Palestinians

Palestinians

الفلسطينيون (Arabic) al-Filasṭīniyyūn
Flag of Palestine
Total population
14.3 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
State of Palestine
5,350,000[1]
– West Bank	3,190,000[1] (of whom 912,879 are registered refugees as of 2024)[2][3][4]
– Gaza Strip	2,170,000 (of whom 1,476,706 are registered refugees as of 2024)[1][5][2][3]
Jordan	2,307,011 (2024, registered refugees only)[6]–3,240,000 (2009)[7]
Israel	2,037,000[8]
Syria	568,530 (2021, registered refugees only)[9]
Chile	500,000[10][dubious – discuss]
Saudi Arabia	461,000[11]
Qatar	356,000[11]
United States	255,000[12]
United Arab Emirates	200,000[13]
Lebanon	174,000 (2017 census)[14]–458,369 (2016, registered refugees)[9]
Honduras	27,000–200,000[11][15]
Egypt	135,932[16]
Germany	100,000[17]
Kuwait	80,000[18]
El Salvador	70,000[19]
Brazil	50,000[20]
Libya	72,000[11]
Iraq	57,000[21]
Canada	45,905[22]
Yemen	37,000[11]
United Kingdom	20,000[23]
Peru	15,000[citation needed]
Mexico	13,000[11]
Colombia	13,000[11]
Netherlands	9,000–15,000[24]
Australia	~7,000[a][25][26]
Sweden	7,000[27]
Algeria	4,020[28]
Languages
In Palestine and Israel: Arabic, Hebrew, English Diaspora: Local varieties of Arabic and languages of host countries for the Palestinian diaspora
Religion
Majority: Sunni Islam Minority: Christianity (various denominations), non-denominational Islam, Druzism, Samaritanism,[29][30] Shia Islam[31]
Related ethnic groups
Jordanians, Lebanese, Syrians and other Arabs[32][33]

Palestinians (Arabic: الفلسطينيون, romanized: al-Filasṭīniyyūn) are an Arab ethnonational group native to the region of Palestine.^{[34][35][36][37]}

In 1919, Palestinian Muslims and Palestinian Christians constituted 90 percent of the population of Palestine, just before the third wave of Jewish immigration and the setting up of British Mandatory Palestine after World War I.^[38][39] Opposition to Jewish immigration spurred the consolidation of a unified national identity, though Palestinian society was still fragmented by regional, class, religious, and family differences.^[40][41] The history of the Palestinian national identity is a disputed issue amongst scholars.^[42][43] For some, the term "Palestinian" is used to refer to the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people by Palestinian Arabs from the late 19th century and in the pre-World War I period, while others assert the Palestinian identity encompasses the heritage of all eras from biblical times up to the Ottoman period.^[37][44][45] After the Israeli Declaration of Independence, the 1948 Palestinian expulsion, and more so after the 1967 Palestinian exodus, the term "Palestinian" evolved into a sense of a shared future in the form of aspirations for a Palestinian state.^[37]

Founded in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization is an umbrella organization for groups that represent the Palestinian people before international states.^[46] The Palestinian National Authority, officially established in 1994 as a result of the Oslo Accords, is an interim administrative body nominally responsible for governance in Palestinian population centres in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.^[47] Since 1978, the United Nations has observed an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. According to British historian Perry Anderson, it is estimated that half of the population in the Palestinian territories are refugees, and that they have collectively suffered approximately US$300 billion in property losses due to Israeli confiscations, at 2008–2009 prices.^[48]

Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one half of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the territory of former Mandatory Palestine, now encompassing Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.^[49] In Israel proper, Palestinians constitute almost 21 percent of the population as part of its Arab citizens.^[50] Many are Palestinian refugees or internally displaced Palestinians, including over 1.4 million in the Gaza Strip,^[2] over 870,000 in the West Bank,^[51] and around 250,000 in Israel proper. Of the Palestinian population who live abroad, known as the Palestinian diaspora, more than half are stateless, lacking legal citizenship in any country.^[52] 2.3 million of the diaspora population are registered as refugees in neighboring Jordan, most of whom hold Jordanian citizenship;^[6][53] over 1 million live between Syria and Lebanon, and about 750,000 live in Saudi Arabia, with Chile holding the largest Palestinian diaspora concentration (around half a million) outside of the Arab world.

The Greek toponym Palaistínē (Παλαιστίνη), which is the origin of the Arabic Filasṭīn (فلسطين), first occurs in the work of the 5th century BCE Greek historian Herodotus, where it denotes generally^[54] the coastal land from Phoenicia down to Egypt.^[55][56] Herodotus also employs the term as an ethnonym, as when he speaks of the "Syrians of Palestine" or "Palestinian-Syrians",^[57] an ethnically amorphous group he distinguishes from the Phoenicians.^[58][59] Herodotus makes no distinction between the inhabitants of Palestine.^[60]

The Greek word reflects an ancient Eastern Mediterranean-Near Eastern word which was used either as a toponym or ethnonym. In Ancient Egyptian Peleset/Purusati^[61] has been conjectured to refer to the "Sea Peoples", particularly the Philistines.^[62][63] Among Semitic languages, Akkadian Palaštu (variant Pilištu) is used of 7th-century Philistia and its, by then, four city states.^[64] Biblical Hebrew's cognate word Plištim, is usually translated Philistines.^[61]

