{{Short description|Shift in implications of "Palestinian" over time}} {{pp-extended|small=yes}} {{redirect|Definition of Palestine and Palestinian|the geographical definition of Palestine|Palestine (region)#Boundaries}} {{Palestinians}} Prior to the rise of nationalism during the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the term '''Palestinian''' referred to any person born in or living in the region of Palestine, regardless of their ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and religious affiliations. During the British Mandate for Palestine, the term "Palestinian" referred to any person legally considered to be a citizen of Mandatory Palestine as defined in the 1925 Citizenship Order.
The population of Palestine have long used the term "Palestinian" as one of their endonyms of self-identification.<ref name=Masalha2022/> Eusebius in the fourth century and Al-Maqdisi in the 10th century<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.nawa.ps/ar/post/20050 | title= الجغرافي المقدسي ونص الهوية الفلسطينية | date= 11 January 2025|work= nawa}}<br>{{cite book|last1=Al-Ju'beh|first1=Nazmi|editor1-last=Heacock|editor1-first=Roger|title=Temps et espaces en Palestine: Flux et résistances identitaires|date=2008|publisher=Presses de l'Ifpo|location=Beirut, Lebanon|isbn=9782351592656|pages=205–231|url=http://books.openedition.org/ifpo/491?lang=en|archive-url=https://archive.today/20180319004820/http://books.openedition.org/ifpo/491?lang=en|archive-date=19 Mar 2018}}<br>{{cite book | author = Al-Maqdisi | title = The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions (Arabic) | edition = 2 | publisher = Brill | year =1906 | editor = M. J. Goeje | page = 440 | url = https://archive.org/details/abasshawii_yahoo_1906/page/n441/mode/1up | quote = في البناء فقال لي الاستاذ انت مصري ؟. قلت لا بل فلسطيني . قال سمعت ان عندكم تخرم الاحجار كما يخرم الخشب. قلت اجل (And I told them of the architecture in Palestine, and asked them questions in the art of architecture. He {a Stone cutter} asked me 'Are you Egyptian ?' I said 'No, I am Palestinian'. He said : 'I heard you drill stone as you would drill wood ?'. I said 'Yes'.) }}</ref><ref name=Zakariyeh>{{citation|url=https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/22_23_maqdisi_1_0.pdf|title=Reviews: Maqdisi: An 11th century Palestinian consciousnes|publisher=Institute of Palestine Studies|journal=Jerusalem Quarterly|volume=22/23|first=Zakariyeh|last=Mohammed}}</ref> used it as a geographical identity marker, while it was used later in a more explicitly nationalist sense, as by Khalil Beidas in the 19th century.<ref>In the preface to his translation of Akim Olesnitsky's A Description of the Holy Land, 1898, ''A Description of the Holy Land''.{{Cite web| title = Who Was The First Palestinian in Modern History | last = Foster | first = Zachary | website = The Palestine Square | publisher = Institute for Palestine Studies | url = http://blog.palestine-studies.org/2016/02/18/who-was-the-first-palestinian-in-modern-history/ | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160229164114/http://blog.palestine-studies.org/2016/02/18/who-was-the-first-palestinian-in-modern-history/ | date = 29 February 2016 | archive-date = 29 February 2016 }}</ref> Most scholars agree that the Palestinian national identity emerged in the early 20th century. Some argue that a nascent Palestinian nationalism was sparked by the 19th century revolts and the general nationalist awakenings throughout the empire, while others argue that it emerged as a reaction to Zionism.
After the establishment of the State of Israel during the 1948 Palestine war, the Jews of Mandatory Palestine became known as "Israeli Jews", having developed a national Jewish identity centered on a Jewish National Homeland in Palestine, derived from a political and ideological movement known as Zionism. By the mid-1950s, the term "Palestinian" had shifted to be a demonym that exclusively refers to the Arabs of former Mandatory Palestine, including their descendants, who had developed a distinctly Palestinian Arab national identity.
