Palestinian Identity is Older Than Israeli Identity

1898 use of the word Palestinians in the preface to Khalil Beidas’s translation of Akim Olesnitsky’s A Description of the Holy Land

“There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist.” — Golda Meir

Zionists often insist Palestinians did not identify themselves as Palestinians. This is odd for at least four reasons:

1. It’s irrelevant — if Palestinians identified as Martians, it would still be wrong to dispossess them.
2. No one identified as Israeli before 1948, when Moshe Shertok, Israel’s Foreign Secretary, announced that citizens of Israel would be called Israelis. Until then, Jews identified themselves by their country.
3. The argument that a regional identity did not exist has been used by the worst people. When Putin made that argument about Ukrainians, historian Timothy Snyder said, “This kind of language, that another nation doesn’t exist, is something we need to pay attention to because it usually precedes atrocious actions.”
4. Before 1948, Palestinians had passports that told everyone they were from Palestine. It would have been impossible for them not to think of themselves as Palestinians.

After Golda Meyerson left the United States and changed her last name to Meir, she admitted,

“I am a Palestinian, from 1921 to 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport.” — Golda Meir

For over two thousand years, being a Palestinian had nothing to do with ethnicity; a Palestinian was someone who lived in Palestine. As late as 1920, that definition was common. The Oxford English Dictionary provides an example:

“The higher ranks of the Civil Service..would consist mainly of British officials until an increasing number of Palestinians were fully qualified… Other ranks would be open to Palestinians, irrespective of creed.” — Glasgow Herald, 12 July 1920

But early 20th century journals show the Muslim majority identified as Palestinians:

…evidence of a burgeoning nationalistic Palestinian identity is found in the content of Arabic-language newspapers in Palestine, such as Al-Karmil (est. 1908) and Filasteen (est. 1911).[8] 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.[8]

Scholars argue about when Palestinian identity was forged. I side with those who see its roots in the early 19th century:

Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal consider the 1834 Peasants’ revolt in Palestine as constituting the first formative event of the Palestinian people. From 1516 to 1917, Palestine was ruled by the Ottoman Empire save a decade from the 1830s to the 1840s when an Egyptian vassal of the Ottomans, Muhammad Ali, and his son Ibrahim Pasha successfully broke away from Ottoman leadership and, conquering territory spreading from Egypt to as far north as Damascus, asserted their own rule over the area. The so-called Peasants’ Revolt by Palestine’s Arabs was precipitated by heavy demands for conscripts. The local leaders and urban notables were unhappy about the loss of traditional privileges, while the peasants were well aware that conscription was little more than a death sentence. Starting in May 1834 the rebels took many cities, among them Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus and Ibrahim Pasha’s army was deployed, defeating the last rebels on 4 August in Hebron.[16]

… Walid Khalidi argues…that 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.”[18]

Now, if you change the argument from when Israeli identity began to when Israelites existed, Israelites appear first in the historical record —but only by a few decades. The Merneptah Stele refers to Israelites in 1208 BCE. An inscription at the Medinat Habu Temple in Luxor refers to the Peleset around 1150 BCE. But neither reference is definitive when asking who was first. Both groups existed before the Egyptians wrote about them.

Zionists often insist the Peleset only inhabited a small part of historic Palestine. That objection makes as much sense as saying Americans only inhabited a small part of North America in 1776. By Herodotus’s day, the entire region was known as Palestine, which is why Jesus Was Palestinian — King Herod Would Have Agreed.

PS. An interesting Jewish example of Palestinian identity:

“I don’t describe myself as a Palestinian Hebrew, but I actually happen to be a Palestinian Hebrew, I was born in Jerusalem in 1943 in a country called Palestine and the title of my birth certificate is ‘Government of Palestine’. That is neither here nor there, though. It is significant only in a political context in which I am situated, and the political context that is relevant to my work, my advocacy of a critique of Zionism. I’m an anti-Zionist.” — Uri Davis

Possibly of interest: A Guide to My Posts about Israel and Palestine