Palestinians
(الفلسطينيون al-Filasṭīniyyūn)

Tawfiq Canaan • Edward Said • Mahmoud Darwish • Leila Khaled Yassir Arafat • Mohammad Bakri • Hanan Ashrawi • Queen Rania of Jordan
Total population
c. 11,000,000
Regions with significant populations
Palestinian territories 3,760,000 [1] – West Bank (inc. East Jerusalem) 2,345,000 [1] – Gaza Strip 1,416,000 [1]  Jordan 2,700,000 [2][3]  Israel 1,000,000+ [4]  Syria 630,000  Chile 500,000 [5]  Lebanon 402,582  Saudi Arabia 280,245  Egypt 270,245  United States 255,000 [6]  Honduras 250,000  United Arab Emirates 170,000  Mexico 120,000  Qatar 100,000  Germany 80,000 [7]  Kuwait 70,000  El Salvador 70,000 [8]  Brazil 59,000 [9]  Iraq 57,000 [10]  Yemen 55,000  Canada 50,975 [11]  Australia 45,000  Libya 44,000  United Kingdom 20,000 [7]  Peru 15,000  Colombia 12,000  Pakistan 8,500  Sweden 7,000 [12]  Guatemala 1,400
Languages
Palestinian territories Palestinian Arabic, Modern Hebrew, English, Neo-Aramaic, and Greek Israel Palestinian Arabic, Modern Hebrew, English, Neo-Aramaic, and Greek Diaspora: Other varieties of Arabic, Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, and others.
Religion
Majority: Sunni Islam Minority: Christian, Druze, Shia Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism
Related ethnic groups
Other Levantines, Mediterraneans, Sea Peoples, Middle Eastern: Semitic peoples: Jews, Arabs, Assyrians.[13] [14]

The Palestinian people, (Arabic: الشعب الفلسطيني‎, ash-sha‘b al-Filasṭīnī) also referred to as Palestinians (Arabic: الفلسطينيون‎, al-Filasṭīniyyūn), are descendants of the peoples who have lived in Palestine over the centuries.^[15][16] Today, Palestinians are largely culturally and linguistically Arab. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one half of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Israel. In this combined area, as of 2004, Palestinians constituted 49% of all inhabitants,^[17] encompassing the entire population of the Gaza Strip (1.6 million), the majority of the population of the West Bank (approximately 2.3 million versus close to 500,000 Jewish Israeli citizens which includes about 200,000 in East Jerusalem), and 16.5% of the population of Israel proper as Arab citizens of Israel.^[4]

Throughout the aforementioned combined area, many are Palestinian refugees or internally displaced Palestinians, including more than a million in the Gaza Strip,^[18] three-quarters of a million in the West Bank,^[18], and about a quarter of a million in Israel proper. Of the Palestinian population who live abroad, making up what is known as the Palestinian diaspora, more than half of these are stateless refugees lacking citizenship in any country.^[19] About 2.6 million of the diaspora population live in neighboring Jordan where they make up approximately half the population,^[20] 1.5 million live between Syria and Lebanon, a quarter of a million in Saudi Arabia, with Chile's half a million representing the largest concentration outside the Arab world.

Genetic analysis suggests that many of the Muslims of Palestine are descendants of Christians, Jews, and other earlier inhabitants of the Levant and surrounding area, and that over 70% of Jewish men and half of the Palestinian and Israeli Arab male population share genetics with populations throughout the centuries, some even to prehistoric times.^[21] Since the time of the Muslim conquests in the 7th century, religious conversions have resulted in Palestinians being predominantly Sunni Muslim by religious affiliation, though there is a significant Palestinian Christian minority of various Christian denominations, as well as Druze and a small Samaritan community. Though Palestinian Jews made up part of the population of Palestine prior to the creation of the State of Israel, very few identify as "Palestinian" today. Acculturation, independent from conversion to Islam, resulted in Palestinians being linguistically and culturally Arab.^[15] The vernacular of Palestinians, irrespective of religion, is the Palestinian dialect of Arabic. For those who are Arab citizens of Israel, many are bilingual and fluent in Modern Hebrew. Those in the diaspora speak the languages of their host countries, in addition to, or to the exclusion of, Palestinian Arabic.