In contemporary times, the term "Palestinian" is the national demonym of the Palestinian people.
==Types and definitions== ===Geographical ethnonym=== "Palestinian" may be used as an adjective to describe persons or objects which are related to Palestine. This was employed by historical authors such as Zosimus while describing the troops amassed by the Roman Emperor Aurelian to confront Palmyrene troops in the Crisis of the Third Century.<ref>[https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/zosimus01_book1.htm "Finding the Palmyrene army drawn up before Emisa, amounting to seventy thousand men, consisting of Palmyrenes and their allies, he opposed to them the Dalmatian cavalry, the Moesians and Pannonians, and the Celtic legions of Noricum and Rhaetia, and besides these the choicest of the imperial regiment selected man by man, the Mauritanian horse, the Tyaneans, the Mesopotamians, the Syrians, the Phoenicians, and the Palestinians, all men of acknowledged valour; the Palestinians besides other arms wielding clubs and staves.] in ''Zosimus, New History.'' London: Green and Chaplin (1814). Book 1.</ref>
Many centuries earlier, in the 5th century BC, Herodotus also employed the term as an ethnonym, speaking of the "Syrians of Palestine" or "Palestinian-Syrians",<ref name="Herodotus2">{{harvnb|Herodotus|loc=Bks. 2:104 (Φοἰνικες δἐ καὶ Σὐριοι οἱ ἑν τᾔ Παλαιστἰνῃ, "Phoinikes de kaì Surioi oi en té Palaistinē"); 3:5; 7:89}}</ref> an ethnically amorphous group he distinguished from the Phoenicians.<ref name="Kasher">{{harvnb|Kasher|1990|p=15}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=David |last=Asheri |title=A Commentary on Herodotus, Books 1–4 |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2007 |page=402 |quote='the Syrians called Palestinians', at the time of Herodotus were a mixture of Phoenicians, Philistines, Arabs, Egyptians, and perhaps also other peoples. . . Perhaps the circumcised 'Syrians called Palestinians' are the Arabs and Egyptians of the Sinai coast; at the time of Herodotus there were few Jews in the coastal area.}}</ref>
Between the tenth and eighteenth centuries CE, several scholars living in the region of Palestine, like the Jerusalemites Shams ad-Din al-Maqdisi and Mujir al-Din al-'Ulaymi, and natives of Ramla Khayr al-Din al-Ramli and the Palestinian Christian priest Yusuf Jahshan used Palestinian as a term of self-identification, or described Palestine as "our country" (''biladuna''), indicating consciousness of belonging to a distinctive Muslim Arab territorial-based entity,<ref name="Masalha2022" /> though more in social terms than political.<ref name="Gerber">{{citation|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/164341|title="Palestine" and Other Territorial Concepts in the 17th Century|first=Haim|last=Gerber|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|volume=30|issue=4|date=November 1998|pages=563–572 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/S0020743800052569 |jstor=164341 }}</ref> The Muslim scholars partly drew that multifaceted identity from the cultural and religious legacy of Jund Filastin, the region's medieval Arab-Islamic administrative province.<ref name=Masalha2022>{{cite book|page=12, 195-200|title=Palestine Across Millennia: A History of Literacy, Learning and Educational Revolutions|first=Nur|last=Masalha|authorlink=Nur Masalha|year=2022|quote=Territorially based consciousness of Muslim-majority Palestine as a distinct Arab region/country (bilad), with Arabic and Islam being key markers of identity, is evident in the works of indigenous Palestinian Muslim scholars such as al-Maqdisi in the tenth century (al-Maqdisi 1866, 1994, 2002); Mujir al-Din al-ʿUlaymi (1456–1522), Khair al-Din al-Ramli (1585–1671) and Salih ibn Ahmad al-Tumurtashi (d. c. 1715) in the period between the tenth and late seventeenth centuries; and Yusuf Jahshan – a Palestinian priest – in the eighteenth century. The territorially based multifaceted regional identity articulated by Palestinian Muslim authors was partly derived from the cultural and religious heritage of the early Arab-Islamic province of Palestine (Jund Filastin), an administrative province which existed for several centuries in the Middle Ages.}}</ref>
