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Steamlined lead

The lead is big in this article. I think the main reason for it is people want to slip in POV. The third paragraph had several statements that did not match up with the sources they linked. I removed them. One said that Palestinians claimed independence far earlier than 1948, but this was along with other Levantine Arabs as part of a short-lived Syrian Kingdom. The paragraph also used to insist "Palestinian" was a word used before WWI to imply Arabs. This is contradicted by the Encyclopedia Britannica that the sentence sources. I'm sure many want to dispute these things, because they are very debatable. Lets not have debate in the lead, lets have facts.

Now the final paragraph mentions the rise of Palestinian nationalism after 48 and 67. This is good information putting the slightly nationalistic parts in the rest of the article (UN Stamp, pic of Arafat playing Santa, the bloated cuisine section, the "lost years") in a better context. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.88.158.88 (talk) 18:43, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I restored it with quotes from the sources in the citations and a more specific url for the Britannica material. Sean.hoyland - talk 19:43, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

So now Wikipedia is going to paraphrase Encyclopedia Britannica? EB has a variation of the wiki system, so the material on it is secondary at best. Plus paraphrasing is sloppy anyway.

"Widespread" is a weasel word. The Syrian-Palestinian Congress didn't advocate Palestinian independence. That first sentence of the third paragraph is unnecessary. I think the rest of the paragraph can stand on its own, or we can at least remove the word "widespread" and find sources other than EB for pre-1948 Palestinian Nationalism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.88.158.88 (talk) 23:50, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

No responses, so I went ahead and changed "widespread" to "early." I also streamlined the paraphrases of EB, a source I still say is not valid. Wikis don't quote other wikis. I also reworded the reference to the short-lived Syrian Kingdom. Palestinian Arabs saying they want in on a country that has Damascus as a capital is not an independent Palestine. If anything it argues AGAINST a separate identity for Palestinians, and has no place in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.88.158.88 (talk) 18:59, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Your removal of the EB source details broke the ref. I fixed it. The source, a reliable source, is talking about wide usage not early usage. Even in general relativity, time and space are entirely different kinds of dimensions. You really need to stop removing information, changing things so that they don't match sources and be aware that this article is covered by WP:1RR restrictions and the discretionary sanctions. Sean.hoyland - talk 04:08, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

EB is not a reliable source. The online edition is a wiki and therefore biased. It is not the trusted tome you find in the reference section of the library. Quoting the online edition of EB is the same as quoting Wikitravel. The whole website has a sloppy, amateur quality. Don't confuse that website with the printed edition.

To quote EB... "The Arabs of Palestine began widely using the term Palestinian starting in the pre-World War I period to indicate the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people."

So if we are going to say "widely," we have to qualify that it was widely used amongst the Arabs of Palestine. I edited out the word "widespread" because it implied that it was widespread everywhere, not just in one population. "Palestinian Arab" was not the most common connotation of the word "Palestinian" before WWI, just one of them. I changed the open-ended spatial term "widespread" to the term "early" because if someone was using the word in a nationalistic sense before WWI, that IS early! Even up to 1948, you can find plenty of primary sources that use the word to describe anyone living in Palestine.

Here is another sentence, that also sucks..."After the creation of the State of Israel, the exodus of 1948, and more so after the exodus of 1967, the term came to signify not only a place of origin, but the sense of a shared past and future in the form of a Palestinian nation-state."

This sentence is far too similar to the EB article. To prove the plagiarism, someone put the quote at the bottom of the page. Additionally, the sentence is an emotional plea. It dares the reader to deny statehood to these people who suffered in '48 and '67.

EB and its two biased, politicized quotes should be removed from this page. We can discuss the growth of Palestinian nationalism later in the article. The lead should be straightforward.

If others think I'm editing out good material, then find the primary sources that EB quotes to back up these claims. Otherwise EB is just another soapbox, like much of this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.88.158.88 (talk) 10:22, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I went ahead and removed the EB quotes. I added how politicized the origins of Palestinians are. This should be mentioned in the lead. If you want, I can add quotes from Jordanian, Syrian, and Saudi Arabian leaders claiming "Palestinian" is a political tool, as well as Palestinian leaders saying things like "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism."

We can leave off these quotes ONLY if there is some mention that not everyone agrees Palestinians have a historical past.

PLO is widely regarded as a terrorist organization, but in the interest of NPOV I linked PLO to "political violence."

I imagine the EB quotes are gonna go back up. If we quote one wiki, why not also quote Uncyclopedia. "Arabs lost less than 1% of their land in 1948. The idea of Palestinians was invented in order to claim that they lost over 50% of their land. This is called marketing." No using wikis as a source for other wikis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.88.158.88 (talk) 21:40, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

EB Online is NOT an open wiki. Subscribers can only recommend changes. Those still have to be reliably sourced and they are all reviewed & incorporated by the EB staff editors. There is obviously no Wikipedia consensus that EB Online is not a reliable source, since there are literally thousands of other Wikipedia article citations that contain EB URLs. Anonymous I/Ps should address their concerns at WP:RSN, before they attempt to impose sweeping policy decisions on other editors here regarding sourcing. harlan (talk) 18:40, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Just because lots of articles reference EB does not make it reliable. Wikipedia is a work in progress. It is tertiary source, this is true, but an unreliable one. The printed EB is a very trusted source. EB online has a much looser editorial policy. Who are it's editors? Do great scholars go to work for a minor websites? It is not properly sourced and the particular article in question would not pass the standards of Wikipedia. If you think the article is properly sourced, then find the sources that support the statements in the third paragraph.

The EB article about Palestinians is an attempt to "prove" the opinion that Palestinian refugees are a people who deserve a state. Is that the goal of this article? Read the section on Palestinian history and nationalism. It shows that the statements in the third paragraph of the lead are not widely supported. It is really only people sympathetic to the Arab side who revise history to say "Arabs wanted a Palestinian nation before Zionism." But EB says it like it's fact.

We don't need to quote EB. Saying "the origins of Palestinian nationalism is politicized" belongs in the lead. A reader with little knowledge of the conflict should be told this. A Palestinian people article that takes a position that they definitely exist is POV. An article that says the IDEA of a Pal people existing is NPOV, just like the article on GOD. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.88.158.88 (talk) 18:42, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

There is no evidence of a god, any god, anywhere, anytime, ever. To compare that to the existence of human beings who can speak about themselves, their identity, who have a documented culture and history is ludicrous. If you want people to take your proposals seriously and respond to your talk page messages try not to make ludicrous comparisons. Sean.hoyland - talk 21:36, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Like the guideline says,[1] "There is guidance from ArbCom that removal of statements that are pertinent, sourced reliably, and written in a neutral style constitutes disruption.[2] Instead of removing cited work, you should be questioning uncited information."
According to the sources cited in the body of the article, there are several international organizations and sovereign states, including the League of Arab States, the United Nations, the United States of America, and Israel which have formally recognized the existence of the Palestinian people and the officials of the legal entities that represent them. In the United States persons of Palestinian descent or national origin are legally recognized and protected under the applicable anti-discrimination laws, e.g. [3] The US State Department advises that it is even possible that Israeli authorities would consider as Palestinian any US citizen who was born in the United States but has grandparents who were born or lived in the West Bank or Gaza.[4] Wikipedia and the lead of this article are not a place where editors are supposed to carry-on a political campaign against reality. harlan (talk) 21:54, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Very nice Straw man argument. Of course there are a bunch of people who self-identify as Palestinian.

But when did people first start doing that? Some scholars say that when Arab residents of Ottoman Palestine began to oppose the Turks, what they were really doing is expressing their identity as Palestinians. They didn't call themselves that at the time, but that doesn't mean they didn't have nationalist aspirations.

Are Palestinians real? Yes! When did they start being unique in the Arab community as a whole? When did Palestinian nationalism separate from Pan-Arab nationalism? Yassir Arafat would tell you something different than Avigdor Liberman. But it doesn't matter. Wikipedia maintains neutrality.

The lead's third paragraph still seems bias to me. Wikipedia quoting EB is like Time magazine quoting the Bumblefuk Shopper. The decent folks at Encyclopedia Britannica (the book) tried to cash in on the internet with their crappy website. Read the Palestine article. Wiki's isn't perfect, but EB's is bias towards the "historic Palestinians" camp.

The EB quotes supply two claims in our lead. 1. "Early use of 'Palestinian' as an endonym to refer to the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people by the local Arabic-speaking population of Palestine began prior to the outbreak of World War I..."

There were few Arabs in Palestine before World War I who spoke English. Were they using an Arabic term? To claim that Arabic speakers in Palestine were using the English word "Palestinian" to refer to the abstract concept of nationhood is hard to swallow. Where is the source? The opinion of some editor for EB, a minor website with little cultural relevance, is not enough to prove this claim. Read the Etymology section of our article. Jewish newspaper publishers thought of themselves as Palestinians up to 1950.

2. "...the first demand for an Arab state encompassing Palestine was issued by the Syrian-Palestinian Congress on 21 September 1921."

This demand was issued by a group of Pan-Arab nationalists. They did not single out the land west of the Jordan river. They would have argued against the idea that Arabs in Ramallah are different than Arabs in Baghdad. But it is used out of context here to make the reader think that in 1921 a bunch of Palestinians issued a Declaration of Independence. That didn't come until 1964, with the creation of the PLO. How come the PLO felt the need to define "Palestinian" in their charter? Because it was ambiguous.

In 1948, the UN separated the land west of the Jordan into "Jewish" and "Arab" sides. That doesn't prove there were no "Palestinians." But it does suggest that the people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip did not primarily identify as "Palestinians." This article shouldn't deny that Palestinian people exist. But the origins of that term having its current connotation is politicized and hard to pin down. Its a hard mission, but together I think we can build an NPOV article.

I mentioned God because some people believe in the concept and some don't, but the article doesn't take either stand. Sean, I think you went off on your blasphemy because you think I'm some rabid Zionist. No, the reason I am writing on this fine Christmas morning is not because I am a Jew, it's because I'm an atheist. Bah humbug. If religion went away, so would the wars in the Middle East (except the Arabs, Turks, and Iranians would still deny statehood to the Kurds), but until then let's make an article about Palestinian people, not the Palestinian quest for statehood or the merits of said quest.

Nationalism and refugees and Zionism all need mention in this article, but not so as to leave the reader with an idea of which politics to follow.

There are no less than eight images of cute Palestinian girls on this page. I think we can get rid of EB. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.88.158.88 (talk) 16:28, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Changes to the first paragraph reverted by Sol Goldstone

Sol - you you say that my changes are POV - but I beg to disagree. I mentioned that Palestinians are a majority in Jordan - how is that POV? While discussing the stateless situation of Palestinians I mentioned that the only two countries in the middle east that gave Palestinians citizenship are Jordan and Israel. This is factual, this is pertinent to Palestinian statelessness, and this is significant. How is it POV? Apropos Palestinian demographics, and the fact that most Palestinian Christians left Palestine, I mentioned the causes - and provided ample references. Why did you chose to revert it ? Toranador (talk) 13:56, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I have some comments/questions about the edit for what it's worth
  • I didn't understand the "where they are a majority," statement. Jordan's population is estimated to be about ~6.4 million[5] so the term 'majority' is confusing, at least to me. Plus there is no source. If you mean something like the demographic set with the largest number of members based on someone's (Jordan's?) classification system it's better to be clear about what you mean and cite a source.
  • Regarding "Except for Jordan, ironically, Israel is the only middle eastern country where Palestinians have citizenship and enjoy full civic rights." Toameh's piece for Hudson is an opinion piece but you're using it as if it's a factual report to make statements of fact in Wikipedia unattributed neutral narrative voice. You also use his word, 'ironically'. His article has an agenda, to describe what he regards as double standards. We don't have an agenda, we're just an encyclopedia so I think a factual source would be better for facts.
  • Regarding "as many left due to persecution by Palestinian Muslims", that is synthesis. If you want to say that you need a reliable source that says that. Benny Avni's piece in the New York Post is a partisan opinion piece not suitable for statements of fact. The Telegraph piece is a news report but is about an instance of violence in Gaza in June 2007. It doesn't support your statement. The piece in LiveLeak is interesting and relevant but there's no way that site is a reliable source. They seem to have got the material from somewhere else and they're using MEMRI translations which makes matters worse. The Christianity Today article under the 'Mission' section (hmmm), another partisan source, briefly mentions some statements by Israeli attorney and author, Justus Reid Weiner about Bethlehem. Again it doesn't directly support your statement. It's synthesis. The gmsplace.com is self published, not an RS.
Sean.hoyland - talk 16:16, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Well said. Sol (talk) 17:04, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Sol, thanks for your response

Regarding Jordan - there are various numbers bandied about - even in this article. for example the demographics table further down the page cites 2.7 million in Jordan. The 1.98 mil refers to refugees. Are all Palestinians by definition "refugees"? For example if a Palestinian emigrated to Chile or the US - is he still a refugee? How about one that emigrated to Jordan? Is the Jordanian queen who is of Palestinian descent still a refugee?

Regarding mid-east countries that gave Palestinians citizenship - do the math: Lebanon - no, Syria-no, Egypt - no, Saudi Arabia - hell no, Kuwait - no, Iraq - of course no - many Palestinians fled from there to Jordan, UAE perhaps? I guess "no" either. So who's left ? we could go through each mid-east country and the answer would still be no. So where do we have a yes? - ah that's Jordan and yes - call it ironic or call it natural - we have Israel. So if your problem about the POV issue is the word "ironic" - I don't mind dropping it.

Regarding persecution of Christians - I admit; I can't say definitely that every one of them left because of persecution. But there is plenty evidence in numerous articles about persecution, (by the way - not just in Palestine but also in many other places in the mid east) and we know that most have left. So how do you suggest incorporating this information? And by the way - what's wrong with MEMRI?Toranador (talk) 17:19, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

This is an interesting article about Jordan's demographics: http://www.badil.org/en/al-majdal/item/655-problems-with-demographic-data-in-jordanToranador (talk) 17:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't thank me, thank my glorious spokesperson, sean! :P As to the first issue, leaving aside who qualifies as Palestinian for these purposes, 1.9 million isn't a majority. To the second, I agree it's interesting but there's no source supporting it. As to the Christian issue, the portrayal here seems misleading, that most Christian Palestinians live outside of Palestine (to use the article's words) because of persecution from the Muslim majority; most Palestinians don't live in the area, regardless of religion. There's certainly been persecution but the sources don't seem to support the idea that it's the main reason for the Christian exodus, historically.
I'm not sure why the IP keeps inserting these edits. It appears to be your IP address (or leaving hints to that effect) and if it is be careful, mon frere, you've broken the 1/RR rule here which tends to get a poor response from admins. Sol (talk) 05:42, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Palestinians in Jordan - from the horse's mouth - see page 17 of Palestinian National Authority Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics 2006 report claims 2.8 mil in Jordan. So how about saying something like "where they are approximately half the population"?

Regarding support for Israel and Jordan being the only ones that granted citizenship to Palestinians - the very same source of the previous sentence, the one that says "The remainder, comprise what is known as the Palestinian diaspora, of whom more than half are stateless refugees, lacking citizenship in any country." namely Refugees into citizens: Palestinians and the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict - see page 73 says that very same fact on just the previous page - page 73. So I believe we can keep my suggested sentence as is: "Except for Jordan, ironically, Israel is the only middle eastern country where Palestinians have citizenship and enjoy full civic rights.". If you don't think it's "ironic" (I think it is), we can drop that word.

Regarding persecution of Christians by Muslims - I accept that there is no PROOF of the extent of the causality, but I think it's a safe bet that one affected the other. So how about we write "Palestinian Christians experienced persecution by Palestinian Muslims" as a separate sentence, and let the reader infer causality if there is one?

