Are the Palestinians a real people?

[flacaltenn]

So...let’s get this straight, if we support the right of the Palestinians to identify as a people, just like any other people have the right to...we are the “degenerates”.

You or any other advocates don't have that power to make them a unified people... That's something THEY should discover as their weakness and the reason why they've failed a produce a unified govt or representatives to SPEAK for their cause...

That's why the PA is still WITHHOLDING funds from Hamas in Gaza and they've been assasinating each other since the PA fizzled.. Because they are NOT "a people"...

But as I said -- being a "people" shouldn't be a block for reclaiming land that was traditionally theirs..... Apparently, they would all just fight each other it as was the case when Israel vacated Gaza.. Some problem the Native Americans had deciding on which white boys they would fight with and trust...

 

[flacaltenn]

There's a very similar thing going on RIGHT NOW with a "Kurdish Homeland".. Traditionally, they HAD one.. Now they dont.. American press and the majority of US leadership make it SOUND LIKE, all Kurds are the same.. But truth is -- they are RADICALLY different, politically and to some extent religiously... So THEY can't all get their act together to have a UNIFIED VOICE advocating for THAT cause..

Might only be a couple generations hence that AMERICAN tribalism fits into the same sad dysfunctional anarchy..

 

[Shusha]

What's the magical number of years when a people can finally be acknowledged to be a people?

Its not about years. Its about definitions.

Apparently it is about years.

According to whom? The only person asking about "magical number of years" is you.

rylah isn't claiming that years are the problem. (At least I don't think he is). He is pointing out that Arab Palestinians did not develop naturally as a distinct culture or a cohesive collection of separate but connected tribes. He is pointing out that the Arab Palestinians were, in fact, intentionally invented to be a political tool in order to fight against and defeat the Jewish people. And that this fact invalidates their existence as a "real" people.

That seems to me to be a valid criticism.

 

[Shusha]

IRONICALLY, the Jews claim as a people has the 1st two characteristics of tribe and family but not the locality...

I pretty strongly disagree with you about the locality. You seem to be arguing that if a family or tribe is forcibly displaced from their locality that they all claim to that locality, while also saying that a return to that locality does not reclaim that locality.

The Jewish people's locality to that land is impossible to dispute.

Maybe the Jewish claim to that locality is a bit stronger.. Because of biblical history.. And because ALL the tribes of Israel had a more CENTRAL alliance than Arab tribes and peoples and a more uniform religious hierarchy over history... But "being a people" isn't a measure of claims to land.. The term Palestinians is more like the term Native American... It's an indigenous thing that doesn't tie the tribes together at all... And like most other buzzwords, it's been abused to include folks that simply declare themselves Palestinian.. Much like the idea of me declaring to be a "non-binary, disabled Black man" for a couple months.... Sounds cool...

And Yes.. The tracing of roots to locality is immutable when that is IMPORTANT to "a people"... That's what I'm saying.. But you cannot simply exercise that right at will. It takes world recognition and law to make that happen..

Palis would have SUCCEEDED at that by now IF they could unify enough to have REPRESENTATION that would prosecute the case for a "tribal homeland"... They've failed repeatedly to do that...

That's why I also say that Zionism was not an evil thing.. It's purpose WAS to make the case for a return to that locality.. And it was a fairly unified and recognized delegate by the MAJORITY of Jewish people.. SOMEONE has to speak for the cause... And it's not yahoos like Arafat or Hamas or "bleeding heart" Americans who simply DEMAND on behalf of the Palestinians...

Thank you for that clarification. If I understand you correctly, I agree.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

There's a very similar thing going on RIGHT NOW with a "Kurdish Homeland".. Traditionally, they HAD one.. Now they dont.. American press and the majority of US leadership make it SOUND LIKE, all Kurds are the same.. But truth is -- they are RADICALLY different, politically and to some extent religiously... So THEY can't all get their act together to have a UNIFIED VOICE advocating for THAT cause..