Eusebius of Caesarea Maritima was using similar terminology in his fourth century CE work the Martyrs of Palestine, which documents those martyred for being Christian under Roman rule in his time, connecting them to earlier Christians of Palestine, like Saint Paul and Saint Peter. He ends the work by expressing his hope that he can represent "our land" to Christians elsewhere in the world and through this work make "the whole people of Palestine" (Syriac: ˁammā kullēh d-Pallistīnā) proud.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bonar |first=Chance |date=2025-05-20 |title=The Father of Church History was Palestinian |url=https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2025/05/20/the-father-of-church-history-was-palestinian-eopalestine-21/ |access-date=2026-05-30 |website=EVERYDAY ORIENTALISM |language=en|quote=Eusebius compares the death of the Palestinian martyrs to that of Paul, Peter, and other earlier generations of Christians, crafting a legacy of Christian martyrs at the hands of the Romans in which his own generation participated. Eusebius concludes his preface by claiming that, just as it was fitting for earlier martyrdoms to be narrated by those in their own 'country' or 'people' (ˁammā), so too does he hope to properly tell the story of his own people. In doing so, he aims to be ranked among 'those of whom the whole people of Palestine (Syriac: ˁammā kullēh d-Pallistīnā) is proud' and represent 'our land' (arˁan) to Christians across the Mediterranean and West Asia.}}</ref>
A couple of decades after the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099, Fulcher of Chartres wrote that the Crusaders had been transformed from "Westerners" into "Easterners", and that "He who was a Roman or a Frank has been transformed on this earth into a Galilean or a Palestinian."<ref name=Rouxpetel>{{citation|last1=Rouxpete|first1=C|year=2024|title=Nam qui fuimus Occidentales, nunc facti sumus Orientales. Baldwin of Boulogne: to conquer and rule|journal=Crusades|volume=23|issue=2|pages=142–154|doi=10.1080/14765276.2024.2431669|url=htps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14765276.2024.2431669#d1e169|quote=Consider, I pray you, and reflect on how in our time God has turned the West into the East. For we who were once Westerners have now been turned into Easterners. He who was a Roman or a Frank has been transformed on this earth into a Galilean or a Palestinian. He who was an inhabitant of Rheims or of Chartres has now been made a Tyrian or an Antiochian. We have already forgotten the places of our birth, for many of us they are either ignored or no longer pronounced.}}</ref> After Saladin retook Jerusalem in 1187, some of fhe Crusaders who owned land and had integrated into the local population stayed, embraced Islam, and were Arabized, and their descendants today in places like the Hebron region identify as Palestinian, Arab and Muslim.<ref>{{citation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WAScDwAAQBAJ&dq=palestinian+crusaders+referred+to+themselves&pg=PT100|chapter=Cultural heritage of Palestine: Ethnicity and Ethics|first=Ghattas J.|last=Sayej|title=A New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine|year=2019 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-62799-6 }}</ref>
===Legally=== During the British Mandate over Palestine, a "Palestinian" could mean any person who was born in or hailed from the region of Palestine or was a citizen of the Mandatory Palestine, the terms of acquisition of which were laid out in the Palestinian Citizenship Order 1925. The term covered all the inhabitants of the region, including people from Muslim, Christian and Jewish backgrounds, and all ethnicities, including Arabs, the Dom people, Samaritans, Druze, Bedouins and the traditional Jewish communities of Palestine, or Old Yishuv, whose ancestors were already living there prior to the onset of Zionist immigration.
