or Mahmara, is an extended family from the Palestinian city of Yatta, in the Hebron Governorate, West Bank. It is one of the largest clans in the southern Hebron Hills. In Palestinian Ar ...
of Yatta, have recent traditions of having a Jewish ancestry.
DNA and genetic studies
A study found that the Palestinians, like Jordanians, Syrians, Iraqis, Turks, and Kurds have what appears to be Female-Mediated gene flow in the form of Maternal DNA Haplogroups from Sub-Saharan Africa. 15% of the 117 Palestinian individuals tested carried maternal haplogroups that originated in Sub-Saharan Africa. These results are consistent with female migration from eastern Africa into Near Eastern communities within the last few thousand years. There have been many opportunities for such migrations during this period. However, the most likely explanation for the presence of predominantly female lineages of African origin in these areas is that they may trace back to women brought from Africa as part of the Arab slave trade, assimilated into the areas under Arab rule.
According to a study published in June 2017 by Ranajit Das, Paul Wexler, Mehdi Pirooznia, and Eran Elhaik in ''Frontiers in Genetics
Frontiers Media SA is a publisher of peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journals currently active in science, technology, and medicine. It was founded in 2007 by Kamila and Henry Markram, and has since expanded to other academic fields. Fron ...
'', "in a principal component analysis (PCA) f DNA
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
Hist ...
the ancient Levantines rom the Natufian and Neolithic periodsclustered predominantly with modern-day Palestinians and Bedouins..." In a study published in August 2017 by Marc Haber et al. in ''The American Journal of Human Genetics'', the authors concluded that "The overlap between the Bronze Age and present-day Levantines suggests a degree of genetic continuity in the region."
In a 2003 genetic study, Bedouins showed the highest rates (62.5%) of the subclade Haplogroup J-M267
Haplogroup J-M267, also commonly known as Haplogroup J1, is a subclade (branch) of Y-DNA haplogroup J-P209 (commonly known as haplogroup J) along with its sibling clade haplogroup J-M172 (commonly known as haplogroup J2). (All these haplogro ...
among all populations tested, followed by Palestinian Arabs (38.4%), Iraqis (28.2%), Ashkenazi Jews (14.6%) and Sephardic Jews (11.9%), according to Semino et al. Semitic-speaking populations usually possess an excess of J1 Y chromosomes compared to other populations harboring Y-haplogroup J.[ "J1 is the only haplogroup that researchers consider "Semitic" in origin"] The haplogroup J1, the ancestor of subclade M267, originates south of the Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...
and was first disseminated from there into Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
and Europe in Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...
times. J1 is most common in Palestine, as well as Syria, Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
, Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
, and Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plat ...
, and drops sharply at the border of non-semitic areas like Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
and Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. A second diffusion of the J1 marker took place in the 7th century CE when Arabians brought it from Arabia to North Africa.
A 2013 study by Haber et al. found that "The predominantly Muslim populations of Syrians, Palestinians and Jordanians cluster on branches with other Muslim populations as distant as Morocco and Yemen." The authors explained that "religious affiliation had a strong impact on the genomes of the Levantines. In particular, conversion of the region's populations to Islam appears to have introduced major rearrangements in populations' relations through admixture with culturally similar but geographically remote populations leading to genetic similarities between remarkably distant populations." The study found that Christians and Druze became genetically isolated following the arrival of Islam. The authors reconstructed the genetic structure of pre-Islamic Levant and found that "it was more genetically similar to Europeans than to Middle Easterners."
In a genetic study of Y-chromosomal STRs in two populations from Israel and the Palestinian Authority Area: Christian and Muslim Palestinians showed genetic differences. The majority of Palestinian Christians (31.82%) were a subclade of E1b1b
E-M215, also known as E1b1b and formerly E3b, is a major human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. It is a division of the macro-haplogroup E-M96, which is defined by the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutation M215. In other words, it is one of ...
, followed by G2a
G2A.COM Limited (commonly referred to as G2A) is a digital marketplace headquartered in the Netherlands, with offices in Poland and Hong Kong. The site specializes in the resale of gaming products by the use of redemption keys. Other product ...
(11.36%), and J1 (9.09%). The majority of Palestinian Muslims were haplogroup J1 (37.82%) followed by E1b1b
E-M215, also known as E1b1b and formerly E3b, is a major human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup. It is a division of the macro-haplogroup E-M96, which is defined by the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutation M215. In other words, it is one of ...
(19.33%), and T (5.88%). The study sample consisted of 44 Palestinian Christians and 119 Palestinian Muslims.
Between the Jews and Palestinians
In recent years, genetic studies have demonstrated that, at least paternally, Jewish ethnic divisions and the Palestinians are related to each other. Genetic studies on Jews have shown that Jews and Palestinians are closer to each other than the Jews are to their host countries. At the haplogroup level, defined by the binary polymorphisms only, the Y chromosome distribution in Arabs and Jews was similar but not identical.
According to a 2010 study by Behar et al. titled "The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people", Palestinians tested clustered genetically close to Bedouins, Jordanians and Saudi Arabians which was described as "consistent with a common origin in the Arabian Peninsula". In the same year a study by Atzmon and Harry Ostrer
Harry Ostrer is a medical geneticist who investigates the genetic basis of common and rare disorders. In the diagnostic laboratory, he translates the findings of genetic discoveries into tests that can be used to identify people's risks for dise ...
concluded that the Palestinians were, together with Bedouins, Druze and southern European groups, the closest genetic neighbors to most Jewish populations.
One DNA study by Nebel found substantial genetic overlap among Israeli/Palestinian Arabs and Jews. Nebel proposed that "part, or perhaps the majority" of Muslim Palestinians descend from "local inhabitants, mainly Christians and Jews, who had converted after the Islamic conquest in the seventh century AD".[
A 2020 study on remains from Canaanaite (Bronze Age southern Levantine) populations suggests a significant degree of genetic continuity in Arabic-speaking Levantine populations (such as Palestinians, Druze, Lebanese, Jordanians, Bedouins, and Syrians), as well as in several Jewish groups (such as Ashkenazi, Iranian, and Moroccan Jews), suggesting that the aforementioned groups derive over half of their entire ]atDNA
An autosome is any chromosome that is not a sex chromosome. The members of an autosome pair in a diploid cell have the same morphology, unlike those in allosomal (sex chromosome) pairs, which may have different structures. The DNA in autosomes ...
ancestry from Canaanite/Bronze Age Levantine populations, albeit with varying sources and degrees of admixture from differing host or invading populations depending on each group. The results also show that a significant European component was added to the region since the Bronze Age (on average ~8.7%), excluding the Ashkenazi populations who harbour a ~41% European-related component. The European component is highest in Moroccan and Ashkenazi Jews, both having a history in Europe. The study concludes that this does not mean that any of these present-day groups bear direct ancestry from people who lived in the Middle-to-Late Bronze Age Levant or in Chalcolithic Zagros
The Zagros Mountains ( ar, جبال زاغروس, translit=Jibal Zaghrus; fa, کوههای زاگرس, Kuh hā-ye Zāgros; ku, چیاکانی زاگرۆس, translit=Çiyakani Zagros; Turkish: ''Zagros Dağları''; Luri: ''Kuh hā-ye Zāgr ...
; rather, it indicates that they have ancestries from populations whose ancient proxy can be related to the Middle East. These present-day groups also show ancestries that cannot be modeled by the available ancient DNA data, highlighting the importance of additional major genetic effects on the region since the Bronze Age.
Identity
Emergence of a distinct identity
The timing and causes behind the emergence of a distinctively Palestinian national consciousness among the Arabs of Palestine are matters of scholarly disagreement. Some argue that it can be traced as far back as the peasants' revolt in Palestine
The Peasants' Revolt was a rebellion against Egyptian conscription and taxation policies in Palestine. While rebel ranks consisted mostly of the local peasantry, urban notables and Bedouin tribes also formed an integral part of the revolt, wh ...
in 1834 (or even as early as the 17th century), while others argue that it did not emerge until after the Mandatory Palestine period. Legal historian Assaf Likhovski states that the prevailing view is that Palestinian identity originated in the early decades of the 20th century, when an embryonic desire among Palestinians for self-government in the face of generalized fears that Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
would lead to a Jewish state
In world politics, Jewish state is a characterization of Israel as the nation-state and sovereign homeland of the Jewish people.
Modern Israel came into existence on 14 May 1948 as a polity to serve as the homeland for the Jewish people. ...
and the dispossession of the Arab majority crystallised among most editors, Christian and Muslim, of local newspapers. The term itself ''Filasṭīnī'' was first introduced by Khalīl Beidas in a translation of a Russian work on the Holy Land into Arabic in 1898. After that, its usage gradually spread so that, by 1908, with the loosening of censorship controls under late Ottoman rule, a number of Muslim, Christian and Jewish correspondents writing for newspapers began to use the term with great frequency in referring to the 'Palestinian people'(''ahl/ahālī Filasṭīn''), 'Palestinians' (''al-Filasṭīnīyūn'') the 'sons of Palestine(''abnā’ Filasṭīn'') or to 'Palestinian society',(''al-mujtama' al-filasṭīnī'').[Zachary J Foster, Emanuel Bešk]
'The Origins of the term “Palestinian” (“Filasṭīnī”) in late Ottoman Palestine, 1898–1914,'
''Academic Letters 2021 pp.1-22''
Whatever the differing viewpoints over the timing, causal mechanisms, and orientation of Palestinian nationalism, by the early 20th century strong opposition to Zionism and evidence of a burgeoning nationalistic Palestinian identity is found in the content of Arabic-language newspapers in Palestine, such as '' Al-Karmil'' (est. 1908) and '' Filasteen'' (est. 1911).[Khalidi, 1997, pp. 124–127.] Filasteen initially focused its critique of Zionism around the failure of the Ottoman administration to control Jewish immigration and the large influx of foreigners, later exploring the impact of Zionist land-purchases on Palestinian peasants ( ar, فلاحين, ''fellahin
A fellah ( ar, فَلَّاح ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a peasant, usually a farmer or Agriculture, agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic language, Arabic wor ...
''), expressing growing concern over land dispossession and its implications for the society at large.[
Historian ]Rashid Khalidi
Rashid Ismail Khalidi (; born 1948) is an American historian of the Middle East and the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. He served as editor of the '' Journal of Palestine Studies'' from 2002 until 2020, whe ...
's 1997 book ''Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness'' is considered a "foundational text" on the subject. He notes that the archaeological strata that denote the history of Palestine – encompassing the Biblical, Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
, Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
, Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the ...
, Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
, Fatimid
The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids, a dyna ...
, Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk
Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...
and Ottoman periods – form part of the identity of the modern-day Palestinian people, as they have come to understand it over the last century.Rashid Khalidi
Rashid Ismail Khalidi (; born 1948) is an American historian of the Middle East and the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. He served as editor of the '' Journal of Palestine Studies'' from 2002 until 2020, whe ...
''Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness,''
New York: Columbia University Press, 2010, p. 18. Noting that Palestinian identity has never been an exclusive one, with "Arabism, religion, and local loyalties" playing an important role, Khalidi cautions against the efforts of some extreme advocates of Palestinian nationalism to "anachronistically" read back into history a nationalist consciousness that is in fact "relatively modern".[Khalidi, 1997, pp. 19–21.]