When the Romans conquered the region in the first century BCE, they used the name Judaea for the province that covered most of the region. At the same time, the name Syria Palestina continued to be used by historians and geographers to refer to the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, as in the writings of Philo, Josephus and Pliny the Elder. During the early 2nd century CE, Syria Palaestina became the official administrative name in a move viewed by scholars as an attempt by emperor Hadrian to disassociate Jews from the land as punishment for the Bar Kokhba revolt.^[65][66][67] Jacobson suggested the change to be rationalized by the fact that the new province was far larger.^[68] The name was thenceforth inscribed on coins, and beginning in the fifth century, mentioned in rabbinic texts.^[65][69][70] The Arabic word Filastin has been used to refer to the region since the time of the earliest medieval Arab geographers. It appears to have been used as an Arabic adjectival noun in the region since as early as the 7th century.^[71]

In modern times, the first person to self-describe Palestine's Arabs as "Palestinians" was Khalil Beidas in 1898, followed by Salim Quba'in and Najib Nassar in 1902. After the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, which eased press censorship laws in the Ottoman Empire, dozens of newspapers and periodicals were founded in Palestine, and the term "Palestinian" expanded in usage. Among those were the Al-Quds, Al-Munadi, Falastin, Al-Karmil and Al-Nafir newspapers, which used the term "Filastini" more than 170 times in 110 articles from 1908 to 1914. They also made references to a "Palestinian society", "Palestinian nation", and a "Palestinian diaspora". Article writers included Christian and Muslim Arab Palestinians, Palestinian emigrants, and non-Palestinian Arabs.^[72][73] The Palestinian Arab Christian Falastin newspaper had addressed its readers as Palestinians since its inception in 1911 during the Ottoman period.^[74][75]

During the Mandatory Palestine period, the term "Palestinian" was used to refer to all people residing there, regardless of religion or ethnicity, and those granted citizenship by the British Mandatory authorities were granted "Palestinian citizenship".^[76] Other examples include the use of the term Palestine Regiment to refer to the Jewish Infantry Brigade Group of the British Army during World War II, and the term "Palestinian Talmud", which is an alternative name of the Jerusalem Talmud, used mainly in academic sources.

Following the 1948 establishment of Israel, the use and application of the terms "Palestine" and "Palestinian" by and to Palestinian Jews largely dropped from use. For example, the English-language newspaper The Palestine Post, founded by Jews in 1932, changed its name in 1950 to The Jerusalem Post. The term Arab Jews can include Jews with Palestinian heritage and Israeli citizenship, although some Arab Jews prefer to be called Mizrahi Jews. Non-Jewish Arab citizens of Israel with Palestinian heritage identify themselves as Arabs or Palestinians.^[77] These non-Jewish Arab Israelis thus include those that are Palestinian by heritage but Israeli by citizenship.^[78]

The Palestinian National Charter, as amended by the PLO's Palestinian National Council in July 1968, defined "Palestinians" as "those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father – whether in Palestine or outside it – is also a Palestinian."^[79] Note that "Arab nationals" is not religious-specific, and it includes not only the Arabic-speaking Muslims of Palestine but also the Arab Christians and other religious communities of Palestine who were at that time Arabic-speakers, such as the Samaritans and Druze. Thus, the Jews of Palestine were/are also included, although limited only to "the [Arabic-speaking] Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the [pre-state] Zionist invasion." The Charter also states that "Palestine with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit."^[79][80]

Historical records and later genetic studies indicate that the Palestinian people descend mostly from from Ancient Levantines extending back to Bronze Age inhabitants of Levant.^{[81][82][83][84][85][86][87]} According to Palestinian historian Nazmi Al-Ju'beh like in other Arab nations, the Arab identity of Palestinians, largely based on linguistic and cultural affiliation, is independent of the existence of any actual Arabian origins.^[88] Palestinians are sometimes described as indigenous.^[34] In a human rights context, the word indigenous may have different definitions; the UN Commission on Human Rights uses several criteria to define this term.^[89] According to International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, the "Indigenous Peoples of Palestine are the Bedouin Jahalin, al-Kaabneh, al-Azazmeh, al-Ramadin and al-Rshaida".^[90]

Palestine has undergone many demographic and religious upheavals throughout history. During the 2nd millennium BCE, it was inhabited by the Canaanites, Semitic-speaking peoples who practiced the Canaanite religion.^[91] Most Palestinians share a strong genetic link to the ancient Canaanites.^[92][93] Israelites later emerged as an outgrowth of southern Canaanite civilization, with Jews and Israelite Samaritans eventually forming the majority of the population in Palestine during classical antiquity,^{[94][95][96][97][98][99]} However, the Jewish population in Jerusalem and its surroundings in Judea, and Samaritan population in Samaria, never fully recovered as a result of the Jewish-Roman Wars and Samaritan revolts respectively.^[100]

In the centuries that followed, the region experienced political and economic unrest, mass conversions to Christianity (and subsequent Christianization of the Roman Empire), and the religious persecution of minorities.^[101][102] The immigration of Christians, the emigration of Jews, and the conversion of pagans, Jews and Samaritans, contributed to a Christian majority forming in Late Roman and Byzantine Palestine.^{[103][104][105][106]}