"Arab" and "Palestinian Arab" were used following the immigration of non-Arabic speakers to distinguish between the natives and newcomers who were also granted Palestinian citizenship by the British Mandatory government.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lockman |first=Zachary |title=Comrades and Enemies Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906–1948 |publisher=University of California Press |year=1996 |pages=18 |quote=I generally use the terms “Palestinian Arab,” “the Arabs of Palestine,” or (where the meaning is clear) simply “Arab” to refer to the Arab community in Palestine during the mandate period. Adding the term “Arab” when referring to the people whom we would today simply call “the Palestinians” may seem redundant, but in fact it avoids an anachronism, for it was really only after 1948 that the Palestinian Arab people came to call themselves, and be called by others, simply Palestinians. During the mandate period most Palestinian organizations and institutions (in today's sense) officially called themselves “Arab,” sometimes with “Palestinian” as a modifier; hence the Arab Executive, the Arab Higher Committee, the Arab Workers' Congress, the Palestinian Arab Workers' Society, and so forth.}}</ref>
In the aftermath of the 1948 Palestine war and the establishment of the State of Israel, a "Palestinian" tends to refer to individuals from non-Jewish communities born in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and citizens of the State of Palestine, including the populations of Palestinian refugees living in the wide Middle East and other Palestinian diaspora populations worldwide.<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/glossP.html Definition of Palestinian] (Jewish Virtual Library)
"Although anyone with roots in the land that is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza is technically a Palestinian, the term is now more commonly used to refer to non-Jew Arabs with such roots ... Most of the world's Palestinian population is concentrated in Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jordan, although many Palestinians live in Lebanon, Syria and other Arab countries."</ref>
Prior to the establishment of the State of Palestine then an interim government during the Oslo Accords in 1993: the remaining parts of Arab Palestine were annexed by Jordan and occupied by Egypt. The people of the West Bank became citizens of the Kingdom of Jordan until its disengagement in 1988, as part of the annexation of the occupied parts which were later renamed as "West Bank of the Jordan River", while the inhabitants of the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip were considered to be citizens of the internationally unrecognized client All-Palestine Protectorate. The residents of the Gaza Strip became stateless after the dissolution of the All-Palestine government.
In Israel, former Palestinian Jews that acquired Israeli citizenship became Israeli Jews. Non-Jewish Palestinians that acquired Israeli citizenship are officially referred to by Israel's government as "Israeli Arabs" or "Arab Israelis", though the development of Palestinian nationalism in the 20th and 21st centuries saw a marked evolution in self-identification with Palestinian identity, sometimes alongside Arab and Israeli signifiers.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Smooha |first1=Sammy |title=Still Playing by the Rules|journal=Index of Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel|date=2019 |pages=87–88 |url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_34-SJamMXAeHAJG6kgZS2WCC0HA1XPN/view |access-date=21 December 2023 |publisher=University of Haifa |quote=The three of the nine most attractive identities to the Arabs are: Palestinian Arabs in Israel – 27.1%, Israeli Arabs – 14.9% and Palestinian Arabs – 12.8% These three identities represent three categories: 35.9% of the Arabs in 2019 (unchanged from 31.6% in 2017) chose Israeli Arab identities without a Palestinian component (Israeli, Arab, Arab in Israel, Israeli Arab), 47.1% (increase from 38.4%) chose Palestinian88 Still Playing by the Rules: Index of Arab-Jewish Relations in Israel 2019 identities with an Israeli component (Israeli Palestinian, Palestinian in Israel, Palestinian Arab in Israel), and 14.8% (down from 21.9%) chose Palestinian identities without an Israeli component (Palestinian, Palestinian-Arab). The identity of 83.0% of the Arabs in 2019 (up from 75.5% in 2017) has an Israeli component and 61.9% (unchanged from 60.3%) has a Palestinian component. However, when these two components were presented as competitors, 69.0% of the Arabs in 2019 chose exclusive or primary Palestinian identity, compared with 29.8% who chose exclusive or primary Israeli Arab identity.