Talk:Origin of the Palestinians

Deletion or merge?

@JJNito197: I have thought for a while that the “Origins” section of the Palestinians article is far too long – rather than deleting this article, perhaps we bring all that text into here and replace it with a short single paragraph summary? Onceinawhile (talk) 09:07, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

You are right it would be better to merge the Palestinians article. I too found it to be excessive in terms of readability taking up far more space than what is neccessary, especially if we compare it to neighbouring ethnic group articles like Syrians, Lebanese etc. JJNito197 (talk) 09:22, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

The only way I can see valid reasons for keeping this article would be, as you say, reformatting the "Origins" section of the Palestinain article to cater for this new article. However this shouldn't be confined to "Origins" if content on this new article includes further related information that has been added to bolster the validity of the article. JJNito197 (talk) 09:37, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:39, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

How much of this just came up by expanding sources already used in our articles on the history of Palestine and the Palestinian people? A lot is just tendentious simpleton history.Nishidani (talk) 14:42, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Examples of writing off the top of one's head composition, each illustrating a Zionist message.

• (1) The Palestinian population, despite being predominantly Arab and Muslim, is not a homogeneous entity, and there is diversity within the population in terms of religious, linguistic, and cultural practices.

The Jewish population of Israel, despite being Jewish, is not a(n) homogeneous entity' (European Ashkenazi (with their distinct branches, western and eastern), Mizrachi Arab-Jews, Beta Israel Ethiopians, hundreds of thousands of Slavic immigrants with neither Judaism as their religion and only the most tenuous link to major Jewish descent lines, Inca converts, Calabrian converted communities etc.etc .etc. but we do not write that in the relevant articles. There is, arguably, again, more diversity in religious, linguistic and cultural practices' among israeli Jews than is the suggested case of Palestinians. The Palestinians are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims. Their 'dialect' intonations are as various as those you get in England among English speakers, and exhibit little of the marked differences one gets among Hebrew speakers there.

In other words, the message is, given that the editor keeps insisting jews are all genetically related to an originative Israelite 'ethnoreligious people, that Palestinians (95% of the population in 1900), unlike the modern Jewish immigrant population, are a mixed assortment of different peoples. Pure POV pushing of an ideological theorum.

(2)The demographic history of Palestine is complex and has been shaped by various historical events and migrations. Throughout history, the region has been subject to the influence and control of various imperial powers, leading to political, social, and economic changes that have affected the demographic composition of the region. Wars, revolts and religious developments have also played a significant demographic role in encouraging immigration, emigration and conversion.

The demographic history of Palestine is no more complex than most other West Asian nations, all of which have been subject to migrations, political, social and economic changes. Conversion has nothing to do with demographics. The author of this pastiche is writing the following message:

the demographic composition of Palestinians is uniquely influenced by constant immigration, emigration and conversion, as if it were a fluctuating diaspora mix (no different from Jews, who constantly immigrated and emigrated throughout the world). Where is the evidence for this?

(3) Muslim settlement. This ultimately led to the creation of an Arab Muslim population, which, despite being considerably smaller than the area's population in late antiquity,

As phrase 'this' in 'this ultimately' refer ambiguously also to suggesting the 'Muslim settlement' immediately precdeding it 'led to an Arab Muslim population. It is completely obscure as to what 'considerably smaller than the area's population in late antiquity' means or is intended to convey. All I can guess is that in classical times, Palestine had 1.5-2 million Jews, Samaritans and mixed Phoenician, Greek and Egyptian populations, and then when Muslims invaded, there was a big drop in numbers. Is that what is intended?

(4)the Israelites emerged as a separate ethnoreligious group in the region, forming the two related kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The fall of those kingdoms toAssyrian and Babylonian conquests was accompanied by forced exile

We've often disputed recently the simplification in retrojecting to 1,000 BCE the concept of an 'ethno-religious' group. The Bible insists that Israelites throve in a very complex mix, with scores of tribal and clan distinctions, and that their distinctiveness was in diet, architecture and cultic practices. But the most misleading thing here is that (a) the article is about Palestinians, not every other group, and (b) of an estimated 500,000 residents of Palestine in Iron Age11, a relatively small number were hauled off into exile eastwards. The majority, what the Bible calls the 'people of the land', stayed put and on the return of the sacerdotal elite families from Babylon were spoken off with horrified contempt. The message appears to be that authentic Israeli/Jews were expelled, deprived off their right to live in their homeland. Dumbing down to a rhetorical exercise where again Palestinian origins are not the point, but the history of the Jews sets the measure for assessing who belongs and who is a blow-in. Nishidani (talk) 15:21, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