Khalidi argues that the modern national identity of Palestinians has its roots in nationalist
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Th ...
discourses that emerged among the peoples of the Ottoman empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
in the late 19th century that sharpened following the demarcation of modern nation-state boundaries in the Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
after World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.[ Khalidi also states that although the challenge posed by ]Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
played a role in shaping this identity, that "it is a serious mistake to suggest that Palestinian identity emerged mainly as a response to Zionism."[
]
Conversely, historian James L. Gelvin argues that Palestinian nationalism
Palestinian nationalism is the national movement of the Palestinian people that espouses self-determination and sovereignty over the region of Palestine.de Waart, 1994p. 223 Referencing Article 9 of ''The Palestinian National Charter of 1968 ...
was a direct reaction to Zionism. In his book ''The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War'' he states that "Palestinian nationalism emerged during the interwar period in response to Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
immigration and settlement."[Gelvin, 2005, pp. 92–93.] Gelvin argues that this fact does not make the Palestinian identity any less legitimate: "The fact that Palestinian nationalism developed later than Zionism and indeed in response to it does not in any way diminish the legitimacy of Palestinian nationalism or make it less valid than Zionism. All nationalisms arise in opposition to some 'other.' Why else would there be the need to specify who you are? And all nationalisms are defined by what they oppose."
David Seddon writes that " e creation of Palestinian identity in its contemporary sense was formed essentially during the 1960s, with the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization." He adds, however, that "the existence of a population with a recognizably similar name ('the Philistines') in Biblical times suggests a degree of continuity over a long historical period (much as 'the Israelites' of the Bible suggest a long historical continuity in the same region)."
Baruch Kimmerling
Baruch Kimmerling (Hebrew: ברוך קימרלינג; 16 October 1939 – 20 May 2007) was an Israeli scholar and professor of sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Upon his death in 2007, ''The Times'' described him as "the first academ ...
and Joel S. Migdal consider the 1834 Peasants' revolt in Palestine
The Peasants' Revolt was a rebellion against Egyptian conscription and taxation policies in Palestine. While rebel ranks consisted mostly of the local peasantry, urban notables and Bedouin tribes also formed an integral part of the revolt, wh ...
as constituting the first formative event of the Palestinian people. From 1516 to 1917, Palestine was ruled by the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
save a decade from the 1830s to the 1840s when an Egyptian vassal of the Ottomans, Muhammad Ali, and his son Ibrahim Pasha successfully broke away from Ottoman leadership and, conquering territory spreading from Egypt to as far north as Damascus, asserted their own rule over the area. The so-called Peasants' Revolt
The Peasants' Revolt, also named Wat Tyler's Rebellion or the Great Rising, was a major uprising across large parts of England in 1381. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Blac ...
by Palestine's Arabs was precipitated by heavy demands for conscripts. The local leaders and urban notables were unhappy about the loss of traditional privileges, while the peasants were well aware that conscription was little more than a death sentence. Starting in May 1834 the rebels took many cities, among them Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, Hebron
Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after Eas ...
and Nablus and Ibrahim Pasha's army was deployed, defeating the last rebels on 4 August in Hebron.[Kimmerling and Migdal, 2003, p. 6–11] Benny Morris argues that the Arabs in Palestine nevertheless remained part of a larger national pan-Arab or, alternatively, pan-Islamist movement. Walid Khalidi
Walid Khalidi ( ar, وليد خالدي, born 1925 in Jerusalem) is an Oxford University-educated Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, establish ...
argues otherwise, writing that Palestinians in Ottoman times were " utely aware of the distinctiveness of Palestinian history ..." and " though proud of their Arab heritage and ancestry, the Palestinians considered themselves to be descended not only from Arab conquerors of the seventh century but also from indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
who had lived in the country since time immemorial, including the ancient Hebrews
The terms ''Hebrews'' (Hebrew: / , Modern: ' / ', Tiberian: ' / '; ISO 259-3: ' / ') and ''Hebrew people'' are mostly considered synonymous with the Semitic-speaking Israelites, especially in the pre-monarchic period when they were still ...
and the Canaanites before them."[Khalidi, W., 1984, p. 32]
Zachary J. Foster argued in a 2015 ''Foreign Affairs'' article that "based on hundreds of manuscripts, Islamic court records, books, magazines, and newspapers from the Ottoman period (1516–1918), it seems that the first Arab to use the term "Palestinian" was Farid Georges Kassab, a Beirut-based Orthodox Christian." He explained further that Kassab's 1909 book ''Palestine, Hellenism, and Clericalism'' noted in passing that "the Orthodox Palestinian Ottomans call themselves Arabs, and are in fact Arabs," despite describing the Arabic speakers of Palestine as Palestinians throughout the rest of the book."
Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis, (31 May 1916 – 19 May 2018) was a British American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near ...
argues it was not as a Palestinian nation that the Arabs of Ottoman Palestine objected to Zionists, since the very concept of such a nation was unknown to the Arabs of the area at the time and did not come into being until very much later. Even the concept of Arab nationalism in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, "had not reached significant proportions before the outbreak of World War I."[ Tamir Sorek, a sociologist, submits that, "Although a distinct Palestinian identity can be traced back at least to the middle of the nineteenth century (Kimmerling and Migdal 1993; Khalidi 1997b), or even to the seventeenth century (Gerber 1998), it was not until after World War I that a broad range of optional ''political'' affiliations became relevant for the Arabs of Palestine."]
Israeli historian Efraim Karsh
Efraim Karsh ( he, אפרים קארש; born 1953) is an Israeli–British historian who is the founding director and emeritus professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London. Since 2013, he has served as professor of p ...
takes the view that the Palestinian identity did not develop until after the 1967 war because the Palestinian exodus had fractured society so greatly that it was impossible to piece together a national identity. Between 1948 and 1967, the Jordanians and other Arab countries hosting Arab refugees from Palestine/Israel silenced any expression of Palestinian identity and occupied their lands until Israel's conquests of 1967. The formal annexation of the West Bank by Jordan in 1950, and the subsequent granting of its Palestinian residents Jordanian citizenship, further stunted the growth of a Palestinian national identity by integrating them into Jordanian society.
The idea of a unique Palestinian state distinct from its Arab neighbors was at first rejected by Palestinian representatives. The First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations In 1918, following the British defeat of the Ottoman army and their establishment of a Military Government in Palestine, a number of political clubs called Muslim-Christian Associations (''Al-Jam'iah al-Islamiya al-Massihiya'') were established in ...
(in Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
, February 1919), which met for the purpose of selecting a Palestinian Arab representative for the Paris Peace Conference, 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
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
, natural, economic and geographical bonds."
Rise of Palestinian nationalism
An independent Palestinian state has not exercised full sovereignty
Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...
over the land in which the Palestinians have lived during the modern era. Palestine was administered by the Ottoman Empire until World War I, and then overseen by the British Mandatory authorities. Israel was established in parts of Palestine in 1948, and in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the West Bank was ruled by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip by Egypt, with both countries continuing to administer these areas until Israel occupied them in the Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Ju ...
. Historian Avi Shlaim states that the Palestinians' lack of sovereignty over the land has been used by Israelis to deny Palestinians their rights
to self-determination.
Today, the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination has been affirmed by the United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
, the International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...
[Only "peoples" are entitled to self-determination in contemporary international law (See Self-determination and National Minorities, Oxford Monographs in International Law, Thomas D. Musgrave, Oxford University Press, 1997, , p. 170). In 2004, the International Court of Justice said that Israel had recognized the existence of a "Palestinian people" and referred a number of times to the Palestinian people and its "legitimate rights" in international agreements. The Court said those rights include the right to self-determination(See paragraph 118 of Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory ). Judge Koroma explained "The Court has also held that the right of self-determination as an established and recognized right under international law applies to the territory and to the Palestinian people. Accordingly, the exercise of such right entitles the Palestinian people to a State of their own as originally envisaged in resolution 181 (II) and subsequently confirmed." Judge Higgins also said "that the Palestinian people are entitled to their territory, to exercise self-determination, and to have their own State"(See paragraph 5, Separate opinion of Judge Koroma and paragraph 18, Separate opinion of Judge Higgins ). Paul De Waart said that the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice in 2004 "ascertained the present responsibility of the United Nations to protect Palestine's statehood. It affirmed the applicability of the prohibition of acquisition of Palestinian territory by Israel and confirmed the illegality of the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Moreover, the existence of the Palestinian people as the rightful claimant to the Occupied Palestinian Territory is no longer open to question (See De Waart, Paul J. I. M., "International Court of Justice Firmly Walled in the Law of Power in the Israeli–Palestinian Peace Process", ''Leiden Journal of International Law'', 18 (2005), pp. 467–487).] and several Israeli authorities. A total of 133 countries recognize Palestine as a state. However, Palestinian sovereignty over the areas claimed as part of the Palestinian state remains limited, and the boundaries of the state remain a point of contestation between Palestinians and Israelis.
British Mandate (1917–1947)
The first Palestinian nationalist organizations emerged at the end of the World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. Two political factions emerged. ''al-Muntada al-Adabi
al-Muntada al-Adabia was an organisation set up in the last years of the Ottoman Empire to promote Arabic culture. Its publicly stated aims were non-political but it became an incubator for the growing Arab Nationalist movement.
The 1908 Committee ...
'', dominated by the Nashashibi
Nashashibi ( ar, النشاشيبي; transliteration, Al-Nashāshībī) is the name of a prominent Palestinian family based in Jerusalem.
After the First World War, during the British period, Raghib al-Nashashibi was Mayor of Jerusalem (1920–1 ...
family, militated for the promotion of the Arabic language and culture, for the defense of Islamic values and for an independent Syria and Palestine. In Damascus, ''al-Nadi al-Arabi'', dominated by the Husayni
Husayni ( ar, الحسيني also spelled Husseini) is the name of a prominent Palestinian Arab clan formerly based in Jerusalem, which claims descent from Husayn ibn Ali (the son of Ali).
The Husaynis follow the Hanafi school of Sunni Isla ...
family, defended the same values.
Article 22 of The Covenant of the League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
conferred an international legal status upon the territories and people which had ceased to be under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire as part of a 'sacred trust of civilization'. Article 7 of the League of Nations Mandate required the establishment of a new, separate, Palestinian nationality for the inhabitants. This meant that Palestinians did not become British citizens, and that Palestine was not annexed into the British dominions. The Mandate document divided the population into Jewish and non-Jewish, and Britain, the Mandatory Power considered the Palestinian population to be composed of religious, not national, groups. Consequently, government censuses in 1922 and 1931 would categorize Palestinians confessionally as Muslims, Christians and Jews, with the category of Arab absent.
The articles of the Mandate mentioned the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine, but not their political status. At the San Remo conference
The San Remo conference was an international meeting of the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council as an outgrowth of the Paris Peace Conference, held at Villa Devachan in Sanremo, Italy, from 19 to 26 April 1920. The San Remo Resolution pas ...
, it was decided to accept the text of those articles, while inserting in the minutes of the conference an undertaking by the Mandatory Power that this would not involve the surrender of any of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine. In 1922, the British authorities over Mandatory Palestine proposed a draft constitution that would have granted the Palestinian Arabs representation in a Legislative Council on condition that they accept the terms of the mandate. The Palestine Arab delegation rejected the proposal as "wholly unsatisfactory", noting that "the People of Palestine" could not accept the inclusion of the Balfour Declaration in the constitution's preamble as the basis for discussions. They further took issue with the designation of Palestine as a British "colony of the lowest order." The Arabs tried to get the British to offer an Arab legal establishment again roughly ten years later, but to no avail.["Palestine Arabs." ''The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East''. Ed. ]Avraham Sela Avraham Sela is an Israeli historian and scholar on the Middle East and international relations.