}}</ref><ref name="ICG">{{cite journal|title=Identity Crisis: Israel and its Arab Citizens |journal=Middle East Report |issue= 25 |date=4 March 2004 |url=http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/israel-palestine/025-identity-crisis-israel-and-its-arab-citizens.aspx |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110313112806/http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/middle-east-north-africa/israel-palestine/025-identity-crisis-israel-and-its-arab-citizens.aspx |archive-date=13 March 2011 |access-date=14 April 2011 }}. "The issue of terminology relating to this subject is sensitive and at least partially a reflection of political preferences. Most Israeli official documents refer to the Israeli Arab community as "minorities". The Israeli National Security Council (NSC) has used the term "Arab citizens of Israel". Virtually all political parties, movements and non-governmental organisations from within the Arab community use the word "Palestinian" somewhere in their description – at times failing to make any reference to Israel. For consistency of reference and without prejudice to the position of either side, ICG will use both Arab Israeli and terms the community commonly uses to describe itself, such as Palestinian citizens of Israel or Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel."</ref><ref name="Ynetidentity">An IDI Guttman Study of 2008 shows that most Arab citizens of Israel identify as Arabs (45%). While 24% consider themselves Palestinian, 12% consider themselves Israelis, and 19% identify themselves according to religion. [http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3540049,00.html Poll: Most Israelis see themselves as Jewish first, Israeli second]</ref> A number of Palestinian citizens of Israel have family ties to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.<ref name="TuckerRoberts2008">{{cite book |last1=Tucker |first1=Spencer C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YAd8efHdVzIC&pg=PA503 |title=The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and Military History [4 volumes]: A Political, Social, and Military History |last2=Roberts |first2=Priscilla |date=12 May 2008 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-85109-842-2 |pages=503}}</ref>
The 2018 Nation-state law defines nationality in Israel as the exclusive right of the Jewish people, meaning that non-Jews, while holding citizenship, are denied any right of national belonging or self-determination.<ref name=Ghanim>{{citation|title=Israel's Nation-State Law: Hierarchized Citizenship and Jewish Supremacy Open Access|first=Honaida|last=Ghanim|journal=Critical Times|year=2021|volume=4|issue=3|pages=565–576|doi=10.1215/26410478-9355297|url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-times/article/4/3/565/294168/Israel-s-Nation-State-LawHierarchized-Citizenship|doi-access=free}}</ref>
====Palestinian refugees====
UNRWA defines the Palestinian refugees as those whose normal place of residence between June 1946 and May 1948 was in the land that is now Israel, but they went outside during the 1948 war. UNRWA, however, provides aid to Palestinian refugees defined as such, as well as the descendants of those Palestinians. UNRWA does define "Palestinian refugees" to include descendants of "refugees".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees|title=Palestine refugees|website=UNRWA}}</ref>
'''<big>Politically</big>'''
The PLO's Palestinian National Covenant of 1964 defines a Palestinian as "the Arab citizens who were living permanently in Palestine until 1947, whether they were expelled from there or remained. Whoever is born to a Palestinian Arab father after this date, within Palestine or outside it, is a Palestinian".
===In Ethnography === The word "Palestinian" in academia is occasionally used as a term rather than a demonym by ethnographers, linguists, theologians, and historians to denote a specific subculture in Palestine. In such context, it covers not only those who have a Palestinian Arab national identity or Jews of Palestine, but also those inhabitants of the Southern Levant as a whole, including ethnic and religious minorities such as the Druze, the Dom, the Circassians, and the Samaritans,<ref>[https://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/10/08/samaritans/ Amid conflict, Samaritans keep unique identity] by Dana Rosenblatt (CNN)</ref> and the Palestinian Bedouin.