In the 7th century, the Arab Rashiduns conquered the Levant; they were later succeeded by other Arab Muslim dynasties, including the Umayyads, Abbasids and the Fatimids.^[107] Over the following several centuries, the population of Palestine drastically decreased, from an estimated 1 million during the Roman and Byzantine periods to about 300,000 by the early Ottoman period.^[108][109] Over time, the existing population adopted Arab culture and language and much converted to Islam.^[104] The settlement of Arabs before and after the Muslim conquest is thought to have played a role in accelerating the Islamization process.^{[110][111][112][113]} Some scholars suggest that by the arrival of the Crusaders, Palestine was already overwhelmingly Muslim,^[114][115] while others claim that it was only after the Crusades that the Christians lost their majority, and that the process of mass Islamization took place much later, perhaps during the Mamluk period.^[110][116]

For several centuries during the Ottoman period the population in Palestine declined and fluctuated between 150,000 and 250,000 inhabitants, and it was only in the 19th century that a rapid population growth began to occur.^[117] This growth was aided by the immigration of Egyptians (during the reigns of Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha) and Algerians (following Abdelkader El Djezaïri's revolt) in the first half of the 19th century, and the subsequent immigration of Algerians, Bosnians, and Circassians during the second half of the century.^[118][119]

Many Palestinian villagers claim ancestral ties to Arab tribes from the Arabian Peninsula that settled in Palestine during or after the Muslim conquest of the Levant.^[120] Some Palestinian families, notably in the Hebron and Nablus regions, claim Jewish and Samaritan ancestry respectively, preserving associated cultural customs and traditions.^{[121][122][123]}

Genetic studies indicate a genetic affinity between Palestinians and other Arab and Semitic groups in the Middle East and North Africa.^[124][125] Recent research suggests a genetic continuity between modern Palestinians and ancient Levantine populations, evidenced by their clustering with the Bronze-Age population of Canaan.^[126] Variations have been noted between Muslim and Christian Palestinians.^[127] Additionally, there are indications within Palestinian populations of maternal gene flow from Sub-Saharan Africa, possibly linked to historical migrations or the Arab slave trade.^[128] Genetic studies have also shown a genetic relationship between Palestinians and Jews.^{[129][130][131]} A 2023 study looking at the whole genomes of world populations found that the Palestinian samples clustered in the "Middle Eastern genomic group", which included samples such as Samaritan, Bedouin, Jordanian, Iraqi Jew and Yemenite Jew samples.^[132]

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The timing and causes behind the emergence of a distinctively Palestinian national identity among the Arabs of Palestine are matters of scholarly disagreement. Some argue that it can be traced as far back as the peasants' revolt in Palestine in 1834 (or even as early as the 17th century), while others argue that it did not emerge until after the Mandatory Palestine period.^[42][133] Legal historian Assaf Likhovski states that the prevailing view is that Palestinian identity originated in the early decades of the 20th century,^[42] when an embryonic desire among Palestinians for self-government in the face of generalized fears that Zionism would lead to a Jewish state and the dispossession of the Arab majority crystallised among most editors, Christian and Muslim, of local newspapers.^[134] The term itself Filasṭīnī was first introduced by Khalīl Beidas in a translation of a Russian work on the Holy Land into Arabic in 1898. After that, its usage gradually spread so that, by 1908, with the loosening of censorship controls under late Ottoman rule, a number of Muslim, Christian and Jewish correspondents writing for newspapers began to use the term with great frequency in referring to the 'Palestinian people' (ahl/ahālī Filasṭīn), 'Palestinians' (al-Filasṭīnīyūn), the 'sons of Palestine' (abnā’ Filasṭīn) or to 'Palestinian society' (al-mujtama' al-filasṭīnī).^[135]

Whatever the differing viewpoints over the timing, causal mechanisms, and orientation of Palestinian nationalism, by the early 20th century strong opposition to Zionism and evidence of a burgeoning nationalistic Palestinian identity is found in the content of Arabic-language newspapers in Palestine, such as Al-Karmil (est. 1908) and Filasteen (est. 1911).^[136] Filasteen initially focused its critique of Zionism around the failure of the Ottoman administration to control Jewish immigration and the large influx of foreigners, later exploring the impact of Zionist land-purchases on Palestinian peasants (Arabic: فلاحين, fellahin), expressing growing concern over land dispossession and its implications for the society at large.^[136]

Historian Rashid Khalidi's 1997 book Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness is considered a "foundational text" on the subject.^[137] He notes that the archaeological strata that denote the history of Palestine – encompassing the Biblical, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods – form part of the identity of the modern-day Palestinian people, as they have come to understand it over the last century.^[45] Noting that Palestinian identity has never been an exclusive one, with "Arabism, religion, and local loyalties" playing an important role, Khalidi cautions against the efforts of some extreme advocates of Palestinian nationalism to "anachronistically" read back into history a nationalist consciousness that is in fact "relatively modern".^[138][139]