__TOC__ Education and Career
Sela studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, gaining a BA in 1971, an MA in 1974 and a PhD in 1986. He currently s ...
. New York: Continuum, 2002.
After the British general, Louis Bols, read out the Balfour Declaration in February 1920, some 1,500 Palestinians demonstrated in the streets of Jerusalem.
A month later, during the 1920 Nebi Musa riots, the protests against British rule and Jewish immigration became violent and Bols banned all demonstrations. In May 1921 however, further anti-Jewish riots broke out in Jaffa and dozens of Arabs and Jews were killed in the confrontations.
After the 1920 Nebi Musa riots
The 1920 Nebi Musa riots or 1920 Jerusalem riots took place in British-controlled part of Occupied Enemy Territory Administration between Sunday, 4 April, and Wednesday, 7 April 1920 in and around the Old City of Jerusalem. Five Jews and four A ...
, the San Remo conference
The San Remo conference was an international meeting of the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council as an outgrowth of the Paris Peace Conference, held at Villa Devachan in Sanremo, Italy, from 19 to 26 April 1920. The San Remo Resolution pas ...
and the failure of Faisal to establish the Kingdom of Greater Syria, a distinctive form of Palestinian Arab nationalism took root between April and July 1920. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
and the French conquest of Syria, coupled with the British conquest and administration of Palestine, the formerly pan-Syrianist mayor of Jerusalem
The Mayor of the City of Jerusalem is head of the executive branch of the political system in Jerusalem. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within Jerusa ...
, Musa Qasim Pasha al-Husayni
Musa Kazim Pasha al-Husayni ( ar, موسى كاظم الحسيني, ) (1853 in Jerusalem – 27 March 1934) held a series of senior posts in the Ottoman administration. He belonged to the prominent al-Husayni family and was mayor of Jerusalem (1 ...
, said "Now, after the recent events in Damascus, we have to effect a complete change in our plans here. Southern Syria no longer exists. We must defend Palestine".
Conflict between Palestinian nationalists and various types of pan-Arabists continued during the British Mandate, but the latter became increasingly marginalized. Two prominent leaders of the Palestinian nationalists were Mohammad Amin al-Husayni
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mono ...
, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, appointed by the British, and Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Izz ad-Din Abd al-Qadar ibn Mustafa ibn Yusuf ibn Muhammad al-Qassam (1881 or 19 December 1882 – 20 November 1935) ( ar, عز الدين بن عبد القادر بن مصطفى بن يوسف بن محمد القسام / ALA-LC: ) was a Syria ...
. After the killing of sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Izz ad-Din Abd al-Qadar ibn Mustafa ibn Yusuf ibn Muhammad al-Qassam (1881 or 19 December 1882 – 20 November 1935) ( ar, عز الدين بن عبد القادر بن مصطفى بن يوسف بن محمد القسام / ALA-LC: ) was a Syria ...
by the British in 1935, his followers initiated the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine, which began with a general strike in Jaffa and attacks on Jewish and British installations in Nablus.[ The Arab Higher Committee called for a nationwide general strike, non-payment of taxes, and the closure of municipal governments, and demanded an end to Jewish immigration and a ban of the sale of land to Jews. By the end of 1936, the movement had become a national revolt, and resistance grew during 1937 and 1938. In response, the British declared ]martial law
Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory.
Use
Marti ...
, dissolved the Arab High Committee and arrested officials from the Supreme Muslim Council who were behind the revolt. By 1939, 5,000 Arabs had been killed in British attempts to quash the revolt; more than 15,000 were wounded.[
]
War (1947–1949)
In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...
adopted the Partition Plan, which divided the mandate of Palestine into two states: one majority Arab and one majority Jewish. The Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan and attacked Jewish civilian areas and paramilitary targets. Following Israel's declaration of independence in May 1948, five Arab armies (Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Transjordan) came to the Palestinian Arabs' aid against the newly founded State of Israel.["Milestones: 1945–1952."](_blank)
''Office of the Historian''. 7 December 2018.
The Palestinian Arabs suffered such a major defeat at the end of the war, that the term they use to describe the war is Nakba
Clickable map of Mandatory Palestine with the depopulated locations during the 1947–1949 Palestine war.
The Nakba ( ar, النكبة, translit=an-Nakbah, lit=the "disaster", "catastrophe", or "cataclysm"), also known as the Palestinian Ca ...
(the "catastrophe").[Sela and Neil Caplan. "Epilogue: Reflections on Post-Oslo Israeli and Palestinian History and Memory of 1948." The War of 1948: Representations of Israeli and Palestinian Memories and Narratives, edited by Sela and Alon Kadish, Indiana University Press, 2016, pp. 203–221.] Israel took control of much of the territory that would have been allocated to the Arab state had the Palestinian Arabs accepted the UN partition plan. Along with a military defeat, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from what became the State of Israel. Israel did not allow the Palestinian refugees
Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country over the course of the 1947–49 Palestine war (1948 Palestinian exodus) and the Six-Day War (1967 Palestinian exodu ...
of the war to return to Israel.
"Lost years" (1949–1967)
After the war, there was a hiatus in Palestinian political activity. Khalidi attributes this to the traumatic events of 1947–49, which included the depopulation of over 400 towns and villages and the creation of hundreds of thousands of refugees.[Khalidi, 1997, pp. 178–180.] 418 villages had been razed, 46,367 buildings, 123 schools, 1,233 mosques, 8 churches and 68 holy shrines, many with a long history, destroyed by Israeli forces. In addition, Palestinians lost from 1.5 to 2 million acres of land, an estimated 150,000 urban and rural homes, and 23,000 commercial structures such as shops and offices. Recent estimates of the cost to Palestinians in property confiscations by Israel from 1948 onwards has concluded that Palestinians have suffered a net $300 billion loss in assets.[
Those parts of British Mandatory Palestine which did not become part of the newly declared Israeli state were occupied by Egypt or annexed by Jordan. At the ]Jericho Conference
The Jericho Conference ( ar, مؤتمر أريحا) was held in December 1948 to decide the future of the portion of Palestine that was held by Jordan at the end of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, led by Sheikh Muhammad Ali Ja'abari. Pro-Jordanian p ...
on 1 December 1948, 2,000 Palestinian delegates supported a resolution calling for "the unification of Palestine and Transjordan as a step toward full Arab unity". During what Khalidi terms the "lost years" that followed, Palestinians lacked a center of gravity, divided as they were between these countries and others such as Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere.[Khalidi, 1997, p. 179.]
In the 1950s, a new generation of Palestinian nationalist groups and movements began to organize clandestinely, stepping out onto the public stage in the 1960s.[Khalidi, 1997, p. 180.] The traditional Palestinian elite who had dominated negotiations with the British and the Zionists in the Mandate, and who were largely held responsible for the loss of Palestine, were replaced by these new movements whose recruits generally came from poor to middle-class backgrounds and were often students or recent graduates of universities in Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...
, Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
and Damascus.[ The potency of the ]pan-Arabist
Pan-Arabism ( ar, الوحدة العربية or ) is an ideology that espouses the unification of the countries of North Africa and Western Asia from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is referred to as the Arab world. It is closely c ...
ideology put forward by Gamal Abdel Nasser—popular among Palestinians for whom Arabism was already an important component of their identity[Khalidi, 1997, p. 182.]—tended to obscure the identities of the separate Arab states it subsumed.[Khalidi, 1997, p. 181.]
1967–present
Since 1967, Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have lived under military occupation, creating, according to Avram Bornstein, a carceralization of their society. In the meantime, pan-Arabism has waned as an aspect of Palestinian identity. The Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank triggered a second Palestinian exodus and fractured Palestinian political and militant groups, prompting them to give up residual hopes in pan-Arabism. They rallied increasingly around the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which had been formed in Cairo in 1964. The group grew in popularity in the following years, especially under the nationalistic orientation of the leadership of Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini (4 / 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), popularly known as Yasser Arafat ( , ; ar, محمد ياسر عبد الرحمن عبد الرؤوف عرفات القدوة الحسيني, Mu ...
.[The PNC adopted the goal of establishing a national state in 1974.] Mainstream secular
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
Palestinian nationalism was grouped together under the umbrella of the PLO whose constituent organizations include Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine ( ar, الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين, translit=al-Jabhah al-Sha`biyyah li-Taḥrīr Filasṭīn, PFLP) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist and revolutionary so ...
, among other groups who at that time believed that political violence was the only way to "liberate" Palestine.[ These groups gave voice to a tradition that emerged in the 1960s that argues Palestinian nationalism has deep historical roots, with extreme advocates reading a Palestinian nationalist consciousness and identity back into the history of Palestine over the past few centuries, and even millennia, when such a consciousness is in fact relatively modern.][Khalidi, 1997, p. 149. Khalidi writes: 'As with other national movements, extreme advocates of this view go further than this, and anachronistically read back into the history of Palestine over the past few centuries, and even millennia, a nationalist consciousness and identity that are in fact relatively modern.']
The Battle of Karameh
The Battle of Karameh ( ar, معركة الكرامة) was a 15-hour military engagement between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and combined forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF) in the Jor ...
and the events of Black September in Jordan
Black September ( ar, أيلول الأسود; ''Aylūl Al-Aswad''), also known as the Jordanian Civil War, was a conflict fought in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan between the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF), under the leadership of King Husse ...
contributed to growing Palestinian support for these groups, particularly among Palestinians in exile. Concurrently, among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a new ideological theme, known as '' sumud'', represented the Palestinian political strategy popularly adopted from 1967 onward. As a concept closely related to the land, agriculture and indigenousness, the ideal image of the Palestinian put forward at this time was that of the peasant (in Arabic, ''fellah
A fellah ( ar, فَلَّاح ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a peasant, usually a farmer or agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic word for "ploughman" or "tiller". ...
'') who stayed put on his land, refusing to leave. A strategy more passive than that adopted by the Palestinian fedayeen, ''sumud'' provided an important subtext to the narrative of the fighters, "in symbolizing continuity and connections with the land, with peasantry and a rural way of life."[Schulz and Hammer, 2003, p. 105.]
In 1974, the PLO was recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by the Arab nation-states and was granted observer status as a national liberation movement
A liberation movement is an organization or political movement leading a rebellion, or a non-violent social movement, against a colonial power or national government, often seeking independence based on a nationalist identity and an anti-imperial ...
by the United Nations that same year.[ Israel rejected the resolution, calling it "shameful".] In a speech to the Knesset
The Knesset ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...
, Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Yigal Allon
Yigal Allon ( he, יגאל אלון; 10 October 1918 – 29 February 1980) was an Israeli politician, commander of the Palmach, and general in the Israel Defense Forces, IDF. He served as one of the leaders of Ahdut HaAvoda party and the Labor P ...
outlined the government's view that: "No one can expect us to recognize the terrorist organization called the PLO as representing the Palestinians—because it does not. No one can expect us to negotiate with the heads of terror-gangs, who through their ideology and actions, endeavor to liquidate the State of Israel."[
In 1975, the United Nations established a subsidiary organ, the , to recommend a program of implementation to enable the Palestinian people to exercise national independence and their rights to self-determination without external interference, national independence and sovereignty, and to return to their homes and property.
]
The First Intifada (1987–93) was the first popular uprising against the Israeli occupation of 1967. Followed by the PLO's 1988 proclamation of a State of Palestine, these developments served to further reinforce the Palestinian national identity. After the Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
in 1991, Kuwaiti authorities forcibly pressured nearly 200,000 Palestinians to leave Kuwait. The policy which partly led to this exodus was a response to the alignment of PLO leader Yasser Arafat with Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolutio ...
