CLAIM: There was no such thing as “Palestinian Arabs” in 1948, because the term wasn’t invented until the 1960s.
RATING:
False
From 1516 to 1922, the people we call Palestinians today were subjects of the Ottoman Empire and thus were unlikely to have referred to themselves as “Palestinian Arabs”.
But the land of Palestine has been there for millennia on old maps and scrolls (with variations in spelling), and Arabs have been on that land for millennia as well—regardless of what we call them. Since the Ottoman Empire is no longer, and since Israel’s citizens as of 1948 refer to themselves as Israelis, the most convenient label today for those living in the occupied Palestinian territories is “Palestinian Arabs,” or simply “Palestinians.”
But how long have Palestinian Arabs actually been living in this area? Nathan Pearson, a Jewish geneticist who studied 3,700 year old Levantine DNA (from buried corpses), found that modern Palestinian Arab DNA more closely matched this ancient Levantine DNA than did European Ashkenazi Jewish DNA.
Here is a visual comparison of ancient Levantine DNA (left) versus modern Palestinian DNA (middle) versus modern European Jewish DNA (right):
Pearson’s conclusion was that the European Jews’ roots in the Levant were as deep as the Palestinians', but were thinner since there had been more intermixing with other ethnic groups’ DNA while in exile from the Levant.
According to Israeli historian Shlomo Sand, even prominent Zionist leaders such as David Ben-Gurion and future Israeli president Yitzhak Ben Zvi stated on several occasions their belief that the peasants of Palestine were descendants from the inhabitants of ancient Judea.
One reply on “Israel-Palestine Mega Fact Check!”
Keep trying to invent history. The palis didn’t exist until the mid 1960s.
One other fun fact – every group, every political organization, and every government that has ever tried to destroy the Jews has been destroyed. Fun fact #2 Israel has never been stronger.