Khalidi argues that the modern national identity of Palestinians has its roots in nationalist discourses that emerged among the peoples of the Ottoman empire in the late 19th century that sharpened following the demarcation of modern nation-state boundaries in the Middle East after World War I.^[139] Khalidi also states that although the challenge posed by Zionism played a role in shaping this identity, that "it is a serious mistake to suggest that Palestinian identity emerged mainly as a response to Zionism."^[139]

Conversely, historian James L. Gelvin argues that Palestinian nationalism was a direct reaction to Zionism. In his book The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War he states that "Palestinian nationalism emerged during the interwar period in response to Zionist immigration and settlement."^[141] Gelvin argues that this fact does not make the Palestinian identity any less legitimate: "The fact that Palestinian nationalism developed later than Zionism and indeed in response to it does not in any way diminish the legitimacy of Palestinian nationalism or make it less valid than Zionism. All nationalisms arise in opposition to some 'other.' Why else would there be the need to specify who you are? And all nationalisms are defined by what they oppose."^[141]

David Seddon writes that "[t]he creation of Palestinian identity in its contemporary sense was formed essentially during the 1960s, with the creation of the Palestine Liberation Organization." He adds, however, that "the existence of a population with a recognizably similar name ('the Philistines') in Biblical times suggests a degree of continuity over a long historical period (much as 'the Israelites' of the Bible suggest a long historical continuity in the same region)."^[142]

Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal consider the 1834 Peasants' revolt in Palestine as constituting the first formative event of the Palestinian people. From 1516 to 1917, Palestine was ruled by the Ottoman Empire save a decade from the 1830s to the 1840s when an Egyptian vassal of the Ottomans, Muhammad Ali, and his son Ibrahim Pasha successfully broke away from Ottoman leadership and, conquering territory spreading from Egypt to as far north as Damascus, asserted their own rule over the area. The so-called Peasants' Revolt by Palestine's Arabs was precipitated by heavy demands for conscripts. The local leaders and urban notables were unhappy about the loss of traditional privileges, while the peasants were well aware that conscription was little more than a death sentence. Starting in May 1834 the rebels took many cities, among them Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus and Ibrahim Pasha's army was deployed, defeating the last rebels on 4 August in Hebron.^[143] Benny Morris argues that the Arabs in Palestine nevertheless remained part of a larger national pan-Arab or, alternatively, pan-Islamist movement.^[144] Walid Khalidi argues otherwise, writing that Palestinians in Ottoman times were "[a]cutely aware of the distinctiveness of Palestinian history ..." and "[a]lthough proud of their Arab heritage and ancestry, the Palestinians considered themselves to be descended not only from Arab conquerors of the seventh century but also from indigenous peoples who had lived in the country since time immemorial, including the ancient Hebrews and the Canaanites before them."^[145]

Zachary J. Foster argued in a 2015 Foreign Affairs article that "based on hundreds of manuscripts, Islamic court records, books, magazines, and newspapers from the Ottoman period (1516–1918), it seems that the first Arab to use the term "Palestinian" was Farid Georges Kassab, a Beirut-based Orthodox Christian." He explained further that Kassab's 1909 book Palestine, Hellenism, and Clericalism noted in passing that "the Orthodox Palestinian Ottomans call themselves Arabs, and are in fact Arabs," despite describing the Arabic speakers of Palestine as Palestinians throughout the rest of the book."^[146]

Bernard Lewis argues it was not as a Palestinian nation that the Arabs of Ottoman Palestine objected to Zionists, since the very concept of such a nation was unknown to the Arabs of the area at the time and did not come into being until very much later. Even the concept of Arab nationalism in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, "had not reached significant proportions before the outbreak of World War I."^[44] Tamir Sorek, a sociologist, submits that, "Although a distinct Palestinian identity can be traced back at least to the middle of the nineteenth century (Kimmerling and Migdal 1993; Khalidi 1997b), or even to the seventeenth century (Gerber 1998), it was not until after World War I that a broad range of optional political affiliations became relevant for the Arabs of Palestine."^[133]

Israeli historian Efraim Karsh takes the view that the Palestinian identity did not develop until after the 1967 war because the Palestinian exodus/expulsion had fractured society so greatly that it was impossible to piece together a national identity. Between 1948 and 1967, the Jordanians and other Arab countries hosting Arab refugees from Palestine/Israel silenced any expression of Palestinian identity and occupied their lands until Israel's conquests of 1967. The formal annexation of the West Bank by Jordan in 1950, and the subsequent granting of its Palestinian residents Jordanian citizenship, further stunted the growth of a Palestinian national identity by integrating them into Jordanian society.^[147]

The idea of a unique Palestinian state distinct from its Arab neighbors was at first rejected by Palestinian representatives. The First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations (in Jerusalem, February 1919), which met for the purpose of selecting a Palestinian Arab representative for the Paris Peace Conference, adopted the following resolution: "We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds."^[148]

An independent Palestinian state has not exercised full sovereignty over the land in which the Palestinians have lived during the modern era. Palestine was administered by the Ottoman Empire until World War I, and then overseen by the British Mandatory authorities. Israel was established in parts of Palestine in 1948, and in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the West Bank was ruled by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip by Egypt, with both countries continuing to administer these areas until Israel occupied them in the Six-Day War. Historian Avi Shlaim states that the Palestinians' lack of sovereignty over the land has been used by Israelis to deny Palestinians their rights to self-determination.^[149]

Today, the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination has been affirmed by the United Nations General Assembly, the International Court of Justice^[150] and several Israeli authorities.^[151] A total of 133 countries recognize Palestine as a state.^[152] However, Palestinian sovereignty over the areas claimed as part of the Palestinian state remains limited, and the boundaries of the state remain a point of contestation between Palestinians and Israelis.