.
The Oslo Accords, the first Israeli–Palestinian interim peace agreement, were signed in 1993. The process was envisioned to last five years, ending in June 1999, when the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area began. The expiration of this term without the recognition by Israel of the Palestinian State and without the effective termination of the occupation was followed by the Second Intifada in 2000. The second intifada was more violent than the first. The International Court of Justice observed that since the government of Israel had decided to recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people, their existence was no longer an issue. The court noted that the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of 28 September 1995 also referred a number of times to the Palestinian people and its "legitimate rights". According to Thomas Giegerich
Thomas Giegerich (born 15 March 1959 in Wiesbaden, Germany) is a German jurist. He is professor for European law, international law and public law at Saarland University and director of the Europa-Institut, Saarbrücken.
Biography
Thomas Gieger ...
, with respect to the Palestinian people's right to form a sovereign independent state, "The right of self-determination gives the Palestinian people collectively the inalienable right freely to determine its political status, while Israel, having recognized the Palestinians as a separate people, is obliged to promote and respect this right in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations".
Following the failures of the Second Intifada, a younger generation is emerging that cares less about nationalist ideology than about economic growth. This has been a source of tension between some of the Palestinian political leadership and Palestinian business professionals who desire economic cooperation with Israelis. At an international conference in Bahrain, Palestinian businessman Ashraf Jabari said, "I have no problem working with Israel. It is time to move on. ... The Palestinian Authority does not want peace. They told the families of the businessmen that they are wanted y policefor participating in the Bahrain workshop."
Demographics
In the absence of a comprehensive census including all Palestinian diaspora populations, and those that have remained within what was British Mandate Palestine, exact population figures are difficult to determine. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ar, الجهاز المركزي للإحصاء الفلسطيني) is the official
statistical institution of the State of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures ...
(PCBS) announced at the end of 2015 that the number of Palestinians worldwide at the end of 2015 was 12.37 million of which the number still residing within historic Palestine was 6.22 million.
In 2005, a critical review of the PCBS figures and methodology was conducted by the American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG). In their report, they claimed that several errors in the PCBS methodology and assumptions artificially inflated the numbers by a total of 1.3 million. The PCBS numbers were cross-checked against a variety of other sources (e.g., asserted birth rates
The birth rate for a given period is the total number of live human births per 1,000 population divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registration system for births; populati ...
based on fertility
Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertili ...
rate assumptions for a given year were checked against Palestinian Ministry of Health figures as well as Ministry of Education school enrollment figures six years later; immigration numbers were checked against numbers collected at border crossings, etc.). The errors claimed in their analysis included: birth rate errors (308,000), immigration & emigration errors (310,000), failure to account for migration to Israel (105,000), double-counting Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
Arabs (210,000), counting former residents now living abroad (325,000) and other discrepancies (82,000). The results of their research was also presented before the United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
on 8 March 2006.
The study was criticised by Sergio DellaPergola
Sergio Della Pergola ( he, סרג'ו דלה-פרגולה; born September 7, 1942, in Trieste, Italy) is an Italian-Israeli demographer and statistician. He is a professor and demographic expert, specifically in demography and statistics related to ...
, a demographer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.Sergio DellaPergola
Sergio Della Pergola ( he, סרג'ו דלה-פרגולה; born September 7, 1942, in Trieste, Italy) is an Italian-Israeli demographer and statistician. He is a professor and demographic expert, specifically in demography and statistics related to ...
, Letter to the editor, ''Azure'', 2007, No. 27
DellaPergola accused the authors of the AIDRG report of misunderstanding basic principles of demography on account of their lack of expertise in the subject, but he also acknowledged that he did not take into account the emigration of Palestinians and thinks it has to be examined, as well as the birth and mortality statistics of the Palestinian Authority.
He also accused AIDRG of selective use of data and multiple systematic errors in their analysis, claiming that the authors assumed the Palestinian Electoral registry to be complete even though registration is voluntary, and they used an unrealistically low Total Fertility Ratio (a statistical abstraction of births per woman) to reanalyse that data in a "typical circular mistake." DellaPergola estimated the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza at the end of 2005 as 3.33 million, or 3.57 million if East Jerusalem is included. These figures are only slightly lower than the official Palestinian figures.[ The ]Israeli Civil Administration
The Civil Administration ( he, המנהל האזרחי, '; ar, الإدارة المدنية الإسرائيلية) is the Israeli governing body that operates in the West Bank. It was established by the government of Israel in 1981, in order ...
put the number of Palestinians in the West Bank at 2,657,029 as of May 2012.
The AIDRG study was also criticized by Ian Lustick Ian Steven Lustick (born 1949) is an American political scientist and specialist on the modern history and politics of the Middle East. He currently holds the Bess W. Heyman Chair in the department of Political Sciences at the University of Pennsyl ...
, who accused its authors of multiple methodological errors and a political agenda.
In 2009, at the request of the PLO, "Jordan revoked the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians to keep them from remaining permanently in the country."
Many Palestinians have settled in the United States, particularly in the Chicago area.
In total, an estimated 600,000 Palestinians are thought to reside in the Americas. Palestinian emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanent ...
to South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
began for economic reasons that pre-dated the Arab-Israeli conflict, but continued to grow thereafter. Many emigrants were from the Bethlehem
Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...
area. Those emigrating to Latin America were mainly Christian. Half of those of Palestinian origin in Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
live in Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
. El Salvador and Honduras also have substantial Palestinian populations. These two countries have had presidents of Palestinian ancestry ( Antonio Saca in El Salvador and Carlos Roberto Flores
Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé (born 10 March 1950) is a Honduran politician and businessman who served as the President of Honduras from 1998 to 2002. A member of the Liberal Party, Flores was previously the President of the National Congre ...
in Honduras). Belize
Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...
, which has a smaller Palestinian population, has a Palestinian minister – Said Musa
Said Wilbert Musa (, born 19 March 1944) is a Belizean lawyer and politician. He was the Prime Minister of Belize from 28 August 1998 to 8 February 2008.
Early life and education
Said Wilbert Musa was born in 1944 in San Ignacio in the Cayo D ...
. Schafik Jorge Handal, Salvadoran
Salvadorans (Spanish: ''Salvadoreños''), also known as Salvadorians (alternate spelling: Salvadoreans), are citizens of El Salvador, a country in Central America. Most Salvadorans live in El Salvador, although there is also a significant Salvad ...
politician and former guerrilla leader, was the son of Palestinian immigrants.
Refugees
In 2006, there were 4,255,120 Palestinians registered as refugees with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's mandate encompasses Palestinians displaced by the 1948 P ...
(UNRWA). This number includes the descendants of refugees who fled or were expelled during the 1948 war, but excludes those who have since then emigrated to areas outside of UNRWA's remit. Based on these figures, almost half of all Palestinians are registered refugees. The 993,818 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip and 705,207 Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, who hail from towns and villages now located within the borders of Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, are included in these figures.
UNRWA figures do not include some 274,000 people, or 1 in 5.5 of all Arab residents of Israel, who are internally displaced Palestinian refugees.
Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and the West Bank are organized according to a refugee family's village or place of origin. Among the first things that children born in the camps learn is the name of their village of origin. David McDowall writes that, " ..a yearning for Palestine permeates the whole refugee community and is most ardently espoused by the younger refugees, for whom home exists only in the imagination."[McDowall, 1989, p. 90.]
Israeli policy to prevent the refugees from returning to their homes was initially formulated by David Ben Gurion and Joseph Weitz
Yosef Weitz ( he, יוסף ויץ; 1890–1972) was the director of the Land and Afforestation Department of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). From the 1930s, Weitz played a major role in acquiring land for the Yishuv, the pre-state Jewish community ...
, director of the Jewish National Fund was formally adopted by the Israeli cabinet in June 1948. In December of that year the UN adopted resolution 194
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 is a resolution adopted near the end of the 1947–1949 Palestine war. The Resolution defines principles for reaching a final settlement and returning Palestine refugees to their homes. Article 11 o ...
, which resolved "that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible." Despite much of the international community, including the US President Harry Truman, insisting that the repatriation of Palestinian refugees was essential, Israel refused to accept the principle.[ In the intervening years Israel has consistently refused to change its position and has introduced further legislation to hinder Palestinians refugees from returning and reclaiming their land and confiscated property.][
In keeping with an Arab League resolution in 1965, most Arab countries have refused to grant citizenship to Palestinians, arguing that it would be a threat to their right of return to their homes in Palestine.][ In 2012, Egypt deviated from this practice by granting citizenship to 50,000 Palestinians, mostly from the Gaza Strip.]
Palestinians living in Lebanon are deprived of basic civil rights. They cannot own homes or land and are barred from becoming lawyers, engineers and doctors.
Religion
The majority of Palestinians are Muslim, the vast majority of whom are followers of the Sunni branch of Islam, with a small minority of Ahmadiyya
Ahmadiyya (, ), officially the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community or the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at (AMJ, ar, الجماعة الإسلامية الأحمدية, al-Jamāʿah al-Islāmīyah al-Aḥmadīyah; ur, , translit=Jamā'at Aḥmadiyyah Musl ...
.
Palestinian Christian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
s represent a significant minority of 6%, followed by much smaller religious
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
communities, including Druze and Samaritans. Palestinian Jews
Palestinian Jews or Jewish Palestinians were the Jewish inhabitants of the Palestine region (known in Hebrew as ''Eretz Yisrael'', ) prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.
The common term used to refer to the Jewish commu ...
– considered Palestinian by the Palestinian National Charter
The Palestinian National Covenant or Palestinian National Charter ( ar, الميثاق الوطني الفلسطيني; transliterated: ''al-Mithaq al-Watani al-Filastini'') is the covenant or charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) ...
adopted by the PLO which defined them as those "Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
invasion" – today identify as Israelis (with the exception of a very few individuals). Palestinian Jews almost universally abandoned any such identity after the establishment of Israel and their incorporation into the Israeli Jewish population, which was originally composed of Jewish immigrants from around the world.
Until the end of the 19th century, most Palestinian Muslim villages in the countryside did not have local mosque
A mosque (; from ar, مَسْجِد, masjid, ; literally "place of ritual prostration"), also called masjid, is a place of prayer for Muslims. Mosques are usually covered buildings, but can be any place where prayers ( sujud) are performed, ...
s. Cross-cultural syncretism between Christian and Islamic symbols and figures in religious practice was common.[ Popular feast days, like ]Thursday of the Dead
Thursday of the Dead ( ar, خميس الأموات, ''Khamis al-Amwat''), also known as Thursday of the Secrets ( ar, خميس الأسرار, ''Khamis al-Asrar'') or Thursday of the EggsMorgenstern, 1966, p. 158. is a feast day shared by Christia ...
, were celebrated by both Muslims and Christians and shared prophets and saints include Jonah
Jonah or Jonas, ''Yōnā'', "dove"; gr, Ἰωνᾶς ''Iōnâs''; ar, يونس ' or '; Latin: ''Ionas'' Ben (Hebrew), son of Amittai, is a prophet in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, from Gath-hepher of the northern Kingdom of Israel (Samaria ...
