Talk:Palestinians

Property Losses Estimate

The last sentence of the header reads: "According to Perry Anderson, it is estimated that half of the population in the Palestinian territories are refugees and that they have collectively suffered approximately US$300 billion in property losses due to Israeli confiscations, at 2008–09 prices."

However, the *total* national wealth of neighbouring Jordan (population >10M, greater than 2x the current population of the Gaza Strip + the West Bank) is $146 billion, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_wealth. Even if property in Israel is substantially more valuable per square foot (possible), Israel's total national wealth is only $1,046 billion or $1.05 trillion (same source), and Israel is an unusually stable/rich/technologically innovative country by Middle Eastern standards so the land in an independent Palestine has no guarantee to be as valuable as land in the state of Israel.

I submit that this sentence should be removed as not credible, or at least have some sort of qualification added to it providing context (such as the total wealth of neighbouring Jordan).

Inaccurate description in the War (1947–1949) section

the section on the 1948 war says "The Palestinian Arabs suffered such a major defeat at the end of the war, that the term they use to describe the war is Nakba (the "catastrophe")" this is inaccurate, the term Nakba describes a collection of actions, by Zionist militias, that took place before, during, and even after the war, not the war itself. Shortly after that it says "Along with a military defeat, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from what became the State of Israel." this is inaccurate because the Palestinians that fled or were expelled had that happen to them before and during the war, not "along with the defeat" as this would imply it happened at the end of the war. Also the title of the section says "War (1947–1949)" but, while the Nakba lasted that long, the actual war only happened in 1948. Hexifi (talk) 21:05, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I think these are valid points, thanks Hexifi. It seems like this article is out of synch with other related articles, e.g. Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Nakba, 1948 Palestine war, 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, and 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Hexifi (or anyone else not extended confirmed), please feel free to make specific edit requests in WP:EDITXY format to fix this. You may find some suitable replacement text in the other sub-articles I mentioned (or others). As this is a top-level parent article, it should basically summarize what the sub-articles say about the 1947-1949 period. Levivich (talk) 20:04, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

Indigineity

This revert is based on sources and both reverters have provided none for their view, instead accusing editors relying on sources of POV pushing. Selfstudier (talk) 08:30, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

I would have also expected they contribute to this discussion by demonstrating which RS disagree. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:52, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

@Owenglyndur: Consensus is built on WP guidelines and involves participating in the talk page discussion, not just refusal to accept some material. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:50, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

• @Selfstudier: can you provide several references, including the exact text of the reference, that say Palestinians are indigenous. (I know they are already in the article, provide them below as well so we can compare them with any sources that say otherwise). VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 15:05, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

  Afaics, based on the latest revert by @ABHammad:, this is currently all about the difference between "native to" and "descending from". I do not understand the fuss over "native to", are there sources saying they are not? How can they be descended from but not native to?

  In fact based on the sourcing below, there is a good case for just describing them as indigeneous. Selfstudier (talk) 09:55, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

  @ABHammad: same question as above. Makeandtoss (talk) 15:20, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Sources

Let's collect up sources here, these are mentioned in the article: Dowty, Alan (2008). Israel/Palestine. London, UK: Polity. p. 221. ISBN 978-0-7456-4243-7. Archived from the original on 29 November 2023. Retrieved 29 November 2023. Palestinians are the descendants of all the indigenous peoples who lived in Palestine over the centuries; since the seventh century, they have been predominantly Muslim in religion and almost completely Arab in language and culture.

Gelvin, James L. (13 January 2014). The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War. Cambridge University Press. p. 93. ISBN 978-1-107-47077-4. Archived from the original on 29 November 2023. Retrieved 29 November 2023. Furthermore, Zionism itself was also defined by its opposition to the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants of the region. Both the "conquest of land" and the "conquest of labor" slogans that became central to the dominant strain of Zionism in the Yishuv originated as a result of the Zionist confrontation with the Palestinian "other".

• Abu-Libdeh, Bassam, Peter D. Turnpenny, and Ahmed Teebi. 2012. "Genetic Disease in Palestine and Palestinians". Pp. 700–11 in Genomics and Health in the Developing World, edited by D. Kumar. Oxford University Press. p. 700: "Palestinians are an indigenous people who either live in, or originate from, historical Palestine.... Although the Muslims guaranteed security and allowed religious freedom to all inhabitants of the region, the majority converted to Islam and adopted Arab culture."

