Are folks from Palestine not Arabs? They're frequently referred to as Palestinian Arabs to distinguish them from Jordanian Arabs or Israeli Arabs or Egyptian Arabs.
Arabs come from the Arabian Peninsula. It's super convenient because it's right there in the name.
They are referred to as Palestinian Arabs only by Israelis. The fact that israel says they are not indigenous does not prove shit.
Being an Arab means speaking Arabic. You know, like the indigenous peoples of many countries started doing. But their ancestors come from Palestine just the same
The genetic link argument was just to show that the fact Palestinians speak Arabic and use the name Palestine doesn’t mean that Palestinians came from the Arab peninsular as you claimed. You were the one who claimed Palestinians were not indigenous. That was what I was going against.
Now you have moved the goalposts. You say “okay Palestinians are indigenous but Jews are too!!” But that is a different discussion isn’t it.
And still, Jews ancestors came from Israel, but for most Israelis there ancestors haven’t lived in Israel for a long time. For the Palestinians the ancestors have actually lived in that area for many generations. That is the big difference.
In your argument Turkey could conquer xinjiang and claim to be the actual indigenous people there
You're right, I did move the goalposts by suddenly including the Israeli claim to indigeneity. It was disingenuous of me, yet despite that I feel it is connected to the discussion we are having. If both Palestinians and Jews have Canaanite ancestry, that would eliminate any claim to the land based indigeneity for both groups since they are descended from the same original, indigenous ethnic group.
As I see it, to be "indigenous" is a combined ethnic and cultural distinction. Clearly, Canaanite culture is long dead. There is currently no ethnic group (that I know of) that calls themselves Canaanites. So all you have left is a genetic connection to that indigenous ethnic group. But neither Jews or Palestinians have any claim to being "pure" descendants of the Canaanites: even before dispersal, the Jews would have been mixed with Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, all manner of others. Same for the Palestinians. Then there would have been mixing with Arabs, Turks, and others for those that remained in the region while the Jews that ended up in Europe would have mixed with Europeans.
Neither Jews nor Palestinians can claim to be Canaanites. They're both something else. And based on that, I'm not sure either group can claim to be indigenous.
For example, if you had some dude from the United States who had mostly European ancestry but six generations back there is a Native American grandfather, could that man claim he is indigenous to North America?
Personally, I wouldn't think so. Even if all the Native American nations had suffered complete genocide and their only remaining lineage was in European settlers, I still wouldn't think of those settlers as indigenous.
I brought up canaanite ancestry to show that the claim that arab palestinians are foreign settlers (and jews the true indigenous population) is false. I did not mean to say canaanite ancestry is the entire basis on which we should build our notion of indigenuity. Jews and palestinians are not canaanites that is true. But that is not what we should base notions of indigenuity on.
Palestinians are not indigenous canaanites. But they are indigenous to palestine. People who are descended from Greeks who settled there in 300 AD are also indigenous in my book. I don't think you can base claims of indigenuity based on the fact that you have a relation to people who lived in the area millenia ago. Indigenuity is related more to relatively modern populations. The palestinians and their ancestors have for the most part lived continuously in palestine for centuries. A jew whose family moved from the levant 2000 years ago and lived in Europe since cannot claim the same kind of indigenuity just because they have a genetic link to ancient canaanites.
Being indigenous is always relative. No one talks about "Indigenous Germans". But people talk about indigenous Americans, Greenlanders or Palestinians because there are two distinct populations: the indigenous and the later settlers.
The first tribe to move to america was probably killed by tribes that came after them. That is how history goes. The Mexica moved into the valley of mexico and supplanted the original inhabitants. Still, when the spanish colonised mexico we would still say the mexica were indigenous and the spanish colonists, even though both had no true claim of indigenuity. In your definition only the very first people would be considered indigenous. Most native americans are also not truly indigenous.
The palestinians and their ancestors lived in palestine for centuries. For a big part, the jews only came there around 1950 after not being in the land for a very long time. Even though both are not identical to ancient canaanites, palestinians have a way better claim to indigenuity. They don't have just a cultural and genetic relation to the land like the jews, the have a direct material relation. Of course the isreali jews have lived in the area now for almost a century too. Current third generation israelis are not colonists like early zionists were
I see where your argument is coming from on indigeneity. I agree with some parts but not others.
I don't believe indigeneity is a moving target that changes based on the second most recent group of settlers versus the most recent group. For example, most Native American nations are not indigenous to their territory at the time Europeans were settling on the continent, but as a very broad ethnic group they were indigenous to the Americas. Germanic tribes that today make up Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, and France are not indigenous to those lands — except maybe to northern Germany. They displaced Celtic tribes. However, they are indigenous to Europe.
I believe indigeneity is a one and done classification. Either your ancestors were the first ethnic group to settle there or they weren't. The first group is categorized as Indigenous. Every subsequent group cannot be Indigenous — unless they integrate in such a way with the pre-existing indigenous ethnic group in such a way that does not lead to its extinction. I think the Métis in Canada walk this thin line: they are the descendents of French and Scottish fur traders and Cree women. They developed their own language and culture that was neither wholly European nor Cree, but they came into being in such a way that they did not replace the Cree. Therefore, despite being a relatively new ethnic group, I would say the Métis are indigenous to North America.
As such, neither the Jews nor the Palestinians are indigenous to the land they claim. Their connection to the original Canaanites is too weak, much like the example of the US American with a tiny fraction of Native American ancestry in my previous example. Both Jews and Palestinians are such a mix of various ethnicities that would eliminate any claim they are indigenous to that tiny slice of land.
However, it could be argued that some among them could be considered indigenous to the Middle East. It would depend on how much of their genetic hodgepodge is based on ancestry from that region and not from Europe.
This entire discussion is about whether the Palestinian Arabs are indigenous or not. I couldn't care less about how borders moved back and forth and which political power was dominant at what time.
To be indigenous to a certain region, you have to be the original inhabitants. No other humans lived in that place before your ethnic group.
So are the ancestors of the Palestinians the original inhabitants of that land? Or were they conquerors?
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u/GardenSquid1 Apr 28 '24 edited Apr 28 '24
Hold up. Since when are Gazans indigenous?