The history of a distinct Palestinian national identity is a disputed issue amongst scholars.^[22] Legal historian Assaf Likhovski states that the prevailing view is that Palestinian identity originated in the early decades of the twentieth century.^[22] "Palestinian" was used to refer to the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people by the Arabs of Palestine in a limited way until World War I.^[23][24] The first demand for national independence of the Levant was issued by the Syrian–Palestinian Congress on 21 September 1921.^[25] 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 state.^[23] According to Rashid Khalidi, the modern Palestinian people now understand their identity as encompassing the heritage of all ages from biblical times up to the Ottoman period.^[26]

Founded in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is an umbrella organization for groups that represent the Palestinian people before the international community.^[27] The Palestinian National Authority, officially established as a result of the Oslo Accords, is an interim administrative body nominally responsible for governance in Palestinian population centers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Etymology[link]

Historical Palestine as described by medieval Arab geographers showing the derived Arabic term Jund Filastin (meaning "Division of Palestine") as was used by Umayyad Caliphate 7th century AD

The Greek toponym Palaistínē (Παλαιστίνη), with which the Arabic Filastin (فلسطين) is cognate, first occurs in the work of the 5th. century BCE Greek historian Herodotus, where it denotes generally^[28] the coastal land from Phoenicia down to Egypt.^[29][30] Herodotus also employs the term as an ethnonym, as when he speaks of the 'Syrians of Palestine' or 'Palestinian-Syrians',^[31] an ethnically amorphous group he distinguishes from the Phoenicians).^[32] The Greek word bears comparison to a congeries of ancient ethnonyms and toponyms. In Ancient Egyptian Peleset/Purusati^[33] refers to one of the Sea Peoples. Among Semitic languages, Assyrian Palastu generally refers to southern Palestine.^[34] Old Hebrew's cognate word Plištim,^[35] usually translated Philistines, does not distinguish them and the other Sea Peoples, who settled in Palestine around 1100 BCE.^[36]

Syria Palestina continued to be used by historians and geographers and others to refer to the area between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan river, as in the writings of Philo, Josephus and Pliny the Elder. After the Romans adopted the term as the official administrative name for the region in the 2nd century CE, "Palestine" as a stand alone term came into widespread use, printed on coins, in inscriptions and even in rabbinic texts.^[37] The Arabic word Filastin has been used to refer to the region since the time of the earliest medieval Arab geographers. It appears to have been used as an Arabic adjectival noun in the region since as early as the 7th century CE.^[38] The Arabic language newspaper Filasteen (est. 1911), published in Jaffa by Issa and Yusef al-Issa, addressed its readers as "Palestinians".^[39]

A Palestinian Family from Ramallah, 1905.

During the British Mandate of Palestine, the term "Palestinian" was used to refer to all people residing there, regardless of religion or ethnicity, and those granted citizenship by the Mandatory authorities were granted "Palestinian citizenship".^[40] Other examples include the use of the term Palestine Regiment to refer to the Jewish Infantry Brigade Group of the British Army during World War II, and the term "Palestinian Talmud", which is an alternative name of the Jerusalem Talmud, used mainly in academic sources.

Following the 1948 establishment of the State of Israel, the use and application of the terms "Palestine" and "Palestinian" by and to Palestinian Jews largely dropped from use. For example, the English-language newspaper The Palestine Post, founded by Jews in 1932, changed its name in 1950 to The Jerusalem Post. Jews in Israel and the West Bank today generally identify as Israelis. Arab citizens of Israel identify themselves as Israeli and/or Palestinian and/or Arab.^[41]

The Palestinian National Charter, as amended by the PLO's Palestine National Council in July 1968, defined "Palestinians" as "those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father – whether in Palestine or outside it – is also a Palestinian."^[42] Note that "Arab nationals" is not religious-specific, and it implicitly includes not only the Arabic-speaking Muslims of Palestine, but also the Arabic-speaking Christians of Palestine and other religious communities of Palestine who were at that time Arabic-speakers, such as the Samaritans and Druze. Thus, the Jews of Palestine were/are also included, although limited only to "the [Arabic-speaking] Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the [pre-state] Zionist invasion." The Charter also states that "Palestine with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit."^[42][43]