By the way - I'm not the one updating using the 76.88.158.88 IP. It's a different contributor. Toranador (talk) 14:59, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I haven't had any reaction to the above for a while - so I assume its OK and am therefore updating the article Toranador (talk) 12:49, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry for the delay, busy time of year, starting the BRD cycle was the right thing to do. Good to know you aren't 76, it was weirdly using language to that effect.
It looks like your source has 2.8 million in Jordan, not 2.6, I'll change that at some point.
As to"Except for Jordan, ironically, Israel is the only middle eastern country where Palestinians have citizenship and enjoy full civic rights." I think that's an odd sentence. It sounds like all Palestinians enjoy citizenship in Jordan or Israel, which isn't the case and there are some other Middle Eastern countries where Palestinians have gotten citizenship (in deplorably small numbers, albeit).
As to the third section, it still seems like there's no source supporting it and it would be WP:OR. It also looks out of place in a section on Palestinian religous demographics to casual toss in one particular example of religous persecution. Not that it should be ignored or downplayed, just that it's probably not the place for it. Sol (talk) 19:03, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
Let's drop the POV editorial about granting citizenship and "full civic rights". Editors are forgetting that Palestine is legally recognized as a state with its own nationality and citizenship, and that "Exclusive benefits reserved for Jews derive from the two-tiered civil status under Israel’s domestic legal regime based on a “Jewish nationality,” which entitles “persons of Jewish race or descendency” to superior rights and privileges, particularly in land use, housing, development, immigration and access to natural resources, as affirmed in key legislation." See para 206 [6] of the UN Fact Finding Mission Report on the Gaza Conflict.
Jordan was a new legal entity formed as a result of the political union between the former mandated territories of Arab Palestine and Transjordan. Israel was also a new legal entity formed in former mandated territory of Palestine. It isn't ironic when new states accept the lawful inhabitants of the territories they control as citizens, or when neighboring states refuse to grant refugees citizenship.
Israel doesn't treat non-Jewish refugees any differently than its Arab neighbors. Until recently, Israel took no action to codify the terms of the Refugee Convention in its municipal law, although it had been a signatory of the UN convention. There are reliable reports that Israel is building a "concentration camp" in the Negev for 10,000 "infiltrators who mean no harm" that will be operated by the Prison Service.[7] The reports say government officials complained the infiltrators were diluting the country's Jewish character. [8] harlan (talk) 18:14, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Transjordan didn't have a political union with anybody, they conquered the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Arabs in Israel live with fewer restrictions on their freedoms than Jews in most Arab countries. Trying to make Palestinians seem oppressed in this article would be inappropriate.

We should be discussing the problems of Palestinian refugees. The fact that Arab countries, like Jordan, are denying citizenship to Arabs that migrated from former Mandated Palestine is worth noting in the article, along with the problems Arabs face in Israel. I think most of the discrimination is not institutional, like housing discrimination against blacks in America. That would make it hard to cite.

Much of people's ideas about Palestinians are shaped by political struggle. Their continuing struggle for citizenship is worth noting. This information can and should put blame on all countries of the region for not accommodating the Arab refugee.

Additionally the Palestinian Diaspora page says the Ottoman Empire started chasing out Christians. Seems like good info. We can reference the Turks discrimination, and then an implied link to more modern diaspora would be in the readers mind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.52.80.198 (talk) 22:39, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

West Bank Jordan 1988

Surely, it's relevant to the story of the Palestinians that Jordan ceded claims to the West Bank in 1988. stripping the Palestinians there of Jordanian citizenship.--Louiedog (talk) 14:11, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

12 Million New Palestinians in the last week?

Hiya, Ultra-Zionist Jew here. :p I was getting pop figures for someone when I noticed this massive discrepancy in the numbers I remembered and the numbers here now. 94.249.116.62 was kind enough to let the world know that the Palestinian worldwide population has swollen by ~12 million people in the last week (though the world population only grew by 5 million). Now I don't know if they materialised out of thin air or what have you, but among the things I notice are some interesting new realities. 8 million new Palestinians in Chile (nice comma usage in the number btw), more than the Chileans themselves! the population in Jordan has grown so that they are now almost 3/5 or so of the population! In the Palestinian Territories it appears there are now more Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank than the area of the Palestinian Territories themselves, oh wai-.

Now in all seriousness, why has this glaring example of vandalism been allowed to stay for more than four days? This article is visited enough that I would think someone would fix it. Even if 12 million new Palestinians did come out of nowhere, there would need to be a source for it. Heck, common sense should dictate that a people's population doesn't double in one week. This sort of thing is why professors, teachers and many people in general don't trust wiki as a reliable source. Sure 99.9999% of the time your info will be accurate, but stuff like this stands out. Now does anyone who is not very biased like myself (though I would say the same of an article on Jewish population as much as I would like it to be true) want to fix the numbers? Thanks. Hpelgrift (talk) 05:13, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Good catch. I've switched the initial number and I'll look at the others tomorrow. Sol (talk) 05:37, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Alrighty, thanks. =) I'm kinda disappointed that others didn't spot it as I presume there's many regulars and the change is kind of in your face (being in the infobox and all). It's a bit dangerous to have such things like that as that sort of information could be picked up by a news station and reported as fact. (As has happened many other times.) You could put the old numbers back or better yet find the latest info. IIRC Palestinians have a growth rate of about +3.2% in the Territories possibly greater and so the numbers have most likely changed by a goodly amount since the last time the info was recieved. Hpelgrift (talk) 16:38, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
There appears to be a whole dedicated subset of vandals devoted to subtly changing numbers so you'll find occasional figures such as "100 million Jews live in Russia" etc. Sol (talk) 17:13, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
Oh lovely, are they trolling (not very good trolling, but I am a bit peeved, so bravo) or are they trying to discourage use of infoboxes? I know there are some wikipedians who hate this time-saving tool (if you don't have time to read through a WoT). If we had that many in Russia it would be rather interesting indeed. ^^ On the bright side it does redirect attention to the population figures and encourages someone to find new numbers.Hpelgrift (talk) 17:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

PLO Euphemism

It's great that the lead makes reference to the PLO being a representative of Palestinian people.

...isn't it also a terrorist organization? In 1991, the US Gov't declared that the PLO was no longer terrorists, but this was a diplomatic move to allow greater freedom for the peace process. Recently, the US has renamed the PLO as terrorists (the wiki page hasn't been updated yet). The PLO routinely takes credit for violent acts in the Middle East.

The Palestine Liberation Organization link refers to the group as a "political and paramilitary" organization. That sounds good to me. It is a paramilitary group, right? Don't they parade around with AKs and green masks?

Palestinian political violence is a good wiki page, as much as I hate the movement and its goals and deliberate misinformation campaigns. This is part of it. If the PLO is mentioned in the lead, its violent ties need to be mentioned too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.160.54.164 (talk) 19:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Well the PA is the most widely recognised representative of the Palestinians as far as I know and they are from the PLO with Fatah being the big guy in control. Just because it's a terrorist organisation doesn't mean that it can't also be a governmental body (partly because who is a terrorist is a matter of opinion really, and there is nothing to say terrorists can't be political leaders). Most of these parties have a paramilitary wing and a political wing. Heck even in Israel you had the Yirgun which later became Likud or in the US with the Republicans and idk, Sarah Palin? Hpelgrift (talk) 02:26, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I didn't ask for the word "terrorist," I added Palestinian political violence, which is the prefered euphemism for Wiki. Yes, they are an international diplomatic apparatus, I didn't ask to remove that reference. I just want the violent side mentioned. We could not talk about the great civil rights leader, Malcolm X, without referencing his advocacy of violence. It is part of his story. The PLO was born in violence and satisfies its constituents with violence.

Can we leave off the Pally political violence/terror thing and just say they have a paramilitary wing?

"The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in 1964, represents the Palestinian people before the international community and maintains a paramilitary wing."

BTW, Likud was formed in 1973, decades after Irgun merged with the IDF. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.160.54.155 (talk) 01:03, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

That could work I guess, yeah.
You know what I mean on the Irgun and Likud, lol. Here is there article which explains it in a pretty straightforward manner: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun last paragraph of the Intro. Hpelgrift (talk) 16:48, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Touche, I concede that parts of Likud can be traced back to politically violent/terroristic groups from the past.

I'm going to add my version above, in quotes, to the article. Maybe someone smart can streamline the PA and PLO into a simpler statement about the political situation. There is a lot of overlap... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.160.54.148 (talk) 20:43, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

yes yes, I am awesome, I know. (j/k :p) I think that is good, it would help makes thing more understandable. I have a belief that this wiki should strive more towards simplicity in its explanations of things. I think far too many people are trying to show off, and in the process they make some articles (a lot of scientific ones) unreadable except by people who are very well-read on that subject already. There aught to be a third English wiki, a "professional" article one. That way the regular English wiki can be put in a manner so that the avg American, Brit or Commonwealther knows what the hell you are talking about, ha. Hpelgrift (talk) 17:07, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

According to its article, the Palestinian Liberation Organization was a terrorist organization, but the U.S. revoked this classification. Using an Easter egg to redirect "paramilitary wing" to Palestinian political violence violates WP:NOR. And what does any of that have to do with the subject of this article, the Palestinian people. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:26, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

What is that thing you have pointing to my SN? O_O I didn't put that redirect there, it was some random IP address. Though truth be told it appears to be a link to something related to the Palestinians at least with regard to the paramilitary wing of a political organisation (the PA) that is the most widely recognised political authority of the Palestinians. I guess that is why that person felt they could put it there (whether they had ulterior motives in doing so is another thing). Question though, and not that I am in any way defending the violence by the PLO, Hamas or any of the other little groups, but why exactly does it appear that classification of a group as a terrorist organisation by the US is what is needed to have it designated as such here in this wiki. Don't say it's just saying the US says so, because you know what I mean (it is being treated as the authority on the matter). Is there really no other criteria we can go by? I mean I know determining the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is solely a matter of opinion (like the Nazis would have considered the Maquis a terrorist group or the British the Irgun), but still. I might be an ultra-Zionist, but I believe in fairness in most matters. Hpelgrift (talk) 03:17, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

You went to the PLO page, you saw that I updated the lead and properly sourced it to show that the US gov't once again concidered the PLO a terrorist groupr, and you changed it. The only reason the US changed it in the first place was because its unsavory for the US to negotiate with terrorists. But there was no Palestinian groups around who weren't associated with terror, so they called a pig a duck to allow the peace process to involve the US.

Paramilitary wing redirecting to Palestinian political violence is not original research. The PLO loudly proclaims that it supports violent resistance for political goals. It an umbrella organization for numerous political, diplomatic, and paramilitary groups. Additionally, since the US and other international institutions concider the PLO to be terrorists, we can say "some people concider them to be terrorists." But instead of using this politically charged word, I used the wiki euphemism "Palestinian political violence." Those are the words they use too, since they see suicide bombs as political expression. Just look up any of the kooks in the infobox, they all see terrorism as political expression.

So, the PLO maintains and supports paramilitary (unofficial army) forces, and they do so to express their politics through violence. Is that not true?

I didn't add the reference to the PLO in the lead. But if it is gonna be there, it has to be balanced. If we mention Malcolm X, we can't just say "Malcolm X was a Sunni Muslim who condemned racism." That statement is true, but it is misleading because it fails to mention the more famous, earlier Malcolm X who was a Nation of Islam racist. Mention both, or don't mention either.

So why does the lead say the PLO is a diplomatic group? Does that have to do with Pally people? I don't know, but I do know that if we are gonna mention it, we have to mention both the diplomatic and paramilitary sides of the PLO. To say they only use diplomacy to achieve their goals is to mislead the reader into a false impression of what the PLO does.

So, I say remove reference to the PLO from the lead altogether, or call a pig a pig. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.160.54.161 (talk) 23:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Is there really a "Palestinian people"?

This article refers to Palestinians as an Arabic-speaking ethnic group, but is there really a difference between them and other Arabs? In fact, the book From Time Immemorial, although widely referred to as a fraud, sites credible Ottoman and British demographic records which shows that the population of Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine was small, and shows a rapid increase in Arab immigration after the early Zionist pioneers began draining the swamps and making the land arable. Even opponents of the book such as Yehoshua Porath do not contest this. When Mark Twain visited Ottoman Palestine in 1867, he quoted what he saw in, The Innocents Abroad: "A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds... a silent mournful expanse.... a desolation.... we never saw a human being on the whole route... hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country". The few Palestinians who were there before the mass immigration started were descended from those Arabs who were in the Islamic conquest of the land. And up until very recently, they considered themselves simply Arabs. During the mandate period, everyone who lived in the land was called a Palestinian, and Mandate Arabs were referred to, and are still referred to on Wikipedia, as simply Arabs. There is no seperate Palestinian culture or heritage, all of it is simply Arab. Also, the genetic studies showing the closeness of Jews and Palestinians are not surprising: Jews and Arabs are both Semitic peoples, and Israel is practically surrounded by the Arab world.

I suggest we revise this article to say that Palestinians are Arabs who were born in, or descended of those who were born in or lived in what used to be Palestine and is today Israel and the Palestinian territories.--RM (Be my friend) 02:27, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

Support:

Ethnic group is not synonymous with "people", so that is irrelevant. Is there not an "American people"? FunkMonk (talk) 05:45, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Are you stating your opinion? No, there is not an 'American people' Koakhtzvigad (talk) 05:49, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Apparently there is. And if you still don't think there is, please go to that article and start the same argument, will ya? FunkMonk (talk) 05:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Oppose:

Discussion

Twain was writing a satire. In 1867, he could just as easily have written about the lack of population and backwardness in some of the hollows and mountaintops of the Ozarks in his native Missouri. Here is a map which shows that deaths from malaria were a very common occurrence in the United States of 1870.[9]

Contrary to the over-confident projections and reports of the British Colonial administrators, draining swaps did not eliminate the disease vector of malaria. It was not a long-term success in creating much arable land either. For example, Environmental Systems Research Institute explains:

In the late 1950s Lake Hula and its surrounding swamps, located in the northern part of Israel, were drained by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) giving over most of the area to agriculture. This was a Zionist action aimed at sanitizing the malaria-infestation in the Hula valley and turn the area over into suitable land for agriculture.... ...The interference in the natural system of the Hula valley caused a series of physical and biogeochemical irreversible problems: the peat soils decomposed and settled leading to deterioration of the soil quality and narrowing by 10-20 % the land suitable for cultivation; peat fires accelerated causing dust storms; poisonous weeds spread out; field mice multiplied; indigenous fauna and flora disappeared; water bird population declined; and the quality of water in Lake Kinneret has been impaired. By the end of the 1980's it became evident that a rapid action of restoration was essential."[10]

Reenem notes that Peters claims about Arab immigration are widely reported to be a fraud. I think he is misreading any perceived agreement on behalf of Porath in connection with those disputed figures. harlan (talk) 11:43, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

How was Twain writing with satire? He did actually visit the Holy Land, as stated in the book, and part of the book recounts his travels, not just satire. And also, Harlan Wilkerson mentions only one example: Palestine was coated with poor-quality soil and swamps and desert, occaisonally dotted with villages and cities. The land was almost uninhabitable when the first Zionists arrived in the late 1870s and 1800s. Regardless of the one example shown here, the draining of the swamps provided more inhabitable land, and it was more than just swamp-draining that made the land arable. Just like the "rapid action of restoration" mentioned, so too did the Zionists restore the land. On the Wikipedia article Kibbutz, you get a detailed explanation about how the Judean Hills were rocky, the Galilee swampy, and the Negev was a desert. Whether or not it is agreed with Porath, it is has been indisputably proven that a strange increase in Arab immigration took place within the last 100 years before Israeli independence. The total Arab population in what is now Israel and Jordan was about 120,000. And to say that "Palestinians" have a cultural or historical identity different from other Arabs is like saying the same thing between Americans and Canadians. "Palestine" is not even an Arabic word.--RM (Be my friend) 03:28, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
Reenem, you have noted that Peters is widely regarded as a fraud, but did not provide any other reliable published sources to support your proposed edit. In the subsequent post you simply repeated her disputed assertions again, only now you claim that they have somehow been "indisputably proven". Please follow talk page guidelines and limit your discussion here to the contents of published sources that can be used to improve the article.
Mark Twain did not conduct a census of Palestine. The publisher of the first novelized version of "Innocents" described it as "a satiric, comic burlesque of Holy-Land travel books and an irreverent send-up of self-satisfied sanctimoniousness." Mark Twain was a founding member of the American Anti-Imperialist League. His "Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrim's Progress" was also a political satire which poked fun at the religious underpinnings of the popular American doctrine of "Manifest Destiny". See Hilton Obenzinger, American Palestine: Melville, Twain, and the Holy Land Mania (Princeton University Press, 1999) and the forward material of Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens), The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrim’s Progress, Hartford, CT: American Publishing Co., 1869. In 1894 Twain used the familiar characters in "Tom Sawyer Abroad" to ridicule the claims of western Christians and Jews to the Holy land. [11] Zionist spokesman Michael B. Oren said that Twain used the unflattering portrayals of Middle Eastern peoples in order to show Americans to be equally small-minded and crude.[12]
Congressional supporters of the Palestine Mandate Treaty cited Twain's description of Palestine for propaganda purposes as early as the 1920s. It is notable because authors of books like Joan Peters, Alan Dershowitz, and Binyamin Netanyahu [13] are still employing the account today in controversial attempts to justify the dispossession of the indigenous population of Palestine by foreign colonists.[14]
Obenzinger said that even though it ought to be apparent that Innocents abroad was utterly fictive, Twain's representations of Palestine as a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land in sack cloth and ashes continues to be cited in descriptions of 19th century Palestine, but not because his observations were accurate (page 166)."Palestine", By Karl Sabbagh, says that although Twain's observations have been refuted by every scholarly analysis, they are still used to bolster the Zionist cause. He mentions the fact that Senator Jim Inhofe cited the passage in 2002 as one of the seven reasons Israel is entitled to the land (page 73). "The Bible and Zionism", By Nur Masalha says Prime Minister Shamir resorted to quoting Innocents Abroad in his address to the Madrid Peace Conference, and that Netanyahu used the same axiom to justify colonization of Palestine at the expense of the inhabitants(page 44). We certainly could mention the tendentious use of Twain's satire by Zionists in this article, because it is widely documented in reliable secondary sources.
There are Underwood and Underwood stereographic prints in the Library of Congress digital prints and photographs collection from the late 1800s which show bazaars full of merchandise, farmers markets, bakeries, fine homes, public buildings, and all of the now famous shrines. At the end of the Mandate era, the "nomadic" Beersheba Bedouins alone had more dunams of land devoted to cereal grain production than the entire land holdings of the Jewish population. The Survey of Palestine indicated that Palestinian Arabs were producing: 92% of Palestine’s grain; 99% of its olives; 95% of its melons; 99% of its tobacco; 86% of its grapes; 77 % of its vegetables; and 60% of its bananas. A quick fly-by using Google Earth indicates that there are still large tracts of land in Israel, the West Bank, and the US that are seemingly desolate and uninhabited. In any event, this really isn't an article about the geography of Palestine. harlan (talk) 07:42, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
The fact that Twain wrote a partly satirical book does nothing to mask the fact that when he went to Israel, he saw barren land. The book is known to be only partly satire (See the WP article). Also, I never said that the land was completely uninhabited, just mostly. Cities like Jerusalem and Jaffa and their surrounding areas were where most Arabs lived, but the land itself was mostly deserted. Palestine was known to be empty and barren, a fact which was often mentioned in Yiddish Anti-Zionist literature. (See Kibbutz#The first kibbutzim) Like I mentioned before, British demographic sources show an "abnormally high" increase in Arab immigration to the region. Not only did new immigrants pour in from the Arab world, but many already there settled near Jewish areas, proving that Jews were responsible for making the land Arable. In any event, Arab immigration was significant to the region: from the years 1893 to 1947, the Arab population slightly more than doubled in areas where no Jews settled, and quintupled in Jewish-settled areas. Let me quote a Zionist settler on the Jaffa-Jerusalem road: "Desolate stretches of uncultivated fields spread all the way to the horizon, up to the far off Samarian hills visible through a bluish haze." Ottoman records show that in 1893, the non-Jewish population was 92,000. [15]