, who is venerated in Halhul
Halhul ( ar, حلحول, transliteration: ''Ḥalḥūl'') is a Palestinian city located in the southern West Bank, north of Hebron in the Hebron Governorate of the State of Palestine. The town, bordered by Sa'ir and Ash-Shuyukh to the east, ...
as both a Biblical and Islamic prophet, and St. George, who is known in Arabic as el-Khader. Villagers would pay tribute to local patron saints at maqams – domed single rooms often placed in the shadow of an ancient carob
The carob ( ; ''Ceratonia siliqua'') is a flowering evergreen tree or shrub in the Caesalpinioideae sub-family of the legume family, Fabaceae. It is widely cultivated for its edible fruit pods, and as an ornamental tree in gardens and lands ...
or oak tree
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...
; many of them are rooted in Jewish, Samaritan, Christian and sometimes pagan traditions. Saints, taboo by the standards of orthodox Islam, mediated between man and Allah, and shrines to saints and holy men dotted the Palestinian landscape.[ Ali Qleibo, a Palestinian anthropologist, states that this built evidence constitutes "an architectural testimony to Christian/Moslem Palestinian religious sensibility and its roots in ]ancient Semitic religion
Ancient Semitic religion encompasses the polytheistic religions of the Semitic peoples from the ancient Near East and Northeast Africa. Since the term ''Semitic'' itself represents a rough category when referring to cultures, as opposed to lan ...
s."[
Religion as constitutive of individual identity was accorded a minor role within Palestinian tribal social structure until the latter half of the 19th century.][ Jean Moretain, a priest writing in 1848, wrote that a Christian in Palestine was "distinguished only by the fact that he belonged to a particular clan. If a certain tribe was Christian, then an individual would be Christian, but without knowledge of what distinguished his faith from that of a Muslim."][
]
The concessions granted to France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
and other Western powers by the Ottoman Sultanate in the aftermath of the Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
had a significant impact on contemporary Palestinian religious cultural identity.[ Religion was transformed into an element "constituting the individual/collective identity in conformity with orthodox precepts", and formed a major building block in the political development of Palestinian nationalism.][
The British census of 1922 registered 752,048 inhabitants in Palestine, consisting of 660,641 Palestinian Arabs (Christian and Muslim Arabs), 83,790 Palestinian Jews, and 7,617 persons belonging to other groups. The corresponding percentage breakdown is 87% Christian and Muslim Arab and 11% Jewish. Bedouins were not counted in the census, but a 1930 British study estimated their number at 70,860.
]
Bernard Sabella of Bethlehem University
Bethlehem University ( ar, جامعة بيت لحم) is a Catholic university in the city of Bethlehem in the West Bank, Palestine. It is the first university founded in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
History
Established under Israel ...
estimates that 6% of the Palestinian population worldwide is Christian and that 56% of them live outside of historic Palestine. According to the , the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is 97% Muslim and 3% Christian. The vast majority of the Palestinian community in Chile
Palestinians in Chile ( ar, فلسطينيو تشيلي) are believed to be the largest Palestinian community outside of the Arab world. Estimates of the number of Palestinian descendants in Chile range from 450,000 to 500,000.
Migration histor ...
follow Christianity, largely Orthodox Christian and some Roman Catholic, and in fact the number of Palestinian Christians in the diaspora in Chile alone exceeds the number of those who have remained in their homeland. Saint George
Saint George (Greek: Γεώργιος (Geórgios), Latin: Georgius, Arabic: القديس جرجس; died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition he was a soldie ...
is the patron saint of the Palestinian Christians.
The Druze became Israeli citizens and Druze males serve in the Israel Defense Forces, though some individuals identify as "Palestinian Druze". According to Salih al-Shaykh, most Druze do not consider themselves to be Palestinian: "their Arab identity emanates in the main from the common language and their socio-cultural background, but is detached from any national political conception. It is not directed at Arab countries or Arab nationality or the Palestinian people, and does not express sharing any fate with them. From this point of view, their identity is Israel, and this identity is stronger than their Arab identity".
There are also about 350 Samaritans who carry Palestinian identity cards and live in the West Bank while a roughly equal number live in Holon and carry Israeli citizenship. Those who live in the West Bank also are represented in the legislature for the Palestinian National Authority.[ They are commonly referred to among Palestinians as the "Jews of Palestine," and maintain their own unique cultural identity.][
Jews who identify as Palestinian Jews are few, but include Israeli Jews who are part of the ]Neturei Karta
Neturei Karta (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: , , ) is a religious group of Haredi Jews, formally created in Jerusalem, then in Mandatory Palestine, in 1938, splitting off from Agudas Yisrael. Neturei Karta opposes Zionism and calls for a "pea ...
group, and Uri Davis, an Israeli citizen and self-described Palestinian Jew (who converted to Islam in 2008 in order to marry Miyassar Abu Ali) who serves as an observer member in the Palestine National Council
The Palestinian National Council (PNC) ( ar, المجلس الوطني الفلسطيني, "'Almajlis Alwataniu Alfilastiniu"') is the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and elects the PLO Executive Committee, which ...
.
Bahá'u'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith
The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people. Established by Baháʼu'lláh in the 19th century, it initially developed in Iran and parts of the ...
, was from Iran, but ended his life in Acre, Israel, then part of the Ottoman Empire. He was confined there for 24 years. A shrine
A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon, or similar figure of respect, wherein they ...
has been erected there in his honor.
File:Dome of the Rock west.jpg, Palestinians attending prayers at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
File:The Church of the Holy Sepulchre-Jerusalem.JPG, The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the holiest site in Christianity
File:Palestinian Christian Scouts Nativity Church in Bethlehem Christmas Eve 2006.jpg, Palestinian Christian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
Scouts on Christmas Eve in front of the Nativity Church in Bethlehem
Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...
, 2006
File:Hebron001.JPG, Cave of the Patriarchs
, alternate_name = Tomb of the Patriarchs, Cave of Machpelah, Sanctuary of Abraham, Ibrahimi Mosque (Mosque of Abraham)
, image = Palestine Hebron Cave of the Patriarchs.jpg
, alt =
, caption = Southern view of the complex, 2009
, map ...
in Hebron
Hebron ( ar, الخليل or ; he, חֶבְרוֹן ) is a Palestinian. city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies above sea level. The second-largest city in the West Bank (after Eas ...
File:Ben Zakai.jpg, Jews in 'Ben Zakai' house of prayer, Jerusalem, 1893.
File:PikiWiki Israel 6935 In the holy place of jethro.jpg, Tomb of Jethro in Hittin
Hittin ( ar, حطّين, transliterated ''Ḥiṭṭīn'' ( ar, حِـطِّـيْـن) or ''Ḥaṭṭīn'' ( ar, حَـطِّـيْـن)) was a Palestinian village located west of Tiberias before it was occupied by Israel during the 1948 Arab- ...
, Northern Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
.
File:1840 jer salat.jpg, Muslims pray in Jerusalem, 1840. By David Roberts, in ''The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia
''The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia'' is a travelogue of 19th-century Palestine and the magnum opus of Scottish painter David Roberts. It contains 250 lithographs by Louis Haghe of Roberts's watercolor sketches. It was fi ...
''
File:Ramallah-Family-1905.jpg, A Palestinian Christian
Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...
family in Ramallah, Ottoman Palestine, 1905
File:Orthodox priest family.jpg, Married Eastern Orthodox priest from Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
with his family (three generations), circa 1893
Current demographics
According to the PCBS, there are an estimated 4,816,503 Palestinians in the Palestinian territories , of whom 2,935,368 live in the West Bank and 1,881,135 in the Gaza Strip.[ According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, there were 1,658,000 Arab citizens of Israel as of 2013.] Both figures include Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
In 2008, Minority Rights Group International estimated the number of Palestinians in Jordan to be about 3 million. The UNRWA
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is a UN agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees. UNRWA's mandate encompasses Palestinians displaced by the 1948 ...
put their number at 2.1 million as of December 2015.[
]
Society
Language
Palestinian Arabic is a subgroup of the broader Levantine Arabic
Levantine Arabic, also called Shami ( autonym: or ), is a group of mutually intelligible vernacular Arabic varieties spoken in the Levant, in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Turkey (historically in Adana, Mersin and Hatay on ...
dialect. Prior to the 7th century Islamic Conquest and Arabization of the Levant, the primary languages spoken in Palestine, among the predominantly Christian and Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
communities, were Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
, Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, and Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
. Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
was also spoken in some areas. Palestinian Arabic, like other variations of the Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...
ine dialect, exhibits substantial influences in lexicon from Aramaic.[Greenfield et al., 2001, p. 158.]
Palestinian Arabic has three primary sub-variations, Rural, Urban, and Bedouin, with the pronunciation of the ''Qāf'' serving as a shibboleth
A shibboleth (; hbo, , šībbōleṯ) is any custom or tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or even a single word, that distinguishes one group of people from another. Shibboleths have been used throughout history in many societies as passwo ...
to distinguish between the three main Palestinian sub-dialects: The urban variety notes a sound, while the rural variety (spoken in the villages around major cities) have a for the The Bedouin variety of Palestine (spoken mainly in the southern region and along the Jordan valley) use a instead of
Barbara McKean Parmenter has noted that the Arabs of Palestine have been credited with the preservation of the original Semitic place names of many sites mentioned in the Bible, as was documented by the American geographer Edward Robinson in the 19th century.[Parmenter, 1994, p. 11.]
Palestinians who live or work in Israel generally can also speak Modern Hebrew
Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the H ...
, as do some who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Education
The literacy rate of Palestine was 96.3% according to a 2014 report by the United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...
, which is high by international standards. There is a gender difference in the population aged above 15 with 5.9% of women considered illiterate compared to 1.6% of men. Illiteracy among women has fallen from 20.3% in 1997 to less than 6% in 2014.[
Palestinian intellectuals, among them ]May Ziadeh
May Elias Ziadeh ( ; ar, مي إلياس زيادة, ; 11 February 1886 – 17 October 1941) was a Lebanese-Palestinian poet, essayist, and translator, who wrote many different works both in Arabic and in French.
After attending school in ...
and Khalil Beidas, were an integral part of the Arab intelligentsia. Educational levels among Palestinians have traditionally been high. In the 1960s the West Bank had a higher percentage of its adolescent population enrolled in high school education than did Lebanon. Claude Cheysson
Claude Cheysson (; 13 April 1920 – 15 October 2012) was a French Socialist politician who served as Foreign Minister in the government of Pierre Mauroy from 1981 to 1984.
Career
Cheysson was born in Paris and attended the Cours Hattemer, ...
, France's Minister for Foreign Affairs under the first Mitterrand Presidency, held in the mid-eighties that, ‘even thirty years ago, (Palestinians) probably already had the largest educated elite of all the Arab peoples.’
Contributions to Palestinian culture have been made by diaspora figures like Edward Said
Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Whit ...
and Ghada Karmi
Ghada Karmi ( ar, غادة كرمي, ; born 1939) is a Palestinian-born academic, physician and author. She has written on Palestinian issues in newspapers and magazines, including ''The Guardian'', ''The Nation'' and '' Journal of Palestine Stud ...
, Arab citizens of Israel like Emile Habibi
Emile Shukri Habibi ( ar, إميل حبيبي, he, אמיל חביבי, 28 January 1922 – 2 May 1996) was a Palestinian-Israeli , and Jordanians like Ibrahim Nasrallah
Ibrahim Nasrallah ( ar, إبراهيم نصر الله; 2 December 1954), the winner of the Arabic Booker Prize (2018), was born in 1954 to Palestinian parents who were evicted from their land in Al-Burayj, Palestine in 1948. He spent his child ...
.
