The Subtle Invention of the Palestinian People

We live in a world today where truth and reality are flexible.  Not even scientific “truths” are sacrosanct.  Biology, for example, is today seen by the wokistas as a way of controlling the social agendas.  Thus, sex is changeable.  History has been taken over by the white, heterosexual, powerful males and needs to be overturned and rewritten.  No wonder, then, so many of today’s Western world have been duped by the narrative spread by Arab nationalists.  They are the street protestors, the mob who sit outside the Victorian Parliament building, harassing people with the slur from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

Regional Identity in Historical Palestine

Throughout the late nineteenth century, the term "Palestinian" functioned primarily as a regional descriptor rather than an indication of distinct nationhood. The inhabitants of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea were largely defined by religious affiliations; Muslims, for instance, felt stronger ties to distant co-religionists than to their Jewish and Christian neighbours. This lack of a shared political purpose or sense of unique peoplehood meant that residence in the region did not foster the development of a collective national identity.

An identity as a people is one precursor to nationhood. And nationhood is the presence of common identity together with the three key elements of sovereignty, self-determination and self-sufficiency.

The “Palestinians” have never had this.  They did not have them in the past and they still do not have it today.  For Palestinians, supported by gullible Westerners and an anti-Israel press, to claim statehood and to seek acceptance by the UN as an independent nation alongside the other nations of the world, is both an absurdity and a blot on whole idea of a nation among other nations. The concept that such a people already exist is being forced on the entire world to achieve nothing other than a political end.

In fact, the deliberate creation of the “Palestinian people” as a discrete entity in 1967, and the political group known as the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1964 was for the political purpose of destroying a sovereign and legally mandated Jewish state.

Until recently, there was no significant movement for a distinct “Palestinian” people or nation; ambitions were broader, and the term usually appeared as “Palestinian Arab.” Historian Muhammad Y. Muslih notes that during 400 years of Ottoman rule (1517–1918), and before the British Palestine Mandate, no political entity called Palestine existed.

Following their conquest of the Levant, Islamic armies retained the Byzantine administrative term, naming part of Palestina Prima (now Jerusalem and the Shfela) "Jund Filastin," meaning "the Palestine military command." This designation referred to a military district, not a national identity, reflecting Byzantine naming conventions.

Until Israel was re-established as a nation in 1948, Palestine was the term for the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The word Palestinian was applied to anyone living in that area.

The term “Palestinian” was rarely used before the mid-20th century. In 1909, Farid Georges Kassab, a Beirut-based Orthodox Christian, noted that Orthodox Palestinian Ottomans identified as Arabs, with little use of “Palestinian” Arab. The term began to refer to both Jews and Arabs under the British mandate, and only later did it gain its current popular meaning as a regional identifier.

In 1948, the invasion of Israel by six Arab armies was not aimed at creating a Palestinian state, but rather at dividing the territory among themselves. According to Arab League Secretary-General Abdel Rahman Azzam, if successful, different regions would have gone to Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon.

Had Israel lost the war, its territory would have been divided among the invading Arab forces, and the name Palestine would have vanished into the dustbin of history.

Are the “Palestinians” an invented people, a concept that was useful  for purely political (anti-semitic) purposes?

During the British Mandate (1920-48), Palestinian Arab leaders, influenced by the Ottoman system where religion dominated politics, largely lacked an understanding of nationalism. They showed little interest in developing a distinct Palestinian national identity or recognising a separate Palestinian people, as such an identity did not exist at the time.

For example, at the time of the April 1920 events in Jerusalem, demands were not specifically articulated in terms of independence for a "Palestinian people" within the Mandate area. Instead, the actions were associated with calls for incorporation into the then-existing Syrian kingdom led by Faisal ibn Hussein of Mecca.

In 1926, the Arab Executive Committee still referred to Palestine as the unlawfully severed southern part of “the one country of Syria, with its own population of the same language, origin, customs, and religious beliefs. 

In July 1937, the Arab Higher Committee (AHC) justified its rejection of the Peel Commission’s recommendation for the partition of Palestine on the grounds that this country does not belong only to [the] Palestine Arabs but to the whole Arab and Muslim Worlds.