The history of a distinct Palestinian national identity is a disputed issue amongst scholars with some arguing that it can be traced as far back as the 1834 Arab revolt in Palestine while others argue that it didn't emerge until after the Mandate Palestine period.^[22] According to legal historian Assaf Likhovski, the prevailing view is that Palestinian identity originated in the early decades of the twentieth century.^[22]

History[link]

Palestinian history and nationalism[link]

Saladin's Falcon: Coat of Arms and Emblem of the Palestinian Authority

Part of a series on
Palestinians
Demographics
Definitions · Palestine · History · Name · People · Diaspora Refugee camps · Arab citizens of Israel
Politics
Past Arab Higher Committee · All-Palestine Gov-t · PLO · PFLP · Depopulated villages Today Fatah · Hamas · Islamic Jihad · Political parties in the PNA PNA · Hamas gov-t Districts · Governorates · Cities · Arab localities in Israel PNC · PLC · General Palestinian flag · Law Territories: (West Bank · Gaza Strip · E. Jerusalem)
Religion / Religious sites
Islam · Christianity · Judaism Dome of the Rock Al-Aqsa Mosque Great Mosque of Gaza Cave of the Patriarchs Church of the Holy Sepulchre Basilica of the Annunciation Church of the Nativity Joseph's Tomb · Rachel's Tomb Lot's Tomb · Nabi Samwil
Culture
Art · Costume and embroidery Cinema · Cuisine · Dance Handicrafts · Language Literature · Music
Notable Palestinians
Mahmoud Abbas · Naji al-Ali Hanan Ashrawi Hany Abu-Assad Tawfiq Canaan Mahmoud Darwish · Emile Habibi Atallah Hanna Faisal Husseini Haj Amin al-Husseini Abd al-Qader al-Husseini Ghassan Kanafani Ghada Karmi · Leila Khaled Walid Khalidi Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Edward Said · Khalil al-Sakakini Ahmad Shukeiri · Elia Suleiman Khaled Abu Toameh · Fadwa Touqan · Ibrahim Touqan Khalil al-Wazir · Ahmed Yassin May Ziade · Wael Zwaiter
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The timing and causes behind the emergence of a distinctively Palestinian national consciousness among the Arabs of Palestine are matters of scholarly disagreement.

In his 1997 book, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, historian Rashid Khalidi notes that the archaeological strata that denote the history of Palestine – encompassing the Biblical, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Fatimid, Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods – form part of the identity of the modern-day Palestinian people, as they have come to understand it over the last century.^[44] Noting that Palestinian identity has never been an exclusive one, with "Arabism, religion, and local loyalties" playing an important role, Khalidi cautions against the efforts of some Palestinian nationalists to "anachronistically" read back into history a nationalist consciousness that is in fact "relatively modern".^[45][46]

Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal consider the 1834 revolt of the Arabs in Palestine as constituting the first formative event of the Palestinian people. Under the Ottoman rule (1516–1917), Palestine's Arab population mostly saw themselves as Ottoman subjects.^{[citation needed]} In the 1830s however, Palestine was occupied by the Egyptian vassal of the Ottomans – Muhammad Ali – and his son Ibrahim Pasha. The revolt was precipitated by popular resistance against heavy demands for conscripts, as peasants were well aware that conscription was little more than a death sentence. Starting in May 1834 the rebels took many cities, among them Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus and Ibrahim Pasha's army was deployed, defeating the last rebels on 4 August in Hebron.^[47] Benny Morris argues that the Arabs in Palestine nevertheless remained part of a larger Pan-Islamist or Pan-Arab national movement.^[48] Conversely, according to Walid Khalidi, Palestinians in Ottoman times were "[a]cutely aware of the distinctiveness of Palestinian history ..." and "[a]lthough 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."^[49]

Rashid Khalidi argues that the modern national identity of Palestinians has its roots in nationalist discourses that emerged among the peoples of the Ottoman empire in the late 19th century, and which sharpened following the demarcation of modern nation-state boundaries in the Middle East after World War I.^[45] Khalidi also states that although the challenge posed by Zionism played a role in shaping this identity, that "it is a serious mistake to suggest that Palestinian identity emerged mainly as a response to Zionism."^[45] Conversely, historian James L. Gelvin argues that Palestinian nationalism was a direct reaction to Zionism. In his book The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War he states that "Palestinian nationalism emerged during the interwar period in response to Zionist immigration and settlement."^[50] Gelvin argues that this fact does not make the Palestinian identity any less legitimate:

"The fact that Palestinian nationalism developed later than Zionism and indeed in response to it does not in any way diminish the legitimacy of Palestinian nationalism or make it less valid than Zionism. All nationalisms arise in opposition to some "other." Why else would there be the need to specify who you are? And all nationalisms are defined by what they oppose."^[50]

Muslims pray in Jerusalem, 1840. By David Roberts

David Seddon writes that "[t]he creation of Palestinian identity in its contemporary sense was formed essentially during the 1960s, with the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization". He adds, however, that "the existence of a population with a recognizably similar name ('the Philistines') in Biblical times suggests a degree of continuity over a long historical period (much as 'the Israelites' of the Bible suggest a long historical continuity in the same region)."^[51]

Bernard Lewis argues it was not as a Palestinian nation that the Arabs of Ottoman Palestine objected to Zionists, since the very concept of such a nation was unknown to the Arabs of the area at the time and did not come into being until very much later. Even the concept of Arab nationalism in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, "had not reached significant proportions before the outbreak of World War I."^[24] Tamir Sorek, a sociologist, submits that, "Although a distinct Palestinian identity can be traced back at least to the middle of the nineteenth century (Kimmerling and Migdal 1993; Khalidi 1997b), or even to the seventeenth century (Gerber 1998), it was not until after World War I that a broad range of optional political affiliations became relevant for the Arabs of Palestine."^[52]

Whatever the differing viewpoints over the timing, causal mechanisms, and orientation of Palestinian nationalism, by the early 20th century strong opposition to Zionism and evidence of a burgeoning nationalistic Palestinian identity is found in the content of Arabic-language newspapers in Palestinian Territories, such as Al-Karmil (est. 1908) and Filasteen (est. 1911).^[53] Filasteen initially focused its critique of Zionism around the failure of the Ottoman administration to control Jewish immigration and the large influx of foreigners, later exploring the impact of Zionist land-purchases on Palestinian peasants (Arabic: فلاحين‎, fellahin), expressing growing concern over land dispossession and its implications for the society at large.^[53]

Arab market at Jaffa, 1877 painting

The first Palestinian nationalist organisations emerged at the end of the World War I.^[54] Two political factions emerged. Al-Muntada al-Adabi, dominated by the Nashashibi family, militated for the promotion of the Arabic language and culture, for the defense of Islamic values and for an independent Syria and Palestine. In Damascus, al-Nadi al-Arabi, dominated by the Husayni family, defended the same values.^[55]

The historical record continued to reveal an interplay between "Arab" and "Palestinian" identities and nationalism. The idea of a unique Palestinian state separated out from its Arab neighbors was at first rejected by Palestinian representatives. The First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations (in Jerusalem, February 1919), which met for the purpose of selecting a Palestinian Arab representative for the Paris Peace Conference, adopted the following resolution: "We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds."^[56]

After the Nabi Musa riots, the San Remo conference and the failure of Faisal to establish the Kingdom of Greater Syria, a distinctive form of Palestinian Arab nationalism took root between April and July 1920.^[57][58] With the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the French conquest of Syria, the formerly pan-Syrianist mayor of Jerusalem, Musa Qasim Pasha al-Husayni, said "Now, after the recent events in Damascus, we have to effect a complete change in our plans here. Southern Syria no longer exists. We must defend Palestine".^[59]

Conflict between Palestinian nationalists and various types of pan-Arabists continued during the British Mandate, but the latter became increasingly marginalized. Two prominent leaders of the Palestinian nationalists were Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,appointed by the British, and Izz ad-Din al-Qassam.^[60]

Struggle for self-determination[link]

Palestinian girls in Nablus

Palestinians have not exercised full sovereignty over the land in which they have lived during the modern era. Palestine was administered by the Ottoman Empire until World War I, and then overseen by the British Mandatory authorities. Israel was established in parts of Palestine in 1948, and in the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were occupied by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip by Egypt, with both countries continuing to administer these areas until Israel occupied them in the Six-Day War. Historian Avi Shlaim states that the Palestinians' lack of sovereignty over the land has been used by Israelis to deny Palestinians their rights [to self-determination].^[61]

Today, the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination has been affirmed by the United Nations General Assembly, the International Court of Justice^[62] and several Israeli authorities.^[63] A total of 122 countries recognize Palestine as a state.^[64] However, Palestinian sovereignty over the areas claimed as part of the Palestinian state remains limited, and the boundaries of the state remain a point of contestation between Palestinians and Israelis.