The first Palestinian nationalist organizations emerged at the end of the World War I.^[153] Two political factions emerged. al-Muntada al-Adabi, dominated by the Nashashibi family, militated for the promotion of the Arabic language and culture, for the defense of Islamic values and for an independent Syria and Palestine. In Damascus, al-Nadi al-Arabi, dominated by the Husayni family, defended the same values.^[154]

Article 22 of The Covenant of the League of Nations conferred an international legal status upon the territories and people which had ceased to be under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire as part of a 'sacred trust of civilization'. Article 7 of the League of Nations Mandate required the establishment of a new, separate, Palestinian nationality for the inhabitants. This meant that Palestinians did not become British citizens, and that Palestine was not annexed into the British dominions.^[155] The Mandate document divided the population into Jewish and non-Jewish, and Britain, the Mandatory Power considered the Palestinian population to be composed of religious, not national, groups. Consequently, government censuses in 1922 and 1931 would categorize Palestinians confessionally as Muslims, Christians and Jews, with the category of Arab absent.^[156]

The articles of the Mandate mentioned the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine, but not their political status. At the San Remo conference, it was decided to accept the text of those articles, while inserting in the minutes of the conference an undertaking by the Mandatory Power that this would not involve the surrender of any of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the non-Jewish communities in Palestine. In 1922, the British authorities over Mandatory Palestine proposed a draft constitution that would have granted the Palestinian Arabs representation in a Legislative Council on condition that they accept the terms of the mandate. The Palestine Arab delegation rejected the proposal as "wholly unsatisfactory", noting that "the People of Palestine" could not accept the inclusion of the Balfour Declaration in the constitution's preamble as the basis for discussions. They further took issue with the designation of Palestine as a British "colony of the lowest order."^[157] The Arabs tried to get the British to offer an Arab legal establishment again roughly ten years later, but to no avail.^[158]

After the British general, Louis Bols, read out the Balfour Declaration in February 1920, some 1,500 Palestinians demonstrated in the streets of Jerusalem.^[159]

A month later, during the 1920 Nebi Musa riots, the protests against British rule and Jewish immigration became violent and Bols banned all demonstrations. In May 1921 however, further anti-Jewish riots broke out in Jaffa and dozens of Arabs and Jews were killed in the confrontations.^[159]

After the 1920 Nebi Musa riots, the San Remo conference and the failure of Faisal to establish the Kingdom of Greater Syria, a distinctive form of Palestinian Arab nationalism took root between April and July 1920.^[160][161] With the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the French conquest of Syria, coupled with the British conquest and administration of Palestine, the formerly pan-Syrianist mayor of Jerusalem, Musa Qasim Pasha al-Husayni, said "Now, after the recent events in Damascus, we have to effect a complete change in our plans here. Southern Syria no longer exists. We must defend Palestine".^[162]

Conflict between Palestinian nationalists and various types of pan-Arabists continued during the British Mandate, but the latter became increasingly marginalized. Two prominent leaders of the Palestinian nationalists were Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, appointed by the British, and Izz ad-Din al-Qassam.^[159] After the killing of sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam by the British in 1935, his followers initiated the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine, which began with a general strike in Jaffa and attacks on Jewish and British installations in Nablus.^[159] The Arab Higher Committee called for a nationwide general strike, non-payment of taxes, and the closure of municipal governments, and demanded an end to Jewish immigration and a ban of the sale of land to Jews. By the end of 1936, the movement had become a national revolt, and resistance grew during 1937 and 1938. In response, the British declared martial law, dissolved the Arab High Committee and arrested officials from the Supreme Muslim Council who were behind the revolt. By 1939, 5,000 Arabs had been killed in British attempts to quash the revolt; more than 15,000 were wounded.^[159]

In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Partition Plan, which divided the mandate of Palestine into two states: one majority Arab and one majority Jewish. The Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan and attacked Jewish civilian areas and paramilitary targets. Following Israel's declaration of independence in May 1948, five Arab armies (Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Transjordan) came to the Palestinian Arabs' aid against the newly founded State of Israel.^[163]

The Palestinian Arabs suffered such a major defeat at the end of the war, that the term they use to describe the war is Nakba (the "catastrophe").^[164] Israel took control of much of the territory that would have been allocated to the Arab state had the Palestinian Arabs accepted the UN partition plan.^[163] Along with a military defeat, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from what became the State of Israel. Israel did not allow the Palestinian refugees of the war to return to Israel.^[165]

After the war, there was a hiatus in Palestinian political activity. Khalidi attributes this to the traumatic events of 1947–49, which included the depopulation of over 400 towns and villages and the creation of hundreds of thousands of refugees.^[166] 418 villages had been razed, 46,367 buildings, 123 schools, 1,233 mosques, 8 churches and 68 holy shrines, many with a long history, destroyed by Israeli forces.^[167] In addition, Palestinians lost from 1.5 to 2 million acres of land, an estimated 150,000 urban and rural homes, and 23,000 commercial structures such as shops and offices.^[168] Recent estimates of the cost to Palestinians in property confiscations by Israel from 1948 onwards has concluded that Palestinians have suffered a net $300 billion loss in assets.^[48]

