Artikkel i Haaretz om historien om betegnelsen "Palestina" og "palestinere".
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Opinion |
"'There's No Such Thing as Palestinians': The Ignorant Bigotry of pro-Israel Propagandists"
Skudeneshavn 21. mars 2023
Jan Marton Jensen
Kilde:
21. mars 2023
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-03-21/ty-article-opinion/.premium/theres-no-such-thing-as-palestinians-the-ignorant-bigotry-of-pro-israel-propagandists/00000187-03b9-dde5-ab8f-23bd95600000
HELE artikkelen i Haaretz 21. mars 2023:
'There's No Such Thing as Palestinians': The Ignorant Bigotry of pro-Israel Propagandists
Israeli politicians like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich persistently deny the existence of a Palestinian people but the historical record speaks for itself. Smotrich and pro-Israel U.S. conservatives should listen
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich delivered a speech in Paris this week denying the existence of Palestinians as a people, claiming: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian nation. There is no Palestinian history. There is no Palestinian language.”
Smotrich spoke at a lectern draped with an image showing a map of Israel that included the occupied West Bank, Gaza and Jordan. One could hardly overlook the irony of the ultranationalist minister entertaining the notion of Palestinians as an artificial people while showing an artificial map of Israel.
Smotrich was not the first top Israeli official to deny the existence of
the Palestinian people. He was clearly echoing Golda Meir’s notorious
dictum: “There was no such thing as Palestinians,” and the more recent
remarks by Likud MP Anat Berko, in which she claimed that the
Palestinian people did not exist “because they can’t pronounce the letter P,” a statement that could double as a headline in The Onion.
In recent years, denying the national existence of Palestinians has
become a popular bigoted trope among pro-Israel politicians in the West
as well. Conservative U.S. politicians have repeatedly denied the
existence of Palestinians for political gain. For Mike Huckabee: “There’s really no such thing as the Palestinians.” For former House Speaker Newt Gingrich: “There was no Palestine as a state, I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people.”
Once again, Palestinians find themselves scrambling to defend their very
existence as a people. Fortunately, the historical record is
unambiguous, and it speaks for itself: Palestinians have been known as
Palestinians since the 19th century.
References to the Palestinians as a people date back as early as the 1870s, when American and European travelers and diplomats in Palestine started to call the Arab inhabitants of Palestine by the name “Palestinians.” These included the British Consul in Jerusalem, James Finn; the German Protestant missionary Ludwig Schneller; and the Irish American traveler Adela E. Orpen, all of whom dubbed the Muslim and Christian Arab inhabitants of Palestine as “Palestinians.”
With Palestinian writer Khalil Baydas (1874–1949), the appellation “Palestinian” would gain traction in Arabic. Baydas was the first Arab to use the term “Palestinian” in the modern and national sense of the word. In 1898, he published an Arabic translation of a popular Russian tract, “Description of the Holy Land.” His purpose was evidently patriotic. “The Arabic geography books on the topic were insufficient,” he wrote in the introduction. “The people of Palestine needed a geography book about their country.” The rest of the book is replete with references to Palestinians as a people.
In 1911, Isa al-Isa and Yusif al-Isa, Palestinian cousins from Jaffa, founded what would become the most popular newspaper in Palestine, for which they chose the name Filastin. In fact, years before the founding of Filastin, multiple other Palestinians, including Ilyas Bawwad in Safed and Yusuf Siddiqi in Hebron, had tried to start a newspaper called Palestine, or Filastin, but neither attempt materialized.
In 1911, Isa al-Isa and Yusif al-Isa, Palestinian cousins from Jaffa, founded what would become the most popular newspaper in Palestine, for which they chose the name Filastin. In fact, years before the founding of Filastin, multiple other Palestinians, including Ilyas Bawwad in Safed and Yusuf Siddiqi in Hebron, had tried to start a newspaper called Palestine, or Filastin, but neither attempt materialized.
A sense of Palestinian identity was growing in Palestine and beyond, and Palestinians from East to West would rapidly embrace that identity. Between 1908 and 1914, a host of “Palestinian” associations were established in Chicago, Beirut, and Istanbul.
The British occupation of Palestine during World War I only accelerated the pace of adoption of national Palestinian identity. In 1919, fearing the rise of Zionism and Jewish immigration in Palestine, the first Arab Palestinian Congress was held in Jerusalem. On September 3, 1921, the newspaper Filastin declared: “We are Palestinians first, and Arabs second.”
Palestinian identity would soon spread to towns and villages across Palestine. In 1925, the prominent Palestinian educator Khalil Sakakini traveled through the Palestinian countryside as a representative of the Sixth Palestinian Arab Congress delegation. He later reflected: “The Palestinian nation had been experiencing a honeymoon phase of nationalism.”
Even Zionist leaders were forced to acknowledge the existence of a Palestinian national identity. In 1923, Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote that “the Arab people of Palestine as a whole will never sell that fervent patriotism that they guard so jealously.” In 1929, David Ben-Gurion warned that a Palestinian Arab national movement was on the rise.
Thanks to the Great Palestinian Uprising, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, the term Palestinian was simply everywhere in print by the late 1930s. Many Palestinian writers, for instance, were keen to emphasize that “non-Palestinian” families, notably the Sarsuqs, sold “Palestinian land” to Zionists. Arab writers also invoked the term to praise “Palestinians” who played a key role in the prewar Arab literary movement, or those who joined the Great Arab Revolt, led by Emir Faysal I during World War I.
All this shows that the Arabs of Palestine have been known as Palestinians since the nineteenth century, and have identified themselves as Palestinians ever since.
So why do racist propagandists like Smotrich constantly feel the urge to deny the existence of the Palestinians? Because the very notion of a Palestinian people is a constant reminder that the Zionist enterprise was founded on the erasure of the national identity of Palestinians. But history teaches us that the Palestinian people existed long before the creation of the State of Israel, and indeed, even before the modern Zionist movement.
Seraj Assi is the author of 'The History and Politics of the Bedouin.'
Zachary Foster is a historian of Palestine and creator of Palestine Nexus. Twitter: @_ZachFoster
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