==Cultural heritage and identity== A unique Palestinian cultural heritage, most closely associated with rural parts of Palestine, is an important part of Palestinian identity.<ref name=Jubeh/> This heritage includes vernacular architecture, archaeological and historical sites, handicrafts and local industries (like tatreez) Hebron glass, Nabulsi soap), folkore, traditional dances and songs.<ref name=Jubeh/> The denial of Palestinian identity and the rootedness of Palestinians in the land has led to increased efforts ro preserve and revive this heritage.<ref name=Jubeh/>
==Emergence of Palestinian nationality== {{Main|Palestinian nationalism}} The timing and causes behind the emergence of a distinctively Palestinian national consciousness among the Arabs of Palestine are matters of scholarly disagreement. Some argue that it can be traced as far back as the peasants' revolt in Palestine in 1834 (or even as early as the 17th century<ref name="Sorek" />), while others argue that it did not emerge until after the Mandatory Palestine period.<ref name="Likhovski" /> Legal historian Assaf Likhovski states that "the dominant view" is that Palestinian identity originated in the early decades of the 20th century,<ref name="Likhovski">{{cite book |last= Likhovski |first=Assaf |title=Law and identity in mandate Palestine |year=2006 |publisher=The University of North Carolina Press |isbn=978-0-8078-3017-8 |page=174|url=https://yplus.ps/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Likhovski-Assaf-Law-and-Identity-in-Mandate-Palestine.pdf }}</ref> when an embryonic desire among Palestinians for self-government in the face of generalized fears that Zionism would lead to a Jewish state and the dispossession of the Arab majority crystallised among most editors, Christian and Muslim, of local newspapers.<ref>Rashid Khalidi,"Palestinian Identity", [https://books.google.com/books?id=YDPKFyZ38qsC&pg=PA143 pp.117ff, p.142].</ref> Recognizing the undeniable impact of Zionist claims on the way Palestinian identity has developed, Nazmi Al-Jubeh, professor of history and archaeology, emphasizes it is important to note this identity nonetheless existed throughout Palestine's long history, though not in modern national terms and in tandem with several other historical, social and cultural identity affiliations.<ref name=Jubeh>{{citation|url=https://books.openedition.org/ifpo/491|editor=Heacock, Roger, éditeur|title=Temps et espaces en Palestine|publisher=Presses de l’Ifpo|year=2008|DOI=10.4000/books.ifpo.465|chapter=Palestinian Identity and Cultural Heritage|first=Nazmi|last=Al-Ju’beh|page=205-231|quote=A number of historians have raised the question of the relation of the "Palestinians" with the land of Palestine. This question, far from being innocent, is to be understood in the context of the denial of political rights, rather than a serious discussion of identity. This school believes that Palestinian identity is nothing but a reaction to the Zionist movement and its claim over Palestine (Khalidi 1997, p. 89). Here we have to draw the difference between identity in its historical, social, and cultural dimensions and an identity that grew up through the mobilization of reactions, struggles and crucial abnormal realities. There is no society that did not reformulate, reshape, and restructure its identity during long-lasting challenges. There is no doubt that, during the last century, Palestinian identity went through tremendous changes and developments; and this took place, of course, under the influence of the Zionist claims.}}</ref>
The term ''Filasṭīnī'', previously used mainly as a geographical endonym, was launched into the local modern political discourse by Khalīl Beidas in a translation of a Russian work on the Holy Land into Arabic in 1898. After that, its usage gradually spread so that, by 1908, with the loosening of censorship controls under late Ottoman rule, a number of Muslim, Christian and Jewish correspondents writing for newspapers began to use the term with great frequency in referring to the 'Palestinian people'(''ahl/ahālī Filasṭīn''), 'Palestinians' (''al-Filasṭīnīyūn'') the 'sons of Palestine(''abnā’ Filasṭīn'') or to 'Palestinian society',(''al-mujtama' al-filasṭīnī'').