Definitions of Palestinian

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This article describes several Definitions of Palestinian.

By place of birth

A "Palestinian" can mean a person who is born in the geographical area known prior to 1918 as "Palestine", or a former citizen of the British Mandate territory called Palestine, or an institution related to either of these. Using this definition, both Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews were called "Palestinians".

Before the establishment of the State of Israel, the meaning of the word "Palestinian" didn't discriminate on ethnic grounds, but rather referred to anything associated with the region. The local newspaper, founded in 1932 by Gershon Agron, was called The Palestine Post. In 1950, its name was changed to The Jerusalem Post.

In 1923, Pinhas Rutenberg founded the Palestine Electric Company, Ltd. (later to become the Israel Electric Corporation, Ltd.) There was a [Jewish] Palestine Symphony Orchestra, and in World War II, the British assembled a Jewish Brigade, to fight the Axis powers, that was known as the Palestine regiment.

Since the establishment of Israel, its citizens are called Israelis, while the term Palestinians usually refers to the Palestinian Arabs.

Mandate definition

Britain used the term "Palestinian" to refer to all persons legally residing in or born in the boundaries of the British Mandate of Palestine without regard to their ethnicity, religion, or place of origin.^{[citation needed]}

By place of origin

In its common usage today, the term "Palestinian" refers to a person whose ancestors had lived in the territory corresponding to British Mandate Palestine for some length of time prior to 1948.UNRWA definition: Palestinian refugees are those whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 This definition includes the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (including Dom and Samaritans, but excluding Israeli settlers and most Armenians), the Israeli Arabs (including Druze and Bedouin), the Israeli Jews whose families moved there prior to The founding of the State of Israel, and the Non-Jewish Arab refugees and émigrés from 1948 and their descendants (though not the pre-Israeli Independence (1948) non-Bedouin population of Jordan.)

The Jewish Virtual Library uses a similar but slightly narrower definition: "Although anyone with roots in the land that is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza is technically a Palestinian, the term is now more commonly used to refer to Non-Jew Arabs with such roots ... Most of the world's Palestinian population is concentrated in Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jordan, although many Palestinians live in Lebanon, Syria and other Arab countries."^[1]

By citizenship

A more specific widespread usage of "Palestinian" sometimes heard is to refer to native residents of historic Palestine.

By ethnic origin

Referring to the Arab subculture of the southern Levant

The word "Palestinian" is occasionally used by ethnographers and linguists to denote the specific Arab subculture of the southern Levant; in that sense, it includes not only the Arabs of British Mandate Palestine, but also those inhabitants of Jordan who are originally from Palestine and the Druze, while excluding both Bedouin (who culturally and linguistically group with Arabia) and ethnic minorities such as the Dom and Samaritans. However, some of this definition is not accepted. The Samaritans of the West Bank are usually referred to as Palestinian.^[2]

Referring to Jews in an ethnic rather than religious sense

The term "Palestinian" used to refer to Jews in Europe who were regarded as an alien presence. For example, Immanuel Kant referred to European Jews as "the Palestinians living among us."^[3]

See also

• Palestinian people
• Palestinian Jew

References

1. ^ Definition of Palestinian (Jewish Virtual Library)
2. ^ Amid conflict, Samaritans keep unique identity by Dana Rosenblatt (CNN)
3. ^ Kant, Immanuel (1974): Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Translated by Mary J. Gregor. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, cited in Chad Alan Goldberg, Politicide Revisited. University of Wisconsin-Madison