British Mandate (1917–1948)[link]

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, Sunni Islamic preacher and founder of the Black Hand

Article 22 of The Covenant of the League of Nations conferred an international legal status upon the territories and people which had ceased to be under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire as part of a 'sacred trust of civilization'. Article 7 of the League of Nations Mandate required the establishment of a new, separate, Palestinian nationality for the inhabitants. This meant that Palestinians did not become British citizens, and that Palestine was not annexed into the British dominions.^[65] After the British general, Louis Bols, read out the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in February 1920, some 1,500 Palestinians demonstrated in the streets of Jerusalem.^[60] A month later, during the 1920 Palestine riots, the protests against British rule and Jewish immigration became violent and Bols banned all demonstrations. In May 1921 however, further anti-Jewish riots broke out in Jaffa and dozens of Arabs and Jews were killed in the confrontations.^[60]

The articles of the Mandate mentioned the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine, but not their political status. At the San Remo conference it was decided to accept the text of those articles, while inserting in the minutes of the conference an undertaking by the Mandatory Power that this would not involve the surrender of any of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine. In 1922, the British authorities over Mandate Palestine proposed a draft constitution that would have granted the Palestinian Arabs representation in a Legislative Council on condition that they accept the terms of the mandate. The Palestine Arab delegation rejected the proposal as "wholly unsatisfactory," noting that "the People of Palestine" could not accept the inclusion of the Balfour Declaration in the constitution's preamble as the basis for discussions. They further took issue with the designation of Palestine as a British "colony of the lowest order."^[66] The Arabs tried to get the British to offer an Arab legal establishment again roughly ten years later, but to no avail.^[67]

After the killing of Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam by the British in 1935, his followers initiated the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, which began with a general strike in Jaffa and attacks on Jewish and British installations in Nablus.^[60] The Arab High Committee called for a nationwide general strike, non-payment of taxes, and the closure of municipal governments, and demanded an end to Jewish immigration and a ban of the sale of land to Jews. By the end of 1936, the movement had become a national revolt, and resistance grew during 1937 and 1938. In response, the British declared martial law, dissolved the Arab High Committee and arrested officials from the Supreme Muslim Council who were behind the revolt. By 1939, 5,000 Arabs had been killed in British attempts to quash the revolt; more than 15,000 were wounded.^[60]

Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni leader of the Army of the Holy War in 1948

The "lost years" (1948–1967)[link]

After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the accompanying Palestinian exodus, known to Palestinians as Al Nakba (the "catastrophe"), there was a hiatus in Palestinian political activity. Khalidi attributes this to the tramautic events of 1947-1949, which included the depopulation of over 400 towns and villages and the creation of hundreds of thousands of refugees.^[68] Those parts of British Mandate Palestine which did not become part of the newly declared Israeli state were occupied by Egypt and Jordan. During what Khalidi terms the "lost years" that followed, Palestinians lacked a center of gravity, divided as they were between these countries and others such as Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere.^[69]

Israeli historian Efraim Karsh takes the view that the Palestinian identity did not develop until after the 1967 war because the Palestinian exodus had fractured society so greatly that it was impossible to piece together a national identity. Between 1948 and 1967, the Jordanians and other Arab countries hosting Arab refugees from Palestine/Israel silenced any expression of Palestinian identity and occupied their lands until Israel's conquests of 1967. The formal annexation of the West Bank by Jordan in 1950, and the subsequent granting of its Palestinian Arab residents Jordanian citizenship, further stunted the growth of a Palestinian national identity by integrating them into Jordanian society.^[70]