Harlan cites sources from 1947-1948, but by then, Arab immigrants and descendants of immigrants were there in large numbers, and the Bedouin, previously living a quasi-primitive nomadic existence, now had farming land (That's why many already within Palestine moved to Jewish-settled areas). The Arabs had massive manpower behind them, while Jews could not even hope to match it. Also, the Jewish economy at the time was a blend of both farming and industries, including weapons-making for defence.

In any event, the "Palestinians" are a manufactured people with no culture and no history any different from other Arabs, and no historical ties to the land.--RM (Be my friend) 23:02, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Earliest start of "Palestinian people" is 1930s Arab revolts according to Rashid Khalidi. Before that, any resident of Palestine was a "Palestinian." The Palestinian identity may have been manufactured and bankrolled by the occupying Arab states as a wedge against Israel, but like it or not Palestinians of today have a national aspiration independent of the Arab states. Don't expect to get too far editing the greatest and most cherished people in history, the article is heavily-guarded. Wikifan12345 (talk) 23:59, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
I agree with you on most parts, but the big question here is not whether they want a state: It's whether they are an indigenous population with their own history and culture, or whether they were Arabs who moved to a new land because they saw opportunities and just manufactured their supposed identity when they lost land that was not theirs in the first place.--RM (Be my friend) 02:33, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
No one here is an expert even though they pretend to be, but some will say the Palestinians are indigenous and possess a totally unique history and culture compared to other Arab tribes, while others will say Palestinians before 1948 did not see themselves as different from other Arab people in French Syria/Lebanon or British Egypt. The hard-core Zionist argument that Arabs lost land that "was not theirs in the first place" will be seen as bogus and morally offensive by many here. Most Israel/Palestine arguments tend to be based on the premise that the Palestinians were passive victims to a Zionist invasion, or were casualties of a war they and their Arab allies started. Wikifan12345 (talk) 04:28, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Reenem I've provided published sources which say Twain's account was a fictive satire, you've responded with your personal opinion again. The big question is if you want to put your Twain material along with the published opposing views I've cited above into this article? This isn't a general discussion forum. A number of sources have demonstrated that Peters statistics were fabricated, so you still need to provide another reliable source for your postulations on the effects of immigration, or simply drop the subject.
Wikifan if you consider the relatively small Arabic speaking indigenous Jewish communities to be an integral part of the "Arab People of Palestine", then you must accept that the leaders of the "Palestinian people" had demanded control of immigration and their own national self-government by no later than 1922. [16] Foreign Secretary Curzon said that the indigenous Jews were not supporters of the Zionist movement.
In his address to the Jewish Colonization Society of Vienna, Dr. Arthur Ruppin described the indigenous Jews as assimilated Arabs in mores and in the general mode of life, who received no Chalukkah; earned a difficult and pitiful living as small merchants and artisans; were poorly educated; and of a not particularly high moral standing.
In many cases the Zionists did not treat the Jews of Palestine as well as Jewish settlers. For example, the Jewish Publication Society of America described them as a legal difficulty:

The author's first visit to the East was a professional one, undertaken by instruction of the Council of the Holy Land Relief Fund. Its object was to clear up certain legal difficulties which had arisen on their estates at Jerusalem and Jaffa in consequence of the death of Sir Moses Montefiore in 1888. At that time their only buildings in Jerusalem were the Judah Touro Almshouse and a wind-mill. The vacant land adjoining had been " jumped " by about three hundred poor and desperate Jews who claimed that it had been originally intended for the poor, and they were poor. The journey was successful; the squatters were removed, and their place taken by industrious settlers who, through the agency of two building societies financed by the Sir Moses Montefiore Testimonial Committee, have erected some hundred and thirty decent little dwellings in place of the rude uninhabitable shanties standing there in 1888. The experience was exciting and stimulating, and encouraged the author not only to return to Palestine, but to make quite a number of other voyages to Jewish centres in the Old World as well as the New. "Jews in many lands", Adler, Elkan Nathan, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1905

In any event, the overwhelming majority of Jews were not Ottoman subjects or Palestinian people. They were under the patronage of foreign consulates and took advantage of the capitulations and the jurisdiction of the consular courts. The archives contain references to earlier discussions and published sources. harlan (talk) 08:41, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Harlan, try to avoid attributing statements to a source that doesn't support what you write. Your UN cite says nothing about George Curzon, "indigenous Jews" or anything else. The paragraph you cite says nothing about Zionist settlers treating Jewish residents of Palestine in an unequal manner. As far as your last paragraph goes, all residents of Palestine were "Palestinian." The "Palestinian people" were not the Palestinian people until the revolts started at the earliest and post-1967 (Karsh) at the latest. Wikifan12345 (talk) 11:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Wikifan the leaders in the document that I cited said they were speaking on behalf of the "Palestinian people". Local parochial Palestinian identity was already well established by the time of the first Palestinian Arab congress (al-Muʾtamar al-Arabi al-Filastini) that met in Jerusalem from 27 January to 9 February 1919.
I said " Zionists did not treat the Jews of Palestine as well as Jewish settlers." The book explains that they considered them squatters on vacant land located adjacent to some Zionist-owned properties and had them evicted so that they could build subsidized housing for Jewish settlers. The cite to the UN document precedes the statement that I attributed to Lord Curzon. I was referring to the famous quote where he objected vehemently to the term "non-Jewish communities" and talked about the relative size of the communities, i.e.

Here we have a country with 580,000 Arabs and 30,000 or is it 60,000 Jews (by no means all Zionists). Acting upon the noble principles of self-determination and ending with a splendid appeal to the League of Nations, we the proceed to draw up a document which reeks of Judaism in every paragraph and is an avowed constitution for a Jewish State. Even the poor Arabs are only allowed to look through the keyhole as a non-Jewish community. It is quite clear that this mandate has been drawn up by someone reeling under the fumes of Zionism If we are all to submit to that intoxicant, this draft is alright. See UK National archives, formerly Public Records Office FO 371/5199, C/20/3/20 cited in Palestine Papers, 1917–1922, Doreen Ingrams, George Braziller 1973 Edition, page 96

A few months earlier Balfour had written that Palestine should be extended beyond the Jordan river and remarked that "Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land." See EL Woodward and Rohan Butler, Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939. (London: HM Stationery Office, 1952), 340-348. ISBN:0115915540 Nº. 242, Memorandum by Mr. Balfour (Paris) respecting Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia' [132187/2117/44A] harlan (talk) 13:19, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Cite please? I read through your links and none supported your claims. You did link a PDF book written about a hundred years ago. I decided not to read it, but if you can link the page specifically I will. Wikifan12345 (talk) 04:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikifan, I was utilizing cites and well-known, if not notorious, direct quotes in the first place. The link I provided to "Jews in many lands", Adler, Elkan Nathan, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1905 is for multiple formats with varying or no pagination. The quote is the first paragraph of the Preface. It clearly demonstrates that the Relief Society was totally unconcerned about the housing needs of the poorest Jews. It helped arrange their eviction and subsidized decent housing for the settlers that took their place. Ruppin's insulting comments about the assimilated Jews of Palestine are contained in his "Address to the Jewish Colonization Society of Vienna". That is available here [17].
These frequently recurring talk page comments, such as "the "Palestinians" are a manufactured people with no culture and no history any different from other Arabs, and no historical ties to the land.", have never resulted in the addition of any encyclopedic content. They have been addressed, both here, and in the scholarly literature:
  • Rosemary E. Shinko, "Discourses of Denial: Silencing the Palestinians, Delegitimizing Their Claims," Journal of International Affairs 58.1 (2004);
  • Lawrence Davidson, "Historical Ignorance and Popular Perception: the Case of U.S. Perceptions of Palestine, 1917," Middle East Policy 3.2 (1994): pages 125-148;
  • Joyce Dalsheim, Settler nationalism, collective memories of violence and the 'uncanny other', Social Identities, Volume 10, Issue 2 2004 , pages 151 - 170;
  • Baruch Kimmerling, Politicide: Ariel Sharon's War Against the Palestinians, Verso, 2003;
  • Marcelo Svirsky, "The Desire for terra nullius and the Zionist-Palestinian Conflict," in Paul Patton and Simone Bignall (Eds.) Deleuze and the Postcolonial, Edinburgh University Press 2009.
Wikimedia Foundation appears to have invariant policies that should prohibit the nearly continuous harassment or intimidation of users or editors on the basis of any federally protected characteristics, including nationality or descent. The United States government does consider Palestinian descent to be a federally protected characteristic, e.g. [18] The International Court of Justice has noted that the existence of a "Palestinian people" is no longer in issue and that moreover their existence has been recognized by Israel. See paragraph 118 [19]. One example of that recognition is that under the Oslo Accords, the government of Israel reserved the right to require naturalized, or American-born US citizens with one or more grandparent from the West Bank or Gaza, to obtain Palestinian National Authority travel documents, e.g. [20] [21] Since you are a regular contributor to these discussions, perhaps you would like to join me in a request for clarification from ARBCOM about the necessity of engaging in non-productive chats under the terms of WP:ARBPIA and the relevant Wikimedia Foundation policies? In any event, I suggest we go ahead and archive this as material "not relevant to improving the article" per WP:TPOC. harlan (talk) 11:33, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Jesus you have a lot of free time. Look, the dispute was whether or not the Palestinian identity and ethnicity is defendable from a historical perspective. The cite from Curzon was not attributed, and claims that Zionists mistreated other Jewish residents of Palestine is simply unfounded. I won't dispute numerous scholars have spent time and money inventing their own facts to obfuscate history, but real historians, even "New historians" and Palestinian historians like Said and Rashid cannot prove a Palestinian "ethnicity" existed prior to the revolts. Wikifan12345 (talk) 06:18, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikifan, Ruppin's and Adler's views reflect Ashkenazi-Zionist ethnic and religious discrimination against Palestinian Arab Jews that is discussed in a multitude of sources. See for example Euro Jews & Arab Jews [22] and [23]
When you discuss revolts, you cannot ignore the 1834 Palestinian revolt against Ibrahim Pahsa led by Ahmad al-Qasim from Jabal Nablus. That has been written about by Kimmerling and Migdal; Baram and Carroll; Krämer; and others. FYI that constitutive national act is mentioned in "The Palestinian people: a history" which is already cited in the article. Reneem's unsourced comment "the "Palestinians" are a manufactured people with no culture and no history any different from other Arabs, and no historical ties to the land." doesn't account for that unique early 19th century national uprising. I suppose that I have enough free time to request clarification from ARBCOM about the application of the applicable Wikimedia Foundation non-discrimination policies to this on-going situation. harlan (talk) 14:40, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Harlan, there is no concrete evidence that the "Palestinian Jews" were somehow passive victims to the Ashknazi Zionists. The Arab Palestinians on the other hand experienced major influence and meddling by foreign Arab leaders who couldn't care less about a "Palestine." Token reflections from Ruppin and Adler (who??) discussing the "ethnic" discrimination against Palestinian Jews is totally bogus. Jewish standard of living sky-rocketed during Zionism. Arabs were 15% literate and malaria was endemic. Please end the ARBCOM threats. Wikifan12345 (talk) 02:38, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Wikifan, Elkan Nathan Adler is the notable topic of a Wikipedia article. Now you are simply refactoring your argument to say that the pioneer-days Mizrahim, and the modern-day Black Panthers and Shas didn't take the discrimination that was directed against them lying down. There always has been concrete evidence of the ethnic division between Palestinian or "Arab Jews" and the left and right wings of Zionism. e.g. See for example the Haaretz interview with Prof. Yehouda Shenhav, One space for two peoples [24] and [25]
Every country in the world experienced the very same march of progress during the 20th century that you are describing. You are simply repeating the same arguments that other settler-colonial societies have employed. See Richard H. King and Dan Stone (eds), Hannah Arendt and the uses of history: imperialism, nation, race, and genocide; and Caroline Elkins and Susan Pedersen (eds) Settler Colonialism in the Twentieth Century: Projects, Practices, Legacies. They are part of a body of literature, including the works that I cited above by Shinko, Davidson, Dalsheim, Kimmerling, & Svirsky, that detail the deliberate use of that technique in mass communications. Mark Tessler described Mandatory Palestine as a dual, but separate, society in which the warm relations between the old school Arabic-speaking Palestinians Jews and members of the other Palestinian communities had vanished. [26]
Recent genocide scholarship has highlighted how much the original definition of genocide (by Raphael Lemkin in chapter nine of his 1944 book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe) can be used to describe the continuing historical pattern of Israel in relation to the indigenous people of the land. See Professors John Docker and Ned Curthoys, The Gaza massacre, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 9 January 2009 [27] Lemkin coined the term genocide to describe a foreign occupation that destroyed or permanently crippled a subject population. The use of colonists by an occupying power to dispossess the indigenous inhabitants was part of Lemkin's definition of the crime of genocide. see Empire, Colony, Genocide, By A. Dirk Moses and Key Writings of Raphael Lemkin on Genocide. According to Cuthoys, Lemkin studied both early and modern instances of colonialism and came to the conclusion that the practice is inherently genocidal. See Raphael Lemkin’s History of Genocide and Colonialism, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. He also observed that the use of propaganda to rationalize the crime; appeal to popular beliefs and intolerance; sow discord (divide and rule); and to misrepresent or deceive others about what was really happening was an integral part of the process of genocide. See Lemkin's Methodology especially Item #5 Propaganda on page 89
Under the British mandate regime the Zionist colonial organizations employed the doctrines of Conquest of Land and Conquest of Labor in rapid succession. They were organized plans to dispossess and isolate the indigenous Palestinian people. Ahdut Ha'avodah (Unity of Labor) was founded in 1919 as a successor to Poalei Zion. It merged with HaPoel HaTzair, in 1930, and formed the ruling Mapai party in 1944. Ahdut Ha'avodah's founding charter called for a Jewish Socialist Republic in all of Palestine, and demanded "the transfer of Palestine's land, water, and natural resources to the people of Israel as their eternal possession." See Ben Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, Shabtai Teveth page 99. The objectives of the right wing Zionists were no different. See Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs), 1923, [28] I am not threatening ARBCOM "action". I am going to ask for clarification about Wikipedia project's application of the relevant Wikimedia Foundation policies. I don't think that the talk page should be flaunted for use as a chat room to routinely harass or intimidate editors or users about their supposed lack of culture, history, ethnicity, or nationality. harlan (talk) 13:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not convinced. Even if the sources were more reliable than a hoax book on demographics and Mark Twain, how could you ask in good faith "is there really a difference between them and other Arabs"? Are there really differences between the Irish and the Welsh? The Germans and the Anglo-Saxons? Of course there are. You might not accept the definitions or explanations but reliable sources do. Sol Goldstone (talk) 16:46, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Irish & Welsh have different languages. The Arabs in the Levant are the same as Americans from California and New York. They have only discovered a distinct culture after the colonist carve up of the middle east and the establishment of Israel. The wholw area was considered Arab Syria duing the ottoman period. Chesdovi (talk) 16:58, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
It's a bit of a trick question: both the Irish and the Welsh retain some use of their original Celtic languages but the majority of the population uses English. Language doesn't subsume cultural identity. We call Palestinians Arabs as a matter of convenience as most of them do speak Arabic but they aren't just Arabs. Historic Palestine was a unique mixture of cultures and ethnicities and dismissing Palestinians as just another group of Levantine Arabs would be disingenuous. Even if you reject that, you said they discovered a distinct culture after colonialism. Isn't that alone enough justification for a "Palestinian people" article? You can take issue with the extent of the article but not with its existence. Censoring a cultural group for political convenience is a deeply disturbing suggestion. Sol Goldstone (talk) 20:53, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
Why have they formed thier identiy within the borders made by Britain and France. If the area had been divied up into samller regions, are you saying each of these smaller regions would be entitled to develop into thier own nation? They are all Arabs, just as all Jews are Jews, be they speak Arabic, Yiddish or English. The whole of the Levant is a mixture of peopels who have immigarted over the years, and they have melted in to the Arabic cutlure, albeit with different dialect and levels of toerlance. That is why Morocco, 5 zillion miles from arabia is part of the Arab league, although most are of berber origin. Egyptians, considered themselves Arab, although they are infact decendants of ancient Egypt. Syria claim Lebanon parts of Turkey and once claim Palestien too. They are all the same. Chesdovi (talk) 11:41, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
The British and French already recognized the "non-Jewish" communities as independent nations before giving any thought at all to the borders. Ethnic and national groups are not the same thing as a nation state, e.g. see the Kurdish nation. The LoN Permanent Mandates Commission envisioned Palestine as a single Judeo-Arabic Commonwealth. harlan (talk) 13:27, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
It depends upon the parts of California you are discussing. The culture of Republica de East LA, and a lot of the American southwest, is described as the 'Hispanic Homeland' or 'Nation of Aztlan'. That region has a lot in common with modern-day Mexico and the heritage of the Spanish missions. Natural Syria was part of the Turkish province of Arabistan. I don't think that the other regions spoke Palestinian Arabic or that the "Arab" culture of the Hedjaz was (or is) quite as tolerant of Jewish and Christian pilgrims, their opinions, and customs. harlan (talk) 17:59, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
I would agree tht Palestinians are not an ethnic group, but I don't see where this is stated in the article. The Palestinians are a people, that's pretty much undisputed outside hardcore Zionist circles. FunkMonk (talk) 16:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
The Palestinians and others actually do identify Palestinians as a distinct ethnic group, e.g. Aziz Haidar, "The Different Levels of Palestinian Ethnicity" in Milton Jacob Esman and Itamar Rabinovich (editors) "Ethnicity, pluralism, and the state in the Middle East", Cornell University Press, 1988 and Nadim N. Rouhana, Palestinian citizens in an ethnic Jewish state: identities in conflict, Yale University Press, 1997, ISBN 0300066856, page 122 [29] harlan (talk) 18:56, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
So what? Factually-speaking, the "Palestinians" are not a unique ethnicity separate from their Arab brothers. Plus, "Palestinian" is ambiguous. Are we talking about the Palestinian citizens of Jordan - 40% of Palestinian refugees are citizens of Jordan. Are we talking about the 400,000 Lebanese Palestinians? Palestinians born in Gaza? Palestinian citizens of Israel? It's pretty obvious Palestinians have a legitimate national aspiration, but ethnically-speaking there is no debate. No difference between Syrian or Jordanian Arabs other than nationality. All nations carved up arbitrarily by colonial powers. Wikifan12345 (talk) 04:46, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
There are many regional differences, but these are not enough to make different Arab groups identify as different ethnicities, and that is all that counts; what they identify as themselves. When Montenegrins identify tmhemselves as separate from Serbs, who are we to judge that they are not? FunkMonk (talk) 11:41, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I will try to debunk a point made by harlan:

Although there is such a thing as Palestinian Arabic, it is no more different from Arabic than British English is from American English. It is actually a subdialect of Levantine Arabic. Sure, there are some differences in words, sometimes only slight differences, and the alphabet has been slightly modified, and a little bit was borrowed from Hebrew, but it is in no way a seperate language.--RM (Be my friend) 04:24, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The different regional dialects of Arabic are mutually intelligible to a certain degree although some are not (Levantine is supposedly not understood by Maghreb speakers, your mileage may vary). If you would like to propose that language is the defining feature of a people I wish you the best of luck explaining to the Quebecois that they are now limited to the "French People" article and explaining why Tupac Shakur is now listed under "Famous English People". Sol Goldstone (talk) 04:56, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Language is not always a defining feature of a people, but culture, tradition, political apparatus, kings, queens, conflicts...these elements define a people. The "Palestinians" of 1920s are not the Palestinians of today. The British occupier did not differentiate between Jews and "Palestinians." Nor did the Arab states. The concept of a Palestinian identity independent of the general Arab people is a recent phenomenon. Wikifan12345 (talk) 06:21, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Again, all that matters is self-identification, not the opinion of outside, or hostile groups. If we took such into account, many people's would not have Wikipedia articles. See Montenegrins. FunkMonk (talk) 08:04, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Self-identification means nothing. Ethnicity is not a choice or a lifestyle. The reality of the Palestinian people has mostly been shaped in the West and European observers. The Palestinians themselves have been force-fed propaganda from the UNRWA (mandate designed by the Arab states) to keep them displaced. This necessitates an identity that is mostly dependent on an Israeli or Zionist state. It is dubious why Palestinians who have lived in Lebanon for 6 generations are still denied Lebanese citizenship, while Jews booted from Arab countries are now citizens of Israel. No one disputes the Palestinian's legitimate national aspiration, but it is a stretch to say this is grounded in an ethnic struggle opposed to a political one. Highly unlikely a "Palestine" would have been erected in the absence of Zionism. Wikifan12345 (talk) 08:37, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Well, then you don't seem to grasp the concept of ethnicity and peoplehood. It is all self-identification. Even if imposed by others, what matters is that the population in question identifies likewise. FunkMonk (talk) 08:40, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Do reliable sources talk about a Palestinian people? Sure do. So we can cut out the Masada2000copy+pastes and return to making an article. Sol Goldstone (talk) 13:18, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
The argument about Montenegrins does not apply here. Montenegrins have a language (not a subdialect of Serbian, but an inciptent standardized form of the Shtokavian dialect of Serbo-Croatian). Montenegrins have also previously enjoyed political autonomy in their own land. It is known that the uniquiness of Montenegrin culture and identity is based on centuries-long distinct traditions, and dialectical and cultural particularities formed under Ottoman and Italian rule. Palestinians, on the other hand, have a slight variation of Arabic hardly indistinguishable from other Levantine Arabic dialects, their culture and traditions are not indigenous, but Arab, and their costumes, art, and handicrafts are the only things that can possibly be used to separate them from Arabs, although sewing clothing, painting, and pottery cannot possibly make them into a seperate ethnic group.--RM (Be my friend) 18:01, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Language is subjective. Who are you to say that Montenegrin is more distinct from Serbian than Palestinian Arabic is from, say, Syrian or Lebanese Arabic? Hell, it is mutually unintelligible with several Arabic dialects, whereas all Serbo-Croatian "languages" are mutually intelligible. Yes, "Palestinian" as a self-identification for Arabs of Palestine is a relatively recent phenomenon, but again, this is completely irrelevant to its validity. FunkMonk (talk) 18:20, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't know what I can do if editors decide to ignore the facts. No one is disputing the Palestinians are a "people" but there is zero evidence to support they are a people independent of other Arabs ethnically-speaking. Of course there are loads of books and scholars who argue the Palestinians are an historic ancient people with a rich history but that's what happens when your benefactors pump billions into mainstream universities. No historian, pro-Palestinian or hard-core Zionists have proved the Palestinian identity was inherient prior to Zionism. Like I said numerous times, even Rashid and Said argue the most earliest birth for the Palestinian "people" began in the 1930s revolts. Wikifan12345 (talk) 02:32, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Actually, a lot of editors are disputing if they are a people! Does a group become a people when they gain sense of group identity? Can you be a people without knowing it? Who cares? As long as RSs say it and it's deemed notable it doesn't matter how the editors define a 'people' on the talk page! If you want to contest the creation date/time span of the Palestinians as a group or include content about "what happens when your benefactors pump billions into mainstream universities", go for it! Sol Goldstone (talk) 03:43, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Nobody is disputing what reliable sources tell us. There is an endless supply of scholarship supporting a variety of Palestinian narratives. Palestine betrayed talks a lot about the origins of the Palestinian "people" and the growing argument that the identity was designed and developed by ruling Arabs to stir up war with Zionists. The belief that there are a Palestinian "people" prior to Zionism is unsubstantiated. Scholars don't say Arabs did not live in Palestine, but in the 19th a Palestinian nationalism simply did not exist. Even the partition didn't call for an Israeli and Palestinian state. Harlan has an arsenal of fringe scholars to support his POV but just as many mainstream sources say the exact opposite. I don't subscribe to the "Palestinian people do not exist" but it's becoming redundant to find editors trolling into the discussion gushing about the romantic and glorious history of Palestinians. Wikifan12345 (talk) 06:06, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Reneem started this thread by denying the Palestinians are a people. When it comes to fringe scholars you apparently only have Karsh. The publicists working for his publisher, Yale University Press, chose reviews which describe him as a spokesman of a political movement, i.e. "the preeminent scholar-spokesman of the Revisionist (politically-rightist) Movement in Zionism." He jump started sales of his new book with a New York Times Op-Ed regarding the theories contained in Palestine Betrayed. Jerome Slater, an Emeritus Professor of Political Science and Huffington Post blogger wrote: In the famous Jewish definition, the term “chutzpah” is best illustrated by the story of the man who, having been convicted of killing both his parents, pleads for mercy on the ground that he is an orphan. That can’t be topped, but we now have a new second-best illustration: Efraim Karsh, one of the most infuriating and disingenuous of the rightwing Israeli historians, shedding crocodile tears for the poor Palestinians, repeatedly betrayed by their Arab brethren." He sums up by asking "Can one find a more disingenuous “explanation” of why there has been no settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?" harlan (talk) 13:37, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Look Harlan, I know you ignore research that totally contradicts an extreme anti-Zionist narrative that portrays the Arabs as passive victims to a Zionist invasion. The reality is Karsh book has yet to be challenged by your beloved "historians," mostly because it is predicated on thousands of newly-classified sources coming from Arab states. Arab and British archives have been classified, while Israel's was release more than a decade ago. Maybe if Israel had billions of petro dollars to throw at mainstream universities it could pump out the same level of propaganda the Arab benefactors manage to bombard the West with.Wikifan12345 (talk) 19:54, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
For "Security" reasons significant portions of the documents-addressing Israel's 1948 expulsion of over 50,000 from Ramle and Lod are still classified, e.g. [30]. Netanyahu just extended the normal declassification schedule period from 50 to 70 years.[31]
I don't ignore Karsh, I own a copy of Palestine Betrayed. It restates his thesis about the Yishuv-Hashemite agreement from Fabricating History, which Morris answered in Refabricating 1948 [32] Like his earlier work, Palestine Betrayed still doesn't contain a single reference to the declassified public records in the 1970s-era editions of the Foreign Relations of the United States. The FRUS documents the 1948-49 meetings between Shertok, Epstein, Secretary Marshall, Under-Secretary Lovett, and Under-Secretary Rusk with regard to support for a union of Arab Palestine and Transjordan, and the Jewish Agency's plan to partition Palestine between themselves and Abdullah of Transjordan. Karsh can't accuse Secretary Marshall et. al. of attempting to engage in "historical revisionism" or "rewriting 1948", so he just ignores their memorandums in the FRUS entirely. Of course, that hasn't stopped the so-called "New Historians" from citing the FRUS extensively.
Jewish leaders including Nahum Goldmann, Rabbi Abba Silver, Moshe Shertok, and David Ben Gurion held discussions with US officials in which they suggested or recommended a final settlement involving a union between Arab Palestine and Transjordan. During the Lausanne Conference, Israel complained publicly about the union, but Ben Gurion told US PCC representative Ethridge that "Arab Palestine might be accorded a special status in the settlement through a federal device in union with Transjordan." That is exactly what happened as a result of the Jericho Congress. The Central districts of Palestine were provided an equal number of seats in the parliament of the new state of Jordan. The FRUS says that the union had been brought about as a result of the will of the people and that the US accepted the fact that Jordanian sovereignty had been extended to the new area.[33] Israel and Karsh only describe it as an "annexation". Here are the relevant links:
  • Dr Goldmann, Foreign relations of the United States, 1946. The Near East and Africa, Volume VII, Page 680-681 [34]
  • Mr. Shertok, Foreign relations of the United States, 1948. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa Volume V, Part 2, Page 940 [35] and 945 [36]
  • Rabbi Silver, Foreign relations of the United States, 1948. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa (in two parts),Volume V, Part 2, Page 900 [37]
  • Mr. Ben Gurion Foreign relations of the United States, 1949. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa Volume VI, Page 927 [38] harlan (talk) 22:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
The article History of the Palestinian people clearly states that in 1882, the population of Palestine numbered 320,000, 25,000 of them Jews who were referred to in Arab literature as "natives" and "sons of the country". The first Palestinian organizations appeared at the end of World War I as Arab migrants were flowing into the country, and Palestinian nationalism appeared in 1920. The only thing that sets Palestinians apart from other Arabs is their slightly changed variant of Arabic, Palestinian music which is mostly Arab music with a few minor independent Palestinian elements and their costumes, some of it also borrowed from Arab dress, but fanciful dress and music do not make up a people. Palestinians are not indigenous inhabitants of Historic Palestine with their own culture and language, they are Arabs or descendants of Arabs born in the region of Palestine. There is no difference between Palestinians and Syrianns, Jordanians, and Iraqis. Those are not ethnic groups, they are terms to refer to citizens or residents of the areas. I suggest that this article be revised to display Palestinians as a nationality, not as an ethnic group.--RM (Be my friend) 23:35, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Ok, so you'll accept the idea of them as a people? That's the question on the table. On the question of ethnic group, why don't we look to see what reliable sources say on the matter of Palestinian ethnicity instead of using personal definitions? The genetic studies in particular yield some interesting findings. Sol Goldstone (talk) 00:14, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
The genetic studies should not be surprising. After all, Palestinians are Arabs, and Arabs are a Semitic peoples, closely related to Jews genetically and in someways linguistically. After all, since Israel, the Jewish national homeland, and the Arab world are in such close proximity, its hard to believe these two peoples could not share similarities. And I wasn't using personal definitions, I was using facts to show that Palestinians were not indigenous to Israel, but rather Arab residents.--RM (Be my friend) 00:47, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
The sources that you started the thread with were dubious, but now you are talking in circles by citing an accuracy-tagged Wikipedia article. It does not say that, at the end of World War I, Arab migrants were flowing into the country or that the Palestinians were not indigenous.
The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition 2005 entry says: ethnicity [(eth- nis -uh-tee)] Identity with or membership in a particular racial, national, or cultural group and observance of that group's customs, beliefs, and language.
There isn't any need for DNA tests. Palestinians can identify themselves as members of an ethnicity on the basis of their particular racial, cultural, and national group so long as they observe their group's local customs, beliefs, and language. In Semitic cultures (including ancient Israel) wealth was amassed and retained within the family by arranging marriages to other members of the local clan or tribe. The notion that the Husaynis, Khalidis, Nashashibis, Abd al-Hadi, Tuqan, and the so-called Beersheba Bedouin clans were completely indistinguishable from Arabs and distant relatives in other lands overlooks the fact that those identifiable family units were already the stable basis of the local politics of the region during the 19th century.[39] harlan (talk) 04:16, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm taking your omission of an answer as a yes, you are ok with them being a people, RM. And no, there is no need for DNA tests, people can define themselves. Fortunately, for dealing with hard line racial determinists, science proves it has a sense of irony. If you've looked at the studies you might have noticed that the genetic origins of Palestinians aren't clear cut and, some studies show, are less Arab than they are another familiar Semetic people. It's hard reading to tackle but the results are very, very interesting. Sol Goldstone (talk) 06:02, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
Those results are not surprising: The people of Nablus and its surrounding areas are mostly made up of Samaritans who converted to Islam. Samaritans are a semitic peoples who are closely related to Jews. Most Palestinians, however, are a non-indigenous Arab people.--RM (Be my friend) 18:14, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
You still are not citing any reliable published sources. Vladimir Jabotinsky was a founder of the Keren Hayesod and, starting in 1921, he was a member of the Zionist Executive. In 1923 he wrote that some Zionists held the "unfounded view of this race as a rabble ready to be bribed in order to sell out their homeland." He called the Palestinians a living nation and a people. He also said Palestine was their birthplace:

"As long as there is a spark of hope that they can get rid of us, they will not sell these hopes, not for any kind of sweet words or tasty morsels, because they are not a rabble but a nation, perhaps somewhat tattered, but still living. A living people makes such enormous concessions on such fateful questions only when there is no hope left. ... If it were possible (and I doubt this) to discuss Palestine with the Arabs of Baghdad and Mecca as if it were some kind of small, immaterial borderland, then Palestine would still remain for the Palestinians not a borderland, but their birthplace, the center and basis of their own national existence. Therefore it would be necessary to carry on colonization against the will of the Palestinian Arabs, which is the same condition that exists now." --The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs), 1923 [40]

If you come cross published sources from the 1920's which describe the Palestinians as non-indigenous or immigrants, please fell free to cite them. harlan (talk) 22:04, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
See the article Nablus and Samaritans for more information. In those articles, it is explicitly stated that the residents of Nablus and its surrounding areas are mostly descended of Samaritans who converted to Islam, and I have already provided reliable sources. I am, however, concerned about the reliability of your source. It is from a Marxist website. Marxists and socialists are typically Anti-Zionist, and this particular site is especially worrying: It calls Israel the "Zionist regime", supports Palestinian political violence, and openly calls for the destruction of Israel and its replacement with a Socialist "Republic of Palestine". It is also stated that it was transcribed and revised from the original version.--RM (Be my friend) 18:57, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
If either of those articles suggest that Samaritans are not indigenous; that they are recent immigrants; or that they are unrelated to their Palestinian neighbors it would only demonstrate that open wikis are not reliable published sources of information. I already explained that to you before.
I stopped reading the Samaritan article after the part about the Talmud casting doubt on their origins. Those reports were just as unreliable as Peters data. A 2004 National Institutes of Health-sponsored study to reconstruct the patrilineages and matrilineages of the five modern-day branches of the Samaritans revealed a common ancestry of the Samaritans and Jewish patrilineages. So, there is no evidence to support the Biblical and Talmudic folklore regarding their paternally-inherited Cuthean Y-Chromosomes.[41] There is no mention of foreign women in the ancient literature and the Sandford Genome Technology Center could not identify any likely foreign origin of the MtDNA lineages. It said "Fourteen of the 16 Samaritan females carry either of two unique mitochondrial haplotypes not found among any other ethnic groups representing from the five continents."[42]
I provided you with a convenient link to the verbatim text of Jabotinsky's The Iron Wall. If you don't like the political affiliation of the owners of that particular file server, look up another copy somewhere else. The text is third-party verifiable. If you've provided anything sourced, other than the Mark Twain and Peters innuendo, I've completely missed it. harlan (talk) 21:43, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
You just proved my point there. I was trying to provide an explanation on why some Palestinians are genetically distant from other Arabs. The people of Nablus are indeed descended from Samaritans who converted to Islam after the Arab conquest in the 630s. Most Palestinians are nothing more than descendants of Arab immigrants, but the Nablusis are an explanation to why some Palestinians are genetically distant. As for the Cutheans, keep in mind that Cuthim, their city, was located in the Fertile Crescent. Jews bear their strongest genetic ties to the people of that region (although their genetic ties to the Levant are also close), so it is perfectly plausible that the Samaritans are both from Cuthim and are genetically related to the Jews.
As for Mark Twain and Peters, they are not at all biased, and are perfectly reliable sources. Twain saw the place with his own eyes, and Peters cites Ottoman and British records.
As for Jabotinsky, I am not disputing that he actually wrote Iron Wall. I am, however, concerned that you cite an openly Marxist anti-Israel site which glorifies Intifadas and openly admitted to doing a little modification. Jabotinsky himself was wrong in this case. He did not see Palestine until 1917, after Arab mass-immigration had already begun and had been in progress since the start of the 1900s. Jabotinsky, who saw so many Arabs living there, naturally thought that they were the native inhabitants, even though Ottoman and British records show that that's not the case.--RM (Be my friend) 01:06, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
Ok, so Samaritan roots? Check. Any others? Hmm "Although the genetic affinity of Jews to the ancient, Middle Eastern non-Arab populations is greater than to Arabs (as shown in the present study), a substantial portion of Y chromosomes of Jews (70%) and Palestinian Muslim Arabs (50%) belong to the same chromosome pool. An additional 30% of the Muslim Arab chromosomes belong to a very closely related lineage... [because] part - or perhaps the majority - of Muslim Arabs in the Land of Israel descended from local inhabitants, mainly Christians and Jews, who had converted after the Islamic conquest of the 7th century A.D." Study: North African, Iraqi Jewry nearly genetic twins. Jerusalem Post (November 19, 2001) I think we can safely say that the claim, in your words, that Palestinians are "nothing more than descendants of Arab immigrants" is a massive oversimplification. So we have distinct cultural elements, self-identification, and a very interesting ethnic legacy all backed up by RS. I don't think you can, in good faith, deny the Palestinian status as a people. Sol Goldstone (talk) 02:10, 16 September 2010 (UTC)


DNA studies don't support your position at all. Many of the Palestinians have the same so-called Israelite Y-Chromosome patrilineage and fall well within the genome-wide structure common to the Jewish people.
I cited a well-known text written by Jabotinsky. Your attempt to employ a genetic fallacy to launch an ad hominem argument leaves me completely underwhelmed. Do you have a published source which actually mentions Jabotinsky's mistake, or is the material above WP:OR? I've already provided sources that say Mark Twain's account was completely fictive and used for Zionist propaganda. If you have sources which support Peters data you should consider adding them to the article about From Time Immemorial, because it says the information is unreliable. Your suggested edit still has no supporters. Zero said "Outrageous suggestion based on phony sources and false information". So far, I have to agree. harlan (talk) 03:01, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
That's becauser "Palestinians" are part of the Arab nation, and Arabs, like Jews, are a Semitic people. I am not disagreeing with you that Jabotinsky wrote that, I juist said that the website admitted it was modified a bit. But just because Jabotinsky, who had never seen the land until 1917, when Arab immigration was in full swing, does not make it true. You have not at all provided sources suggesting Twain's account to be fictious. You have simply shown us a few examples of when he travelled and wrote satire. Just because he did it a few times, does not mean he automatically does it every time. There is absolutely no hint that would suggest he was writinng with satire that time. For photographs proving my point, click here. Like I said before, I have already provided sources that Palestinians are nothing more than Arab immigrants. Before the 1960s, they were referred to simply as "Arabs" and everyone who lived in the land was a Palestinian. This study shows them to be genetically identical to Bedouins, Syrians, Jordanians, and Iraqis.

Reneem, the Jabotinsky text that I cited can be found in the version of the Iron Wall published in "The Jewish Herald", on November 26, 1937. It has been reproduced (with headings added) by Daniel Pipes on his own website: [43] Unless you can produce published analysis which says that Pipes, the Jewish Herald, and the Marxist archive are conspiring to distort Jabotinsky's message, I think we can rely on those texts. I actually cited several reliable secondary sources, including books by Hilton Obenzinger, Karl Sabbagh, and Nur Masalha, who said that Twain's description of Palestine was "utterly fictive", "not accurate", and that it has been "refuted by every scholarly analysis". Pictures from a self-published website can hardly prove your point. There are hundreds of pictures and prints of Palestine and its many inhabitants from the same time period in the Library of Congress digital prints and photographs collection. The genetic study that you cited does NOT say that the Palestinians are genetically identical to Bedouins, Syrians, Jordanians, or Iraqis. You keep SAYING "I have already provided sources that Palestinians are nothing more than Arab immigrants." But Peter's controversial thesis merely proposed that a fraction of the Arabs of Palestine were not descendants of long-term residents. Her statistics have been criticized as fabrications that were not based upon actual records. harlan (talk) 04:31, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Arabs are as diverse a people as are Americans. In Algeria, where I'm from, there are the so called Berbers; they speak Berber languages and make up 30% of the population. However, genetic and demographic studies show that Berbers make up 80% of Algerians, mainly those in the north. The same can be said about most other Arab peoples. You really can't distinguish between Coptic Egyptians and Arab Egyptians, as they're both the same race(the minority of ethnic Arabs from Arabia is a different case). The same can be said of Sudan and Somalia, both "Arab" states, yet having a Black population. That's the best example of cultural Arabization and Islamization. Lebanese people are Phoenicians, Syrians are Assyrians, and Palestinians are Israelites/Canaanites, and possibly Philistines if you look at Gaza and Ashdod.
There's a bad habit of people that discuss ethnicities and demographics to mix up between culture, language and religion, and ethnic race and origins. If Palestinians were Arabs, they should be looking more like those from the Arabian peninsula. Generally speaking, before Zionist immigration begun, there was no ethnic difference between Palestinian Muslims, Christians, or Jews. The fact that Ashkenazim Jews arrived en masse from Europe, added to the tendency of considering Jews as a distinct race regardless of how exactly Hebrew is their blood, so long as they've had at least one Israelite (or occasionally a Jewish convert) in their ancestry, didn't help either, and led to separating Palestinian Jews from the Muslims and Christians, and grouping them with the Israelis as the "Jewish people". The expulsion and persecution of Mizrahim and Sephardim Jews outside Palestine led them to escape to Israel, further complicating and strengthening this unison. I think it's safe to assume that, depending on how Jewish were the communities they arrived from, most Israelis are in fact less Hebrew by blood than the Palestinians, considering Palestinians lived in the Land of Canaan/Land of Israel since the ancient Jewish dominions and never left. They simply adapted to newer religions and cultures. UltimateDarkloid (talk) 18:33, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Try explaining that to the sources I've cited so far, which shows that they are Arab immigrants. On History of the Palestinian people, it states that Palestine had a pop. of 320,000 (25,000 Jews) before the start of the Zionist project. Obviously, the majority are immigrants.--RM (Be my friend) 02:25, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Or that Palestinians used to have large numbers of sons and daughters to help work on their lands and to increase family income. I personally have almost thirty cousins from my father's side. I don't see why such a population explosion can't occur in Palestine if it occurred in Algeria.

Algeria's population

1830 - 1,500,000

1851 - 2,554,100

1900 - 4,675,000

1910 - 5,500,000

1940 - 7,600,000

1960 - 10,853,000[1][2]

French colonization of Algeria

And to avoid arguments that immigrants sought better life conditions under French Algeria, which were admittedly present, bear this in mind: today, Algeria's population is 34.8 million, more than tripled in fifty years despite the deterioration of the situation in Algeria, and the poorer lifestyle compared to neighbouring Tunisia, Morocco, and even Libya since they actually use their oil and gas reserves. So in ten years, it would grow by 3/5, or more than half.

Furthermore, although the Regency of Algiers and French Algeria initially only contained the north and excluded the Sahara, the majority of the population is centered north. The Sahara is virtually empty, much like Negev and Jordan, but more so.

Compare it with Palestine's table:

Year Jews Christians Muslims Total1
1800 7 22 246 275
1890 43 57 432 532
1914 94 70 525 689
1922 84 71 589 752
1931 175 89 760 1,033
1947 630 143 1,181 1,970

1. Figures in thousands. The total includes Druzes and other small religious minorities.
2. There is no consensus on the population of Palestine in the 1st century of the Common Era; estimates range from under 1 million to 6 million.


"According to Alexander Scholch, the population of Palestine in 1850 had about 350,000 inhabitants, 30% of whom lived in 13 towns; roughly 85% were Muslims, 11% were Christians and 4% Jews[25]"

Demographics of Palestine

"In 1882 the population numbered approximately 320,000 people, 25,000 of whom were Jewish.[3]"

History of the Palestinian people

From the same article and from yours, respectively. Just to keep it in context.

If you still can't believe three hundred thousand can increase by a hundred thousand mainly through birth rates, then I suggest you take a look at China. Not a country on Earth is enough to provide enough immigrants to successfully affect its population growth rate, and yet it grew from 580 million in the 1950's to over a billion in the 1980's, over 1.2 billion in the late 1990's/early 2000's, and over 1.3 billion today. Another source, the article History of the People's Republic of China (1949-1976), states that "In addition, China's population which had remained constant at 400 million from the Opium War to the end of the Civil War, mushroomed to 700 million as of Mao's death." Knowing the civil war ended in 1950, and Mao died in 1976, that says a lot.

Such an insane population explosion was not uncommon back in that era. Yes, migration may have played a role, probably from Jordan and the Sinai, but more or less, they were the same region as Palestine, and the population an percentage of Jews was relatively similar, although admittedly no major cities existed in Jordan and the Sinai as did in Israel, Lebanon and Syria, so most Jews were confined to those locations while the other areas were inhabited by nomads. However, to imply that some sort of mass immigration, comparative to that of European Jews between the 1920's and the 1930's, was the main reason for the explosion in population would be preposterous as Middle Easterners and third world farmers and Bedouins have far higher birthrates than Europeans. Such an immigration is not necessary whatsoever.

Most claims of massive Arab immigration to Palestine are based on comparisons to Western, European and Israeli birthrates, as well as to modern and contemporary birthrates, when in reality neither of them apply to the Palestinians of the 19th and early 20th century. A tribal and agricultural culture that was built on the tradition of starting large families would naturally experience a population growth. It doesn't have to be Jews that made Palestinian land arable; Palestinians based their life on farming BEFORE the arrival of most European Jews. UltimateDarkloid (talk) 14:04, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Is there really a "Palestinian people"? P.2

When this discussion started, someone told me to go and look at the article for the American people, apparently thinking that I would read it and return wiser and chastened. However, that individual had not read even the introduction to the article, never mind the content of it. Hence this pointless discussion.

Most American Indian tribal names either mean "the people" or incorporate the word people into the name, i.e. Abenaki (“people of the dawn land,”), Ahtena ("ice people"), Akimel O’odham (“river people,”) have been known by non-Indians as the Pima. The name Pima, pronounced PEE-mah, is derived from the Native phrase pi-nyi-match, which means “I don’t know.”, etc. Some have rather interesting names. Everyone has heard of the Apache, but that is not the tribe's name. This is the name that was given to "the people" by their enemies, The Zuni tribe, which in Zuni means "the enemy". "Different versions of the Apache native name include Tineh (Tinneh), Tinde, Dini, Inde (N’de), Deman, and Haisndayin for “the people.” (p.15, Encyclopedia of native American tribes). The Native name for Aleutian Islands (Aleut = island) people is Unangan, or “the people.” The Algonquian (pronounced al-GON-kee-in) language is really a language family made up of many different dialects, or regional variations. Algonquian dialects had vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation in common. But they still had many differences. In fact, Native Americans speaking one Algonquian dialect might not understand those speaking another and might need sign language to communicate. Most Algonquian peoples lived in the woodlands of the Northeast and they had much in common (see NORTHEAST INDIANS). Yet because of varying lifeways and different histories, many Algonquian tribes are listed in this book by their individual names. The MASSACHUSET (means “at the range of hills,”) are Algonquians from New England who were displaced. LENNI LENAPE (means “real people”) (DELAWARE) were from mid-Atlantic region, OTTAWA (“at-home-anywhere people.”) from the Great Lakes region, ILLINOIS (Illini) (“the people.”) and MIAMI (in the Midwest and Southwest, it is derived from an Algonquian tribal name, probably meaning “people of the peninsula.”) were from the prairie. The actual ALGONKIN (“at the place of spearing fish”) tribe were from Canadian woodlands!

The American Constitution, so famously stating "We the people..." in fact spoke more for the Native Americans because not every colony even sent representatives to participate in its signing. The Declaration of Independence begun with "We, the People, but excluded the natives, the slaves and the then Spanish and French colonial populations who continued to identify with their own Crowns. The Dutch descendants of the earlier colonists were freely allowed to identify as Dutch citizens while being Americans at the same time. Even during the American Civil War the Union regiments were recruited from states and not drawn from common recruitment pool as was done in the French Republic.