File:Secretary Kerry Speaks With Palestinian Youth in Bethlehem (10708795753).jpg, Palestinian students and John Kerry
File:Gaza students eager to answer - Flickr - Al Jazeera English.jpg, Palestinian students
File:Girls lining up for class - Flickr - Al Jazeera English.jpg, Palestinian students
Women and family
In the 19th and early 20th century, there were some well known Palestinian families, which included the Khalidi family
Al-Khaldi ( ar, الْخَالْدِي), also spelled Al Khalidi is the last name given to members of the tribe of Bani Khalid. The tribe traditionally claims descent from Khalid ibn al-Walid a senior companion of the Prophet Muhammad, and esteem ...
, the al-Husayni family, the Nashashibi family
Nashashibi ( ar, النشاشيبي; Arabic transliteration, transliteration, Al-Nashāshībī) is the name of a prominent Palestinian people, Palestinian family based in Jerusalem.
After the First World War, during the British period, Raghib al- ...
, the Tuqan family The Tuqan clan ( ar, طوقان ''ṭūqān'', also spelled ''Toukan'', ''Touqan'', ''Tukan'' and ''Tokan'') is a prominent Palestinian and Jordanian political and business family. During the Ottoman era, they dominated the political and socio-e ...
, the Nusaybah family
The Nussaiba Clan, commonly spelt in English as Nuseibeh ( ar, عائلة نسيبة; also spelt ''Nusaibah'' and ''Nusseibeh'') is the oldest Muslim dynasty in Jerusalem. The Nussaiba family has a long history and tight bonds with the Holy Land, ...
, Qudwa family, Shawish clan, Shurrab family The Shurrab family is a family in Khan Younis and Gaza in the Palestinian territories, which had 2 members killed by the Israel Defense Forces on 16 January 2009 during the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict. A son, Amer Shurrab, attended Middleb ...
, Al-Zaghab family, Al-Khalil family
Al Khalil (الخليل) is an old Arabic tribe who live in the village of Jammain, in the district of Nablus in the West Bank. A fraction of the family migrated and settled in Egypt. They belong to the mother tribe of Al Zeitawi. Al Zeitawi is a ...
, Ridwan dynasty
The Ridwan dynasty (also spelled ''Radwan''; tr, RizvanZe'evi, 2012, p39/ref>) was the most prominent pasha family in Palestine, ruling the southwestern districts of the Damascus Eyalet ("Province of Damascus") in the 16th and 17th centuries und ...
, Al-Zeitawi family, Abu Ghosh clan
The Abu Ghoshes (also written AbuGosh/ AbouGhawsh), known as "ancien seigneurs feodaux", are an old wealthy landowning family, who ruled the Jerusalem mountains and controlled the pilgrimage route from the coast to Jerusalem during the Ottoman Em ...
, Barghouti family, Doghmush clan The Doghmush ( ar, دغمش, pronounced "Doe-moosh" or "Durmush", ''see spelling'') are a Palestinian family from the Gaza Strip.
Johnston kidnapping
The family became known internationally in 2007 as they proclaimed themselves as the ''Jaysh al-Is ...
, Douaihy
The House of El Douaihy (also "Al Douaihy" in some cases Doueihy, Douaihi, Doueihi, Dowaihi, Duayhe, Duwayhi', Dwaihy, ar, الدويهي, french: de Douai), is an important Lebanese and Levantine noble family of French origins of which can be ...
family, Hilles clan, Jarrar family Jarrar ( ar, جرار) is a large Palestinian family that served as rural landlords and tax-collectors ('' mutasallims'') in the Jenin area during Ottoman rule in Palestine. During this era, they were the most powerful of the rural families in Pal ...
, and the Jayyusi family. Since various conflicts with Zionists began, some of the communities have subsequently left Palestine. The role of women varies among Palestinians, with both progressive and ultra-conservative opinions existing. Other groups of Palestinians, such as the Negev Bedouin
The Negev Bedouin ( ar, بدو النقب, ''Badū an-Naqab''; he, הבדואים בנגב, ''HaBedu'im BaNegev'') are traditionally pastoral nomadic Arab tribes ( Bedouin), who until the later part of the 19th century would wander between Sa ...
s or Druze may no longer self-identify as Palestinian for political reasons.
Culture
Ali Qleibo, a Palestinian anthropologist, has critiqued Muslim historiography for assigning the beginning of Palestinian cultural identity to the advent of Islam in the 7th century. In describing the effect of such historiography, he writes: Pagan origins are disavowed. As such the peoples who populated Palestine throughout history have discursively rescinded their own history and religion as they adopted the religion, language, and culture of Islam.
That the peasant culture of the large fellahin
A fellah ( ar, فَلَّاح ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a peasant, usually a farmer or Agriculture, agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic language, Arabic wor ...
class showed features of cultures other than Islam was a conclusion arrived at by some Western scholars and explorers who mapped and surveyed Palestine during the latter half of the 19th century, and these ideas were to influence 20th-century debates on Palestinian identity by local and international ethnographers.
The contributions of the 'nativist' ethnographies produced by Tawfiq Canaan
Tawfiq Canaan ( ar, توفيق كنعان) (24 September 1882 – 15 January 1964) was a pioneering Palestinian physician, medical researcher, ethnographer, and Palestinian nationalist. Born in Beit Jala during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, he s ...
and other Palestinian writers and published in ''The Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society'' (1920–48) were driven by the concern that the "native culture of Palestine", and in particular peasant society, was being undermined by the forces of modernity
Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the "Age of Reas ...
. Salim Tamari writes that: Implicit in their scholarship (and made explicit by Canaan himself) was another theme, namely that the peasants of Palestine represent—through their folk norms ... the living heritage of all the accumulated ancient cultures that had appeared in Palestine (principally the Canaanite, Philistine, Hebraic, Nabatean
The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; Arabic: , , singular , ; compare grc, Ναβαταῖος, translit=Nabataîos; la, Nabataeus) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern Lev ...
, Syrio-Aramaic and Arab).
Palestinian culture is closely related to those of the nearby Levantine countries such as Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, and the Arab World. Cultural contributions to the fields of art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
, literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
, music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
, costume
Costume is the distinctive style of dress or cosmetic of an individual or group that reflects class, gender, profession, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch. In short costume is a cultural visual of the people.
The term also was tradition ...
and cuisine express the characteristics of the Palestinian experience and show signs of common origin despite the geographical separation between the Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories are the two regions of the former British Mandate for Palestine that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967, namely: the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. The ...
, Israel and the diaspora.
Al-Quds Capital of Arab Culture is an initiative undertaken by UNESCO under the Cultural Capitals Program to promote Arab culture and encourage cooperation in the Arab region. The opening event was launched in March 2009.
Cuisine
Palestine's history of rule by many different empires is reflected in Palestinian cuisine, which has benefited from various cultural contributions and exchanges. Generally speaking, modern Syrian-Palestinian dishes have been influenced by the rule of three major Islamic groups: the Arabs, the Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
-influenced Arabs and the Turks
Turk or Turks may refer to:
Communities and ethnic groups
* Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages
* Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
* Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic ...
.[Revisiting our table...]
Nasser, Christiane Dabdoub, ''This week in Palestine'', Turbo Computers & Software Co. Ltd. June 2006. Retrieved 8 January 2008. The Arabs who conquered Syria and Palestine had simple culinary traditions primarily based on the use of rice, lamb and yogurt, as well as dates.[ABC of Arabic Cuisine]
ArabNet. Retrieved 25 December 2007. The already simple cuisine did not advance for centuries due to Islam's strict rules of parsimony and restraint, until the rise of the Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
s, who established Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...
as their capital. Baghdad was historically located on Persian soil and henceforth, Persian culture was integrated into Arab culture during the 9th–11th centuries and spread throughout central areas of the empire.[
There are several foods native to Palestine that are well known in the Arab world, such as, '' kinafe Nabulsi'', ]Nabulsi cheese
Nabulsi (or naboulsi) is one of a number of Palestinian white brined cheeses made in the Middle East. Its name refers to its place of origin, Nablus, and it is well known throughout the West Bank and surrounding regions. Nabulsi, along with Akk ...
(cheese of Nablus), Ackawi cheese (cheese of Acre) and ''musakhan
Musakhan ( ar, مسخّن, lit=something that is heated), also known as muhammar ( ar, links=no, محمر, lit=reddish), is a Palestinian dish composed of roasted chicken baked with onions, sumac, allspice, saffron, and fried pine nuts served o ...
''. ''Kinafe'' originated in Nablus, as well as the sweetened ''Nabulsi'' cheese used to fill it. Another very popular food is Palestinian Kofta or Kufta.
Mezze
Meze or mezza (, ) is a selection of small dishes served as appetizers in the Levant, Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Iran. It is similar to Spanish tapas and Italian antipasti. A mezze may be served as a part of a multi-course ...
describes an assortment of dishes laid out on the table for a meal that takes place over several hours, a characteristic common to Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...
cultures. Some common mezze dishes are '' hummus'', '' tabouleh'','''', ''labaneh
Strained yogurt, Greek yogurt, yogurt cheese, sack yogurt, or kerned yogurt is yogurt that has been strained to remove most of its whey, resulting in a thicker consistency than normal unstrained yogurt, while still preserving the distinctive so ...
'', and ''zate 'u zaatar'', which is the pita bread dipping of olive oil and ground thyme
Thyme () is the herb (dried aerial parts) of some members of the genus '' Thymus'' of aromatic perennial evergreen herbs in the mint family Lamiaceae. Thymes are relatives of the oregano genus ''Origanum'', with both plants being mostly indigen ...
and sesame seeds
Sesame ( or ; ''Sesamum indicum'') is a flowering plant in the genus '' Sesamum'', also called benne. Numerous wild relatives occur in Africa and a smaller number in India. It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cu ...
.
Entrée
An entrée (, ; ) in modern French table service and that of much of the English-speaking world (apart from the United States and parts of Canada) is a dish served before the main course of a meal. Outside North America, it is generally synonym ...
s that are eaten throughout the Palestinian territories, include '' waraq al-'inib'' – boiled grape leaves
Grape leaves, the leaves of the grapevine plant, are used in the cuisines of a number of cultures. They may be obtained fresh, or preserved in jars or cans. The leaves are commonly rolled or stuffed with mixtures of meat and rice to produce ...
wrapped around cooked rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...
and ground lamb
Lamb or The Lamb may refer to:
* A young sheep
* Lamb and mutton, the meat of sheep
Arts and media Film, television, and theatre
* ''The Lamb'' (1915 film), a silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr. in his screen debut
* ''The Lamb'' (1918 ...
. ''Mahashi'' is an assortment of stuffed vegetables such as, zucchinis, potatoes, cabbage and in Gaza, chard.
File:Mushakhan Dish.jpg, Musakhan
Musakhan ( ar, مسخّن, lit=something that is heated), also known as muhammar ( ar, links=no, محمر, lit=reddish), is a Palestinian dish composed of roasted chicken baked with onions, sumac, allspice, saffron, and fried pine nuts served o ...
: The Palestinian National dish.
File:Hummuswithpinenuts.jpg, A plate of hummus, garnished with paprika and olive oil and pine nut
Pine nuts, also called piñón (), pinoli (), pignoli or chilgoza (), are the edible seeds of pines (family Pinaceae, genus ''Pinus''). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, only 29 species provide edible nuts, while 20 are trad ...
s
File:Il Falafel di Ramallah.JPG, A Palestinian youth serving Falafel
Falafel (; ar, فلافل, ) is a deep-fried ball or patty-shaped fritter in Middle Eastern cuisine (especially in Levantine and Egyptian cuisines) made from ground chickpeas, broad beans, or both. Nowadays, falafel is often served ...
in Ramallah.
