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).

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)

@Selfstudier, your recent revert here unfortunately goes against repeated challenges (we haven't reached consensus) and does not demonstrate a willingness to engage in a constructive dialogue on this controversial issue. Please self-revert per WP:ONUS and as a gesture of openness to collaborative editing within our community. Thank you. ABHammad (talk) 19:05, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Revert your 5 or more reverts first. Selfstudier (talk) 19:06, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

@Selfstudier, let's be honest, this approach isn't very mature. It's not just me, it's hree editors that have challenged this recent addition, yet you continue to push it into the article. I urge you to consider a self-revert, which would show your willingness to engage in good faith on this matter. As an experienced editor in our community, I ask that you to set a good example for collaboration. ABHammad (talk) 19:15, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

You need to bring sources that support your version, not give lectures. Selfstudier (talk) 19:21, 14 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)

"not appropriate" according to sources, or just original research? Because I've now seen plenty of sources stating quite clearly that it is appropriate. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:45, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry but no amount of sophistry can change that fact that Palestinians are native to Palestine, it's in the name for goodness sake. The same way (multi-ethnic) Syrians are native to Syria, or multi-ethnic Americans are native to America. It's bad faith and incredibly dehumanising to insinuate Palestinians are not native to the land they are born on, suffered on, and ultimately die on, and we are just talking about those not dispersed in the diaspora. If you come from the paradigm where Arabs are from Arabia you have no ground to stand on and need to read Wikipedia:Competence is required before contributing further. JJNito197 (talk) 19:51, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

You might as well try and change Moon to say it's made of cheese. Levivich (talk) 20:41, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Actually it is more complicated than that. For example, one of the most distinguished Palestinian families - the Husayni family, to which belong important figures like Amin Al Husayni and Faisal Husseini - claims to be descendants of the prophet Muhammad who clearly was not native to Palestine. See here (the original source is here in p. 1053). Vegan416 (talk) 18:39, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't mean the Palestinians, or even Husaynis, are not native to Palestine. I mean, FFS, Muhammad lived over 1000 years ago! Levivich (talk) 18:48, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

That depends how you define "native". Vegan416 (talk) 19:00, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

For example - would you say that the current WASP descendants of the Mayflower immigrants are "native Americans"? It was after all over 400 years ago. Or would you say that the current Spanish inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands who might be descendants of the Columbus expedition are "native Caribbeans"? It was after all over 500 years ago. Vegan416 (talk) 19:18, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

More lame OR - and weak OR at that. Also, not only are you comparing comparatively irrelevant parallels (500 years doesn't hold much of a wick to 1,400 years when it comes to exponential population dispersal), but the European colonisation of the Americas was also accompanied by other trends, including the spread of diseases that the native population were not immune to. Flipping it though, note that the inhabitants of the Spanish Caribbean are not considered native Spanish today. The populations that move are those most exposed to loss of indigeneity. Iskandar323 (talk) 02:43, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

This is A) lame, anecdotal OR with respect to the topic of discussion, and B) you are incorrectly inferring that this information somehow reflects on the subject. Even if we assume that the claim of the Husaynis is correct (which is by no means guaranteed bearing in mind that peoples from across the Muslim world have been fabricating claims of descent from the prophet for political gain for 1,400 years), that would still have little bearing on whether they would today be considered part of the indigenous population today, and it would be gross OR to assume that it did ... populations blend, and distinctions on an individual level (or on the family level) are almost entirely irrelevant at a population level given the passage of time. Iskandar323 (talk) 02:10, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

The great majority of Palestinians claim descent from Arabian tribes, and belong to groupings such as Qays and Yaman, or clans from Transjordan, Egypt and the area. It is only a small portion that actually trace their ancestry to the ancient populations of the area. Why, then, have we decided, contrary to the majority of Palestinians' own oral traditions, as well as numerous historical sources documenting hundreds of migrations into the area during the last thousand years, that Palestinians can collectively be defined as 'native' based on a limited number of sources? HaOfa (talk) 06:37, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Because speculative theories based on anecdotal information are forum content, and sources are sources. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:55, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

This is exactly the opposite, the bold description as native is, in fact, the speculative theory here. I can suggest reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Palestinians#Historical_analysis, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Palestinians#In_oral_traditions, you will find plenty of reliable, academic sources there. HaOfa (talk) 07:07, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

See below. Oral traditions are in no way determinative. You've read genesis right? Origin myths are bull crap. Or bull's blood, literally, in some religions. And Wikipedia is not a reliable source, so let's not go in that particular direction. If you have a particular source that you think is directly relevant here, provide it. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:36, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

