> There was no Palestinian identity prior to 1960. One can easily confirm this for themselves
How so? When I search for the history of the Palestinian identity I can easily find something called Dux Palestinae on Roman maps from 400 CE on both banks of the Jordan river[1], a map of Palestine in 1482 version of Claudius Ptolemy's Cosmographia [1], a British issued passport and coins from the 1920s[1], a letter from Albert Einstein to the editors of The New York Times about happenings in Palestine and Palestine Jewish communities[2], etc.
The problem with looking for a Palestinian identity prior to 1960s is (a) there are historic artifacts, written records, etc. of one existing as early as the 1920s[*], and (b) the notion of the nation state didn’t exist (or was rather rare) prior to world war 1, and not every nation was given a state when nation states proliferated. So just because the nation state of Palestine didn’t exist before the 1920s, that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about the Palestinian people before that period, even if they never called them selves such on written records[†]. Talking about national identity in modern terms prior to the proliferation of nation states is kind of nonsensical.
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* The same applies to the Nakba, however I choice not to engage in a debate about conspiracy theories which deny the history of very real horrors experienced by very real people, of whom many are still alive.
† This reminds me of a Monty Python sketch from The Holy Grail when King Arthur refers to him self as the “King of the Britons” to the peasantry, to which the peasantry promptly reply: “The king of the who?” and “Who are the Britons?”[3]
> > There was no Palestinian identity prior to 1960. One can easily confirm this for themselves - nobody "met a Palestinian man" prior to this time in any recorded media. People are free to identify however they like, but all people living in this areas were simply Jews, Arabs, or other groups.
> How so? When I search for the history of the Palestinian identity I can easily find something called Dux Palestinae on Roman maps from 400 CE on both banks of the Jordan river[1]...
It doesn't seem like you've read the comment you're replying to again. I'm leaving this conversation.
How so? When I search for the history of the Palestinian identity I can easily find something called Dux Palestinae on Roman maps from 400 CE on both banks of the Jordan river[1], a map of Palestine in 1482 version of Claudius Ptolemy's Cosmographia [1], a British issued passport and coins from the 1920s[1], a letter from Albert Einstein to the editors of The New York Times about happenings in Palestine and Palestine Jewish communities[2], etc.
The problem with looking for a Palestinian identity prior to 1960s is (a) there are historic artifacts, written records, etc. of one existing as early as the 1920s[*], and (b) the notion of the nation state didn’t exist (or was rather rare) prior to world war 1, and not every nation was given a state when nation states proliferated. So just because the nation state of Palestine didn’t exist before the 1920s, that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about the Palestinian people before that period, even if they never called them selves such on written records[†]. Talking about national identity in modern terms prior to the proliferation of nation states is kind of nonsensical.
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* The same applies to the Nakba, however I choice not to engage in a debate about conspiracy theories which deny the history of very real horrors experienced by very real people, of whom many are still alive.
† This reminds me of a Monty Python sketch from The Holy Grail when King Arthur refers to him self as the “King of the Britons” to the peasantry, to which the peasantry promptly reply: “The king of the who?” and “Who are the Britons?”[3]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_Palestine
2: https://archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYork...
3: http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Holy_Grail/Scene3.htm