Coyote
I think you are attempting to make an equivalency where there is none.
I disagree.
The Arab Palestinian identity IS Arab. Arab Palestinians are a result of Arabization -- a systematic invasion, conquest and forced conversion mixing with a local population and culturally over-taking them. They see themselves as identical to Jordanians and Syrians and are heavily connected to a wider Arab world. They are Arabs, proudly so. That is their identity.
Yes. Arab in the broader sense of term - like....being proud of being European. Only instead of pan-Europe it is a Pan-Arabian identity that was constructed roughly around the same time as the idea of a Jewish national identity.
But to use that against them to attempt to marginalize them by saying they are relatively recent invaders when they are not is wrong.
Their "Palestinianess" is a CONTRUCT. It did not arise organically from a distinct culture which evolved and changed and developed over time in situ. It is a construct deliberately and recently built in order to systematically deny and erase the indigenous Jewish peoples. It is a cultural conquest, by its very nature. The newest shift in that construct is to claim "Caananiteness'. Its another construct designed to ensure the Jewish narrative is erased or made irrelevant. But Arab Palestinians don't identify with Caananites. It is not their identity. Its a tool for them to use. Its a replacement concept.
Actually...it might be a new shift, but it's a very interesting one.
Living Descendants of Biblical Canaanites Identified Via DNA
Whether it arose organically or not...should not matter - the people, who they are, their heritage and their ties to place are being erased by those who say they are "just" Arabs and by extension could be moved to any other culturally Arabic place. Why is it so important to deny the fact that their heritage - even if they weren't a distinct "people" PRECEDED the Muslim conquests? That is what those like Sixties is trying to do.
For the Jewish people their Jewishness is their identity. The whole point for the Jewish people is to prevent the erasure of their culture -- to prevent its being taken over by a dominant, invasive culture. That is the whole intent of the international community defining and designating indigenous cultures. It is meant to preserve indigenous culture and languages, and holy places, and history so that they are not erased and lost.
The Jewish people are in danger of having their identity lost. That Arab Palestinians are not.
At this point in time, for the Palestinians, that IS their identity - whether it only became so 100 years ago or a thousand should not matter. It is now and that should be respected not erased by pigeon holing them as "just Arabs' because that IS a denial of their history.
And that is not to say the same doesn't apply to Jews - it absolutely does, but let's not make it at the expense of the Palestinians. There is room for both with denying either their narratives and historic connections to place.
Arabs are NOT descendants of Biblical Canaanites.
Neither would be the Biblical Philistines, as they were of Greek origin, or any Greeks who came with Alexander and created the Christian Greek Orthodox Church, and so many others who have their indigenous status from somewhere else, be they Egyptians, Ethiopians, or anyone outside of Biblical, Ancient Canaan.
Being born in the land of Canaan, called Israel, or Judea or Palestine, does not make one indigenous from it, even if their descendants are those who stayed after the Philistines, Greeks, Romans, Byzantine, etc ceased to be a power.
Those are foreign people to the land, not indigenous to it, the same way as the Europeans after 1620 are foreign to the New World and not Native or indigenous to it.
As said before, the people who lived in what became known in the 20th century as the Region of Palestine, was known only as a region, since the Romans changed the name to Syria Palestina.
All the inhabitants were known as Jews, Greek, Aramaic, Romans, or any of the people who were living there at the time, but no one ever referred to them as Palestinians. Because that term was never adopted by the indigenous people or any of the later invader, conquerors like the Byzantine, the Muslim Kurds, Muslim Arabs, teh Crusaders, the Ottomans, or any of the visitors or colonies founded in the area, like the German or American Colonies created in the 19th century.
The Arabs are not part of the indigenous fabric of the Land of Canaan/ Israel. Neither are the Greeks, Romans, Muslim Kurds, Arabs, European Crusaders or the Ottomans.
The use of the word Palestinians as a national identity for the Arabs only happened in 1964. By Arafat, who was an Egyptian Arab.
The Jews could have taken the word Palestine and Palestinians (many already had passports as Palestinians ) and called their country and themselves Palestine and Palestinians, as the British chose to bring those words up again.
Had that happened, there would be no issues with "Palestinians", or Palestine , but with Arabs who refused to partition the Mandate into two states (and continue to refuse to do so )and who want to get the rest of what was called the Mandate for Palestine which was to become once again a sovereign homeland for the Jewish People for themselves, as Muslims, as Arabs.
Muslims consider that they have replaced Judaism.
Therefore Jews cannot ever be allowed to have sovereignty over land they once conquered, and be "submissive" to people they consider themselves superior to.
It is all in the Quran. That is what they follow. That is what is written in the Charters for Hamas, the PLO and Fatah.
And none of that, they have any intention of changing.
Which means, no peace with Israel and the Jews.
And it means that they will fight even if it takes forever to achieve what Mohammad achieved out of the Three Jewish Tribes of Mecca.
Their surrender.
