Are Palestinians Arabs? How long have there been Palestinians in the land of Palestine?

Question

I'm basically wanting to know who are the Palestinians, where did they come from. a brief history.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes, Palestinians are Arabs, though not all Arabs are Muslims, an important point to keep in mind. There are for instance Palestinian Jews, specifically Arab related descendants of Jewish people who either never left in the Diaspora, or who lived in neighboring Arab countries.

The Palestinians have been there since the beginning, but they never had a recognized national government. They lived in Palestine (as a geographical area including all of modern Israel) and were the principal landowners there, but were not seen as a nationality.

When the emmirating Jews of Europe first started coming there, there was nothing at all, stopping them from living in peace with their neighbors as a part of the existing society. They were welcomed. By insisting on a Jewish religious state, the philosophy of Zionism, they essentially convinced the existing people of the region that they intended to take over.

The Arabs of the neighboring states supported the existing owners and did something stupid; they launched a war against a new nation that was being supported postwar by the former WW2 Allied governments.

They lost, both that war and the next one, but by attacking instead of protesting, they gave the new Israeli nation the chance to use the attacks to support their position that Israel should belong to them alone, and in both cases the Israeli's confiscated land from Palestinian landowners without compensation, even land that was not originally patitioned to them by UN resolutions.

Now you get all kinds of squirrely answers from denials that land was confiscated (not true, it was), to denials that Palestinians ever existed so there was supposedly no one on the land (false, they were not recognized as a nationality, but there were there and the land did have owners) to final admission that land was confiscated but it was supposedly "spoils of war" (and if they believe that, why lie twice before admitting it?).

regardless of what you personally think of the Middle East Situation, the reality is that injustices were committed against the Palestinians and excused by the rest of the world with no concern for the welfare of the injured parties.

Because we continue to support this, Israel feels safe refusing to deal with reality. For the most part, support of Israel in the US is based on the Christian religion and prophecy about the End Times, something for which I have no sympathy, not being a Christian. (note: I am also not a Muslim, and consider that religion to be just as ridiculous)

Now, I absolutely grant you that the Palestinians are doing the wrong thing by resorting to bombings, but you can hardly blame them for not having an answer that works when no one will help them.

The answer must necessarily be either two nations that are fully independent of each other, or a joint nationality, which would mean conversion to a secular government for Israel.

I believ the problems can be solved without the destruction of the Israeli nation, but I do not expect them to work very hard at solving it while they still think the rest of the world will support everything they do.

We need to send a message that the Israeli's need to stop playing games and pretending that highly conditional unworkable offers are real attempts at peace, and that they need to get with the program.

They can live in peace if they want to. We just have to get them to want to.

Answer 2

All sorts of people have lived in the Holy Land, which has been called both Judeah and Palestine. The ancient name is Israel west of the Jordan River and Jordan east of the Jordan River, or the 'Land of the Canaanites', I believe. Basically, the argument behind being Palestinian is that Arab Muslims living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have their own identity and culture and so should be allowed to have their own country. Fine, I have no problem with that.

They keep refusing the opportunity. It is a ploy to try to get Jerusalem, which is almost 75 percent Jewish and the Arab quarters there are fine with being a part of Israel. Muslims have access to the Dome of the Rock, which was built on a sacred remains of an ancient Jewish wall and rock, Temple Mount and the Wailing Wall. It historically belonged to Israel and is the major holy city in Judaism, also important in Christianity. You don't see the Pope going over there, claiming it for Italy and the Vatican, though, do you?

Answer 3

In todays parlance they are the non-Jewish inhabitants. To call them 'Palestinians' is fairly recent: up until the 60s they were usually referred to as Arabs.
Yes, it is true that they lost a lot of their land, a good deal of it by force.
The same happened to millions of Germans in Central and Eastern Europe after World War II. They were driven out of land they had lived in for hundreds of years. They had no U.N. looking after them - at that time Germans, quite understandably, were the world's most unpopular people.
Now look at things today. These Germans have ALL been resettled. There is no serious movement to retake the lands they left, let alone bombings and murderings, or factional fighting.
The Arab states could have resettled all the displaced people for a fraction of what they have spent arming them and supporting their leaders' corrupt lifestyle.
So an Arab from Palestine might feel different from an Arab from Libya? Why any more different than a German from Konigsberg might have felt from a German from Frankfurt? They seem to have managed it. Sometimes it's better not to have the UN on your case.

Answer 4

The Palestinian are arabs and are both christian and muslim and jewish.
These people lived in Palestine for thousands of years in harmony and between the 15th and 20th century under the control of the Ottoman Empire.
After WW1 the Ottoman empire was divided between France and Britain with Britain gaining control of Palestine under League of Nations mandate.
After WW2 jewish survivors of Hitler's Holocaust entered Palestine as illegal immigrants and formed terrorist gangs to try to gain control of the country which they claimed that their god had promised them thousands of years before. Few people agreed with them but they carried out major atrocities and bombing of civilian targets, the bloodshed eventually becoming more than the British government, exhausted after WW2, could manage.
The newly formed United Nations made the first of its many mistakes and passed a resolution to divide Palestine into two separate states, one for the jewish immigrants and one for the indigenous population. The arabs rejected this as they had not been party to the agreement but two days before the British mandate came to an end in 1948 the jews launched an attack on their arab neighbors, massacring whole villages and the survivors fled into exile where they have been ever since in the refugee camps of Gaza and the West Bank.
The State of Israel was declared in 1948 on the area of Palestine that the jews managed to control at that time, since then they have occupied further territory against the wishes of the UN and increased their population by importing more jewish people from the US, Russia,Europe and Africa, each succesive wave of immigrants displacing more arabs into the refugee camps.
This is the main cause of unrest in the Middle East along with the question of who controls the world's oil supply.

Answer 5

Both historical and genetic evidence indicate the the Jews and the Palestinians are descendants of the same people. Prior the the Muslim conquest of Palestine there were Jews and Jews that had converted to Christianity living there. Most of them converted to Islam, as did the most people under Muslim rule.

Answer 6

Palestinians are native to Palestine. Up until 1900 or so there was about 70% muslim, 25% Christian and about 10% jews and they all got along. Then the zionist jews came along and started terrorizing the muslims who were simple farmers especially in 1948. That is why you have the mess today.

Answer 7

Yes the Palestinians are Arabic. For further information on the history of Palestine go to Wikipedia-type in Formation of Modern Israel scroll down to History of Israel. This should give you an unbiased and documented answer to your question.

Answer 8

There were no free Arab leaders at the time and keep in mind most were occupied by the English. The 1948 war was a fake war by all means the so called Arab army was lead by English generals and most of the Arab leaders were English subjects.

Answer 9

Palestinians are arabs and they are really cool people !

They can really blow out a party !

Answer 10

Yes. Since WW2 when the Jews were forced out by the Nazis.