File:Künefe.jpg, Kanafeh
Knafeh ( ar, كنافة) is a traditional Middle Eastern dessert made with spun pastry called ''kataifi'', soaked in a sweet, sugar-based syrup called attar, and typically layered with cheese, or with other ingredients such as clotted cream, pis ...
: a Palestinian dessert.
Art
Similar to the structure of Palestinian society, the Palestinian field of arts extends over four main geographic centers: the West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
and Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
, Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, the Palestinian diaspora
The Palestinian diaspora ( ar, الشتات الفلسطيني, ''al-shatat al-filastini''), part of the wider Arab diaspora, are Palestinian people living outside the region of Palestine.
History
Palestinian individuals have a long history of ...
in the Arab world
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
, and the Palestinian diaspora in Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and elsewhere.
;Cinema
Palestinian cinematography, relatively young compared to Arab cinema
Arab cinema or Arabic cinema ( ar, السينما العربية, al-sīnemā al-ʿArabīyah) refers to the film industry of the Arab world which depends for most of its production on the Egyptian cinema.
Overview
There is no single descrip ...
overall, receives much European and Israeli support. Palestinian films are not exclusively produced in Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
; some are made in English, French or Hebrew. More than 800 films have been produced about Palestinians, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and other related topics. Examples include ''Divine Intervention'' and ''Paradise Now
''Paradise Now'' ( ar, الجنّة الآن, al-Janna al-ʾāna) is a political and psychological drama film directed by Hany Abu-Assad about two Palestinian men preparing for a suicide attack in Israel. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best ...
''.
File:Jaffa Alhambra Cinema03562ucroped.jpg, The Alhamra Cinema, Jaffa, 1937, bombed December 1947
File:Halhul, 1940.jpg, Villagers in Halhul
Halhul ( ar, حلحول, transliteration: ''Ḥalḥūl'') is a Palestinian city located in the southern West Bank, north of Hebron in the Hebron Governorate of the State of Palestine. The town, bordered by Sa'ir and Ash-Shuyukh to the east, ...
at an open-air cinema screening c. 1940
;Handicrafts
A wide variety of handicrafts, many of which have been produced in the area of Palestine for hundreds of years, continue to be produced today. Palestinian handicrafts include embroidery
Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric or other materials using a needle to apply thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. In modern days, embroidery is usually seen ...
and weaving, pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...
-making, soap
Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are use ...
-making, glass-making
Glass production involves two main methods – the float glass process that produces sheet glass, and glassblowing that produces bottles and other containers. It has been done in a variety of ways during the history of glass.
Glass container ...
, and olive-wood and Mother of Pearl carvings, among others.[Jacobs et al., 1998, p. 72.][Karmi, 2005, p. 18.]
;Costumes
Foreign travelers to Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries often commented on the rich variety of costumes among the area's inhabitants, and particularly among the fellaheen
A fellah ( ar, فَلَّاح ; feminine ; plural ''fellaheen'' or ''fellahin'', , ) is a peasant, usually a farmer or agricultural laborer in the Middle East and North Africa. The word derives from the Arabic word for "ploughman" or "tiller" ...
or village women. Until the 1940s, a woman's economic status, whether married or single, and the town or area they were from could be deciphered by most Palestinian women by the type of cloth, colors, cut, and embroidery
Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric or other materials using a needle to apply thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. In modern days, embroidery is usually seen ...
motifs, or lack thereof, used for the robe-like dress or "thoub" in Arabic.
New styles began to appear in the 1960s. For example, the "six-branched dress" named after the six wide bands of embroidery running down from the waist. These styles came from the refugee camps, particularly after 1967. Individual village styles were lost and replaced by an identifiable "Palestinian" style. The shawal, a style popular in the West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
and Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
before the First Intifada, probably evolved from one of the many welfare
Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...
embroidery projects in the refugee camps
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced peop ...
. It was a shorter and narrower fashion, with a western cut.
File:Betlehem woman b.jpg, A woman from Bethlehem, c. 1940s.
File:Ramallah woman2.jpg, Young woman of Ramallah wearing dowry
A dowry is a payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower. While bride price or bride service is a payment ...
headdress, c. 1898–1914
File:Ramlah costumewo.jpg, Ramallah woman, c. 1920, Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
File:Arabic-traditional-Dress.jpg, A Traditional Women's Dress in Ramallah, c. 1920.
File:Bethlehengirlsintraditionaldresspre1918.jpg, Girls in Bethlehem costume pre-1885.
Literature
Palestinian literature forms part of the wider genre of Arabic literature
Arabic literature ( ar, الأدب العربي / ALA-LC: ''al-Adab al-‘Arabī'') is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is '' Adab'', which is derived from ...
. Unlike its Arabic counterparts, Palestinian literature is defined by national affiliation rather than territorially. For example, Egyptian literature is the literature produced in Egypt. This too was the case for Palestinian literature up to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, but following the Palestinian Exodus of 1948 it has become "a literature written by Palestinians" regardless of their residential status.
Contemporary Palestinian literature is often characterized by its heightened sense of irony and the exploration of existential themes and issues of identity.[ References to the subjects of resistance to occupation, exile, loss, and love and longing for ]homeland
A homeland is a place where a cultural, national, or racial identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethn ...
are also common. Palestinian literature can be intensely political, as underlined by writers like Salma Khadra Jayyusi
Salma Khadra Jayyusi ( ar, سلمى الخضراء الجيوسي; born 1926 or 1927) is a Palestinian poet, writer, translator and anthologist. She is the founder and director of the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA), which aims to provi ...
and novelist Liana Badr
Liana Badr (born 1950 in Jerusalem) is a Palestinian people, Palestinian novelist, and short story writer.
Life
Badr is a novelist, story writer, journalist, poet and cinema director. She was raised in Jericho. She studied at the University of J ...
, who have mentioned the need to give expression to the Palestinian "collective identity" and the "just case" of their struggle. There is also resistance to this school of thought, whereby Palestinian artists have "rebelled" against the demand that their art be "committed".[ Poet Mourid Barghouti for example, has often said that "poetry is not a civil servant, it's not a soldier, it's in nobody's employ."][ Rula Jebreal's novel '']Miral
''Miral'' is a 2010 biographical political film directed by Julian Schnabel about the coming of age of a Palestinian girl named Miral who grows up in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and finds herself drawn into the conflict. The screenpla ...
'' tells the story of Hind al-Husseini
Hind al-Husseini ( ar, هند الحسيني) (April 25, 1916 in Jerusalem – September 13, 1994 in Jerusalem) was a Palestinian woman notable for rescuing 55 orphaned survivors of the Deir Yassin massacre, after they were dropped off in Jer ...
's effort to establish an orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or ab ...
in Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Deir Yassin massacre
The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 130 fighters from the Zionism, Zionist paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi (group), Lehi killed at least 107 Palestinian people, Palestinian Arabs, including women and children, in D ...
, and the establishment of the state of Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
.
Since 1967, most critics have theorized the existence of three "branches" of Palestinian literature, loosely divided by geographic location: 1) from inside Israel, 2) from the occupied territories
Military occupation, also known as belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is the effective military control by a ruling power over a territory that is outside of that power's sovereign territory.Eyāl Benveniśtî. The international law ...
, 3) from among the Palestinian diaspora
The Palestinian diaspora ( ar, الشتات الفلسطيني, ''al-shatat al-filastini''), part of the wider Arab diaspora, are Palestinian people living outside the region of Palestine.
History
Palestinian individuals have a long history of ...
throughout the Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
.
Hannah Amit-Kochavi recognizes only two branches: that written by Palestinians from inside the State of Israel as distinct from that written outside (ibid., p. 11).[ She also posits a temporal distinction between literature produced before 1948 and that produced thereafter.][ In a 2003 article published in ''Studies in the Humanities'', Steven Salaita posits a fourth branch made up of ]English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...
works, particularly those written by Palestinians in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, which he defines as "writing rooted in diasporic countries but focused in theme and content on Palestine."[
]
Poetry, using classical pre-Islamic forms, remains an extremely popular art form, often attracting Palestinian audiences in the thousands. Until 20 years ago, local folk bards reciting traditional verses were a feature of every Palestinian town.[Shahin, 2005, p. 41.] After the 1948 Palestinian exodus and discrimination by neighboring Arab countries, poetry was transformed into a vehicle for political activism.[ From among those Palestinians who became Arab citizens of Israel after the passage of the Citizenship Law in 1952, a school of resistance poetry was born that included poets like ]Mahmoud Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish ( ar, محمود درويش, Maḥmūd Darwīsh, 13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was a Palestinian poet and author who was regarded as the Palestinian national poet. He won numerous awards for his works. Darwish used Palestine ...
, Samih al-Qasim
Samīħ al-Qāsim al Kaissy ( ar, سميح القاسم; he, סמיח אל קאסם; 1939 – August 19, 2014) was a Palestinian Druze poet with Israeli citizenship whose work is well known throughout the Arab world. He was born in Transjordan ...
, and Tawfiq Zayyad.[ The work of these poets was largely unknown to the wider Arab world for years because of the lack of diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab governments. The situation changed after ]Ghassan Kanafani
Ghassan Kanafani ( ar, غسان كنفاني, 8 April 1936 – 8 July 1972) was a Palestinian author and a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). On 8 July 1972 ...
, another Palestinian writer in exile in Lebanon, published an anthology of their work in 1966.[ Palestinian poets often write about the common theme of a strong affection and sense of loss and longing for a lost homeland.][ Among the new generation of Palestinian writers, the work of Nathalie Handal an award-winning poet, playwright, and editor has been widely published in literary journals and magazines and has been translated into twelve languages.
]
Palestinian folklore is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
, dance, legend
A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess ...
s, oral history, proverb
A proverb (from la, proverbium) is a simple and insightful, traditional saying that expresses a perceived truth based on common sense or experience. Proverbs are often metaphorical and use formulaic language. A proverbial phrase or a proverbia ...
s, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, and comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of Palestinian culture. There was a folklorist revival among Palestinian intellectuals such as Nimr Sirhan, Musa Allush, Salim Mubayyid, and the Palestinian Folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
Society during the 1970s. This group attempted to establish pre-Islamic (and pre-Hebraic) cultural roots for a re-constructed Palestinian national identity. The two putative roots in this patrimony are Canaanite and Jebusite. Such efforts seem to have borne fruit as evidenced in the organization of celebrations like the Qabatiya
Qabatiya ( ar, قباطية, also spelled Qabatia, Qabatya, and Kabatiya) is a Palestinian city located in the Jenin Governorate of the State of Palestine, in the northern West Bank, located 6 km south of Jenin. According to the Palesti ...
Canaanite festival and the annual Music Festival of Yabus by the Palestinian Ministry of Culture.[
Traditional storytelling among Palestinians is prefaced with an invitation to the listeners to give blessings to God and the Prophet Mohammed or the Virgin Mary as the case may be, and includes the traditional opening: "There was, or there was not, in the oldness of time..."][Muhawi, 1989.] Formulaic elements of the stories share much in common with the wider Arab world, though the rhyming scheme is distinct. There are a cast of supernatural characters: djinns who can cross the Seven Seas in an instant, giants, and ghouls with eyes of ember and teeth of brass. Stories invariably have a happy ending, and the storyteller will usually finish off with a rhyme like: "The bird has taken flight, God bless you tonight," or "Tutu, tutu, finished is my ''haduttu'' (story)."[
]
Music
Palestinian music is well known throughout the Arab world. After 1948, a new wave of performers emerged with distinctively Palestinian themes relating to dreams of statehood and burgeoning nationalist sentiments. In addition to ''zajal
Zajal () is a traditional form of oral strophic poetry declaimed in a colloquial dialect. While there is little evidence of the exact origins of the zajal, the earliest recorded zajal poet was the poet Ibn Quzman of al-Andalus who lived from 1078 ...
