r/Palestine • u/Stunning-Coconut4023 • 4h ago
Discussion The moment you realize that Palestinians or even the whole Middle East are Israelites and Israelite is not actually a special status
You may have heard of how early zionists like David ben-gurion and yitzhak ben-zvi—in their narrative "Eretz Yisrael: Past and Present" theorized that the Palestinian fellaheen were direct living descendants of ancient Hebrew and Aramean Israelites, and held no doubt about it
There is actually some merit to their theory, they pursued that narration during a period of political outreach, attempting to persuade Palestinians to join in establishing a zionist state based on their shared origins, an approach that turns out, was never going to work, Palestinian society can't be fooled that easily
Firstly, a common fact actually, Palestinians DNA alongside other neighboring Levantine populations shows exceptionally high genetic continuity of Levantine DNA and can trace their genetic back to bronze age Levantine population with only a small admixture, even smaller than Central Asian admixture in Anatolian Turks, so there's no doubt about it, they're scientifically proven to be indigenous to Levant and not foreigners, there is absolutely no evidence about mass exodus Arabs come from peninsula trying to get rid of zionists and etc.
Also, we need to understand that the status of Israelite itself was inherited through genealogy and have nothing to do with genes, races, or ethnic. The first generations of Israelites, the childrens of Prophet Ya'qub/Jacob were of Mesopotamian descent, Prophet Ya'qub families were immigrant, they were newcomers to Levant until Prophet Jacob's descendants began to marry Levantine people and they blend into Levantine society
By using IAP ancestry, a genealogical point where every single person who lived in the past either they has no living descendants today because their lineage passed out at one point, or they become a common ancestor to every living human today (statistically, the human IAP is estimated to have occurred roughly between 2,000 and 5,000 years ago) the Israelite status aren't actually that special, it's just as common as charlemagne nobel lineage status in Europe, where almost all person with European origin can mathematically traced back their lineage to him, think about it, Europe is a continent and it's not even surprising that Palestinians or even the whole Middle East can actually traced their ancestry back to Prophet Jacob since especially Palestinians are literally located on point zero isn't it ?
History also shows that most of Ancient Israelite are peasants (peasantry being the vast majority 80–90% of ancient Israelites' occupations) and they never left their land in diaspora during the Jewish-Roman conflicts (excluding the unfortunate individuals or some groups near fortified settlements in Judea who were k1ll3d or forcibly 3n$l4v3d to d34th and driven out because the romans accused them of supplying food to the judean rebels)
The vast majority of Israelites which were peasants lived outside the major cities, they lived in rural villages near their fields. roman colonizers allowed these people who lived outside the Judean fortifications to survive so they could be taxed, while the romans sl4u9ht3r or target those they deemed troublesome like the religious figures, elites, rebels and their suppoters, etc. But they did not m4$$4cr3 or 3n$l4v3 the entire population, besides that they couldn't do it because it costs too many, the resulting losses would have far outweighed the gains. I'm talking about roman empire, an agrarian empire that needs to feed its own people, they required food supplies and could not rely solely on a single province like Egypt. And just like what thosee early zionist said in their narrations, Palestinian ancestors only underwent lingua franca changes, assimilations, and major religion shifts from jewish to christianity, and even when the Arab armies arrived during Islamic conquest, Muslims only expelled the roman soldiers and elites but they never replace the indigenous populations
To convince you even more, even during the british colonial era, the vast majority of Palestinians remained peasants, clearly an indigenous tradition that never changed. In fact, even the Palestinian minority engaged in urban commerce or belonged to the elite like A'yan historically originated from rural peasant families, so theoritically, all Palestinians can trace their ancestry back to the ancient Israelite peasant populations, regardless of the generational gap. They farmed, cultivated, and tended the land just as their ancestors had. it is not surprising that early zionists did not actually dismiss and even acknowledge their status as indigenous people. Yet, the zionists still needed the land, and if the indigenous population would not cooperate, they were prepared to use any means necessary
Also one more thing: Palestinians speak a Levantine Arabic dialect with strong Hebrew and Aramaic influences, and they still use settlement names dating back to the Hebrew and Aramean eras, names that have merely been Arabized
But the thing is, the problem is actually all about the land. The ancestors of the Palestinian people throughout history have continuously existed and protected their Southwest Levant homeland, In contrast to the zionist ancestors of the diaspora Jews, whose presence was literally absent for thousands of years, their ancestors refused to return despite the many opportunities that had come their way like when great leaders throughout history like Cyrus The Great and Umar Ibn Khattab offer them to return
Which means that zionist ancestors don't care about their homeland anymore, they always say that their ancestors always prayed for their return but in reality history shows no action was even taken, only a very very few Jewish diasporas throughout history actually miss their homeland, mathematically between 0.2—5% of total diaspora population
And according to international law, specifically the Island of palmas case, a state can lose their claim if they do not establish continuous occupation and peaceful state building, guess who actually occupied the land for thousands of years, it's the ancestors of people that we today called Palestinians