Those parts of British Mandatory Palestine which did not become part of the newly declared Israeli state were occupied by Egypt or annexed by Jordan. At the Jericho Conference on 1 December 1948, 2,000 Palestinian delegates supported a resolution calling for "the unification of Palestine and Transjordan as a step toward full Arab unity".^[169] During what Khalidi terms the "lost years" that followed, Palestinians lacked a center of gravity, divided as they were between these countries and others such as Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere.^[170]

In the 1950s, a new generation of Palestinian nationalist groups and movements began to organize clandestinely, stepping out onto the public stage in the 1960s.^[171] The traditional Palestinian elite who had dominated negotiations with the British and the Zionists in the Mandate, and who were largely held responsible for the loss of Palestine, were replaced by these new movements whose recruits generally came from poor to middle-class backgrounds and were often students or recent graduates of universities in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus.^[171] The potency of the pan-Arabist ideology put forward by Gamal Abdel Nasser—popular among Palestinians for whom Arabism was already an important component of their identity^[172]—tended to obscure the identities of the separate Arab states it subsumed.^[173]

Since 1967, Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have lived under military occupation, creating, according to Avram Bornstein, a carceralization of their society.^[174] In the meantime, pan-Arabism has waned as an aspect of Palestinian identity. The Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank triggered a second Palestinian exodus and fractured Palestinian political and militant groups, prompting them to give up residual hopes in pan-Arabism. They rallied increasingly around the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which had been formed in Cairo in 1964. The group grew in popularity in the following years, especially under the nationalistic orientation of the leadership of Yasser Arafat.^[175] Mainstream secular Palestinian nationalism was grouped together under the umbrella of the PLO whose constituent organizations include Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, among other groups who at that time believed that political violence was the only way to "liberate" Palestine.^[45] These groups gave voice to a tradition that emerged in the 1960s that argues Palestinian nationalism has deep historical roots, with extreme advocates reading a Palestinian nationalist consciousness and identity back into the history of Palestine over the past few centuries, and even millennia, when such a consciousness is in fact relatively modern.^[176]

The Battle of Karameh and the events of Black September in Jordan contributed to growing Palestinian support for these groups, particularly among Palestinians in exile. Concurrently, among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a new ideological theme, known as sumud, represented the Palestinian political strategy popularly adopted from 1967 onward. As a concept closely related to the land, agriculture and indigenousness, the ideal image of the Palestinian put forward at this time was that of the peasant (in Arabic, fellah) who stayed put on his land, refusing to leave. A strategy more passive than that adopted by the Palestinian fedayeen, sumud provided an important subtext to the narrative of the fighters, "in symbolizing continuity and connections with the land, with peasantry and a rural way of life."^[177]

In 1974, the PLO was recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by the Arab nation-states and was granted observer status as a national liberation movement by the United Nations that same year.^[46][178] Israel rejected the resolution, calling it "shameful".^[179] In a speech to the Knesset, Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Yigal Allon outlined the government's view that: "No one can expect us to recognize the terrorist organization called the PLO as representing the Palestinians—because it does not. No one can expect us to negotiate with the heads of terror-gangs, who through their ideology and actions, endeavor to liquidate the State of Israel."^[179]

In 1975, the United Nations established a subsidiary organ, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, to recommend a program of implementation to enable the Palestinian people to exercise national independence and their rights to self-determination without external interference, national independence and sovereignty, and to return to their homes and property.^[180]

The First Intifada (1987–93) was the first popular uprising against the Israeli occupation of 1967. Followed by the PLO's 1988 proclamation of a State of Palestine, these developments served to further reinforce the Palestinian national identity. After the Gulf War in 1991, Kuwaiti authorities forcibly pressured nearly 200,000 Palestinians to leave Kuwait.^[181] The policy which partly led to this exodus was a response to the alignment of PLO leader Yasser Arafat with Saddam Hussein.

The Oslo Accords, the first Israeli–Palestinian interim peace agreement, were signed in 1993. The process was envisioned to last five years, ending in June 1999, when the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area began. The expiration of this term without the recognition by Israel of the Palestinian State and without the effective termination of the occupation was followed by the Second Intifada in 2000.^[182][183] The second intifada was more violent than the first.^[184] The International Court of Justice observed that since the government of Israel had decided to recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people, their existence was no longer an issue. The court noted that the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of 28 September 1995 also referred a number of times to the Palestinian people and its "legitimate rights".^[185] According to Thomas Giegerich, with respect to the Palestinian people's right to form a sovereign independent state, "The right of self-determination gives the Palestinian people collectively the inalienable right freely to determine its political status, while Israel, having recognized the Palestinians as a separate people, is obliged to promote and respect this right in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations".^[186]

Following the failures of the Second Intifada, a younger generation is emerging that cares less about nationalist ideology than about economic growth. This has been a source of tension between some of the Palestinian political leadership and Palestinian business professionals who desire economic cooperation with Israelis. At an international conference in Bahrain, Palestinian businessman Ashraf Jabari said, "I have no problem working with Israel. It is time to move on. ... The Palestinian Authority does not want peace. They told the families of the businessmen that they are wanted [by police] for participating in the Bahrain workshop."^[187]

