What Is Palestine, And What Is A Palestinian? Part #1

Organizing history properly

Palestine — Photo by Yaopey Yong on Unsplash

Let me start by saying that this is not meant to be a political piece, and until the history explained here, reaches the 20th century, there is no discussion about the modern state of Israel or the aspirations of those Arabs living in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank or the Arab or Jewish Diaspora (all Jews are not Zionists).

So, what is Palestine and what is a Palestinian?

There is no easy answer to this question. I don’t say this to be disrespectful to anyone in 2024, who describes themselves as Palestinian. We all need an identity, a sense of community, and a label by which we can describe ourselves and our community.

The challenge here, I that with most people, places, and things superficial labels work nicely in superficial conversations, but once you get into the questions: “who, what, why, where, which, when, and how…” things and ideas can get pretty muddy.

One of the ways to clarify things a bit more is through the study of history. If you just stick to the surface stuff, you will be reading the history as…