Daily Alert Archives

What's a Palestinian?

(Foreign Affairs) Zachary J. Foster - When did the Arabic speakers of Palestine first began calling themselves Palestinians? It seems that the first Arab to use the term "Palestinian" was Farid Georges Kassab, a Beirut-based Orthodox Christian in his 1909 book Palestine, Hellenism, and Clericalism. By 1913, the concept of a Palestinian identity began forming in the media. The Guardian ran a piece stating that "most historians mark the start of Palestinian Arab nationalist sentiment as 1834, when Arab residents of the Palestinian region revolted against Ottoman rule." In fact, few historians think that the 1834 revolt had much to do with Palestine or the Palestinians. Rather, the event was a revolt in support of Ottoman rule, against the policies of the Levant's new Egyptian occupiers who had levied high taxes, conscripted young men into the army, and abolished erstwhile privileges that Muslims had had over their Christian neighbors.
2015-03-13 00:00:00
Full Article