<ref name="ZachBeška">Zachary J Foster, Emanuel Beška,[https://www.academia.edu/49925414/The_Origins_of_the_term_Palestinian_Filasṭīnī_in_late_Ottoman_Palestine_1898_1914?email_work_card=view-paper 'The Origins of the term “Palestinian” (“Filasṭīnī”) in late Ottoman Palestine, 1898–1914,'] ''Academic Letters 2021 pp.1-22''</ref>[[File:Coat of arms of Palestine.svg|thumb|upright|left|Saladin's Falcon, the coat of arms and emblem of the Palestinian Authority]] Whatever the differing viewpoints over the timing, causal mechanisms, and orientation of Palestinian nationalism, by the early 20th century strong opposition to Zionism and evidence of a burgeoning nationalistic Palestinian identity is found in the content of Arabic-language newspapers in Palestine, such as ''Al-Karmil'' (est. 1908) and ''Filasteen'' (est. 1911).<ref name=Khalidip124>Khalidi, 1997, pp. 124–127.</ref> 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 ({{langx|ar|فلاحين}}, ''fellahin''), expressing growing concern over land dispossession and its implications for the society at large.<ref name=Khalidip124/>
Historian Rashid Khalidi's 1997 book ''Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness'' is considered a "foundational text" on the subject.<ref>[https://cup.columbia.edu/book/palestinian-identity/9780231150743 "Palestinian Identity – The ...."] ''Columbia University Press''. 10 December 2018.</ref> He notes that the archaeological strata that denote the history of Palestine – encompassing the Biblical, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Abbasid, 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.<ref name=Khalidip18>Rashid Khalidi, [https://books.google.com/books?id=YDPKFyZ38qsC&pg=PA18 ''Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness,''] New York: Columbia University Press, 2010, p. 18.</ref> Noting that Palestinian identity has never been an exclusive one, with "Arabism, religion, and local loyalties" playing an important role, Khalidi cautions against the efforts of some extreme advocates of Palestinian nationalism to "anachronistically" read back into history a nationalist consciousness that is in fact "relatively modern".<ref>Khalidi, 2010, [https://books.google.com/books?id=YDPKFyZ38qsC&pg=PA149 p. 149].</ref><ref name=Khalidip19>Khalidi, 1997, pp. 19–21.</ref>
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 that sharpened following the demarcation of modern nation-state boundaries in the Middle East after World War I.<ref name=Khalidip19/> 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."<ref name=Khalidip19/>
[[File:Khalil Beidas 1898 use of the word Palestinians in the preface to his translation of Akim Olesnitsky's A Description of the Holy Land.png|left|thumb|Khalil Beidas's 1898 use of the word "Palestinians" in the preface to his translation of Akim Olesnitsky's A Description of the Holy Land<ref name="Fos">Zachary Foster, [http://blog.palestine-studies.org/2016/02/18/who-was-the-first-palestinian-in-modern-history "Who Was The First Palestinian in Modern History"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160229164114/http://blog.palestine-studies.org/2016/02/18/who-was-the-first-palestinian-in-modern-history/ |date=29 February 2016 }} The Palestine Square 18 February 2016</ref>]]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."<ref name = "Gelvin 92">Gelvin, 2005, pp. 92–93.</ref> 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."<ref name = "Gelvin 92" />
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)."<ref>David Seddon (ed.)''A political and economic dictionary of the Middle East,'' Taylor & Francis, 2004. p. 532.</ref>
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.<ref name=Kimmerling6>Kimmerling and Migdal, 2003, p. 6–11</ref> Benny Morris argues that the Arabs in Palestine nevertheless remained part of a larger national pan-Arab or, alternatively, pan-Islamist movement.<ref>Benny Morris, ''Righteous Victims'', pp.40–42 in the French edition.</ref> Walid Khalidi argues otherwise, writing 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."<ref name=WKhalidi32>Khalidi, W., 1984, p. 32</ref>
[[File:Palestine 1930.jpg|thumb|A 1930 protest in Jerusalem against the British Mandate by Palestinian women. The sign reads "No dialogue, no negotiations until termination [of the Mandate]"]]
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."<ref name=Lewis>{{cite book |title=Semites and Anti-Semites, An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice |author= Bernard Lewis |publisher=W.W. Norton and Company |year=1999 |page=169 |isbn=978-0-393-31839-5}}</ref> 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."<ref name=Sorek>{{cite journal|title=The Orange and the Cross in the Crescent|journal=Nations and Nationalism|url=http://plaza.ufl.edu/tsorek/articles/orange.pdf|author=Tamir Sorek|volume=10|issue=3|year=2004|pages=269–291|doi=10.1111/j.1354-5078.2004.00167.x|archive-date=2023-05-05|access-date=2023-02-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230505193710/http://plaza.ufl.edu/tsorek/articles/orange.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>
