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Are Palestinians a People

Reader comment on item: Is There a Palestinian People? Can It be Defeated?

Submitted by Liatris Spicata, Jan 11, 2017 at 21:28

I do not think it is silly to deny the existence of a "Palestinian people". Some pertinent questions I might ask are:

1. Did they historically consider themselves a separate people, or a separate culture from other Arabs in Greater Syria, or Egypt or what is now Jordan? If not, it makes their claim to peoplehood suspect.

2. Are they distinct from other Arabs in the area in terms of language?

3. Did they have proscriptions against marrying other Arabs from the aforementioned areas?

4. Were their ancestors from Palestine?

5. Historically, were there movements toward an independent entity- separate from the Ottoman Empire- among residents of Palestine?

If the answers to the above questions are negative, or largely negative, then I think it is quite reasonable to question the Palestinian sense of "peoplehood". Mere resentment some other group who defined themselves as a separate people set up shop in Palestine is no reason to for the rest of us to designate "Palestinians" as a separate people.

I suspect that historically, a greater sense of differentiation was along the lines of religion, in which, the Moslem/Christian divide looks like a more natural grouping of "people" than the geographical one of having ancestors residing in Palestine after, say, 1900.

Submitting....

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Reader comments (24) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
Now [49 words]AlbertE.Jan 31, 2017 22:51236154
2Israel keeps losing the Public Relations war in America [208 words]Concerned from USAJan 30, 2017 08:25236066
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Are palestinians a people [619 words]
w/response from Daniel Pipes
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Palestinans a people and can they be defeated/ [494 words]Richard MartinJan 28, 2017 02:31235914
Are palestinians a "people" an addtional comment [334 words]
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Richard MartinJan 28, 2017 01:47235913
response to Daniel Pipes [419 words]Richard MartinJan 29, 2017 06:57235913
Are the palestinians a "people" [449 words]
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Richard MartinJan 28, 2017 01:23235912
3The two nations states of 'British Palestine' are the State of Israel and Kingdom of Jordan. [37 words]AVJan 15, 2017 18:16235396
More details please [82 words]
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PezDispenserJan 15, 2017 13:32235392
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