In the 1950s, a new generation of Palestinian nationalist groups and movements began to organize clandestinely, stepping out onto the public stage in the 1960s.^[71] The traditional Palestinian elite who had dominated negotiations with the British and the Zionists in the Mandate, and who were largely held responsible for the loss of Palestine, were replaced by these new movements whose recruits generally came from poor to middle class backgrounds and were often students or recent graduates of universities in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus.^[71] The potency of the pan-Arabist ideology put forward by Gamel Abdel Nasser—popular among Palestinians for whom Arabism was already an important component of their identity^[72]—tended to obscure the identities of the separate Arab states it subsumed.^[73]

1967–present[link]

Since 1967, pan-Arabism has diminished as an aspect of Palestinian identity. The Israeli capture of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, which prompted a second Palestinian exodus, prompted fractured Palestinian political and militant groups to give up any remaining hope in pan-Arabism. Instead, they rallied around the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in 1964, and its nationalistic orientation under the leadership of Yasser Arafat.^[74] Mainstream secular Palestinian nationalism was grouped together under the umbrella of the PLO whose constituent organizations include Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, among other groups who at that time believed that political violence was the only way to liberate Palestine.^[46] These groups gave voice to a tradition that emerged in 1960s that argues Palestinian nationalism has deep historical roots, with extreme advocates reading a Palestinian nationalist consciousness and identity back into the history of Palestine over the past few centuries, and even millennia, when such a consciousness is in fact relatively modern.^[75]

The Battle of Karameh and the events of Black September in Jordan contributed to growing Palestinian support for these groups, particularly among Palestinians in exile. Concurrently, among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a new ideological theme, known as sumud, represented the Palestinian political strategy popularly adopted from 1967 onward. As a concept closely related to the land, agriculture and indigenousness, the ideal image of the Palestinian put forward at this time was that of the peasant (in Arabic, fellah) who stayed put on his land, refusing to leave. A strategy more passive than that adopted by the Palestinian fedayeen, sumud provided an important subtext to the narrative of the fighters, "in symbolizing continuity and connections with the land, with peasantry and a rural way of life."^[76]

Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, in a Palestinian refugee camp in Southern Lebanon, 1978

In 1974, the PLO was recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by the Arab nation-states and was granted observer status as a national liberation movement by the United Nations that same year.^[27][77] Israel rejected the resolution, calling it "shameful".^[78] In a speech to the Knesset, Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Yigal Allon outlined the government's view that: 'No one can expect us to recognize the terrorist organization called the PLO as representing the Palestinians—because it does not. No one can expect us to negotiate with the heads of terror-gangs, who through their ideology and actions, endeavor to liquidate the State of Israel.'^[78]

In 1975 the United Nations established a subsidiary organ, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, to recommend a program of implementation to enable the Palestinian people to exercise national independence and their rights to self-determination without external interference, national independence and sovereignty, and to return to their homes and property.^[79]

UN commemorating Palestinians rights

The First Intifada (1987–1993) was the first popular uprising against the Israeli occupation of 1967. Followed by the PLO's 1988 proclamation of a State of Palestine, these developments served to further reinforce the Palestinian national identity. At the end of the Gulf War, Kuwait expelled some 450,000 Palestinians from its territory,^[80] making it the second largest displacement of Palestinians after 1948 Palestine War. Kuwait's expulsion policy, which led to this exodus, was a response to alignment of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the PLO with Saddam Hussein, who had earlier invaded Kuwait. The 1991 Palestinian exodus took place during one week in March 1991, following Kuwait's liberation from Iraqi occupation. Prior to the exodus, Palestinians made up about 30% of Kuwait's population of 2.2 million.^[81] By 2006 only a few had returned to Kuwait.

The Oslo Accords, the first Israeli-Palestinian interim peace agreement, were signed in 1993. The process was envisioned to last five years, ending in June 1999, when the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area began. The expiration of this term without the recognition by Israel of the Palestinian State and without the effective termination of the occupation was followed by the Second Intifada in 2000.^[82][83] The second intifada was more violent than the first.^[84] The International Court of Justice observed that since the government of Israel had decided to recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people, their existence was no longer an issue. The court noted that the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of 28 September 1995 also referred a number of times to the Palestinian people and its "legitimate rights".^[85] The right of self-determination gives the Palestinians collectively an inalienable right to freely choose their political status, including the establishment of a sovereign and independent state. Israel, having recognized the Palestinians as a separate people, is obliged to promote and respect this right in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.^[86]