Might only be a couple generations hence that AMERICAN tribalism fits into the same sad dysfunctional anarchy..

Kurds came about naturally, however.

they weren't an intentional creation.

 

[flacaltenn]

There's a very similar thing going on RIGHT NOW with a "Kurdish Homeland".. Traditionally, they HAD one.. Now they dont.. American press and the majority of US leadership make it SOUND LIKE, all Kurds are the same.. But truth is -- they are RADICALLY different, politically and to some extent religiously... So THEY can't all get their act together to have a UNIFIED VOICE advocating for THAT cause..

Might only be a couple generations hence that AMERICAN tribalism fits into the same sad dysfunctional anarchy..

Kurds came about naturally, however.

they weren't an intentional creation.

Gotta score them points like American politics scores "diversity points" tho...

They MAY BE unified as to ORIGIN -- but over time in divided and strange countries imposed by the West, they've lost a lot of "tribal and familial" identity.. And now -- their POLITICS and foreign allegiances divide them..

Politically they range from anarchist Commies bent on using force to full entrepreneurial Capitalists that embrace representative Democracy and Western values. .. That's a hard egg to uncrack..

And that's also a description of America today and where we're apparently heading.. So don't get too cocky about which "people" can identify and SURVIVE as a nation....

 

[Coyote]

What's the magical number of years when a people can finally be acknowledged to be a people?

Its not about years. Its about definitions.

Apparently it is about years.

According to whom? The only person asking about "magical number of years" is you.

rylah isn't claiming that years are the problem. (At least I don't think he is). He is pointing out that Arab Palestinians did not develop naturally as a distinct culture or a cohesive collection of separate but connected tribes. He is pointing out that the Arab Palestinians were, in fact, intentionally invented to be a political tool in order to fight against and defeat the Jewish people. And that this fact invalidates their existence as a "real" people.

That seems to me to be a valid criticism.

No. He is not. He is claiming they were invented on a certain date and they cant possibly be a real people because the Arabic language does not pronounce P. That is his argument.

How they came to be a real people does NOT invalidate their existence as a real people. They existed prior to the Jewish domination of the region in the twentieth century. They may have unified in opposition to that but that doesn’t make them any less a real people. The whole argument echos that of those who deny the right of Israel to exist.

So, again,I will ask. WHY is it so vitally important to deny they are a people?

 

[Coyote]

One interesting and rational view.



Americans for Peace Now

Golda Meir’s suggestion, back in the late 1960s, that there is no Palestinian people was wrong and counterproductive. Repeating it today is wrong many times over, and does a terrible disservice to efforts to secure Israel's future through peace.

The starting point is this: it makes no difference whether Israelis, or Jews, or anyone else recognize the Palestinians as a people. The Palestinians view themselves as a distinct people, with deep ties to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Israel and supporters of Israel can neither deny nor wish the Palestinians and their claims out of existence. That is the reality that must be accepted and addressed if there is ever going to be peace, security, and stability.

At the same time, Israelis and Jews should recognize the gross insincerity and disrespect involved in denying the Palestinians' identity, because we have experienced the same ugly denial. For years, extremists within and outside the Arab world have attacked the legitimacy of Israel as a state by attacking the Jewish claim to the land and attacking the legitimacy of Israelis as a national group. They have argued that Israelis are nothing but foreigners who came from the West, who should go back where they came from.

People of integrity - Jewish and non-Jewish - categorically reject and condemn such attacks on Israel. We point to Jewish historical and religious ties to the land, to the continual presence of Jews on the land throughout history, and to the well-established Jewish longing for Israel way before 1948. We insist on Israelis' right to self-determination and security. And we recognize the pain such attacks cause to Israelis and the threat these attacks represent to the very possibility of Israel-Arab peace.

Likewise, for decades there has been an effort among extremists in Israel and abroad to try to delegitimize the Palestinians as a people and delegitimize their right, as a people, to self-determination. These arguments are historically incorrect and insensitive. Worse, they are irrelevant to the current situation on the ground, and politically damaging to Israeli interests.