The article is an inept quickie pastiche of stuff lifted from elsewhere and should be deleted. Whatever is new to our articles elsewhere can be edited in to the existing pages. Nishidani (talk) 15:25, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Edit conflicts in merge

I was merging the sections but I see Tombah has beaten me to it. I will leave it to Tombah to avoid any confusion. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:35, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Done. Tombah (talk) 10:14, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Muṣṭafá Murād Dabbāgh, 1965

What is "Muṣṭafá Murād Dabbāgh, 1965"? Of course one can guess that this is a reference to the Arabic work that Dabbagh published in that year, but that has multiple volumes. Without a title, volume number, and page numbers, this is not a citation at all. Moreover, we need an editor who has personally checked that the source supports the text it is applied to. I believe this is most likely a WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT violation and the citation should be changed to indicate where the information actually comes from. At the moment deletion is the only option available. Zero^talk 01:30, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Tamari misquotes

There are multiple citations to Salim Tamari, Lepers, Lunatics and Saints, Jerusalem Quarterly File, Iss. 20 (Jan 2004). They all need checking. Here are three examples of misquotes:

• "Ben Zvi stated in a later writing that "Obviously, it would be incorrect to claim that all fellahin are descended from the ancient Jews; rather, we are discussing their majority or their foundation", and that "The vast majority of the fellahin are not descended from Arab conquerors but rather from the Jewish peasants who made up the majority in the region before the Islamic conquest". Tamari notes that "the ideological implications of this claim became very problematic and were soon withdrawn from circulation." — That sentence does appear in Tamari but not in the context of descent from Jews.
• "Salim Tamari notes the paradoxes produced by the search for "nativist" roots among these Zionist figures, particularly the Canaanist followers of Yonatan Ratosh,..." — Actually Tamari distinguishes the Zionists from the Canaanites: "both among the Zionists and the so-called Canaanite (anti-Zionist) followers of Yonatan Ratosh".
• "[Borochov] further believed that the Palestinian peasantry would embrace Zionism and that the lack of a crystallized national consciousness among Palestinian Arabs would result in their likely assimilation into the new Hebrew nationalism, and that Arabs and Jews would unite in class struggle." — This is cited to Tamari, which doesn't have it, and the Marxist Internet Archive, which is dubious wrt RS. It is also off-topic for this page.

Zero^talk 11:46, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Zero0000: do you recall if this was ever fixed? Onceinawhile (talk) 23:59, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

@Onceinawhile: It is now. The number of complaints about sources on this page is extraordinary. Zero^talk 02:53, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Pov in last paragraph of lead

I know articles related to Palestinian topics are accused of POV on this website a lot but the sentences "In order to strengthen Palestinian historical claims to the territory and counter Israeli-Zionist arguments, the Palestinian discourse attempts to employ origin ideas as a weapon in the ongoing conflict with Israel. Academic standards for the use of historical evidence are rarely followed in the Palestinian historical discourse, and evidence that is antagonistic to the national cause is either disregarded or dismissed as false or hostile." do not seem like a summary of the articles text and strongly implies that Palestinians are not a valid ethnicity. It feels a bit like Israeli nationalist POV, implying that Palestinians do not have historical ties to the area, which would be a claim the article doesn't substantiate. The term "Employ origin ideas as a weapon" particularly egregious. Instead of accusing Palestinians of weaponizing dubious origin stories, the article should mention that the topic Palestinian origin is used politically by both Israeli nationalists and Palestinian nationalists, which is what the article says. So I think the sentences should either be cut, moved to the "in zionist thinking" section or edited to add that Zionists also use dubious theories of Palestinian origin to justify political views. Always beleive in hope (talk) 20:11, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for highlighting this. It does not appear to be supported by the cited source, and even it was, it is not what the article is about. I have removed it. Onceinawhile (talk) 20:23, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

It's still there (or has been edited back in). Zddbdd (talk) 03:46, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I have removed this. Onceinawhile (talk) 00:02, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Reference No 84

Nowhere in this reference article says that Turks have Sub-Saharan genes. Who is writing such BS here really? Zartus (talk) 15:16, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Verification tag

The sources are overwhelming in the article so why the tag? Makeandtoss (talk) 11:28, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps @Daniel Quinlan is able to elaborate on this particular point? Iskandar323 (talk) 12:29, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't think the number of sources is overwhelming at all. It's a fairly long article so there should be many citations.