To Vegan: You are arguing for something that you won't achieve. I'll make three comments. (a) According to the strong consensus of modern science, we are all natives of Africa. Should we put that in all articles about groups of people? (b) Everyone has two parents, two grandparents, etc.. That gives about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 (give or take an inch) lines of descent (mother-father-father-...) back to Muhammad's time. Many of those lines of descent end at the same person, but still it is obvious that everyone has a large number of different ancestors living at Muhammad's time. Actually, of people living in the world at that time whose descendants survived until now, a majority are ancestors of each of us (this is something that has been studied mathematically). So that fact that a single line of descent to a particular person of that era can be asserted means nothing at all, just as the fact that I can prove descent from Yaroslav the Wise (which is true) doesn't make me Ukranian. (c) The fact is that, outside of very narrow meanings such as the place where an individual was born, "native" doesn't have a precise definition. The solution for us, as always, is to follow sources. Zero^talk 02:35, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, "native" doesn't have a precise definition, and this is especially true in regions like the Levant, which has been a crossroads between major civilizations, absorbing numerous migrations over millennia, often with open borders as part of large empires. We're not talking the aborigines or native americans here. Bottom line, I see no reason to use 'native' (except maybe political, if we're honest), to define a group whose distinct identity only got consolidated in the past century, with most of them seeing themselves as migrants from other places. HaOfa (talk) 06:55, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

You're confusing indigeneity with identity. While identifying with the land is a feature of indigeneity, having a national identity is not. Tribes in the Amazon are indigenous without reference to any kind of identity outside of their tribe/village. Identity is if anything misleading, as endogamous conceptions surrounding indigeneity are more likely to be misled by myth-building, especially in a specifically nationalistic context. For instance, Yasser Arafat's association of the Palestinians with the Jebusites was just ahistorical verbiage. Indigeneity is an anthropological question, not a cultural one. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:19, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't believe I am confusing anything. Numerous political claims have been made over recent decades, including the aforementioned remark from Arafat. However, if you were to ask today's Palestinians about their origins, many would say they come primarily from Arabia, as well as from Transjordan, Egypt, and other regions. Only a minority claim local origins. HaOfa (talk) 08:15, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, so again, you're just claiming some anecdotal oral testimony as something that somehow means something, and not even by way a source. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:57, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

While a bit of OR is acceptable on talk pages, please stop writing comment after comment with no reference to any sources. This is not a forum and it's just not helpful. Selfstudier (talk) 09:29, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

@Zero0000 I'm not sure you know what I am arguing for, so how do you know if I'll achieve it or not?

(1)The bottom line (literally) of your reply is that you admit that the word "native" doesn't have a precise definition. That means different people understand it differently, and that's a very good reason NOT to use it here as it can be misleading.

(2) Additionally you say that the solution is "to follow sources". Well here are several sources that point to the fact that some of the Palestinians trace their origins to outside of Palestine:

Swedenburg, Ted (2003). Memories of Revolt: The 1936–1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past. University of Arkansas Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-55728-763-2. These primordialist claims regarding the Palestinians' primeval and prior roots in the land operated at the level of the collective. When it came to an individual's own family, however, Arab-Islamic discourse took precedence over archaeological justifications. I ran across no Palestinian villager (or urbanite) who claimed personal descent from the Canaanites. Villagers typically traced their family or their hamila's origins back to a more recent past in the Arabian peninsula. Many avowed descent from some nomadic tribe that had migrated from Arabia to Palestine either during or shortly after the Arab-Islamic conquests. By such a claim they inserted their family's history into the narrative of Arab and Islamic civilization and connected themselves to a genealogy that possessed greater local and contemporary prestige than did ancient or pre-Islamic descent. Several men specifically connected their forefathers' date of entry into Palestine to their participation in the army of Salih al-Din al-Ayyubi (Saladin), a historical figure whose significance has been retrospectively enlarged by nationalist discourse such that he is now regarded not merely as a hero of "Islamic" civilization but as a "national" luminary as well. (Modern nationalist discourse tends to downplay Salah al-Din's Kurdish origins.) Palestinians of all political stripes viewed Salah al-Din's wars against the Crusaders as a forerunner of the current combats against foreign intruders. Many considered Salah al-Din's victory over the Crusaders at Hittin (A.D. 1187) as a historical precedent that offered hope for their own eventual triumph even if, like the Crusader wars, the current struggle with Israel was destined to last more than two centuries. Family histories affiliated to earlier "patriotic" struggles against European aggression tied interviewees to a continuous narrative of national resistance. Villagers claiming descent from Arabs who entered Palestine during the Arab-Islamic conquest equally viewed these origins as establishing their historical precedence over the Jews