There is ample historical documentation showing that a separate local identity among Arabs living in Palestine started forming in the 16th and 17th century, and that a national Palestinian consciousness began crystallizing early in the 20th century, as anti-colonial movements took root around the world. This national consciousness transformed into a national movement and later into a national liberation movement, in large part as a result of the friction between the Palestinians and Zionism, the Jewish national self-determination movement.

 

[Coyote]

If you consider responding via memes to be "trolling" I suggest you monitor your own content. Just saying.

You are intent on insisting that the Palestinians aren't a "real people". When someone does that, and works SOOOO hard at it, I always wonder what their REAL agenda is?

What's the magical number of years when a people can finally be acknowledged to be a people?

My guess is, if they aren't a "real people" it's easy for "real people" like YOU to force then out, or, as you once put it - make them "guests" (read dhimmis" ) of "your nation" rather than citizens.

Is that why it is of the utmost importance to insist they aren't real?

Now go back to your trolling and irrational claims

Now you're just projecting and boldly lying.
Are you capable of posting or addressing facts?

You haven't provided any. You've just posted trolling memes, and a bizarre claim that they some how can't be a "real people" because they can't pronounce "p" and that debunked semantical argument somehow bolsters your claim.

Why insist they aren't a real people? Why is that so obessively important to you? You are like the people who can't bring themselves to acknowledge the right of Jews to the place. No difference.

Instead of arguing over whether or not they are a "real" people - they are now, they are here now and they aren't going away just to make it more convenient for you. Just like Israel is an established nation and is not going to go away to make it convenient to to its detractors.

They are both real and here to stay, so why is it so important to argue about whether or not Palestinians a "real" people that we have thread after thread devoted to it?

Indeed, it's pretty bizarre for Arabs to claim a land
the name of which they can't even pronounce properly...

Let me suggest you start donating lessons, so the play the role better,
and you don't look like a complete idiot:

Helping Arabic speakers with /p/ and /b/ sounds

You are simply repeating a talking point (debunked by another member in another thread) that has no merit in determining whether or not a people is "real" nor does it answer why you are obsessed over it.

Actually, that other member thought he debunked rylah's point, but he really didn't. He equated the name of America with the name of Palestine. There are many differences between these 2 cases:

1) Americans have no problem pronouncing "America."
2) America is actually the name of a continent, not a country. The United States is the name of the country.
3) America is not a foreign word, but is rather just a name. "Amerigo" was one of the explorers who discovered the continent. "Palestine", on the other hand, is taken from a foreign word to the Arabs, and it means "invaders," of all things. Thus, they are calling themselves invaders, which is quite appropriate.

Sorry, I completely disagree. They are no moreinvaders than the Jews who immigrated from Europe.

 

[Coyote]

Its NOT their identity to speak Arabic, wear keffiya and hijab, eat hummus and shwarma, celebrate Mohammed's birthday and Abraham's near sacrifice of his son?

It's not.

Seems to me ForeverYoung436 was accepting Arab Palestinian identity, rather than denying it.

You consider the words "like in 21 other countries" as support of Palestinian identity? OK...

I’m pretty sure you missed my point and my sarcasm here.

Arab Palestinian identity IS Arab.

OK
So, Palestinian Arabs have no special identity? But you insist that they have special rights, even national rights.

Although you asked this of Shusha, I'll give my own answer until she gives hers. They have no special identity, but they happen to live in the Land, unfortunately. So if they agree to share it, I'd be willing to let them have their own national rights. If they want to take over all of it, then not.

This whole thing got off to a slow start... Of course Palestinian ORIGINS are Arab.. Maybe even the Christian Palestinians... The entire Arab world is organized by familial lines and tribes... THAT'S what matters... But then again, like the Kurds, those familial lines and tribes get dispersed by boundary lines being redrawn by Western powers sipping tea....