However, some of the sources are highly questionable and I tagged those in the same edit where I added the article tag. Surely you saw the rest of the edit and the edit summary? In addition, several passages lack citations and read like drive-by edits.

Regardless, I don't think the article tag is absolutely required so I just made an edit to switch to more specific citation needed tags. Daniel Quinlan (talk) 14:09, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

@Daniel Quinlan: That's very reasonable of you and fairer I think. Iskandar323 (talk) 16:22, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

The Torah or Old Testament

The story of Abraham and Sarah includes a part about GOD or Yahweh (YHWH) coming and speaking to Abraham about his family's future and says something like "Your descendants shall inherit the land of Israel". The story tells of how his wife Sarah gave her maidservant, Hagar, to Abraham to have children with because she feared she was too old. After Hagar has children for Abraham Sarah becomes pregnant and exiles Hagar and her children for her own reasons. Is it not probable that Hagar's children are the ancestors of todays' Palestinians? Gods' will cannot be forced and never includes or needs any peoples will or effort to come to light and real Jews know this. The thing confusing so many for so long is simply that Zionists are NOT Jews. A person is as they live and a person acts according to their thoughts made primarily of their selfish desires unless truly Loving and All Inclusive, as He wants Csaw7 (talk) 03:53, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 19 October 2023

63.249.60.155 (talk) 16:21, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Citation 106 is questionable. Consider known cartographic place names. When did Israel fall of the maps. Palestine was there hundreds of years back.

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Cannolis (talk) 16:36, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

A forced POV in Genetics .

1) "Haber et al.'s 2013 study's PCA map with Palestinians clustering with Saudis and other Arabian defined populations"

Yet : the shaded area is defined as "core Levantine area" , and the study did not state that Palestinians are Arabians (actually classified them as "Levantine" ) , rather than a portion of thier genomes coming from the Arabian Peninsula  ; just like it didn't say Egyptians are sub-Saharan people due to admixture from Africa proper .

2)"Principal Components Analysis of ancient and modern populations, with Palestinians clustering with Arabian populations."

The graph actually shows the closest samples to Palestinians are Yementine and Libyan Jews , Syrians , and Jordanians (whom many of them are actually Palestinian ..sadly the study didn't state the sources of its samples ) , with a minority of Lebanese and Bedouin A being close to the Palestinian samples .

The one who wrote that line either confused Bedouin A (the red dots . ) , with Palestinian samples (The red diamonds ♦ ) , or deliberately distorted it due to politically charged bias .

The captions below the two images should ideally be the same as the file name . ( PCA map of ancient and modern populations for 1) , and "Main plot shows global diversity using 50 populations . The Levantine core cluster is shaded in pink." for 2)).

..I don't know if this is allowed in Wikipedia , but it would be sweet if it mentions the forth-coming study which will analyze Ancient Israelite DNA (Ha-Aretz source)

Hope editors quickly respond . 188.48.96.198 (talk) 15:10, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Incorrect reference

In the section about jewish and Palestinians genetic relations the following sentence is present: “Genetic studies on Jews have shown that Jews and Palestinians are closer to each other than the Jews are to their host countries.“ The two references provided 96,97 do not mention anything to suggest it. The first study didn’t compare Jewish populations to their host countries, while the second study didn’t include Palestinians. HarelTau (talk) 14:05, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Bogus use of questionable citation

There is a claim in the article as follows;

"Much of the local Palestinian population in the area of Nablus is believed to be descended from Samaritans who converted to Islam."

The citation only says Ireton, 2003. Initially I couldn't find any such book. With some more digging I discovered it is an unpublished MA dissertation from the University of Kent. Having done a history masters at Cambridge myself, I can tell you with certainty this would struggle to even get a passing grade.

The origin of the claim (because the wiki article source provides no page numbers, because there are no page numbers, and no page number, or a direct quote), is this;

"Much of the local Palestinian population is believed to be descended from Samaritans who converted to Islam. Certain Nabulsi family names are associated with Samaritan ancestry - Muslimani, Yaish, and Shakshir among others."

