The Flowering of an Indigenous Culture

Arabs in Israel, Judah, Samaria, and Gaza appropriated the name Palestinians in 1967 under their first leader, an Egyptian named Yasser Arafat born in 1929.

Palestinians consist of diverse groups of people. Most of them are descended from 19th and 20th century Arab immigrants from countries now called Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon. The few who may have longer ties to the land came with the Muslim invasion and conquest in the 7th century or were indigenous Jews who had been forcibly converted to Islam.

Prior to the 1960 Arabs in Israel did not call themselves Palestinians or share a single culture. Today, they are still in constant feud with one another and they do not even have a style of dress in common with one another. Palestinian culture developed in the land of Israel, so it is, by definition, an indigenous culture. The single unifying foundation of their new indiginous culture is not a connection to a land or a people, but a shared hatred for Israel and a desire to kill Jews.

The flowering of Palestinian culture occurred on 7 October 2023.

An interview with a survivor, Deborah Tzarfaty. (Maya Milova)