I forgot the 3rd most important organization of Arabs in the Middle East and that is WHERE the tribes and family descendents came from.. This is reflected in the NAMING of each of their people..

IRONICALLY, the Jews claim as a people has the 1st two characteristics of tribe and family but not the locality...

Because of displacement and diaspora, this association was severely damaged... But nonetheless the claim to "being a people" of the Middle East is much the same for Jews and Arabs..

So asking if the Palestinians are "a people" doesn't seem to have any bearing on their claim to any particular locality.. And I don't really understand the IMPORTANCE of determining if they are a "unified homogenous people...

Many of the governance problems that the Palestinian have now and continually had since antiquity are based on differences in family lines and tribes and locations.. Today, there is still not a unified, cross-tribal alliance.. The Pali city centers don't cooperate very well with one another.. And the sad endings of their attempts to unify and work together have been evident time and time again...

I THINK what matters is some Arab tribes chose to live in the Holy Land long ago and THOSE folks are actual "Palestinians".. But all the people laying CLAIM to Israel as Palestine are not direct descendents of those original Arab settlers...

Maybe someone who KNOWS the tribal origins of the majority tribal and familial lines in the majority of Palestine could figure out WHO has a "locality" claim to the land.. But there are no deeds or records that are gonna resolve anything that way...

Why would you say Palestinian origins are Arab when they predated Arab conquests?

 

[Coyote]

Another provocative view: The Invention of the Jewish People - Wikipedia

Do we we have a number of “invented” people running around the Middle East?

Unlike ANY OTHER conflict...the IP conflict is the only one in which we seem populate with peoples we insist were invented to achieve strategic nationalist aims.

Why don’t we simply except them as a people? Will destroy narratives? Alter rights?

 

[Dogmaphobe]

Why don’t we simply except them as a people?

The word you are looking for is "accept", not except.

I accept them as a people who were invented in the 1960s strictly for propaganda purposes.

 

[Coyote]

Why don’t we simply except them as a people?

The word you are looking for is "accept", not except.

I accept them as a people who were invented in the 1960s strictly for propaganda purposes.

In other words, spelling Nazi crap aside, you don’t accept them as a people.

P.S. spelling and grammar Nazis need to be extra accurate in their corrections in order to pull it off. It is 1960’s not 1960s.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

Why don’t we simply except them as a people?

The word you are looking for is "accept", not except.

I accept them as a people who were invented in the 1960s strictly for propaganda purposes.

In other words, spelling Nazi crap aside, you don’t accept them as a people.

P.S. spelling and grammar Nazis need to be extra accurate in their corrections in order to come pull it off. It is 1960’s not 1960s.

Actually, I oppose Nazi crap. That's why I oppose them.

Once again, they were invented in the 1960s as a people, and I accept that.

As to your pronouncement that a decade can possess something, thus necessitating the apostrophe, you are once again incorrect.

 

[Coyote]

Why don’t we simply except them as a people?

The word you are looking for is "accept", not except.

I accept them as a people who were invented in the 1960s strictly for propaganda purposes.

In other words, spelling Nazi crap aside, you don’t accept them as a people.

P.S. spelling and grammar Nazis need to be extra accurate in their corrections in order to come pull it off. It is 1960’s not 1960s.

Actually, I oppose Nazi crap. That's why I oppose them.

Once again, they were invented in the 1960s as a people, and I accept that.

As to your pronouncement that a decade can possess something, thus necessitating the apostrophe, you are once again incorrect.

Point taken, you might be right on the apostrophe. However spelling Nazi is spelling Nazi, if you oppose them why engage in it?

 

[Dogmaphobe]

Why don’t we simply except them as a people?

The word you are looking for is "accept", not except.

I accept them as a people who were invented in the 1960s strictly for propaganda purposes.

In other words, spelling Nazi crap aside, you don’t accept them as a people.

P.S. spelling and grammar Nazis need to be extra accurate in their corrections in order to come pull it off. It is 1960’s not 1960s.

Actually, I oppose Nazi crap. That's why I oppose them.

