The Palestinian People?

We discussed that one of the first tasks would be to determine if the Palestinians represent "a people", as distinct from Arabs or any other group. You will look at issues of what constitutes a people and discuss arguments for and against the Palestinians as a "nation". The idea is to imagine the centripetal and centrifugal forces of what may ultimately be a Palestinian state.


ANSWER:

“The word Palestine derives from Philistia, the name given by Greek writers to the land of the Philistines, who in the 12th century bc occupied a small pocket of land on the southern coast, between modern Tel Aviv–Yafo and Gaza. The name was revived by the Romans in the 2nd century ad in “Syria Palaestina,” designating the southern portion of the province of Syria, and made its way thence into Arabic, where it has been used to describe the region at least since the early Islamic era. After Roman times the name had no official status until after World War I and the end of rule by the Ottoman Empire, when it was adopted for one of the regions mandated to Great Britain; in addition to an area roughly comprising present-day Israel and the West Bank, the mandate included the territory east of the Jordan River now constituting the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan, which Britain placed under an administration separate from that of Palestine immediately after receiving the mandate for the territory.”

“Henceforth the term Palestinian will be used when referring to the Arabs of the former mandated Palestine, excluding Israel. Although the Arabs of Palestine had been creating and developing a Palestinian identity for about 200 years, the idea that Palestinians form a distinct people is relatively recent. The Arabs living in Palestine had never had a separate state. Until the establishment of Israel, the term Palestinian was used by Jews and foreigners to describe the inhabitants of Palestine and had only begun to be used by the Arabs themselves at the turn of the 20th century; at the same time, most saw themselves as part of the larger Arab or Muslim community. The Arabs of Palestine began widely using the term Palestinian starting in the pre-World War I period to indicate the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people. But after 1948—and even more so after 1967 --- for Palestinians themselves the term came to signify not only a place of origin but, more importantly, a sense of a shared past and future in the form of a Palestinian state.”

“The events of 1948 (also called by Palestinians al-nakbah, “the catastrophe”) and the experience of exile shaped Palestinian political and cultural activity for the next generation. The central task of reconstruction fell to Palestinians living outside Israel—both in the West Bank and Gaza communities and in the new Palestinian communities outside the former British mandate
“Palestinian refugee camps differed depending on the country in which they were located, but they shared one common development—the emergence of a “diaspora consciousness.” In time this consciousness grew into a renewed national identity and reinvigorated social institutions, leading to the establishment of more complex social and political structures by the the 1960s.”

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/439645/Palestine

“The Palestinians are represented in the international arena by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in 1964 by the Arab League (the regional organization which now includes 22 Arab states and the PLO).

Although the Arab League's intentions in establishing the PLO may have been to control and channel Palestinian political aspirations, the PLO gradually was transformed into a genuinely Palestinian organization.

By 1974, the Arab states recognized the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," and the PLO was granted observer status in the United Nations by its General Assembly.”

http://imeu.net/news/article0046.shtml

Modern PALESTINIANS:
Israeli
West Bank/ Jordanian
Gaza Strip


FORCES:

Centripital: Land, economy, Arab Brotherhood, Common enemy, PLO, Islam

Centrifugal: refugees/unwanted by neighboring arab states, used as political pons, poverty, internal fighting over power, scattered, massacred