Zachary Foster Profile picture
Mar 10 10 tweets 4 min read
Zionists have been trying to ‘ctrl-alt-delete’ the Palestinian people from the historical record for more than a century.

In this thread, I document usages of the term, “Palestinians,” from its earliest appearances in the late 19th century to the late 1940s. A 🧵 Image
This thread covers the 170+ appearances of the term “Palestinian” found in Arabic sources from 1898-1914.
This thread explores how Palestinians used the term "Palestinian" in the 1920s
From 1920s-1950s, many Arabs emphasized that “Palestinians” played a key role in the pre-WWI Arab literary & cultural movements, Faysal’s army & the Syrian Arab Congress.

See screenshot for a list of Arab sources, w/ page numbers, referencing 'Palestinians' in this context: Image
Other Palestinian writers were keen to emphasize from the 1920s-1930s that “non-Palestinian” or “Syrian” families, especially the Sarsuqs, sold “Palestinian land” to Zionists in the 1930s: Image
1. Constantine Thuyudri (1928) wrote a novel in focusing on an “Egyptian and Palestinian author.”

2. Muhammad ‘Ali Tahir (1948): "some believed that Palestine was not the exclusive property of the Arab Palestinians, but rather the entire Arab World."

See screenshot for sources Image
1. Jamal Husayni (1946): if the Arab states failed to defend Palestine, “non-Palestinian Arab blood” would flood the valleys & plains of every country in the region.

2. Fayiz Sayigh (1946): “the Palestinians” had rejected the Balfour Declaration along w the other Arab peoples Image
Musa al-‘Alami [‘Ibrat Filastin (Beirut: n.p., 1949), 5] argued that during the first phase of the battle for Palestine in 1948, "the Palestinians" were responsible for defending Palestine, while in the second phase, the Arab armies were.
‘Arif al-‘Arif [Tarikh al-Quds (Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif, 1951), 128] wrote that the Turks executed many heroes during the Great War, including four ‘Palestinians.’
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More from @_ZachFoster

Dec 27, 2022
Were Zionists called "Palestinians" before 1948?

The claim is often made that Zionists were called Palestinians from 1920-1948. It’s time to debunk this myth.

The terms ‘Palestinians’ & ‘the Palestinians’ were used to describe Arabs, not Zionists, from 1920-1948. A 🧵
In 1921, The newspaper Filastin wrote “we are Palestinians first and Arabs second.” (Filastin 3 September 1921)
In 1925, Khalil Sakakini wrote “the Palestinian nation” was experiencing their honeymoon phase of nationalism after witnessing an outpouring of support in every town & village of Palestine he passed through as a representative of the 6th Palestinian Arab Congress delegation.
Read 9 tweets
Sep 11, 2022
More people have discovered my Ph.D research on twitter than anywhere else.

Here are 6 threads summarizing my dissertation, "The Invention of Palestine", a study of origins and development of 'Palestine' and 'the Palestinians' from ancient times to the present, a 🧵
In this thread, I debunk the popular Zionist myth that the Roman Emperor Hadrian vengefully erased the name 'Judaea' in 135 CE & replaced it with the name 'Palestine' after crushing the Bar Kokhba Revolt (pp. 103-111). This one riles up Zionists!
This thread explains why I avoid using the words “nation” and “nationalism” in my dissertation despite the fact that i focused on trying to understand the origins of a Palestinian identity. I wish less people used those terms. (pp. 81-82)
Read 9 tweets
Sep 1, 2022
For decades, historians believed that the Roman Emperor Hadrian vengefully erased the name 'Judaea' in 135 CE & replaced it with the name 'Palestine' after crushing the Bar Kokhba Revolt.

This is a Zionist myth. A 🧵
Bernard Lewis first propagated this theory in the 1970s.
The evidence for the theory is that inscriptions start to refer to the land as Syria Palaestina.

1st point: Hadrian did not replaced “Judaea” with “Palestine”. "Syria Palaestina" came into use, not “Palestine”.
But, why did that name start to appear in inscriptions? Was it because of a vengeful erasure?

Or perhaps Hadrian changed the name for the same reason he changed Antigonea to Mantinea, or Sepphoris to Diocaesarea. He revered Greece & revived many Greek customs traditions & names
Read 10 tweets
Aug 15, 2022
My Ph.d Dissertation was a study of the origins of the Palestinian people.

I did not use the words nation, nationalism or national identity in the dissertation.

Here’s why, a thread.
The conventional wisdom a few decades ago was that the French Revolution inspired an era of nationalism in Europe and then the rest of the world

Classicists & medievalists accepted this view until recently, focusing on more pressing issues like paleographic manuscript marginalia
Then modernists read history & pre-modernists read about nationalism. A cross-fertilization ensued.

Nations were found in 16th century France, 14th century North Africa, 13th century Greece, medieval Netherlands & among the Anglo-Saxons and Irish in the 11th & 8th centuries
Read 6 tweets
Aug 12, 2022
A brief history of what the term "Palestinian" (or Filastini, in Arabic) has meant, in history. A 🧵 Image
In the 10th century, a Palestinian (Filastini) referred to an Arabic speaking Muslim from the District of Palestine.

In the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th & early 19th, 'Palestinian' (Filastini) was used to refer to hadith transmitters from Jund Filastin
In 19th century Europe, Palestinian usually referred to someone who lived during the times of Jesus.

In the 1870s, Americans, British and Germans started using 'Palestinian' to refer to the land’s modern Arabic speakers, in one case, to mean “Jew, Syrian or Arab” from Palestine
Read 8 tweets
Jul 18, 2022
Rifa'a Al-Tahtawi was one of the Arab world’s greatest 19th century intellectuals.

He wrote a manuscript called The Geography of the Land of Sham in the 1840s.

In that manuscript he had a lot to say about Palestine. A 🧵 on what Arabs thought about Palestine in the 19th century
First, one of the Arab world’s greatest 19th century intellectuals wrote a work that remains in manuscript form today. Imagine if Friedrich Nietzsche or W. E. B. Du Bois wrote something only accessible in manuscript & only viewable in one library in the world (in Cairo).
Tahtawi claimed Palestine was bordered “in the south by the Land of the Arabs, in the north by the District of Acre, in west by the Mediterranean Sea & to the east by the Mountains behind the Jordan River,” & included Gaza, Hebron, Jerusalem and Jaffa (folio 34).
Read 7 tweets

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