Grossman D. (1984), Spatial analysis of historical migrations in Samaria, Geojournal, Volume 9, pages 393–406: "Migrations of families (mainly during the past three to four centuries) were recorded on the basis of local traditions in Samaria — the N part of the West Bank. [...] The same destinations were more important also for migrants from outside Samaria. A strong “push” factor was found to explain migration from Hebron, Gaza, and Egypt — all S of Samaria. Trans-Jordanian migrations were, however, the most important ones outside those originating in Samaria itself."

Muhammad Suwaed (2015), Historical Dictionary of the Bedouins, Rowman & Littlefield, p. 181 : "The tribes of the Bank region already penetrated the region during the period of the Ottoman rule. [...] The history of the Bedouins in Palestine goes back a long way. It starts with the Arab invasion of Palestine in the 7th century". Vegan416 (talk) 10:26, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

That some Palestinians trace their origins outside Palestine is irrelevant to the question here. What is required is sourcing that contradicts the sourcing I posted above, which assesses Palestinians as indigenous. In fact, at this point I am not convinced that we should not just flat out be saying so, that was why I originally created this section, to discuss that, not what native means. Selfstudier (talk) 11:05, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

As Self says, the fact that some Palestinians profess ancestry from outside Palestine does not impact the issue of indigenousity. Most likely David Ben-Gurion was descended from Gengis Khan, so what? And the fuzziness of the meanings of words is more reason to follow what sources say, not less. Zero^talk 12:17, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

@Selfstudier, I disagree that the sources I brought are irrelevant. But putting that aside, let’s look at your sources. In truth I didn't pay much attention to your sources before, as I was responding specifically to Levivich’s ridiculous claim that saying that not all Palestinians are indigenous is like saying that the moon is made of cheese, and I didn't have time to thoroughly go over all of this long discussion. But I looked at your sources now, and here are some comments: 1. The sources I brought actually directly contradict at least one of the sources you gave. Your source from Walid Hamidi says that the Palestinians see themselves as descending also "from indigenous peoples who had lived in the country since time immemorial". Whereas my source from Swedenburg says "I ran across no Palestinian villager (or urbanite) who claimed personal descent from the Canaanites".

2. Additionally, one of your own sources actually admits that the subject of Palestinian indigeneity is disputed among scholars: Native Peoples of the World: Steven L. Danver, An Encylopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues, Routledge, 2012, p. 554: "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-usually defined as the narrow strip of land bordered by the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – long before the Arabs arrived in the seventh century”.

Now for @Zero0000, 3. As you can see in point 2 here, there are sources that dispute the view that the Palestinians are indigenous. Therefore if you want to follow the sources in a NPOV way, you need to mention this counter-view as well. At the very least you cannot write this claim in wiki-voice. I.e you should write the leading sentence as something like: “Palestinians […] are an Arab ethnonational group who, according to some scholars, are native to Palestine”.

4. Alternatively you can simply decide not to use the word “native” or “indigenous”. The fact that some sources use this term, which you admit is fuzzy, doesn’t mean you must include it in the lead section. Personally I have no problem to agree in casual conversation or a political debate that both Palestinians and Jews are “native” to this land. And I think I have said as much in one of our earlier discussions on another related topic. But while in casual conversation or political debates we can use imprecise and fuzzy terms, it is a different matter altogether to use such fuzzy terminology in an encyclopedia entry, without explication. In an encyclopedia, and especially when talking in wiki-voice, we should be as precise as possible, and therefore take from the sources the precise facts they contain rather than whatever fuzzy (and disputed) adjective they use.

5. My recommendation therefore is to change the leading sentence to something like: “Palestinians are an Arab ethnonational group who are descendants of various peoples who lived in Palestine over the millennia”. This has two advantages: (a) It contains a factual claim that appears more or less in all the sources and nobody disputes, so it can be said in wikivoice. (b) It avoids the fuzzy term “native”. Vegan416 (talk) 08:42, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Still waiting for you and any of the objectors to find any sources yourselves that contest indigeneity. I have provided one that says, in the meta, that some do, now please locate them so we can assess the comparative weight. Native was a sort of compromise that hasn't been accepted and I didn't much like myself not because it was fuzzy but because it seems like an unnecessary dilution, so I am returning to indigenous, which has plenty of sourcing in support. Selfstudier (talk) 09:24, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't know what sources the Encyclopedia refers to, as it doesn't have references. But I found some sources that it might had in mind, and several other sources that were published after the Encyclopedia:

Yahel, H., Kark, R., Frantzman, S. (2012). Are the Negev Bedouin an indigenous people?). Middle East Quarterly, 4, p. 5: "Far from being the indigenous inhabitants, the Bedouin were relative latecomers to the Negev, preying on the villages and caravansaries that dotted the sparsely populated wilderness."; p. 14: "Although there is no official definition of indigeneity in international law, Negev Bedouin cannot be regarded as an indigenous people in the commonly accepted sense. If anything, the Bedouin have more in common with the European settlers who migrated to other lands, coming into contact with existing populations with often unfortunate results for the latter."

Frantzman, S., Yahel, H., Kark, R. (2012) Contested Indigeneity: The Development of an Indigenous Discourse on the Bedouin of the Negev, Israel. Israel Studies, 17(1), 78–104 :"The relatively new Bedouin claim to be classified as indigenous, having gained some international and academic support, is increasingly part of the self-perception of the educated elite among the Bedouin. However, the claim and international recognition face hurdles that the scholars mentioned above avoided discussing, many of which mirror the disputes and debates throughout the world that deal with indigenous peoples. For instance, one issue in the case of the Bedouin is the important and critical element of original occupancy of the land. The current Negev Bedouin tribes arrived to the Negev, from their historical homeland in the Arabian Desert, Transjordan, Egypt, and the Sinai, mainly since the eighteenth century and onwards. Scholars and activists have not wrestled or debated this issue."

Joffe, Alex (2017). Palestinian Settler-Colonialism. Begin-Sadat Center Perspectives Paper No. 577: "Echoing Inbari, it is not to be argued here that 'there are no Palestinians' who thus do not deserve political rights, including self-rule and a state. To do so would be both logically and morally wrong. Palestinians have the right to define themselves as they see fit, and they must be negotiated with in good faith by Israelis. What Palestinians cannot claim, however, is that they are Palestine’s indigenous population and the Jews are settler-colonialists."

Ukashi, Ran (2018). "Zionism, Imperialism, and Indigeneity in Israel/Palestine: A Critical Analysis". Peace and Conflict Studies: Vol. 25: No. 1 , Article 7, p. 13: "Again, while making exception for those Arabized Peoples that could justifiably claim lineage directly to antiquity, it can be demonstrated that of the significant cohort of Arab economic migrants to Palestine from modern-day Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere prior to partition in 1947, no reasonably Indigenous connection to the territory can be claimed."

Troen, I., & Troen, C. (2019). Indigeneity. Israel Studies, 24(2), 17–32: "We have argued that despite the admitted distortions there is a covert polemical advantage to designating Bedouins as well as other Palestinian Arabs as "indigenous" [...] The deliberate use of the term “indigenous” in spurious scholarship furthers tendentious narratives for partisan and polemical advantage".

Block, Walter E.; Futerman, Alan G. (2021). The Classical Liberal Case for Israel. Springer Nature. p. 28: "Therefore, the claim to the widely held idea that Palestinian Arabs are the indigenous population of the land, with a millennia connection to it, is simply not based on facts." Vegan416 (talk) 17:32, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I have way more sources that that. And three of those are about the Bedouin? Keep trying tho. Selfstudier (talk) 17:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

The Bedouins in Palestine are considered part of the Palestinians now. Don't you know that? And counting doesn't really matter here. If I show that there are RS that dispute the claim then it is disputed. Vegan416 (talk) 17:53, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Doesn't work like that. Wait and see. Selfstudier (talk) 17:57, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Wait for what? Vegan416 (talk) 17:58, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

To see. Selfstudier (talk) 17:59, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

To see what? Vegan416 (talk) 18:00, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Asked and answered (twice). Selfstudier (talk) 18:02, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Are you trolling me? Vegan416 (talk) 18:03, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Pot..kettle. Selfstudier (talk) 18:12, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand what you want. I told you - if different RS have different opinions on a claim then you cannot make this claim in a wikivoice. Vegan416 (talk) 18:28, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

We can if there is a clear majority, which there is, your sources, 3 of which only deal with a subset of Palestinians, are a distinct minority. Selfstudier (talk) 18:35, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Explanation Vegan416 (talk) 18:38, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