Once again, they were invented in the 1960s as a people, and I accept that.

As to your pronouncement that a decade can possess something, thus necessitating the apostrophe, you are once again incorrect.

Point taken, you might be right on the apostrophe. However spelling Nazi is spelling Nazi, if you oppose them why engage in it?

Yours was not a spelling error so much as it was an inability to understand the difference between two different words.

Yasser Arafat's uncle was a card carrying Nazi. He worked to exterminate Jews in the Balkans. I oppose Nazis, whether German or Arab, and this opposition has nothing to do with your grammatical shortcomings.

 

[flacaltenn]

What's the magical number of years when a people can finally be acknowledged to be a people?

Its not about years. Its about definitions.

Apparently it is about years.

According to whom? The only person asking about "magical number of years" is you.

rylah isn't claiming that years are the problem. (At least I don't think he is). He is pointing out that Arab Palestinians did not develop naturally as a distinct culture or a cohesive collection of separate but connected tribes. He is pointing out that the Arab Palestinians were, in fact, intentionally invented to be a political tool in order to fight against and defeat the Jewish people. And that this fact invalidates their existence as a "real" people.

That seems to me to be a valid criticism.

No. He is not. He is claiming they were invented on a certain date and they cant possibly be a real people because the Arabic language does not pronounce P. That is his argument.

How they came to be a real people does NOT invalidate their existence as a real people. They existed prior to the Jewish domination of the region in the twentieth century. They may have unified in opposition to that but that doesn’t make them any less a real people. The whole argument echos that of those who deny the right of Israel to exist.

So, again,I will ask. WHY is it so vitally important to deny they are a people?

Most of the Pali towns summaries that Rylah posted were very informative... It gives the founding of those settlements... But a couple hundred years in Western time is maybe only 50 yrs in Holyland time... Because the claims to "location" go back farther than any court or international body can really consider..

And the only direction this can go is FARTHER back in "Holyland time to Biblical times.. So for purposes of having a traceable presence and stake in the territory in MODERN times, that enough time to say those places have a traceable "Palestinian presence" that's "long enough" to make an argument in the present day world..

It's undeniable tho that a large fraction of folks identifying as Palis don't even have a case in terms of "Western time" lengths.. Also undeniable, that even the residents of Israel worry that some of their generous immigration policies may have contributed to accepting people who don't have a traceable history to the Jewish people.

The country is too small and exerts too much energy just SUSTAINING ITS RIGHT TO EXIST... So it's understandable that they need to be somewhat selective in maintaining their purpose and identity....

Just like a Palestinian state would... But the difference is --- Israel IS capable of living in rough neighborhood.. A "Pali state" would be a mid-morning snack for an aggressor nation like Iran or a rogue extremist army....

 

[Shusha]

Another provocative view: The Invention of the Jewish People - Wikipedia

Do we we have a number of “invented” people running around the Middle East?

Unlike ANY OTHER conflict...the IP conflict is the only one in which we seem populate with peoples we insist were invented to achieve strategic nationalist aims.

Why don’t we simply except them as a people? Will destroy narratives? Alter rights?

Please tell me you did not just bring Shlomo Sand into the conversation.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

Please tell me you did not just bring Shlomo Sand into the conversation.

Where is Israel Shahak when we need him?!

 

[Shusha]

No. He is not. He is claiming they were invented on a certain date and they cant possibly be a real people because the Arabic language does not pronounce P. That is his argument.

rylah is perfectly capable of clarifying his thoughts on his own, so I will not presume to continue to answer for him.

BUT you MUST ask yourself why a "real" people would not have a name for their own land in their own native language.

And then you might go back and respond to my point:

Arab Palestinians did not develop naturally as a distinct culture or a cohesive collection of separate but connected tribes. Arab Palestinians were, in fact, intentionally invented to be a political tool in order to fight against and defeat the Jewish people. And that this fact invalidates their existence as a "real" people.

That seems to me to be a valid criticism.