'' and ''ataaba
The ataaba ( ar, عتابا, meaning "plaint" or " dirge", also transliterated 'ataba) is a traditional Arabic musical form sung at weddings, festivals, and other occasions. Popular in the Middle East, it was originally a Bedouin genre, improvise ...
'', traditional Palestinian songs include: ''Bein Al-dawai'', ''Al-Rozana'', ''Zarif – Al-Toul'', and ''Al-Maijana'', ''Dal'ona'', ''Sahja/Saamir'', ''Zaghareet''. Over three decades, the Palestinian National Music and Dance Troupe (El Funoun) and Mohsen Subhi
Mohsen Subhi ( ar, محسن صبحي, or Mohsen Subhi Khalil Abd al-Hamid Ataya) (October 4, 1963 – August 2, 2009) was a Palestinian composer of classical Arabic music and an arranger of modern Palestinian music and folk song.
A master oud p ...
have reinterpreted and rearranged traditional wedding songs such as ''Mish'al'' (1986), ''Marj Ibn 'Amer''(1989) and ''Zaghareed'' (1997). ''Ataaba'' is a form of folk singing that consists of four verses, following a specific form and meter. The distinguishing feature of ataaba is that the first three verses end with the same word meaning three different things, and the fourth verse serves as a conclusion. It is usually followed by a '' dalouna''.
Reem Kelani
Reem Kelani (born 1963) is a British Palestinian musician, born in Manchester, England. Initially influenced by the jazz music her father played on his record player, her interest in Palestinian music was sparked by the music at a family wedd ...
is one of the foremost researchers and performers in the present day of music with a specifically Palestinian narrative and heritage. Her 2006 debut solo album ''Sprinting Gazelle – Palestinian Songs from the Motherland and the Diaspora'' comprised Kelani's research and an arrangement of five traditional Palestinian songs, whilst the other five songs were her own musical settings of popular and resistance poetry by the likes of Mahmoud Darwish, Salma Khadra Jayyusi
Salma Khadra Jayyusi ( ar, سلمى الخضراء الجيوسي; born 1926 or 1927) is a Palestinian poet, writer, translator and anthologist. She is the founder and director of the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA), which aims to provi ...
, Rashid Husain and Mahmoud Salim al-Hout. All the songs on the album relate to 'pre-1948 Palestine'.
Palestinian hip hop
Palestinian hip hop reportedly started in 1998 with Tamer Nafar's group DAM
A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...
. These Palestinian youth forged the new Palestinian musical subgenre, which blends Arabic melodies and hip hop beats. Lyrics are often sung in Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
, Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, English, and sometimes French. Since then, the new Palestinian musical subgenre has grown to include artists in the Palestinian territories, Israel, Great Britain, the United States and Canada.
Borrowing from traditional rap music that first emerged in New York in the 1970s, "young Palestinian musicians have tailored the style to express their own grievances with the social and political climate in which they live and work." Palestinian hip hop works to challenge stereotypes and instigate dialogue about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Palestinian hip-hop artists have been strongly influenced by the messages of American rappers. Tamar Nafar says, "When I heard Tupac sing 'It's a White Man's World' I decided to take hip hop seriously". In addition to the influences from American hip hop, it also includes musical elements from Palestinian and Arabic music including "zajal, mawwal, and saj" which can be likened to Arabic spoken word, as well as including the percussiveness and lyricism of Arabic music.
Historically, music has served as an integral accompaniment to various social and religious rituals and ceremonies in Palestinian society (Al-Taee 47). Much of the Middle-Eastern and Arabic string instruments utilized in classical Palestinian music are sampled over Hip-hop beats in both Israeli and Palestinian hip-hop as part of a joint process of localization. Just as the percussiveness of the Hebrew language is emphasized in Israeli Hip-hop, Palestinian music has always revolved around the rhythmic specificity and smooth melodic tone of Arabic. "Musically speaking, Palestinian songs are usually pure melody performed monophonically with complex vocal ornamentations and strong percussive rhythm beats". The presence of a hand-drum in classical Palestinian music indicates a cultural esthetic conducive to the vocal, verbal and instrumental percussion which serve as the foundational elements of Hip-hop. This hip hop is joining a "longer tradition of revolutionary, underground, Arabic music and political songs that have supported Palestinian Resistance".[ This subgenre has served as a way to politicize the Palestinian issue through music.
]
Dance
The Dabke
''Dabke'' ( ar, دبكة also spelled ''dabka'', ''dubki'', ''dabkeh'', plural ''dabkaat'') is a Levantine Arab folk dance. Dabke combines circle dance and line dancing and is widely performed at weddings and other joyous occasions. The line f ...
, a Levantine Arab folk dance style whose local Palestinian versions were appropriated by Palestinian nationalism after 1967
Events
January
* January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair.
* January 5
** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and ...
, has, according to one scholar, possible roots that may go back to ancient Canaan
Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...
ite fertility rites. It is marked by synchronized jumping, stamping, and movement, similar to tap dancing. One version is performed by men, another by women.
File:Debka.jpg, Palestinian Dabke
''Dabke'' ( ar, دبكة also spelled ''dabka'', ''dubki'', ''dabkeh'', plural ''dabkaat'') is a Levantine Arab folk dance. Dabke combines circle dance and line dancing and is widely performed at weddings and other joyous occasions. The line f ...
folk dance being performed by men
File:Betlehem woman dancing.jpg, Palestinian women dancing traditionally, Bethlehem
Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...
c. 1936
Sport
Although sport facilities did exist before the 1948 Palestinian exodus
In 1948 more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs – about half of prewar Palestine's Arab population – were expelled or fled from their homes, during the 1948 Palestine war. The exodus was a central component of the fracturing, dispossessi ...
, many such facilities and institutions were subsequently shut down. Today there remains sport centers such as in Gaza and Ramallah, but the difficulty of mobility and travel restrictions means most Palestinian are not able to compete internationally to their full potential. However, Palestinian sport authorities have indicated that Palestinians in the diaspora will be eligible to compete for Palestine once the diplomatic and security situation improves.
File:"Machete Kills" red carpet - 10594982886.jpg, Marco Zaror is a Chilean martial artist of Palestinian descent.
File:Nicolas Massu 2007 Australian Open R1.jpg, Nicolás Massú is a Chilean tennis player of Palestinian descent.
File:Palestino - O'Higgins 20190405 13.jpg, Roberto Bishara Adawi is a footballer of Palestinian descent.
See also
* List of Palestinians
The following Lists of Palestinians are lists of notable people with either a self-designation (endonym) or a foreign appellation (exonym) as "Palestinian", or who were born in the region of Palestine.
Approximately 12 million people today ide ...
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
*
*
* Barzilai, Gad. (2003). ''Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities.'' Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
* Boyle, Kevin and Sheen, Juliet (1997). ''Freedom of Religion and Belief: A World Report''. London: Routledge.
*
* Cohen, Hillel,
* Cohen, Robin (1995). ''The Cambridge Survey of World Migration''. Cambridge University Press.
* Cordesman, Anthony H (2005). ''The Israeli-Palestinian War: Escalating to Nowhere''. Greenwood Publishing Group.
* Drummond, Dorothy Weitz (2004). ''Holy Land, Whose Land?: Modern Dilemma, Ancient Roots''. Fairhurst Press.
* Farsoun, Samih K. (2004). ''Culture and Customs of the Palestinians''. Greenwood Press.
* Gelvin, James L (2005).
The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War
'. Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer.
Cambridge University Pre ...
, New York, NY.
*
* Guzmán, Roberto Marín (2000). ''A Century of Palestinian Immigration into Central America''. Editorial Universidad de C.R.
* Healey, John F. (2001). ''The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus''. Brill Academic Publishers.
* Eric Hobsbawm, Hobsbawn, Eric (1990). ''Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, myth, reality''. Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer.
Cambridge University Pre ...
.
* Howell, Mark (2007). ''What Did We Do to Deserve This? Palestinian Life under Occupation in the West Bank'', Garnet Publishing.
*
*
* Kasher, Aryeh (1990).
Jews and Hellenistic Cities in Eretz-Israel
'' Mohr Siebeck.
* Rashid Khalidi, Khalidi, Rashid (1997). ''Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness''. Columbia University Press.
*
*
* Rashid Khalidi, Khalidi, Rashid (2006). ''The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood'', Houghton Mifflin.
* Walid Khalidi, Khalidi, Walid (1984). ''Before Their Diaspora''. Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington D.C.
* Baruch Kimmerling, Kimmerling, Baruch and Joseph S. Migdal (2003). ''The Palestinian People: A History''. Harvard University Press. . .
*
* Kunstel, Marcia and Joseph Albright (1990). ''Their Promised Land: Arab and Jew in History's Cauldron-One Valley in the Jerusalem Hills''. Crown.
* Bernard Lewis, Lewis, Bernard (1999). ''Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry Into Conflict and Prejudice''. W. W. Norton & Company.
* Bernard Lewis, Lewis, Bernard (2002). ''The Arabs in History''. Oxford University Press, USA, 6th ed
freedomofbleep.com
* Lybarger, Loren (2007). ''Identity and religion in Palestine: the struggle between Islamism and secularism in the occupied territories''. Princeton University Press,
* Lynd, S., Bahour, S. and Lynd, A. (editors) ''Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians''. New York: Olive Branch Press.
* McCarthy, Justin (1990). "The Population of Palestine: Population Statistics of the Late Ottoman Period and the Mandate". Columbia University Press, ISBAN: 0231071108
* McDowall, David (1989).
The Uprising and Beyond
'. I.B.Tauris.
* Ibrahim Muhawi, Muhawi, Ibrahim (1989). ''Speak, Bird, Speak Again: Palestinian Arab Folktales''. University of California Press.
* James Parkes (clergyman), Parkes, James (1970).
Whose Land? A History of the Peoples of Palestine
'.
* Parmenter, Barbara McKean (1994). ''Giving Voice to Stones Place and Identity in Palestinian Literature'' University of Texas Press
* Yehoshua Porath, Porath, Yehoshua (1974). ''The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement 1918–1929''. London: Frank Cass and Co., Ltd.
* Porath, Yehoshua (1977). ''Palestinian Arab National Movement: From Riots to Rebellion: 1929–1939'', vol. 2, London: Frank Cass and Co., Ltd.
* Shahin, Mariam (2005). ''Palestine: A Guide''. Interlink Books.
*
* Whitelam, Keith (1997). ''The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History'', Routledge, ,
* Charles Wilson, "Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt". New York, 1881.
*
* Ateek, Naim (1992) Jerusalem in Islam and For Palestinian Christians.
External links
Christians in Palestine antique prints collection
Sounds of Folksongs
Voice of Palestinian Folklore, Free Songs Download
Sands of Sorrow – Film on refugees
United Nations Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People
The Ottoman Palestine
Download Palestinian Pictures in Ottoman Palestine.
{{portal bar, Palestine, Asia
Palestinians,
Arab citizens of Israel, *
Semitic-speaking peoples
Arabs