" including all verifiable points of view which have sufficient due weight." Your sources do not demonstrate due weight, whereas the sources I have provided (dozens of them) clearly do. Selfstudier (talk) 18:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with you. I think my sources have sufficient due weight. Vegan416 (talk) 18:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, we are back to wait and see. Selfstudier (talk) 18:48, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I see you are back to trolling, so bye for now. I'll just note by way of parting that the editor/writer of the Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues that you brought among your sources also thinks like me that this view has sufficient due weight to be mentioned. Vegan416 (talk) 18:55, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I have absolutely no idea why you think I am trolling. You ask a question and I reply is not trolling. I could just not reply at all if you would prefer. Selfstudier (talk) 18:57, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

You repeat saying "wait and see" and refuse to explain what you mean by this. Vegan416 (talk) 18:59, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

It means exactly that. Selfstudier (talk) 19:08, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have more interesting things to do than waiting for unspecified things to happen... Vegan416 (talk) 19:13, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

We have an article on the Negev Bedouin, its Negev Bedouin. It isnt this article. nableezy - 18:42, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

The sources do not speak only about the Bedouins Vegan416 (talk) 18:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

They do except for a couple of them, one hysterical in its tone and the other representing a minority view published by an avowedly partisan think tank. nableezy - 20:42, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

On the subject of Arab Bedouins specifically in the Southern Levant, I'm not sure whether these scholars got their sources, but the Nabataean Arabs, and other Arab tribes and nomads, have indupitably roamed the deserts of the Southern Levant since antiquity. It doesn't get much more indigenous than being an tribal nomad in that desert. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

They're Bedouin. They move around a lot. And then come back. And then go away. And then come back again. What causes this strange behavior? Next up, on In Search of... (TV series).Dan Murphy (talk) 23:24, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

A single dated (2012 is quite old at this point) and generalist tertiary source by a non-specialist is not particularly useful in establishing current scholarly consensus. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:03, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

It's off-topic, but incidentally Swedenburg does not affirm the claims. He says: "Many avowed descent [...] By such a claim they inserted their family's history into the narrative [...] that possessed greater local and contemporary prestige than did ancient or pre-Islamic descent." So far from lending these "avowed claims" any credence, he points out the ulterior motives that accompany them (as well as other ahistorical narratives such as Saladin not being Kurdish). Iskandar323 (talk) 13:00, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

I checked a few more sources:

• Pappe, Ilan (2022) [2004]. A History of Modern Palestine (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-24416-9.
• Rogan, Eugene (2017) [2009]. The Arabs: A History (Revised and updated ed.). Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-03248-8.
• Wolfe, Patrick (2016). Traces of History: Elementary Structures of Race. Verso Books. ISBN 9781781689189.

All three refer to Palestinians as indigenous. In addition to the sources posted above by Self and others, I'd agree with using the term "indigenous." Levivich (talk) 16:32, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Same, and the idea that you can argue against sources that directly say something with sources that do not directly dispute it is a non-starter here. nableezy - 16:45, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

More sources...might be some duplication, haven't finished checking them:

• • Palestinians are indigenous Abdullah, D. (2019). A century of cultural genocide in Palestine. In Cultural Genocide (pp. 227-245). Routledge.

    "The Zionist mission was, therefore, to ethnically cleanse the land. Theodore Herzl, the movement’s founder, was convinced that the fulfilment of their dream would result in the acute suffering and misery for the indigenous population."

  • Palestinians are indigenous Pappe, I. (2007). The ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Simon and Schuster.
  • Palestinians are indigenous Nijim, M. (2020). Genocide in Gaza: Physical destruction and beyond.
  • Palestinians are indigenous Culverwell, S. M. (2017). Israel and Palestine-An analysis of the 2014 Israel-Gaza war from a genocidal perspective.

    Cites others and adopts their framework: "Pappé (2005), Shaw (2010), Docker (2012), Lloyd (2012), Rashed and Short (2012), and Rashed, Short and Docker (2014) have all analyzed the 1948 conflict from a settler-colonial perspective. In this relationship, these scholars recognize the Zionist Jews as the ‘settlers’ and the ‘Arab Palestinians’ as the indigenous population."

  • Palestinians are indigenous Atallah, D. G., & Awartani, H. (2024). Embodying Homeland: Palestinian Grief and the Perseverance of Beauty in a Time of Genocide. Journal of Palestine Studies, 1-9.
  • Indigeneity is about identity, not practice, and both Israelis and Palestinians incorporate it into theirs Busbridge, R. (2018). Israel-Palestine and the settler colonial ‘turn’: From interpretation to decolonization. Theory, Culture & Society, 35(1), 91-115.
  • Implies in passing that Palestinians are indigenous Moses, A. D. (2011). Paranoia and Partisanship: Genocide Studies, Holocaust Historiography, and the ‘Apocalyptic Conjuncture’. The Historical Journal, 54(2), 553-583.