Ancestral origins[link]

Like the Lebanese, Syrians, Egyptians, Maghrebis, and most other people today commonly called Arabs, the Palestinians are an Arab people in linguistic and cultural affiliation. Since the seventh century, indigenous peoples of Palestine mixed with Arabic-speaking Muslims from the region to form the contemporary Palestinian culture,^[15] though genetic studies have suggested a scientific basis for some of the accounts of ancient, sometimes prehistorical ancestry.^[87]

George Antonius, founder of modern Arab nationalist history, wrote in his seminal 1938 book The Arab Awakening:

"[The Arabs'] connection with Palestine goes back uninterruptedly to the earliest historic times, for the term 'Arab' denotes nowadays not merely the incomers from the Arabian Peninsula who occupies the country in the seventh century, but also the older populations who intermarried with their conquerors, acquired their speech, customs and ways of thought and became permanently arabised."^[88]

American historian Bernard Lewis writes:

"Clearly, in Palestine as elsewhere in the Middle East, the modern inhabitants include among their ancestors those who lived in the country in antiquity. Equally obviously, the demographic mix was greatly modified over the centuries by migration, deportation, immigration, and settlement. This was particularly true in Palestine..."^[89]

Ali Qleibo, a Palestinian anthropologist, explains:

"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."^[90]

Politicized lineages[link]

A Palestinian girl in Qalqiliya.

Salim Tamari notes the paradoxes produced by the search for "nativist" roots among Zionist figures and the so-called Canaanite (anti-Zionist) followers of Yonatan Ratosh.^[91] For example, Ber Borochov, one of the key ideological architects of Socialist Zionism, claimed as early as 1905 that, "The Fellahin in Eretz-Israel are the descendants of remnants of the Hebrew agricultural community,"^[92] believing them to be descendants of the ancient Hebrew and Canaanite residents 'together with a small admixture of Arab blood'".^[91] He further believed that the Palestinian peasantry would embrace Zionism and that the lack of a crystallized national consciousness among Palestinian Arabs would result in their likely assimilation into the new Hebrew nationalism.^[91] Other founding fathers of Zionism believed that the Palestinian people were descended from the biblical ancient Hebrews. David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben Zvi, later becoming Israel's first Prime Minister and second President, respectively, tried to establish in a 1918 paper written in Yiddish that Palestinian peasants and their mode of life were living historical testimonies to Israelite practices in the biblical period.^[91][93] Tamari notes that "the ideological implications of this claim became very problematic and were soon withdrawn from circulation."^[91]

Ahad Ha'am believed that, "the Moslems [of Palestine] are the ancient residents of the land ... who became Christians on the rise of Christianity and became Moslems on the arrival of Islam."^[91] Israel Belkind, the founder of the Bilu movement also asserted that the Palestinian Arabs were the blood brothers of the Jews.^[94] In his book on the Palestinians, "The Arabs in Eretz-Israel", Belkind advanced the idea that the complete dispersion of Jews out of the Land of Israel after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman emperor Titus is a "historic error" that must be corrected. While it dispersed much of the land's Jewish community around the world, those "workers of the land that remained attached to their land," stayed behind and were eventually converted to Christianity and then Islam.^[94] He therefore, proposed that this historical wrong be corrected, by embracing the Palestinians as their own and proposed the opening of Hebrew schools for Palestinian Arab Muslims to teach them Arabic, Hebrew and universal culture.^[94] Tsvi Misinai, an Israeli researcher, entrepreneur and proponent of a controversial alternative solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, asserts that nearly 90% of all Palestinians living within Israel and the occupied territories (including the Israeli Arabs and Negev Bedouin)^[95] are descended from the Jewish Israelite peasantry that remained on the land, after the others, mostly city dwellers, were exiled or left.^[96]

Claims emanating from certain circles within Palestinian society and their supporters, proposing that Palestinians have direct ancestral connections to the ancient Canaanites, without an intermediate Israelite link, has been an issue of contention within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Bernard Lewis wrote that "the rewriting of the past is usually undertaken to achieve specific political aims...In bypassing the biblical Israelites and claiming kinship with the Canaanites, the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Palestine, it is possible to assert a historical claim antedating the biblical promise and possession put forward by the Jews."^[89][97]