Country or region	Population
Palestinian Territories (Gaza Strip and West Bank including East Jerusalem)	4,420,549[188]
Jordan	2,700,000[189]
Israel	1,318,000[190]
Chile	500,000 (largest community outside the Middle East)[191][192][193]
Syria	434,896[194]
Lebanon	405,425[194]
Saudi Arabia	327,000[190]
The Americas	225,000[195]
Egypt	44,200[195]
Kuwait	(approx) 40,000[190]
Other Gulf states	159,000[190]
Other Arab states	153,000[190]
Other countries	308,000[190]
TOTAL	10,574,521

In the absence of a comprehensive census including all Palestinian diaspora populations, and those that have remained within what was British Mandate Palestine, exact population figures are difficult to determine. The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) announced at the end of 2015 that the number of Palestinians worldwide at the end of 2015 was 12.37 million of which the number still residing within historic Palestine was 6.22 million.^[196] In 2022, Arnon Soffer estimated that in the territory of former Mandatory Palestine (now encompassing Israel and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip), there's a Palestinian population of 7.503 million, making up 51.16% of the total population.^[197][198] Within Israel proper, Palestinians constitute almost 21 percent of the population as part of its Arab citizens.^[50]

In 2005, a critical review of the PCBS figures and methodology was conducted by the American-Israel Demographic Research Group (AIDRG).^[199] In their report,^[200] they claimed that several errors in the PCBS methodology and assumptions artificially inflated the numbers by a total of 1.3 million. The PCBS numbers were cross-checked against a variety of other sources (e.g., asserted birth rates based on fertility rate assumptions for a given year were checked against Palestinian Ministry of Health figures as well as Ministry of Education school enrollment figures six years later; immigration numbers were checked against numbers collected at border crossings, etc.). The errors claimed in their analysis included: birth rate errors (308,000), immigration & emigration errors (310,000), failure to account for migration to Israel (105,000), double-counting Jerusalem Arabs (210,000), counting former residents now living abroad (325,000) and other discrepancies (82,000). The results of their research was also presented before the United States House of Representatives on 8 March 2006.^[201]

The study was criticised by Sergio DellaPergola, a demographer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.^[202] DellaPergola accused the authors of the AIDRG report of misunderstanding basic principles of demography on account of their lack of expertise in the subject, but he also acknowledged that he did not take into account the emigration of Palestinians and thinks it has to be examined, as well as the birth and mortality statistics of the Palestinian Authority.^[203] He also accused AIDRG of selective use of data and multiple systematic errors in their analysis, claiming that the authors assumed the Palestinian Electoral registry to be complete even though registration is voluntary, and they used an unrealistically low Total Fertility Ratio (a statistical abstraction of births per woman) to reanalyse that data in a "typical circular mistake." DellaPergola estimated the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza at the end of 2005 as 3.33 million, or 3.57 million if East Jerusalem is included. These figures are only slightly lower than the official Palestinian figures.^[202] The Israeli Civil Administration put the number of Palestinians in the West Bank at 2,657,029 as of May 2012.^[204][205]

The AIDRG study was also criticized by Ian Lustick, who accused its authors of multiple methodological errors and a political agenda.^[206]

In 2009, at the request of the PLO, "Jordan revoked the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians to keep them from remaining permanently in the country."^[207]

Many Palestinians have settled in the United States, particularly in the Chicago area.^[208][209]

In total, an estimated 600,000 Palestinians are thought to reside in the Americas. Palestinian emigration to South America began for economic reasons that pre-dated the Arab-Israeli conflict, but continued to grow thereafter.^[210] Many emigrants were from the Bethlehem area. Those emigrating to Latin America were mainly Christian. Half of those of Palestinian origin in Latin America live in Chile.^[10] El Salvador^[211] and Honduras^[212] also have substantial Palestinian populations. These two countries have had presidents of Palestinian ancestry (Antonio Saca in El Salvador and Carlos Roberto Flores in Honduras). Belize, which has a smaller Palestinian population, has a Palestinian minister – Said Musa.^[213] Schafik Jorge Handal, Salvadoran politician and former guerrilla leader, was the son of Palestinian immigrants.^[214]

In 2006, there were 4,255,120 Palestinians registered as refugees with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). This number includes the descendants of refugees who fled or were expelled during the 1948 war, but excludes those who have since then emigrated to areas outside of UNRWA's remit.^[194] Based on these figures, almost half of all Palestinians are registered refugees. The 993,818 Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip and 705,207 Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, who hail from towns and villages now located within the borders of Israel, are included in these figures.^[215]

UNRWA figures do not include some 274,000 people, or 1 in 5.5 of all Arab residents of Israel, who are internally displaced Palestinian refugees.^[216][217]

Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and the West Bank are organized according to a refugee family's village or place of origin. Among the first things that children born in the camps learn is the name of their village of origin. David McDowall writes that, "[...] a yearning for Palestine permeates the whole refugee community and is most ardently espoused by the younger refugees, for whom home exists only in the imagination."^[218]