    "the mufti still features in Zionist literature as a co-perpetrator of the Holocaust, converting him from an indigenous, anti-colonialist to an Arab-Muslim-Nazi, the ancestor of Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran, and other 'Islamofascist' enemies of Israel"

  • Palestinians are indigenous Tabar, L., & Desai, C. (2017). Decolonization is a global project: From Palestine to the Americas. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 6(1).

    "In 1948, the Zionist settler colonization of Palestine culminated in the mass eviction of the overwhelming majority of the indigenous Palestinian people"

  • Palestinians are indigenous Said, E. (1999). Palestine: memory, invention and space. The landscape of Palestine: Equivocal poetry, 3-20.

    "The link between the metaphors of buildings and housing, and erasure, with the necessary steps to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine was always clear to the country's indigenous inhabitants"

  1. Palestinians are indigenous Abu-Saad, I. (2001). Education as a tool for control vs. development among indigenous peoples: The case of Bedouin Arabs in Israel. Hagar: International Social Science Review, 2(2), 241-259.
  2. Both have a claim to indigeneity Ukashi, R. (2018). Zionism, Imperialism, and Indigeneity in Israel/Palestine: A Critical Analysis. Peace and Conflict Studies, 25(1), 7.
  3. Palestinians are indigenous Pappe, I. (2018). Indigeneity as cultural resistance: Notes on the Palestinian struggle within twenty-first-century Israel. South Atlantic Quarterly, 117(1), 157-178.
  4. Palestinians are indigenous Blatman, N., & Sabbagh‐Khoury, A. (2023). The presence of the absence: Indigenous Palestinian urbanism in Israel. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 47(1), 119-128.
  5. Palestinians are indigenous, Israelis are explicitly non-indigenous Veracini, L. (2015). What can settler colonial studies offer to an interpretation of the conflict in Israel–Palestine?. Settler Colonial Studies, 5(3), 268-271.
  6. Palestinians are indigenous Nasasra, M. (2012). The ongoing Judaisation of the Naqab and the struggle for recognising the indigenous rights of the Arab Bedouin people. Settler Colonial Studies, 2(1), 81-107.
  7. Palestinians are indigenous, Israelis are explicitly not Krebs, M., & Olwan, D. M. (2012). ‘From Jerusalem to the grand river, our struggles are one’: Challenging Canadian and Israeli settler colonialism. Settler Colonial Studies, 2(2), 138-164.
  8. Palestinians are indigenous, Israelis are explicitly not Yiftachel, O. (2003). Bedouin-Arabs and the Israeli settler state. Indigenous people between Autonomy and globalization, 21-47.
  9. Palestinians are indigenous, while Israelis are attempting to become indigenous Monterescu, D., & Handel, A. (2019). Liquid indigeneity: Wine, science, and colonial politics in Israel/Palestine. American Ethnologist, 46(3), 313-327.
  10. Palestinians are indigenous Abu-Rayya, H. M., & Abu-Rayya, M. H. (2009). Acculturation, religious identity, and psychological well-being among Palestinians in Israel. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 33(4), 325-331.
  11. Palestinians are indigenous, Israelis are explicitly not Blatman-Thomas, N. (2017). Commuting for rights: Circular mobilities and regional identities of Palestinians in a Jewish-Israeli town. Geoforum, 78, 22-32.
  12. Palestinians are indigenous, Israelis are explicitly not Nabulsi, J. (2023). Reclaiming Palestinian Indigenous Sovereignty. Journal of Palestine Studies, 52(2), 24-42.
  13. Palestinians are indigenous Murphy, T. (2010). ‘Courses and Recourses’ Exploring Indigenous Peoples’ Land Reclamation in Search of Fresh Solutions for Israelis and Palestinians. Journal for the Study of Peace and Conflict, 54-69.
  14. (about Negev Bedouins) Israelis are not indigenous Kram, N. (2013). Clashes over recognition: The struggle of indigenous Bedouins for land ownership rights under Israeli law. California Institute of Integral Studies.
  15. We should move beyond a settler-indigenous framework Bashir, B., & Busbridge, R. (2019). The politics of decolonisation and bi-nationalism in Israel/Palestine. Political Studies, 67(2), 388-405.
  16. Palestinians are indigenous, Israelis are explicitly not Sasa, G. (2023). Oppressive pines: Uprooting Israeli green colonialism and implanting Palestinian A’wna. Politics, 43(2), 219-235.
  17. Palestinians are indigenous Khatib, I. (2021). Attitudes of indigenous minority leaders toward political events in their trans-state national group: Between identity, conflict and values. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 27(2), 149-168.
  18. Israelis are not indigenous, they've merely attempted to claim indigeneity Cheyfitz, E. (2014). The force of exceptionalist narratives in the Israeli—Palestinian conflict. Native American and Indigenous Studies, 1(2), 107-124.
  19. Palestinians are indigenous Arar, K. (2012). Israeli education policy since 1948 and the state of Arab education in Israel. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 4(1), 113-145.
  20. (about the Druze) Israelis are not indigenous Yiftachel, O., & Segal, M. D. (1998). Jews and Druze in Israel: state control and ethnic resistance. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21(3), 476-506.