And finally, as late as August 1947, three months before the passing of the U.N. resolution partitioning Mandate Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, the AHC’s mouthpiece, al-Wahda, advocated the incorporation of Palestine (and Transjordan) into “Greater Syria”

There was no concept of a “Palestinian people” but rather, always one of Palestinian Arabs who were part of the wider Arab Muslim ummah.

A notable question arises: How did a group suddenly identify as a homogeneous ethnic entity in 1967, despite no prior recognition by the Arab High Commission? After 1948, younger Arab activists pushed for Pan-Arab nationalism and unity, as illustrated by Ahmad Shuqeiri, who considered Palestine inseparable from the broader Arab homeland.

Asked to clarify which part of the “Arab homeland” this specific territory belonged, he added that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.

Out of this, it comes as no surprise to find that Yasser Arafat, the (Egyptian born and educated) father of the “Palestinian people” followed this pan-Arab line. The 1964 PLO charter defined the Palestinians as an integral part of the Arab nation rather than a distinct nationality and vowed allegiance to the ideal of pan-Arab unity – that is, to Palestine’s eventual assimilation into the greater Arab homeland.

In 1996, even Hamas, the most vocal, ferocious and violent voice speaking out in the name of the righteous struggle of the Palestinian people for statehood have made it clear that Islamic and traditional views reject the notion of establishing an independent Palestinian state … In the past, there was no independent Palestinian state. … [Hence] our main goal is to establish a great Islamic state, be it pan-Arabic or pan-Islamic… This…land…is not the property of the Palestinians…. This land is the property of all Muslims in all parts of the world.”  (senior Hamas leader Mahmud Zahar, 1996)

Continuing with this line of argument, it is not possible to go past the words of Azmi Bishara, founding leader of the nationalist Balad Party (with seats in the Israeli parliament since 1999). In a statement he made in 2002 he said: My Palestinian identity never precedes my Arab identity…. I don’t think there is a Palestinian nation, there is [only] an Arab nation….

Not much more needs to be said; the concept of a Palestinian “people” engaged in a struggle of “liberation” from a colonial Jewish “oppressor” is a purposely misleading one, invented solely for the purpose of de-legitimising the Jewish state and its people (Alan Meyer).

The Levantine Arabs (Levant referring to the region along the eastern Mediterranean shores, roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and certain adjacent areas)  up to and including 1948 always identified firstly on the basis of religion and secondly on the basis of ethnicity. This is why we find there are, in the Levant Christian Arabs, Muslim Arabs but only and always, without a prefix, Jews. In other words, the identity of those Arabs who today would like to be known as an ancient “Palestinian “people” have in fact no distinguishing markers of a discrete peoplehood.  Their identity is mostly based on shared customs and beliefs of their Arab Muslim brothers, all of them mediated by Islam.

Until 1967, nobody had ever heard of the “Palestinians” as a people, let alone a “people” steeped in antiquity. Using the term is but a political tool to delegitimise the Jewish claim to what was left of the division of the British Mandate into two projected Arab Muslim entities and one Jewish one.

Besides, the concept of a homogeneous, ethnic and disparate “Palestinian people” is frankly ludicrous when one considers that through centuries of Muslim imperialism right down to the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, caliphs and other rulers brought in hundreds of thousands of soldier slaves loyal to their pay masters. Consider this list of the peoples who had been brought into “Palestine”, people whose lineage is anywhere but Canaan.

The Tulunides  (a dynasty of Turkic origin that ruled Egypt and parts of Syria independently from the Abbasid Caliphate between 868 and 905 AD) brought in Turks and Negroes.

The Fatamids (an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty that ruled a large empire in North Africa and the Middle East from 909 to 1171 AD) introduced Berbers, Slavs, Greeks, Kurds, and mercenaries of all kinds.

The Mamelukes (a non-Arab military caste, originally recruited as enslaved soldiers for various Muslim dynasties, who later seized power to establish their own ruling dynasties, most famously the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and Syria (1250–1517) imported legions of Georgians and Circassians.

Saladin brought in 150,000 Persians who were given lands in Galilee and the Sidon district for their services.