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 residents Jordanian citizenship, further stunted the growth of a Palestinian national identity by integrating them into Jordanian society.<ref>Karsh, Efraim. ''Arafat's War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest''. New York: Grove Press, 2003. p. 43. "Upon occupying the West Bank during the 1948 war, King Abdallah moved quickly to erase all traces of corporate Palestinian identity."</ref>
The idea of a unique Palestinian state distinct from its Arab neighbors was at first rejected by Palestinian representatives. The First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations (in 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."<ref>{{cite book|title=Palestinian Arab National Movement: From Riots to Rebellion: 1929–1939, vol. 2|author=Yehoshua Porath|publisher=Frank Cass and Co., Ltd|year=1977|pages=81–82|author-link=Yehoshua Porath}}</ref>
==Denial of Palestinian identity== {{further|A land without a people for a people without a land|l1="A land without a people for a people without a land"|There was no such thing as Palestinians|l2="There was no such thing as Palestinians"|Nakba denial|A History of the Palestinian People}} Since the days of early Christian Zionism, Palestinian identity has been the subject of dismissive rhetoric. The phrase "A land without a people for a people without a land" was used as early as 1843 by a Christian Restorationist clergyman, and the phrase continued to be used for almost a century predominantly by Christian Restorationists, and was later adopted as Jewish Zionist slogan, to an extent that historians dispute.<ref name="Muir">Diana Muir, [http://www.meforum.org/article/1877 "A Land without a People for a People without a Land", ''Middle Eastern Quarterly'', Spring 2008, Vol. 15, No. 2] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080919235519/http://www.meforum.org/article/1877 |date=2008-09-19 }}</ref><ref name="Jewcentricity">Garfinkle, Adam, ''Jewcentricity: Why the Jews Are Praised, Blamed, and Used to Explain Just About Everything'', John Wiley and Sons, 2009, p. 265.</ref><ref name=Shapira>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h4K06WBjCrAC&dq=%22a+land+without+a+people%22++anita+shapira&pg=PA42|title=Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948|first=Anita|last=Shapira|date=28 February 1999|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=9780804737760 |via=Google Books}}</ref>
After the inception of the State of Israel, a phrase that has similarly become often repeated is Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir's remark that "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." as part of an interview with Frank Giles, then deputy editor of ''The Sunday Times'' on June 15, 1969, to mark the second anniversary of the Six-Day War. It is considered to be the most famous example of Israeli denial of Palestinian identity,<ref name=Waxman>{{cite book |last= Waxman |first= D. |title= The Pursuit of Peace and the Crisis of Israeli Identity: Defending/Defining the Nation |page= 50 |publisher= Palgrave Macmillan US |year= 2006 |isbn= 978-1-4039-8347-3 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=oUHIAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA50 |access-date= 2021-11-22}}</ref> and has been frequently been used to illustrate the denial of Palestinian history and sum up the Palestinians' sense of invisibility to Israel.<ref name=Gelvin>{{cite book |last1= Gelvin |first1= J.L. |last2= Gelvin |first2= P.H.J.L. |title= The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War |publisher= Cambridge University Press |pages= 92–93 |year= 2005 |isbn= 978-0-521-85289-0 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=wfIFVze1MqQC |access-date=2021-11-22}}</ref>
In 2023, Bezalel Smotrich, the Minister of Finance in Israel's 2022 far-right coalition government, reiterated the denial of Palestinian identity.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/20/israeli-minister-condemned-claiming-no-such-thing-as-a-palestinian-people-bezalel-smotrich |title= Israeli minister condemned for claiming 'no such thing' as a Palestinian people |date=20 March 2023 |agency=Associated Press |work=The Guardian}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{Palestinian nationalism}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Palestinian identity}} Category:Palestinians Category:Palestinian nationalism Category:National identities