Selfstudier (talk) 18:19, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Let's keep adding sources here so that this doesn't get archived while there are ongoing discussions on the matter. Selfstudier (talk) 09:16, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Adding more sources who hold the same partisan viewpoint does not alter the overall result. Yes, there are sources that adopt this framing, but most of them adhere to the settler-colonial paradigm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and/or aligned with progressive and left-wing ideologies. The critical factor is the weight of evidence and whether this perspective achieves consensus within the scholarly community. Currently, this is not the case. ABHammad (talk) 09:57, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

This section is for sources, feel free to add some. Selfstudier (talk) 10:05, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Take, for example, The Economist's definition: 'Palestinians - A population of around 14 million people who trace their origins to British-ruled Palestine. Around 7 million Palestinians live in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Another 7 million are scattered across the Arab world and beyond. Nearly 6 million are registered as refugees.' This outlet is famous for its radical centrist, neutral position. In this case, it exemplifies how a neutral definition of Palestinians should look like. Wikipedia should be neutral, not a partisan source. ABHammad (talk) 10:07, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Not a scholarly source. Such sources should be trivially easy to locate if there is actually any support for the position. Selfstudier (talk) 10:09, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Great work, Selfstudier and Vegan416. I'd recommend you to create a separate page under this talk page about Indigenous Sources, similar to Talk:Sustainable energy/Air pollution statistics under Talk:Sustainable energy. Sustainable energy is an FA-class article.

If you have time, I'd also recommend for you to identify the authors of the works cited. Are they experts or academics? Do they have PhD? Things like that. It'd be also good to identify review articles (WP:Secondary).

For example:

• Khalidi, Walid (1991). "The Palestine Problem: An Overview". Journal of Palestine Studies. 21 (1): 5–16. doi:10.2307/2537362. JSTOR 2537362. [1]

• • It was under British protection and by the force of British arms that duringthe first phase, from 1918 to 1948, the demographic, economic, military, and organizational infrastructure of the future Jewish state was laid, at the ex-pense of the indigenous Palestinian people and in the teeth of their resist-ance.. This is a review article and would be considered WP:Secondary. The author, Walid Khalidi, would be considered an expert in my opinion. Bogazicili (talk) 23:11, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Palestinian diaspora in Indonesia

There are about 7,000 Palestinians in Indonesia and no one includes them Keyscher5 (talk) 12:29, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Bsoyka (t • c • g) 13:44, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Edit warring

With this edit, editor @Pyramids09: reverted stable material with claim "Removing misleading information from lead and formatting", was reverted but repeated the revert without initiating any discussion, which I then reverted as tendentious.

Then @Shoogiboogi: reverted arguing no consensus and that in turn was reverted.

I trust that there will be a discussion before any further reverts, which judging by This RFC and the talk section #Indigeneity above, appear to have no valid basis. Selfstudier (talk) 14:56, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

The indigeneity section of this talk page was begun after similar edit warring by two accounts later found to be socks of banned accounts. And round and round it goes!Dan Murphy (talk) 15:05, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

I am also very concerned that information with respect to Palestinians being native or indigenous keep getting removed. Bogazicili (talk) 15:14, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

I'll put together one of those giant multirefs for "indigenous", which should put that to bed; as far as I can tell that is the word used by every single scholar in this field (that I've checked so far). Also as far as I can tell, the only accounts that have challenged "indigenous" in recent years are the User:ABHammad sockfarm accounts (now globally locked). Levivich (talk) 15:19, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

The only issue with "indigenous" is that it has different definitions depending on the field, such as [2].

"Native" is far less likely to be challenged in the lead.