In the fourteenth century, 18,000 Yurate Tartars from the Euphrates were brought in, soon followed by 20,000 Ashiri and 4,000 Mongols who occupied the Jordan Valley and settled from Jerusalem south!! Mongols…

In 1830, as a further example, Mehemet [Muhammad] Ali colonized Jaffa and Nablus (Jewish Schem before the arab invasion and occupation…) with Egyptian soldiers and their Sudanese allies. So much so that British estimates of the 13,000 inhabitants of Jaffa, for example, ran at 8,000 Turco-Egyptians, 4,000 Greeks and Armenians, and 1,000 Maronites. The British did not consider that there were any Arabs at all in that city. ….

The concept of a “Palestinian people” is a political strategy invented not to build a state but to destroy a neighbouring one – Israel.   It would be reasonable, then, to argue that Palestinians are an invented “people”.

While the term Palestinian is applied to the Arabic-speaking residents of what is largely the State of Israel, this usage is purposely misleading because for most of human history, a “Palestinian” was simply a person born or living in that land God had given to Israel, with no connotation of being a “people”.

When used in reference only to non-Jews, it implies a historical claim to the territory in opposition to Israel. The leaders of Hamas and across Arab lands have not shied away from this.  Israel is a nation that does not deserve to exist.  The concept of Palestine as a nation-state in opposition to Israel or as a racial group (a “people”) predating the presence of Jewish inhabitants is historically false and is currently pushed as part of a broader strategy of delegitimising Jewish connection to the Land of Israel.

Quotes taken from the Hamas Covenant of August 1988

The Zionist project does not target the Palestinian people alone; it is the enemy of the Arab and Islamic Ummah, posing a grave threat to its security and interests. It is also hostile to the Ummah’s aspirations for unity, renaissance and liberation and has been the major source of its troubles. The Zionist project also poses a danger to international security and peace and to mankind and its interests and stability.

Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.

Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage. The Zionist movement, which was able with the help of Western powers to occupy Palestine, is the most dangerous form of settlement occupation which has already disappeared from much of the world and must disappear from Palestine.

The following are considered null and void: the Balfour Declaration, the British Mandate Document, the UN Palestine Partition Resolution, and whatever resolutions and measures that derive from them or are similar to them. The establishment of “Israel” is entirely illegal and contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and goes against their will and the will of the Ummah; it is also in violation of human rights that are guaranteed by international conventions, foremost among them is the right to self-determination.

There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. Whatever has befallen the land of Palestine in terms of occupation, settlement building, Judaization or changes to its features or falsification of facts is illegitimate. Rights never lapse.

 Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.

The tactic of using the myth of a “Palestinian people” is simple yet sophisticated: preaching and dispersing lies and distortions of reality. History proves that the bigger the lie and the more regular its reiteration, the more it is accepted as authentic and genuine.

The notion of a “Palestinian people” has been forced on Europe and America through the ploy of telling all players what they want to hear.

To the Americans, where many feel guilt and remorse over historic racism, the Palestinians depict Israel as a racist state, which treats them in the same way as African Americans were treated.

For the broader international community, particularly the European countries,  and for human rights organisations, Israel is a cruel occupier that violates all human rights and freedoms of the Palestinians.

But no matter the myth of a Palestinian “people”, any Palestinian national identity is overwhelmingly founded, and heavily predicated, on the negation of Jewish and Israeli identity, rather than on positive attributes or real history.

Arguably, the international community’s enabling and legitimising of the wishes of a group of people, a people who have such an open hatred of a neighbouring sovereign state, may be down to simple things: Oil, wilful naiveté, antisemitism, and a desire to submit to the demands of what is politically correct, unwillingness to offer any challenge to such falsehoods.

In the end though, it matters little. The modern re-constituted Jewish State of Israel and the Jewish people are celebrating 71 years of existence as contributing members of the family of nations, without the need to revise, falsify or fabricate its 3000-year-old history.  It is and remains what it has always been, God’s Chosen People living in the land promised to them and given to them by Almighty God.

The same cannot be said for the Palestinian “people”.

Bishop Michael Hough                                                                         August 2025