Israeli policy to prevent the refugees from returning to their homes was initially formulated by David Ben Gurion and Joseph Weitz, director of the Jewish National Fund was formally adopted by the Israeli cabinet in June 1948.^[219] In December of that year the UN adopted resolution 194, which resolved "that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible."^{[220][221][222]} Despite much of the international community, including the US President Harry Truman, insisting that the repatriation of Palestinian refugees was essential, Israel refused to accept the principle.^[222] In the intervening years Israel has consistently refused to change its position and has introduced further legislation to hinder Palestinians refugees from returning and reclaiming their land and confiscated property.^[221][222]

In keeping with an Arab League resolution in 1965, most Arab countries have refused to grant citizenship to Palestinians, arguing that it would be a threat to their right of return to their homes in Palestine.^[221][223] In 2012, Egypt deviated from this practice by granting citizenship to 50,000 Palestinians, mostly from the Gaza Strip.^[223]

Palestinians living in Lebanon are deprived of basic civil rights. They cannot own homes or land and are barred from becoming lawyers, engineers and doctors.^[224]

The majority of Palestinians are Muslim,^[225] the vast majority of whom are followers of the Sunni branch of Islam,^[226] with a small minority of Ahmadiyya.^[227] Palestinian Christians represent a significant minority of 6%, and belong to several denominations, followed by much smaller religious communities, including Druze and Samaritans. Palestinian Jews – considered Palestinian by the Palestinian National Charter adopted by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which defined them as those "Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion" – today identify as Israelis^[228] (with the exception of a very few individuals). Palestinian Jews almost universally abandoned any such identity after the establishment of Israel and their incorporation into the Israeli Jewish population, which was originally composed of Jewish immigrants from around the world.

Until the end of the 19th century, cross-cultural syncretism between Islamic and Christian symbols and figures in religious practice was common in the Palestinian countryside, where most villages did not have local mosques or churches.^[229] Popular feast days, such as Thursday of the Dead, were celebrated by both Muslims and Christians and shared prophets and saints include Jonah, who is venerated in Halhul as both a Biblical and Islamic prophet, and St. George, who is known in Arabic as al-Khdir. Villagers would pay tribute to local patron saints at maqams – domed single rooms often placed in the shadow of an ancient carob or oak tree; many of them are rooted in Jewish, Samaritan, Christian and sometimes pagan traditions.^[230] Saints, taboo by the standards of orthodox Islam, mediated between man and God, and shrines to saints and holy men dotted the Palestinian landscape.^[229] Ali Qleibo, a Palestinian anthropologist, states that this built evidence constitutes "an architectural testimony to Christian/Moslem Palestinian religious sensibility and its roots in ancient Semitic religions."^[229]

Religion as constitutive of individual identity was accorded a minor role within Palestinian social structure until the latter half of the 19th century.^[229] Jean Moretain, a priest writing in 1848, wrote that a Christian in Palestine was "distinguished only by the fact that he belonged to a particular clan. If a certain tribe was Christian, then an individual would be Christian, but without knowledge of what distinguished his faith from that of a Muslim."^[229]

The concessions granted to France and other Western powers by the Ottoman Sultanate in the aftermath of the Crimean War had a significant impact on contemporary Palestinian religious cultural identity.^[229] Religion was transformed into an element "constituting the individual/collective identity in conformity with orthodox precepts", and formed a major building block in the political development of Palestinian nationalism.^[229]

The British census of 1922 registered 752,048 inhabitants in Palestine, consisting of 660,641 Palestinian Arabs (Muslim and Christian Arabs), 83,790 Palestinian Jews, and 7,617 persons belonging to other groups. The corresponding percentage breakdown is 87% Muslim and Christian Arab and 11% Jewish.^[231]

Bernard Sabella of Bethlehem University estimates that 6% of the Palestinian population worldwide is Christian and that 56% of them live outside of historic Palestine.^[232] According to the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is 97% Muslim and 3% Christian. The vast majority of the Palestinian community in Chile follow Christianity, largely Eastern Orthodox and some Roman Catholic, and in fact the number of Palestinian Christians in the diaspora in Chile alone exceeds the number of those who have remained in their homeland.^[233] Saint George is the patron saint of the Palestinian Christians.^[234]

The Druze became Israeli citizens and Druze males serve in the Israel Defense Forces, though some individuals identify as "Palestinian Druze".^[235] According to Salih al-Shaykh, most Druze do not consider themselves to be Palestinian: "their Arab identity emanates in the main from the common language and their socio-cultural background, but is detached from any national political conception. It is not directed at Arab countries or Arab nationality or the Palestinian people, and does not express sharing any fate with them. From this point of view, their identity is Israel, and this identity is stronger than their Arab identity".^[236]

There are also about 350 Samaritans who carry Palestinian identity cards and live in the West Bank while a roughly equal number live in Holon and carry Israeli citizenship.^[237] Those who live in the West Bank also are represented in the legislature for the Palestinian National Authority.^[237] They are commonly referred to among Palestinians as the "Jews of Palestine", and maintain their own unique cultural identity.^[237]

Jews who identify as Palestinian Jews are few, but include Israeli Jews who are part of the Neturei Karta group,^[238] and Uri Davis, an Israeli citizen and self-described Palestinian Jew (who converted