I'll also be improving the Genetics section in the coming days and weeks. Bogazicili (talk) 15:27, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't matter, though, because if all the RSes use "indigenous" and none use "native", Wikipedia's hands are tied on this. We can't OR our way around it by picking a word we think will be less likely to be challenged (even though I agree, it's less likely to be challeneged). We can't rewrite history for the sake of bringing stability to our articles, V and NPOV means using the same word the RSes use. I think when we're looking at a list of dozens of sources that includes every historian we can think of, we'll all "get it." Levivich (talk) 15:32, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

That's what I mean by field. Historians may say "indigenous" but from international law perspective, it might have a more narrow definition. Maybe you can add a qualifier. Something like:

"Palestinians (Arabic: الفلسطينيون, romanized: al-Filasṭīniyyūn) are an Arab ethnonational group native to the region of Palestine. Historians see Palestinians as indigenous to their lands". Bogazicili (talk) 15:39, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

I maintain it's about sources. We don't need to look up the definition of "indigenous" and then decide if it applies to Palestinian--that would be WP:OR. If the sources for this article says "indigenous," then this article says "indigenous," and that's it, even if we (or some of us) think the label doesn't apply. The sources are who decides if the labels apply. Levivich (talk) 17:47, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it was Levivich who added this to begin with, before the above mentioned RFC and when we were still collecting sources but it seems to me that the matter has been resolved in favor of indigenous now, no reason to use an inaccurate wording. Selfstudier (talk) 18:10, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

This article states that Palestinians are indigenous to Palestine. However, this is very much wrong. If we go by the common definition of indigenous, which states "Inhabiting or existing in a land from the earliest times or from before the arrival of colonists", then the Jews would be indigenous, as Jews (or, in this case, their Israelite ancestors) are the first recorded people to inhabit the land of Palestine, being recorded in the Merneptah Stele.. Expulsion does not remove the status of indigenous. Meanwhile, Palestinian Arabs came from Arabia during the Muslim conquests of the seventh century. Although some claim descendants from the Canaanites, this has been throughly disproven via archeological evidence, as well as testimonials from Palestinians themselves.. Therefore, a more accurate lede would go something like this: Palestinians (Arabic: الفلسطينيون, romanized: al-Filasṭīniyyūn) are an ethnonational group descending from inhabitants of the region of Palestine over the millennia, and who are culturally and linguistically Arab. This was the lede for a while, being accurate and well sourced. I restored this lede in a recent revision (https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Palestinians&oldid=1265135214), which was then reverted without a stated reason along with a sockpuppet accusation. I believe that we should return to this correct lede, or at least hold a new RFC about this topic. Cheers. Pyramids09 (talk) 22:22, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

P.S. If someone could collapse the references that would be nice. Pyramids09 (talk) 22:25, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm open to RfC on this. The sources are clear. For example,

There was no Anglo settler colony style population replacement in Palestine:

• Dowty, A. (2023). Israel / Palestine (5th ed.). Polity Press. ISBN 978-1-5095-5483-6., Chapter 3: The Arab Story to 1914:

  Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad’s death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous population, descended from Jews, other Semitic groups, and non-Semitic groups such as the Philistines, had been mostly Christianized. Over succeeding centuries it was Islamicized, and Arabic replaced Aramaic (a Semitic tongue closely related to Hebrew) as the dominant language

• Chapter 10: The Perfect Conflict:

  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.

• Genetic studies also seem to confirm this. For example, The Genomic History of the Bronze Age Southern Levant: People related to these individuals contributed to all present-day Levantine populations. Especially note Figure S4. Megiddo in the link refers to samples recovered from Megiddo, Israel. These samples: "most of whom date to the Middle-to-Late Bronze Age, except for one dating to the Intermediate Bronze Age and one dating to the Early Iron Age" Bogazicili (talk) 14:16, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Actually, I definitely want an RfC on this. This content seems to be subject to long-term abuse, so I'd like a Wikipedia consensus on this. Bogazicili (talk) 14:27, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

We could, although as I said above Talk:Genocide of indigenous peoples#RFC Palestine is already determinative, the close "Editors in favour of inclusion have provided sources that consider the situation in Palestine one that is relevant to this article. Those opposed have failed to challenge the significance of this view, or the reliability of the sources.", in addition the plethora of available sourcing also seems conclusive. Selfstudier (talk) 14:37, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

We should be considerate about how much community time we consume in these RfCs, but I definitely think we should proceed with an RfC if the edit war continues. Bogazicili (talk) 15:17, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

References