In fact, if anyone cares to explore the world of linguistic anthropology they will find that this is a fairly common worldwide phenomena that many isolate populations prior to contact with empire-building populations (and their subsequent incorporation) used "the people" as a form of group identity.

So, are there a Palestinian people? The first problem is that the current 'Palestinians' don't speak the language in which the name was originally recorded by ancient Egyptians (who's language is also extinct) hence the Greek name "the river Nile, Egypt", but who called themselves Rmṯ or "(the) People," or Rmṯ (n) km.t "people of the black", so we don't actually know what it meant in the first instance. The Hebrew sources render Plishtim as invaders, a variation on the Zuni - Apache theme. Apparently the Apache also stubbornly resisted Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American expansion. However, the early European settles could have told them to go back to Canada had they been fortunate enough to have 200 years of anthropological research in their possession because the "Apache" came from there about two centuries before the first Spanish reached the area as part of the Athapascan-speaking migration that among others included the Navajo tribe. Sounds familiar?

The current population of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, is composed of several waves of migrants, of which the Jews are but the latest, though they never quite left over the 1500 years since cessation of the Imperial Roman rule in former Judea. The Arabs were also present in the region, they are recorded in Jewish literature, but, because they were predominantly nomadic for most of their history (as recorded by the others, including their own historians), they were never residents in the region as such. 'Palestinian' Arabs are tribal in their social identity as much as any Arabs in the region, and all Arab families trace their lineage to various tribes, the latest of which arrived from the Arabian Peninsula only two centuries ago. This is why there is an article called the Arab people, and another called the Tribes of Arabia. You will find there it clearly says that there is an ethno-historical division of tribes into three categories, and none refer to 'Palestine', because it was not one of the Arabic tribes. Most Arabs that live outside "Palestine" are quite proud of their tribes, and would be insulted if they were called for example Mesopotamian Arabs (tribes originating in what is now Iraq), or Levantine Arabs (tribes that moved to what is now Lebanon). Its the same reaction one gets from calling a member of the Tineh tribe in USA a 'New Mexican Indian' since he/she is neither "new", Mexican or Indian. French Canadians also had a rather bad reaction to that name when the colony was at first lost to the British Crown since they were sure they were French.

So, what you have is not a people, but by now predominantly Arabic speakers that have been for some reason disintegrated from their tribal associations and were labeled 'Palestinins' by the Europeans since 1949, the same name that Old Kingdom Egyptians used to refer to a people that invaded Canaan a very long time ago. Yes, not British, but Europeans, mostly Italians and French, because the Europeans, having lost The Holy Land, refused to acknowledge this and continued to call it that, or Palestine, for purely theological reasons - they referred to the fixed historical point-in-time that commemorated creation of Christianity in that area which at the time was Roman Syria-Palaestine. I fail to understand how a) Muslim Arabs can continue to refer to themselves as 'Palestinians' accepting the European idea of the name, and b) secular Arabs define themselves as inheritors of Christian theological projection. Jews, yes, Zionists, at least saw through the veil of this in the late 19th century. There was a particular evangelical thinking, now rampant in the USA, that somehow restoration of The Holy Land to the Jews was going to bring on the Second Coming of Christ, at which point the Jews will finally "see the light". Of course there was a large number of Christians living in the Ottoman Syria at the time, including the former Holy Land. Most were of Greek ("Graia i.e. gray colonists",) of Orthodox Marionite persuasion, and eventually moved to Lebanon. The British (Pretani Celts, "painted ones") also inherited a large number of Armenians (who call themselves Hayk) that were forcibly resettled to the 'Palestine' by the Ottomans (from Arabic Uthman "tender youth", name of Osman I), who mostly moved away to either the newly created Armenia, or into the diaspora. There was a large number of Christian sect settlements whom the Ottomans were persuaded (forcibly) to admit since the 1860s, and who, in the wake of the First World War, also moved away, notably the Germans (Julius Caesar, who used Germani to designate a group of tribes in northeastern Gaul (now France), origin unknown, but who call themselves Deutsch ("belonging to the people,"). All these People (except Badawin "desert-dwellers," I think) at one time during the 1920s and 30s carried identification documents as "Palestinians"!

So are there a 'Palestinian people'? No.Koakhtzvigad (talk) 14:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

When were the first Palestinians?

Interested in views on a topic which relates to this article - see here Talk:List_of_Palestinians#When_were_the_first_Palestinians.3F Oncenawhile (talk) 10:26, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I think we have this thing under control. Present day "Palestinianness" has its roots in early 20th century Pan-Arabism and revolts against British and the Jews. Arabs who wanted to live in Israel (reverse-Zionists?) started calling themselves Palestinians sometime in the 60s or 70s maybe, but definitly after 1948.

Right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.160.54.155 (talk) 07:20, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Left my thoughts there based on archaeological evidence rather than biblical. What is the earliest documented evidence of a reference to a Palestinian Arab people or concept of a Palestinian nation? TheArchaeologist Say Herro 07:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
Rename the list as "Palestinian Arabs" if it's a problem. FunkMonk (talk) 08:23, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
If you do decide to do that please remember to differentiate between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Arabs like a note or something. TheArchaeologist Say Herro 08:33, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
Some Arab citizens of Israel self identify as Palestinians or as both Israelis and Palestinians etc etc....sound of can of worms opening... Sean.hoyland - talk 09:46, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
"...and hillbillies want to be called 'sons of the soil', but it ain't gonna happen." Everyone wants to be called something, lol. Some Americans even put down American as an ethnicity. Officially though they are Israeli citizens who happen to be of Arab ethnicity and speak Hebrew as well as Arabic as native tongues and have adopted a mostly Israeli styled Arab culture. Wanting to be called Palestinians while being a.citizen of Israel is most probably a political thing as far as I can tell, but Israeli Arab is a straight-forward and true term just like Jewish German or Irish American. TheArchaeologist Say Herro 15:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
The theory is (or I should say new theory) that in the pre-Roman occupation Judea, Jews used three languages, Mishnaic Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek...and then had to learn Latin. Multilingual society is not a new thing to this region, or others Koakhtzvigad (talk) 21:58, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
Emmmm, nope I wouldn't say it is. Canaanite Tongues, maybe Egyptian, and Akkadian, then Hebrew became dominant (also a Canaanite Tongue); Akkadian then Aramaic; then Aramaic and Greek (Latin wouldn't have been popular even in the time of Aelia Capitolina, everyone preferred Greek, even in Roma.); then Arabic and then Arabic and Old French; Arabic and maybe Turkish; Arabic and English; then finally Hebrew, English and Arabic. Did I miss any? Though that does make sense might ask your source for this info? Name and publication if you'd be so kind. My job as an arch. ;) I am afraid I do not really see the connection though. Could you maybe elaborate? =) TheArchaeologist Say Herro 23:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
I have seen your user page, so don't tag yourself 'The Archaeologist'. You are not even an archaeologist until you get your degree.
You are wrong. Hebrew remained the spoken and written language of the Jewish population, if only for the need to write and learn the Tanakh. Aramaic had been the lingua-franca of the region for some time by then, and is sufficiently different from Hebrew to require separate tuition. Greek was an imposed language that had to be studied by Jews to enable them to function in a Greek-dominated society (Greeks refused to learn other languages), though of course those that abandoned Judaism for Hellenism soon became mono, or bi-lingual. Latin was not widely known by the vast majority of (rural) Jews, but was a necessity for their representatives that had to negotiate with the Roman administration that, in their official capacity, did use Latin even if Greek was the fashionable language in Rome.
The languages used in the region towards which the name 'Palestine' is sometimes applied are, as far as I can tell, as follows:
  • Old Egyptian 1991 - 1706 BCE Old Kingdom (1720 BCE Hyksos Invade Egypt; 1754 BCE Abraham Dies)
  • Canaanite language 1705 - 1450 BCE 1649 BCE Egyptian Famine of Joseph's Dream Commences
  • Middle Egyptian c.1550 - c.1292 BCE, New Kingdom 1539 BCE Pharaoh Tuthmosis I raids through Syria; 1412 BCE Joshua leads the Israelites into Canaan (judges of Israel)
  • Late Egyptian 1069 BCE – 700 BCE, Third Intermediate Period of Egypt; Solomon 970 BCE
  • Classical Hebrew kings of Israel and Judah
  • Ancient Aramaic Early Iron Age (911 – 612 BC), Neo-Assyrian Empire
  • Akkadian language 626 BCE – 539 BCE Neo-Babylonian Empire; reign of Zedekiah 597 – 587 BCE
  • Imperial Aramaic c. 550 – 330 BCE Achaemenid Persian Empire
  • "Judeo-Aramaic" (i.e. Aramaic dialect)/Ancient Greek 332 BCE - 62 BCE Seleucid Kingdom
  • Mishnaic Hebrew/Latin language 63 BCE - 324 CE Roman Republic and Empire
  • Aramaic language/Amoraic Hebrew 324 - 638 Early Byzantine Empire
  • Middle Persian 603 – 628 Sassanid Empire
  • Medieval Greek/Arabic language -> Mashriq 638 - 1099 Islamic conquest
  • Vulgar Latin/Medieval (Old) European languages 1099 - 1260 Crusader kingdoms
  • Turko-Arabic 1260 - 1517 Mamluk Sultanate
  • Ottoman Turkish language (with Arabic and Persian) 1518 - 1600s (Old Ottoman Turkish)
  • Renaissance and Enlightenment European languages/Middle Ottoman Turkish early 1600s - mid-19th century
  • Early Modern European languages/New Ottoman Turkish 1850s - 1928
  • Modern European languages/Modern Turkish 1930s - current
cheers Koakhtzvigad (talk) 00:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm, I don't really see the reason for an ad hominem attack like that, but I must correct your statement as it is flawed. Unlike a doctor, engineer etc and archaeologist is varied in what counts as a full-fledged archaeologist. There is a bit of debate among archaeologists, however it is agreed for the most part that it is at the very least someone who has had field experience (done at least a season on a real dig) and is acquiring a formal education in archaeology (not just someone who reads a few books or has a tv show like Simcha Jacobavici AKA, the Naked Archaeologist). Two and a half years of schooling so far in the subject and I have had two field seasons, one at Tel Kabri and one at Tel Megiddo. You do not need to have your BA, MA or PhD to be counted as an archaeologist by your fellow archaeologists, but it does help when you are publishing and does allow you to teach. Archaeology is not just something anyone can do of course, but the criteria isn't as set as Please research this a bit more and maybe ask a few PhD-level archaeologists before making statements that some would misconstrue as uninformed and possibly insulting. Thanks. =)
I wasn't referring to the Jews and that was a very basic list of the region's dominant languages. You can say that such and such was the official language, but the dominant tongues are the ones I listed, even if they do evolve a bit. Greek was not just a "fashionable" tongue my good sir, it was spoken pretty much across the empire (even as the language of the Senate mind you) and was more popular than Latin among the people of the Eastern part of the Empire. One of the reasons why the Byzantines used Greek instead of Latin. It's similar to how everything in Neshite/Hittite Empire was in both Neshite and Akkadian (which was spoken for much longer and much earlier than that time that scale indicates). TheArchaeologist Say Herro 02:31, 2 March 2011 (UTC) Edit: Right, I forgot Persian, silly me. That period is so ignored though. =/ TheArchaeologist Say Herro 02:39, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
What I said about your qualifications was not an attack, but a call to humility. You are not the only person editing Wikipedia with education in archaeology, nor the only one with field experience. There are far too many people ahead of you with far more plausible claims to being either The archaeologist, or the Archaeologist, or both, in the history of the discipline. Agreed? As far as I'm concerned, you will be one when others refer to you as one, and that usually happens when there is something worth referring to you for, i.e. when you have made a contribution to your discipline that is unique. I would apply this criteria to any discipline by the way.
It is a historic region, and the Jews have been the only continuum in it for nearly three millennium. They are therefore a good 'scale' to measure the linguistic change. Almost every one of the languages I listed had been incorporated into the Jewish linguistic history, and indeed the diaspora. Jews not only learned the language of their occupiers, but went on to reside in the occupiers' lands, and make contribution to the occupiers' civilizations and cultures. I dare say there is not one other population on the planet that can make this claim.
Linguistic duality is not a unique phenomena to Rome (see for example French in Prussia, Austria and Russia of the early 19th century), but Latin was the language of the Latini. Had it been completely replaced by Greek, it would hardly have had the very observable effect it had on other societies who's languages were Latinised while there is hardly any evidence of cross-Hellinisation of languages even after Greek was incorporated into the European education as a classical language (along with Latin). Even in societies where the Septuagint and not the Vulgate served as the Biblical text, the effect is not that pronounced.Koakhtzvigad (talk) 12:28, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Ah, I interepreted the tone of "I have seen your user page, so don't tag yourself 'The Archaeologist'. You are not even an archaeologist until you get your degree." as being somewhat hostile (it does seem like an attack on ones' credibility), and it seemed an odd place to start out (though it is how many archaeological publications start out as they are often filled with ad hominem attacks, both childish ones and necessary ones and always on the person's credibility). It's not really a question of humility, I felt bored and no one had picked the name yet, so I figured eh, why not. I am certainly no Yigael Yadin or William Matthew Flinders Petrie (who for the most part really was THE only real archaeologist at that time by our standards.), however AnArchaeologist is so dull and Archaeologist without an article is strange. I know some archaeologists are on here, but they usually remain well-hidden for various reasons. ;) Ah, but you see archaeology is a very informal discipline in actual practice (a day of digging has more raunchy humor in it than a marathon of South Park, a good many hole jokes and the like, and a night is filled with both serious discussion, education and analysis of interesting finds as well as heavy drinking and barbequing), and we consider our fellow archaeology students to be archaeologists as do our dig directors as they are slowly helping to uncover the material evidence and make educated assumptions in the exact same way that others do regardless of education level (except the PhDs are usually directing up top). Most archaeologists don't make actual significant big contributions (much less unique ones) to the field, but can do a lot of good basic work just uncovering spots and getting could and dirty. As well an archaeologist's education continues for years and years in the field and in the reading and critiquing of others' work. A lot of things people don't realise about us (including that many archaeologists today are young as well as female, and no, I am male). =P
Yeah, although most modern Hebrew is based on Biblical Hebrew and bits of German, Russian, English and other languages to fill in the gaps for which Ben-Yehuda could not find an adequate word in Hebrew (I'm in a Hebrew 002 class atm, so I've got some knowledge, but not a lot), though I don't know how much of Biblical Hebrew is taken from other languages as I've not studied its history as a language, though I'm certain Aramaic has had a huge impact on it (the alphabet for one thing of course). As proper Jews, only from the time of their return from Babylon on, but as Canaanites then Israelites (most likely theory, posed by Israel Finkelstein), for much much longer. Yep, our ancestors made quite a few contributions in Europe, and then when they wore out their usefulness they were often not welcome anymore in some places.
Oh I know it's not unique, lol. Yes, but Greek was indeed the dominant tongue in the East and for the patricians and presumably equites in the West, though they also spoke Latin of course as a native tongue. It was mostly the Plebs who only spoke Latin. I have never had a Roman history course though, and so I'm only emmm... 60% sure, ha! So I could be completely wrong. As for Greek's effects on the Romance tongues, I'm not a linguist or an etymologist either, although I would think it mattered more what the common people spoke, rather than the educated people.
You know, I didn't keep the central point of my question earlier, "The theory is (or I should say new theory) that in the pre-Roman occupation Judea, Jews used three languages, Mishnaic Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek...and then had to learn Latin. Multilingual society is not a new thing to this region, or others." Why were you mentioning that? I wasn't saying I didn't see the connection to it to be mean, I wasn't sure how it fit presumably with the thing about the Palestinian Arabs speaking both Hebrew and Arabic (oh and English ofc if you work around Americans or have a decent education). I assume you meant it's nothing surprising, ya? My asking for a source wasn't meant to sound insulting btw, but since it's the area I study I like to see who said what orginally. It's most probably correct, but you never know when someone might be getting their info on something from people like Niels Peter Lemche, Thomas S. Thompson or godforbid Philip Davies (the Minimalist school, non-archaeologists mind you). When that happens you need to direct them to more... reasonable and reputable sources. TheArchaeologist Say Herro 23:09, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Calling yourself The Archeologist, is not going to get any article in Wikipedia to a better quality assessment, and if you don't use references, I quite frankly wouldn't care if you were the Dean of a faculty at Harvard.
This article is constructed to serve a political agenda. As I wrote above, there are no "Palestinian people", and "Palestinians" ceased to exist by lunch time on 14 May 1948. The name was 'resurrected' by "political archaeologists" of the worst kind who would give a population false hope in furthering a long-dead ideological goal.
The vast majority of "Palestinians" are descendants of immigrants, whether to the Ottoman or the British controlled administrative region, who now can't prove they belong elsewhere. This is largely because of the social structure of the Islamic world at community level that never quite left the pre-modern times.
Lots of Arabs spoke English in the Mandate Palestine, just like lots of Arabs spoke French in the Mandate Syria and Lebanon. The need to communicate with the occupier is a survival prerequisite. And, lots of Arabs spoke Turkish when they had to. Its the Turks that chose to incorporate Persian and Arabic into their language when they had a self-image issue with culture and religiosity. The Japanese did the same, with 60% of their vocabulary of Chinese origin. Then Turks divested themselves of those dialects by recreating Modern Turkish with is, perhaps the second greatest, linguistic throwback in history, Hebrew being the greatest (for what its worth).
So, to answer your question - the first reference to Palestinian Arabs was when Palestine was recreated by the British.
Even during the Roman times (first resurrection of 'Palestine') when Arabs were recruited as auxiliaries for service as far as Germania, they were simply called Arabs, and of course came from Arabia.
Before the British, the Arabs in the region, and this includes Egypt that was then under British occupation also, and Mesopotamia, were divided communally into tribes and families, and socially into bedawin (not Bedawin), fellahin, and beladin, i.e. desert dwellers (nomads), land tillers (farmers), and town dwellers, and of course mullahs (scholars/preachers) although you would have to read the Palestinian costumes article to find that bit of sociological information. Bedawin was synonymous with Arab until the Islamic conquest. Arabs took possession of, and had to manage large areas, and this usually required someone taking charge of the existing administrative arrangements, hence the creation of beladin. Beladin were and are looked down upon by bedawin as an underclass, or someone not quite an Arab. Equally so with the fellahin, since these are the people that can't even afford camels, never mind horses. The only reason a bedawin would live in a fixed place would be to learn in a madrassa, but otherwise, the way of a true Arab (at least for them) is the nomadic warrior life (practiced until 1918). Most modern Arab world leaders have taken great pains to display their bedawin-like lifestyles by occasionally 'camping out' in traditional tents (with satellite phones), riding camels (luckily camels can carry up to 200kgs or more), and occasionally participating in the traditional sword dance rituals, as well as shooting guns (not traditional long muskets, but gold-encrusted AK-74 models).
Below is a quote from the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1823, vol 3, p.506 entry on Bedouin before there was a political agenda driven by oil:

BEDOUINS, or Bedouis, a modern name of the wild Arabs, whether in Asia or Africa. When speaking of the Arabs, we should distinguish whether they are cultivators or pastors; for this difference in their mode of life occasions so great a one in their manners

and genius, that they become almost foreign nations with respect to each other. In the former case, leading a sedentary life, attached to the same soil, and subject to regular governments, the social state in which they live, very nearly resembles our own. Such are the inhabitants of Yemen; and such also are the descendants of those ancient conquerors who have either entirely, or in part, given inhabitants to Syria, Egypt, and the Barbary states. In the second instance, having only a transient interest in the soil, perpetually removing their tents from one place to another, and under subjection to no laws, their mode of existence is neither that of polished nations nor of savages; and therefore more particularly merits our attention. Such

are the Bedouins, or inhabitants of the vast deserts which extend from the confines of Persia to Morocco. Though divided into independent communities or tribes, not infrequently hostile to each other, they may still be considered as forming one nation. The resemblance of their language is a manifest token of this relationship. The only difference that exists between them is, that the African tribes are of a leas ancient origin, being posterior to the conquest of these countries by the caliphs or successors of Mahomet; while the tribes of the desert of Arabia, properly so called, have descended by an uninterrupted succession from the remotest ages. To these the orientals are accustomed to appropriate the name of Arabs, as being the most ancient and the purest race. The term Bedaoui is added as a synonymous expression, signifying, "inhabitants of the Desert."

The above information was gathered by the British from their encounters with Arabs in Egypt, and later through interaction with the Ottomans.Koakhtzvigad (talk) 03:26, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Koakhtzvigad: your diatribe contains untrue statements. For example, there are some 16th and 19th century references to Palestinians here Timeline of the name Palestine. 12.149.216.130 (talk) 12:53, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Now that I have some free time.... ? Ok then, I'm still not sure where this hostility is coming from, but if you want sources then off the top of my head, well idk, I have learned this stuff from hundreds of different sources including books, lectures, personal experience and in some cases, games and shows (which were then supplimented by the first three). So how about I just toss out Jerusalem Through the Ages, From Eden to Exile and Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction by Eric H. Cline and maybe The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein? I could also say this frightfully dull book by Amihai Mazar, but its name escapes me atm. If you want sources for what a dig is like, I could link you to our dig blogs where the students and directors detail what happens. If you want to know stuff that's not on the blogs or sites though, you'll have to wait for publication. =p
The 'political archaeologists' are the ones I just mentioned. One of them is named Keith W. Whitelam and he wrote a book called The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History where he refers to the Canaanites as Palestinians, you can look up the others. Though it can be construed as an ad hominem attack, none of them are actual archaeologists, rather biblical scholars, yet their Copenhagen or Minimalist School is considered a school of Biblical Archaeology. I am a Centrist myself. As for the actual history of Arabs in the region though, I know little of it other than the Crusades and 1948 to Present, but will learn more about it in the coming weeks. Anything else dealing with Arabs in the area is spotty at best. I am pretty well-read on every that is from before the Second Jewish Revolt though. You forgot that they were often called Saracens in the Middle Ages btw. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 01:17, 9 March 2011 (UTC) (the name change isn't for you, but b/c I am joining the WikiProject and I like William Matthew Flinders Petrie.
The non-Arab population of Palestine was arabised and are the people living there today, so when the Arab presence began is really irrelevant, since the modern day Palestinians would mosly be descended from pre-Arabian non-Muslim natives (polytheists, Jews, Christians, so on) regardless of that. FunkMonk (talk) 01:30, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Well on the Jews bit, quite a few left Judea after Bar Kokhba (chief messianic moron) wound up getting thousands killed and us barred from Jerusalem. Quite a few did go to Caesarea though, but idk how many, or how many stayed in Judea. Idk how many Christians converted to Islam there or how many polytheists were still around there by 638. There maybe were some Zoroastrians around from the Sassanids nearby. Do you have independent sources that state that the Palestinians are indeed mostly descended from indigenous people and not Arab invaders? Genetic or otherwise? Here's something to look for: Did the pottery style suddenly change drastically in 638 or soon thereafter? That is strong evidence for a sudden change in the dominant culture rather than a gradual one. This would be caused by a large influx of people from Arabia in much greater numbers than the remaining inhabitants. See Seriation (archaeology) for more. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 01:46, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
What I wrote is based on pretty much every genetic test that has been done on Palestinians. So you could dig up any one of them for confirmation. There are non-Levantine influences for sure, but overall they are native. The link to Jews, and the theory of Jewish ancestry, has also been made in at least one genetic study, I think some of them are used as refs in the article. FunkMonk (talk) 02:07, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
I saw some test saying there was a 50% similarity with Jews in the Jewish genetics article, but I don't consider just one test to be conclusive as that is just unscientific. Knowing that I will probably not look them up (lazy), how many of those tests were performed by what would be considered reputable institutes? What political motivations might they have etc.... You could cite some. :3 Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 02:29, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Well, I'm not suggesting any changes to the article, just answering you on a talk page, so I don't really feel like going through the literature to prove a point in vain here. Anyone can do such a search if they're truly interested. FunkMonk (talk) 02:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Nah, it wouldn't be in vain, if the research is reliable and they did it properly then I am more inclined to believe it. I don't just reject something because I dislike it. If its true or most likely true, I accept it. I would be interested in looking, but for the fact that I am tired from studies and angry at Bar Kokhba for costing me three points on an exam (How was I supposed to remember his name was apparently Shimeon Bar Kosiba?!) so I don't feel like doing actual work. :p I could also ask my professor for details. He is pretty much in the middle (in more ways than one!). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 02:35, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
I have an even better excuse, it's past three in the night where I live, and I have to be up at 8 tomorrow, so well, let's get on with it tomorrow, heheh... FunkMonk (talk) 02:42, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Ha, fair enough, though I did once do an entire week of digging for seven hours each day with only one hour or so of sleep each night. And I still managed to move 10K lbs of dirt in that week whenever I put myself on wheelbarrow duty! It's at that point that sliding down the 60 ft backdirt pile of Megiddo seems like an even better idea than usual. =p Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 02:56, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
I have seen some of the books you mentioned, but not read them. I did make a mental note or two at the time do so, so maybe now is a good time.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Arabic inscriptions in what the 19th century European Biblical scholars called Palestine only date to about mid-2nd century BCE?
The question though is when were the first Palestinians, and I haven't seen too many deliberations on that Koakhtzvigad (talk) 07:30, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes it would be a good time, they know their stuff quite well and do very good archaeology.
I haven't heard about anything like that. Also it doesn't really make sense for them to be there. The only Arabs in the area in the Second Century BC would have been nomads most likely and it is highly doubtful they knew how to write given the lack of formal education. COuld also be merchants of course, but you have the same problem, though some probably would have had a bit of schooling. Not sure what states were in the Arabian Peninsula at that time or what the state of the Arabic written language was. [44] This map claims that by 100 BC you had the Nabataeans in Petra and the rest of Jordan. Oh interesting, according to their article they came in about 312 BC and had a script based on Aramaic which developed into the Arabic script later. So you had a state, but I see no evidence for script in the relevant area west of the Jordan River. Hmm, Starcky, poor guy was killed while excavating Lachish. Shot by Bedouin bandits on his way to Jerusalem.
My professor said 638 AD a while back, and really given what we went over, that appears to be the first appearance of the Palestinian Arabs. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 16:27, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

As for the genetic stuff, in the lead it references "recent genetic research" that links Arabs and Jews. It uses a study that seems like pop science to me. Our article used to say that this links Palestinians and Jews, but I changed it to Arabs and Jews, since the cited study is not about Palestinians. In the section, DNA and Genetic Studies, there is a bunch of gobble-dee-gook.

I don't know how anyone who has been to the western bank of the Jordan can say that it had a core population for hundreds of years. It is too small, neglected for the last thousand years until the 20th, to have been a nation. Arabs (gasp) are nomadic.

We need to straighten out the semantics of this page. Palestinian, when refering to people like Edward Said, is a 20th century invention. Saying that doesn't invalidate the Palestinian political aspirations that many get touchy about. But this page doesn't need a bunch of weasel lineages to make people think things. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.160.54.161 (talk) 01:59, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Well if the methodology of the experiments is messed up then it is not a scientific experiment and is therefore useless. Same thing if they misinterpret the data either accidentally or purposefully. The same thing happens in the experiments that "prove" ESP and other such nonsense. I don't have time atm to read through the cited experiment though. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 23:48, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Can we please be civil

132.160.54.161, you just wrote "Arabs are nomadic"? Do you realise that is a racist comment? More broadly, your entire post shows ignorance of the real topic at hand - can you please read Historiography and nationalism and Lists of ethnic groups before getting involved in this conversation. If you read those properly you will understand that the concept of a Palestinian is no different from the concept of any other ethnicity, except that it has been formalised more recently than most. Oncenawhile (talk) 20:12, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not racist. Put the word in context. "Arabs," said there, means the people of Arabia before the 20th Century. They were nomadic. They moved around and didn't have nations.
Palestinians, in the context of this page, are different from other ethnicities. In fact, they are more like a nationality. They are the displaced people of Palestine, so a nationality made by exile. You said that Palestinian ethnicity has been "formalised" more recently. I'm gonna call that a Weasel word.
Of course this Wikipedia page shouldn't say whether or not there should be a Palestine Nation (I say it already exists and is called Jordan). But what it does say now, because of historical revisionists, is that there has been a vibrant and distint Palestinian culture for ages. Enough to justify weasel words like "ancestral home." That isn't true. The Arabicish people of Arabia before the 20th Century were gasp...nomadic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.160.54.155 (talk) 01:49, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
Ignorance is not a defence against racism. It seems you also need to read the article Arab people - you are getting confused between "Genealogically-defined" Arabs and "Linguistically-defined" Arabs. For example, calling an Egyptian "an Arab" is like calling an Argentinian "Spanish" - however as per the other articles I pointed you to, nationalism is defined as each people choose and Egyptians self identify as Egyptians AND Arabs and so that is that. It is the same for Palestine - the cultural region of Palestine borders Arabia but has a very different history; the fact they speak Arabic means they self-identify as both Palestinians AND (linguistically-defined) Arabs. Calling them Jordanian when they don't self identify as such is highly offensive to many people. If you think that words like "ancestral home" are weasel words, then you should read Historiography and nationalism properly - ALL nationalisms use them and ALL are imagined. Your nationalism is no better than anyone else's - you would know that if you understood what nationalism is really all about. Anyway, we are here to make this article better. If you want to contribute to this article you need to take the time to educate yourself about the basic concepts of Arabs, Nationalism and Ethnicity - otherwise you are not only wasting our time but are inflicting your racist and offensive views on the community. Oncenawhile (talk) 10:58, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
Just an observation. It seems you started out a topic calling for civility and then immediately used what could easily be interpreted as ad hominem attacks. The IP User probably should have been more specific and stated that many Arabs were traditionally nomadic, especially the Bedouins who make up a good number of the Arabs in that Southern Levant. I don't know about al-Syrian Arabs. If memory serves me though, they lived in small towns and villages or were also nomadic upto the founding of the State of Israel. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 15:59, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
Hi Hpelgrift, I appreciate your comments on civility - I tried hard to restrain my comments for exactly that reason, so if they came across too strong then I apologise. To your other comments, your use of the words "many", "a good number" and "or were also" are important to try to quantify. The number may be meaningful for "Arabian Peninsula Arabs" but are only meaningful within the historical region of Palestine when referring to the Negev desert - a very sparsely populated area. In ottoman times, the majority of "Palestinian Arabs" were Fellah - peasant farmers whose ilk made up the majority of all pre-industrial societies worldwide, with most of the remainer living in cities. There are a very large number of sources to substantiate this. The IP's comments were racist, and ignorance can be no defence. Oncenawhile (talk) 21:07, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know from where you're calling me ignorant. I called the "Palestine state" Jordan because the country that is mostly peopled by Palestinians is Jordan. It is also located in Palestine. The King of East Palestine can call his subjects "Jordanians," but I didn't.

No source can reliably say what the Southern Levant was like during the Ottoman Empire. Conclusive records do not exist. You are believing this fantasy about deep-rooted towns of farmers who identified with Al-Aqsa and "the land" but that would make the West Bank an amazingly unique part of the Middle East. Most people in the Arabic linguistic group were nomadic at that time. Not farmers, what were they farming? You think the residents of a couple parts of a few Ottoman administrative districts were deeply tied to the land and their unique culture?