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." Khalidi, W., 1984, p. 32

Not mentioned in the article: Center for World Indigenous Studies, Indigenous Israelis and Palestinians "While each of these nations challenges the cultural and political legitimacy of the other serious scholarship informs us that both the Palestinians and the Israelis are indigenous to the territories that was once known as Canaan."

Native Peoples of the World: An Encylopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues Steven L. Danver Routledge 2012 "Thus, Palestinians are considered by some to be the indigenous people of present-day Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Other scholars dispute this view, asserting that Jews and others resided in Palestine"

Reclaiming Palestinian Indigenous Sovereignty Jamal Nabulsi Pages 24-42 12 Jun 2023 https://doi.org/10.1080/0377919X.2023.2203830 "Drawing on the critical thought of Palestinians and other Indigenous peoples struggling against settler colonialism, I argue for a theorization of Palestinian indigeneity. Following from this indigeneity, I show that Palestinian Indigenous sovereignty is the embodied political claim to the land of Palestine."

Indigeneity, Apartheid, Palestine: On the Transit of Political Metaphors Mark Rifkin Cultural Critique Vol. 95 (Winter 2017), pp. 25-70 (46 pages) University of Minnesota Press https://doi.org/10.5749/culturalcritique.95.2017.0025 https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/culturalcritique.95.2017.0025

There are further sources that I have not reviewed in any detail at Talk:Genocide_of_Indigenous_peoples#RFC:_Palestinian_genocide_accusations. Selfstudier (talk) 16:21, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Editors @Owenglyndur: and @האופה: continue to edit war, notwithstanding the sourcing provided above and without providing any contrary sourcing to back up their personal opinions. Selfstudier (talk) 14:01, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

As you can see here there are many sources stating waves of Muslim Immigration to the region:

Demographic history of Palestine (region)

As well as here:

Origin of the Palestinians Owenglyndur (talk) 14:17, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

WP is not a source. Selfstudier (talk) 14:17, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

That is right, but each article has dozens of sources to back up the claim. Read the sources. Owenglyndur (talk) 14:29, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Not the way it works, you need to contradict the sources above. Waiting. Selfstudier (talk) 14:30, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Deer Sir, you asked for sources, i handed you 2 articles with plenty of sources. Read them. Owenglyndur (talk) 14:40, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

See your talk page. Selfstudier (talk) 14:45, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

While I understand the complication involving the difference in meaning between "indigenous to an area" and "Indigenous Peoples," questioning whether Palestinians are "native" to Palestine is absolutely idiotic and frankly racist. Personally I have no tolerance for this and I doubt the rest of the community will, either. The only thing stopping me from filing at AE right now is lack of time, but if this doesn't stop I'll make time sometime in the next week unless someone else beats me to it. Levivich (talk) 15:22, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich, @Selfstudier, @JJNito197, what I'm seeking here isn't an effort to engage in a constructive good-faith discussion to achieve consensus, but rather threats from two expereinced editors. I agree with the opposing views here—I don't see a compelling reason to redefine a 23-year-old article on Palestinians by now labeling them collectively as "native." As evidenced by the current discussion on Talk:Genocide of Indigenous peoples#RFC: Palestinian genocide accusations, there is ongoing dispute within the community about using "indigenous" to describe all Palestinians. While I do believe that many Palestinian clans have lived in Palestine for centuries, maybe millenia, it's not appropriate to definitively classify an entire, very diverse population that includes recent migrants over the past three centuries. Are all Americans considered native to America? The analogy holds here.

Please stop the back-and-forth edit conflicts. Clearly, the community has not reached any consensus on the matter, and again, involved editors should be reminded that WP:ONUS is among those seeking to change content. ABHammad (talk) 19:01, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Half of the reverts are yours. Selfstudier (talk) 19:03, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

"an ethnonational group native to Palestine, who today are culturally and linguistically Arab"

This is a problematic language for it suggests that there was a "Palestinian ethnonational group" in the past that was not "culturally and linguistically Arab", a claim that has absolutely no proof, and is most likely incorrect. I suggest therefore to change this sentence to "a culturally and linguistically Arab ethnonational group native to Palestine". Vegan416 (talk) 19:49, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

For that matter, what is the difference between an "Arab group" and a "culturally and linguistically Arab group"? Maybe it should just say "Arab ethnonational group native to Palestine"? Levivich (talk) 19:52, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't have an objection. I just tried to make the minimal change to the existing version. Vegan416 (talk) 20:04, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

 Done I didn't link "Arab" to avoid WP:SEAOFBLUE. Levivich (talk) 20:12, 12 June 2024 (UTC)