In Part 1 of this three part series, we searched for record of the Palestinian people over the nineteen centuries from the 1st Century AD to the beginning of the British Mandate. We found remarkably little. Of course, there were many different peoples living in the Land over the centuries, but near zero trace of a distinct Palestinian identity. By contrast, the Jews and the Samaritans retain their distinct identity throughout.
In Part 3 we will look at the current anointing of the Palestinian people as a people chosen to symbolise a global struggle and pitched specifically against Israel: God’s chosen people and their claim to the Land of Israel. In Part 2 here, we consider how the Palestinians emerged from near invisibility as a distinct identity that is now being elevated toward their latter day anointing.
After WW1, the main cry of Arabs in the Land is for unity with Syria. However, the British Mandate for Palestine is recognised in 1920 and approved by the League of Nations in 1922. The Palestine Mandate brings the term ‘Palestine’ into the lives of everyone, but neither rich nor poor turn to a specifically Palestinian heritage. Raashid Khalidi, in his influential book Palestinian Identity finds occasional references to an Arab Palestinian nation in the (small circulation) Arab newspapers. He has to scramble hard to produce further evidence, such as a geography schoolbook that refers to Syria and Palestine separately. (Another writer points out that the schoolbook presents Filastin as part of Syria.) Given the political reality of Palestine and the Zionist issue, one might expect stronger expression of a distinct identity.
The 1922 Churchill White Paper on Palestine states that “all citizens … shall be Palestinian.” Jews, Arabs and the British indifferently use the term ‘Palestinian’ for local residents. Jews receive Palestinian citizenship; the English language, Jewish newspaper is The Palestine Post; the New York 1939 World Fair has a ‘Jewish Palestine’ pavilion; American Jews use the slogan ‘Free Palestine’ to support the Zionist cause against the British; they form the American League for a Free Palestine and a Palestine Independence Fund. The UN 1947 resolution 181 on the ‘Palestine Question’ refers to a future ‘Jewish State’ and ‘Arab State’ and to citizens of either as ‘Palestinian citizens’.
Arab leader Awni Abd Al-Hadi insists to the Peel Commission “There is no such country as Palestine. ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented.” The UN Mediator in Palestine, Folke Bernadotte, remarks that “The Palestine Arabs have at present no will of their own. Neither have they ever developed any specifically Palestinian nationalism.” When the Arab League forms a volunteer army in 1947 to fight the Jews, its commander complains that Palestine Arabs make up less than 20% of his force and the majority desert. He notes “a rise in factionalism and local alliances among Palestinians [that] has pitted them against one another.” A minority of local Arabs are involved in offensive activities; villages often have peace deals with nearby Jewish settlements.
The invading Arab armies in 1948 intend to carve up the territory between their respective states. The Jerusalem grandee Musa Alami writes that “the people are in great need of a ‘myth’ to fill their consciousness and imagination.”
From 1948 to 1967 Arab states control both Gaza and the West Bank. They grant little or no self-government. Egypt puts Gaza under military rule. An ‘All-Palestine Government’ has nominal jurisdiction but minimal influence and is dissolved in 1959. Jordan’s parliament proclaims the complete political union between the two sides of the Jordan River and bans use of the word ‘Palestine.’ Jordan loses the West Bank in the 1967 war and renounces its claim in 1988.
From 1958 to 1961, Egypt and Syria form the United Arab Republic to emphasize their shared identity as a united Arab nation and their intent to swallow up the annoying country that lies between them.
In 1956, Ahmed Shukairy (representing Syria) tells the UN Security Council “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.” In 1964, Shukairy becomes first chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Its charter introduces the term “the Palestinian people.” Article 2 ties Palestine to the boundaries of the British Mandate; Article 24 renounces any claim to the West Bank (under Jordanian control at the time) and Gaza (under Egyptian control.) Thus, the PLO charter limits its interest to Arab people within Israel’s borders. The PLO’s liberation is directed against the State of Israel, not uniting a wider Palestinian people. Yasser Arafat (PLO chairman 1969-2004) repeatedly states that it is “only by military actions that we (can) fix the Palestinian identity.”
Today, the PLO’s successor, the Palestinian Authority, runs the West Bank and seeks to regain control of Gaza – the exact reverse of the PLO’s previous geographic focus. What of the PLO’s original target for liberation: the Arabs in Israel? Today, they number some two million. In 2024, when asked what is the ‘dominant element’ in their personal identity, 33.9% state Israeli citizenship, 29.2% religious affiliation and 26.9% their Arab identity. 9% respond Palestinian. Other surveys (and political behaviours) confirm the point. The great majority want neither ‘Palestinian’ identity nor ‘liberation’ from Israel’s supposed oppression. The PLO’s mission and actions are rejected by the very people it once claimed to serve.
After the 1967 Six Day War, the term ‘the Palestinian people’ is more widely taken up and in 1974 UN resolution 292 declares “the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.” Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s comment in 1969 that “there is no such thing as a distinct Palestinian people” is later denounced as ‘Israeli denialism’. Yet Zuhair Muhsen, military commander of the PLO, states in 1977 “The Palestinian people does not exist … the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons.” In 2012 Hamas minister of the interior, Fathi Hammad, slams Egypt for not helping Gaza, saying “Who are the Palestinians? … Half of the Palestinians are Egyptian and the other half are Saudis.”
Academics grasp at every straw for evidence of an emerging Palestinian identity. Sociologists Kimmerling and Migdal discover a “growing Palestinian identity” in the 1930, then a community “groping towards its own distinct identity,” and only after 1967 that Palestinians “developed a self-identity.” Khalidi in Palestinian Identity argues that various factors combine together in a moment of crisis to bring about a swift change in society and personal identity. Whether those arriving swiftly at such an identity are descendants of families long settled in the land is another matter.
These movements and statements show a concerted attempt to build a distinct Palestinian identity. For the political interests of Arab states and the religious drives of Islam, this narrative provides a point of unity and marks Israel as the oppressor of Arab people and the intruder on Muslim lands. For the West, there are oil interests. The actual Arab people of the Land are secondary to this. The inconvenient Arab citizens of Israel are ignored. Mostly, the Arab nations where refugees from Palestine are scattered do not assist or encourage them to integrate with their new home. The UN’s specialist agency UNRWA records their descendants as refugees in perpetuity, with entitlement to ongoing support—unlike the handling of all other refugee groups aided by the UN.
In Part 3 of this study we will look at the flowering of this prolonged campaign.
These articles draw on material from Dr Simon Smelt’s new book ‘From the River to the Sea: the Land in History and Prophecy from the 1st to the 20th Century.’
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