I'm going to make one personal attack. You think you're an expert, but you're not. Discuss the articles merits and demerits. I think the article supports the Palestinian mythology. I take steps to gradually tone it down, using this talk page, of course. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.160.43.101 (talk) 23:06, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually I was on about you using bold and italics for emphasis. I think that when someone uses them they must be pretty sure of what they are saying. :p When people emphasize that much, I expect sauces. I'll toss out Eric Cline's Jerusalem Besieged as a source as well as a few others that escape me at the moment, I think one of the authors is named Peters and his book is simply titled Jerusalem. What are these sources and how reliable are they? Who wrote them and what do they say? Are they original or are they references to previous works? You should always always ask these questions when looking at a historical source. Otherwise you could cite Herodotus and Homer. =p So, sources please. =)
@132.160: I think he was taking issue with you saying are rather than were. Many are unfortunately no longer nomadic these days. It's about half and half in Jordan I thought, with half claiming Palestinian as their group and the rest identifying as Bedouins. Though I am all for Jordan becoming their state, I don't let that get into my editing though. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 23:44, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
To clarify, I am shocked by these responses. 132, I will not engage in discussion with you any further after what you just wrote - your views are far too extreme for any kind of sensible discussion. Hpelgrift, Palestinians have not been nomadic since 10,000BC - civilisation began in the Fertile Crescent. Nomadic Bedouins exist in the Negev desert in the south but have always been a tiny minority in Palestine. Importantly though, please be aware that your comments "unfortunately" and "all for Jordan becoming their state" are sickening - these are people you are talking about. If you can't respect the Palestinian people then I suggest you do not involve yourself in writing an article about them. Oncenawhile (talk) 20:53, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
My personal politics, which I leave out of actual editing, are not your concern, nor is your opinion of them, though if you must know, when I talk about Jordan becoming their state I mean Jordan annexes the West Bank areas controlled by the PA, and any Palestinian Arab who wants to become a citizen of Israel is welcome to (just like they do now in East Jerusalem. I am not suggesting they get carted off into Jordan forcefully, this is not post-48 Arab world we are talking about, no one moves unless they want to, the rest stay put in their homes and live in a larger country with better resources etc. I say unfortunate because they appeared to be a lot happier as nomads and small village folk (don't assume that settling down is always a good thing) rather than political pawns living in sometimes grubby cities. Don't make assumptions out of the blue as it reflects poorly.
I was referring to Palestinian Arabs, not the other groups and the Arabs were for a long time either nomads or living in small towns and cities except for the larger kingdoms and states here and there, until the Muslim Conquests after the Prophet Muhammad (PBOHN - Peace be on his name) unified them and they spread their culture to other peoples and Arabised them etc, but the Arab people in this area were for the most part nomads and people living in small villages and towns (there is nothing wrong with that as they produced a rich material culture in the process). I have studied this area for over a year and a half, so I'd think I'd picked up something. =p
Now I believe I asked for your sources, which you did not present or mention in your reply. Could you please point me to these Ottoman sources and tell me about them with regard to the questions in my initial message? Also I'll need a citation for Palestinians (if you mean Palestinian Arabs) in the area in 10.000 BC, and apply the questions there as well. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 21:27, 14 March 2011 (UTC) Edit: Could you also please clarify the statement about the Fertile Crescent? I believe you are referring to civilisation beginning in the Sumerian city states or possibly places like Catal Hoyuk, correct? I do not see how the activities in the Northern and Eastern parts of the fertile crescent relate to the southern Levant. If you are talking about Jericho, then I will say that while the city is ancient beyond ancient, it does not constitute a civilisation. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 21:31, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
1) Example source for demographics British Government, 1921 (4 years after the end of Ottoman rule): The country is under-populated because of this lack of development. There are now in the whole of Palestine hardly 700,000 people, a population much less than that of the province of Gallilee alone in the time of Christ.* (*See Sir George Adam Smith "Historical Geography of the Holy Land", Chap. 20.) Of these 235,000 live in the larger towns, 465,000 in the smaller towns and villages. Four-fifths of the whole population are Moslems. A small proportion of these are Bedouin Arabs; the remainder, although they speak Arabic and are termed Arabs, are largely of mixed race.
2) Palestinians in 10,000BC - based on your reference to "if you mean Palestinian Arabs", it might help for you to review the following: Ali Qleibo, Palestinian anthropologist: "Throughout history a great diversity of peoples has moved into the region and made Palestine their homeland: Canaanites, Jebusites, Philistines from Crete, Anatolian and Lydian Greeks, Hebrews, Amorites, Edomites, Nabateans, Arameans, Romans, Arabs, and European crusaders, 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, Babylonians, and Mongols, 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." / Walid Khalidi, Palestinian author:"(With reference to Palestinians in Ottoman times) Although 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 who had lived in the country since time immemorial, including the ancient Hebrews and the Canaanites before them. Acutely aware of the distinctiveness of Palestinian history, the Palestinians saw themselves as the heirs of its rich associations."
3) See History of Palestine: "Between 10,000 and 5000 BC, agricultural communities were established. Evidence of such settlements were found at Tel es-Sultan in Jericho and consisted of a number of walls, a religious shrine, and a 23-foot (7.0 m) tower with an internal staircase"
Oncenawhile (talk) 21:49, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
Ah, see? Much better! Hmmm, interesting source for the first one. "They realised that Jewish co-operation was the best means, perhaps the only means, of promoting the prosperity of Palestine, a prosperity from which the Arabs could not fail to benefit. They desired the maintenance of peace and order, and they had confidence that the British Government would permit no injustice, even if injustice were intended." --- With 20-20 hindsight this is a sad assessment indeed, given the ways of the British Empire.... So that covers the conditions during the period four years after they took it. Good.
This fellow has a very nice writing style, I like it, very pretty, he is correct that the peoples generally were not changed by the successive empires that come in, with the notable exception of the Arabs of course. He does acknowledge that they cam in in 638 (better than Arafat claiming descendence from Jebusites), however he is still hinting at the idea that Palestinians are for the most part intermarried. The fact that he says Jebusites means he is really talking about Jerusalem btw. His assessment that the Canaanites, Jebusites and Hebrews "moved into the region" show that he is working by old (mostly disproven) theories of the origins of Israelites, ie. the Conquest Model or biblical story. This is also just one anthropologist though, and an author who might have certain biases. The second, who is an author with unstated academic background, appears to be just trying to glorify the Palestinian Arabs and is, at least from what I can tell, almost trying to convey a sort of how should I put it? Moscow is the Third Rome feel. If that makes sense. Look it up. =p
I mentioned Jericho already. It's interesting architecture sure enough, but it doesn't equal a civilisation. Also I am weary of something being identified as a shrine unless there is no evidence to refute the idea that it's a shrine (old, bad idea in archaeology was that if you didn't know what something was, assume it's religious). Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 22:11, 14 March 2011 (UTC)Edit: Oh yeah, and where did these guys get their info from? What are their sources? Also, if you put 'Moslem' rather than the source, might I politely recommend against using such a term as I believe it is a rude form of Muslim that is typically considered insulting or at the very least, outmoded. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 22:43, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
Why are you obsessed with the Arabs coming in to the region? You seem to be implying that when the Arabs came to Palestine they brought camels and desert along with the Arabic language. Please provide a source for this - or any source that suggests that the Arabs turned the people of the region into nomads. If you are really interested in reaching an unbiased view, you need to question the sources you choose to read. I suggest you try reading Orientalism (book) for a bit of background. On your second point, they are commenting on nationalism, and are Palestinians themselves. They are primary sources. You're not going to find archaeological artefacts to underpin interpretations of nationalism. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:49, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
??? Obsessed? I bring it up because the various political and religious leaders of the Palestinians such as Arafat and whoever the Grand Mufti was in the 90's have claimed ancestry with Canaanites and more specifically Jebusites. Research some of their claims, some are amusing, at least to archaeologists.
"You seem to be implying that when the Arabs came to Palestine they brought camels and desert along with the Arabic language." I don't get how I am implying that exactly (especially the camel and desert bit), it might just be you misunderstood something. They came in, there was a big change in the pottery if I remember correctly and so the culture changed quickly. Also, I think they thought of it more as al-Quds than Palestine really. If you mean about saying they just showed up, well yeah they sort of did really, and then of course intermarried with the people who converted to Islam, etc. Yeah, but they still came in from Arabia on the tide of the great Muslim Conquest.
I didn't suggest they turned them into nomads, lol, many people were nomadic and the cities in the area weren't all that large save Caesarea and Antioch really, if memory serves me. Show me sources that from 638 to 1948 they lived in big cities.
I have questioned my sources, lol, sometimes in person. Are you questioning yours though? Have you questioned their motives, their research, etc? I have been taught the last three years in an environment that is in the middle with regard to views on Israelis and Palestinians by professors sympathetic to the poor conditions of the Palestinians who leave the politics out of the archaeology (my main one in particular). Also, believe or not, we talk about all viewpoints in our classes and there are quite a few pro-Palestine people. We manage to have fun academically sound discussions.
Hmm, I guess I could cite Jerusalem Besieged, Biblical Archaeology: a Very Short Introduction, and From Eden to Exile by Eric H. Cline again, The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein (a man whom many claim throws out the Bible and is atheist, but he is really a quite religious, just goes on the evidence, one of the most influential archaeologists in Israel today), Archaeology of the Land the Bible 10.000 - 586 BC by Amihai Mazar (Head of the Archaeology department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but is a biblical maximalist mind you, as is the rest of the Mazar archaeological family), Jerusalem by F.E. Peters (out of print, and idk about the author, but he is part of course material), and also Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths by Karen Armstrong (warning, former nun, but her works are suited for academic study). Bet you didn't know that there have been no less than 118 battles over Jerusalem in the last 4.000 years. Amazing, huh? =p Oh yeah, and a ton of articles from Biblical Archaeology Review.
As for "background", I have acquired quite a solid background in this area already, but thank you for recommending this work. It is still just one work about American and European perceptions of the area though and doesn't really help us with the question of the Palestinian Arabs.
And how exactly do their views, if that is indeed what they are commenting on and are themselves primary sources, help us in this instance? I mean that sincerely as I am not seeing how it helps us if they are not basing it on hard evidence. Just because someone believes something doesn't make it true. You need to provide evidence. As for archaeological evidence, well you'd be surprised. Besides, archaeology and nationalism can sometimes sadly go hand in hand. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 23:45, 14 March 2011 (UTC) Edit: You know I read up on the Said guy, he is very Pro-Palestinian and has an agenda against the west as well (not that I can blame him), and so if I read his things I would probably have to take them with a grain of salt. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 04:39, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
Hpelgrift, despite some of the things you have said, I enjoy talking to you - probably because I get the feeling that you are also interested in the truth.
Interestingly, your last post contradicted itself. On the one hand you suggested you have been learning about the region in a balanced environment for three years. On the other hand, you said you had never heard of Edward Said. You should read a little more and you will realise what an absurd contradiction that is. And you make it worse by claiming that because he was pro-Palestinian you should take his works with a grain of salt, but ignore the fact that 3 of the authors you cite above are pro-Zionism (with the other two being towards the center). With these comment you have proven that, despite your best efforts, you have managed to learn a one sided view of the history here.
Some of your posts suggest you are unaware just how politicised the history has become in this region - i.e. how some scholars have been influenced for more than a century. Have a look at Timeline of Zionism and you will see that Christian Zionism began in the 1830s - as with all nationalisms history began to be skewed to fit their beliefs. If you have an open mind you can read The Invention of the Jewish People - this is a highly controversial book, but also highly interesting. Or if you prefer you can try any of the "further reading" recommended in the article Historiography and nationalism.
As to your other points above, can I suggest you read Timeline of Jerusalem carefully - there may be some things there you were not aware of.
Anyway, enough of this - sadly I need to leave this conversation now. Nice talking to you - goodbye. Oncenawhile (talk) 08:50, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
Well then, I guess I will have the last word. :p I am interested in the facts and interpreting the raw data myself.
Ah, but you see even though Mazar, Finkelstein and I am guessing Armstrong possibly are indeed pro-Zionist, I don't take what they are saying as straight-forward fact (even though Finkelstein is very persuasive). When you are learning archaeology you learn to take what someone has said and deconstruct it. Look at their claims and look at the evidence itself, their raw data if you have access to dig reports etc. You match up what they are saying with the evidence you have and see what fits well and what does not fit. For instance Amihai Mazar can claim (in 50 pages where it should take three) that the findings of so and so mean this and that, but then you look at so and so and use critical thinking. You look at other theories about what so and so means and with a little bit of the Occam's razor concept go with ideas that are simplest in some cases and the ones that "do the least to damage to the most evidence" as one of my professors so eloquently put it. Well I never took a poly-sci course and so I never heard of him, nor was he ever mentioned to me by an friend taking poly-sci. The fact about Said is that he is writing with a clear agenda and while I could take the time to look at what he's saying and cut through it, where is the raw data? Where are the alternative theories? Where is he getting his thoughts on history from? How critically does he look at his own sources? I am just being given a single biased side of the story, and unlike Mazar, or Finkelstein (oh yeah, Niel Silberman co-authored in that book, so he as well) or even Cline, I cannot cut away their interpretations, look at the evidence itself they have presented (or have it described to me in a non-biased manner) and then analyze it. Then again I don't have a background in poly-sci so that is a problem as well. =p As well, I did not learn the majority of my history from them. I have been avidly learning about history since I was five and read little history books. I also did a lot of perusing of Wikipedia and so there was little to be filled in by Cline, etc. My professor is in the center and we look at the history from an archaeological perspective (because with few exceptions (steles etc), the time before the Romans (which most of the authors I mentioned deal with), we only have the archaeology to go on. So for that early time period I have looked at the evidence and theories critically, taken what works with the actual evidence and put them together in my mind.
Oh I know it is very politicised, but unlike archaeologists like Yigael Yadin (Minster of Defence too), we are trying to move away from politicised archaeology, even if the various governments disagree with that. The archaeology is what I look at as the record is continuous to this day (hell we actually used archaeology to prove that (yet another) battle had taken place at Tel Megiddo in 1948), and so I go by that and the texts, and I look to see if the text matches the archaeology and I try to interpret the evidence I get and reach what I hope is a proper conclusion. As for the scholars, I take the stuff they say with a grain of salt as well, if they are biased, you will often know it very soon. Of course one problem is not injecting your own biases into your interpretation. I try my best to keep the politics and the interpretations separate, but you can never truly be unbaised. I have heard of Invention of the Jewish People, if I remembered correctly, I think it stated that the Jewish Revolts never happened, or something when we have evidence that they most likely did. I might look at it if I can muster the interest. Truth be told I like reading alternate histories, fantasies and assassin novels for leisurely reading. :p
Hmmm, you know a good example of that was much of Yadin's archaeologist, or Albright, digging to prove the Bible right, or as we say, digging with a trowel in one hand and a Bible in the other. Yadin actually did something very bad, three six-chambered gates were found at Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer, and he believed they were the Gates built by Solomon (who we have no evidence for, but I'll get to that), and so he used those gates (one of which I stood and taunted Omri's spirit) to date the pottery at the level it was found. That is an absolute no-no, you never ever use the architecture to date the pottery, always the reverse, and you use things like C-14 dating to date the pottery, if you find an olive pit or something. Yadin actually managed to mess up the archaeology in the area for about 30 years until Finkelstein came along with his Low Chronology, which redated the pottery type Yadin was looking at and as a result pushed forward the dates of many structures in Ancient Israel and Ancient Judah, and in the process eliminated any evidence of Solomon. Finkelstein, despite his personal views, which to quote him, "I keep my professional life and my personal life separate", does not actually inject Zionist ideals into his works. He looks at the evidence and often gives the most conservative interpretation he can, based solely on the evidence. It has gotten him called an atheist and a minimalist, etc, because people think he wants to toss out the Bible. The Minimalists (being Biblical scholars, not archaeologists, and quite anti-Zionist) always try to say their theories line up with his. He considers himself a centrist though, and says the Bible must be used sparingly and carefully. When we boil the conflicts down, it does come back to the Bible really. People try to use the Archaeology to prove and disprove it in politics.
I will read it when I have finished the Jerusalem through the Ages course I am taking. We are now up to 638 AD, and the beginning of the Muslim period. I will see what I get there and then go back and look at the timeline more closely. I am indeed missing a lot of knowledge from that area, but I first want to learn it in the way that only my prof can teach it (explaining it in typically funny ways). I am paying for it after all. =p
Au revoir monsieur! Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 16:22, 15 March 2011 (UTC) Edit: now looking at it, ah yes, lol, the Khazars theory. I think that has been mostly discredited, partly by the genetics. He is right they were not exiled from the land of Judea, this is known. They were banned from entering Jerusalem after Bar Kokhba (whose real name, Bar Kosiba, cost me points on an exam!!!!!) decided to get many Jews slaughtered through his messianic stupidity. They were not exiled, but many left voluntarily and spread through out the Empire. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 16:26, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I mentioned Edward Said because he made himself into a Palestinian. He politicized his lineage to further his professional goals. You have admitted over and over again that nationalism tries to rewrite history. Who is more nationalistic than the Palestinians?

It seems, oncenawhile, that you want to support the idea that Edward Said's grandparents thought they were Palestinians. Thats bollocks. Nothing I said was so offensive that you need to be so dramatic. Saying "Palestinians don't exist" isn't racist, its expressing politics that you don't like. Toleration of other people's politics is a cornerstone of civility.

This article, Palestinian people, is about people who call themselves Palestinian. But that doesn't mean we have to tell THEIR version of history. We also don't have to give the history of the usage of "Palestinian" as an endonym. Kurdish people in Turkey often identify as Kurds and believe themselves to be living in Occupied Kurdistan. The Turkish gov't says "you guys are Hill Turks and were always a part of this country. Stay under our foot." It is ironic that the Turkish gov't thinks Palestinians are a nationality and applauds their violent resistance, yet uses state-sponsored terrorism to hold down the politically-violent Kurdish-speaking Turks.

Oncenawhile, if someone attacks the Nationalism of a group of people, that isn't attacking those people. You probably don't like Zionism, but attacking Zionism is not the same as attacking Jews. I think very bad things of the PLO, the ISM and others, but that doesn't mean I don't like the people who call themselves Palestinians. They seemed ok, last time I was there. I just don't want them calling themselves Canaanites on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.160.54.159 (talk) 19:58, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

  1. ^ Algeria: population growth of the whole country
  2. ^ Timelines : History of Algeria
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