So the core of this claim above is based on an MA dissertation that was never considered good enough to be published, let alone become a more substantial standalone book (which the best masters dissert. are, a friend of mine had hers published to great acclaim), and the nature of the assertion is "X is believed". Believed by who? What proportion is "much" when you've found three family names that may or not point to such a conclusion (we don't have any anthropological linguist providing support for it in the MA).

I do not believe this source is consistent with Wikipedia rules, nor is it properly cited, nor does the citation allow you to find the work (or disclose it's only an MA thesis), nor when checked does the Wikipedia article claim that "Much of the local Palestinian population..." track with 'There are three families with names that a masters student who doesn't speak Arabic or Hebrew fluently believes indicates that they may have Samaritan origins".

This is simply not good enough for Wikipedia. 2A02:6B6D:10A3:0:B89E:E8D4:1683:90DA (talk) 15:32, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Origin of the Palestinians

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Origin of the Palestinians's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Masalha":

• From Gaza City: Masalha, Nur (2018). Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History. Zed Books Ltd. p. 81. ISBN 9781786992758.
• From Demographic history of Palestine (region): Masalha, Nur (2016). "THE CONCEPT OF PALESTINE: THE CONCEPTION OF PALESTINE FROM THE LATE BRONZE AGE TO THE MODERN PERIOD" (PDF). Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies. Edinburgh University Press: 143–202. doi:10.3366/hlps.2016.0140.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. Feel free to remove this comment after fixing the refs. AnomieBOT⚡ 13:11, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Removal of sentence and mass sources from lede

What's the reason for deleting all this following info Today?[1]

"Historical records as well as genetic studies indicate that modern Palestinians mostly descend from local ancient levantines who converted from judaism and other levantine mythologies to christianity and later to islam.[1][2][3][4][5]" 49.186.90.214 (talk) 20:58, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Source 114 Unavailable/Unreliable

Under the "In Zionist Thinking" section, source 114 is repeatedly used, but the links attached are broken. I can't edit it to add the source, though, and making such claims should involve deeper digging into the attached paper. 212.199.108.186 (talk) 08:35, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Local anecdotes

Anecdotes about individual villages don't belong here, especially when no indication is given the significance of migration. These things will in time be removed from the article, so putting in more of them is a waste of time. Zero^talk 13:26, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

"Israeli statements" ?

With all due respect  : what exactly is the point of the "Israeli-statements" section ? . Many Israeli-Jews don't even recognize Palestinians as a nation , let alone dabble in their history (or even recognize such ) . These notions belong to their relevant article ("Palestinian Identity" , "Denial of Palestinian identity" section ) .

Here is a brief break down of the sources used :

1)A reflection on the 2015 study on the Philistine cemetery in Ashkelon. This should instead be used in either the Philistines article , or the Canaan article in the Legacy section . Netanyahu's whining and snotting don't belong here .

2)Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs : Essentially a think-tank on Netenyahu's payrolls . Obviously not an RS on almost most claims and charges against Israeli Public-relations , let alone anything regarding the Palestinians' history. Besides : this is Original content : an editor summarized the article , rather than directly quoting from it . The vast majority of its points don't deal with the ethnographical or ancestral origins of Palestinians .

It simply parrots the talking point of "They are vanilla Arabush" , "Their nationalism is "rootless" , "No Filastin before 19XX"  ; with the usual cherry-picking of evidence , and inflation of the significance of the Nasserist-Baathist "artificial Middle East" narratives .

3)An article by Jonathan S. Tobin . A Journalist , who is the Editor of the Jewish News Syndicate . Even a superficial look at their so-called "articles" shows they are petty-scribbles . Of course he will offer the Apologia for a discredited fraud that refuses to die for Ideological reasons rather than evidence . Like his beloved author : he is lying to people's faces by claiming that the work was originally Palestinian-biased (1977 Congressional Record) . The rest simply quotes a 1980s article by a fellow apologist , trying to defend the discredited thesis by making a casual and numerical false equivalence between Jewish and Foreign Muslim migration to Palestine in the late 19th-early 20th centuries , and make it seem Yehoshua Porath was silent on the predominance of natural increase (Which he actually affirmed , in the first volume of The Emergence of the Palestinian Arab national Movement (1) , as well as his review on the work , implicitly reject migration of mass-levels , rather than individual cases . ) , or things alongside the lines of "Nobody listens to us : let Peters be an example for "rejected" Truth-seekers" .

4)Blaming the Victims . More Ink on the Peter scam .

5)Jerusalem Post . JP is famously "Biased" against Palestinian topics , but it's an RS as to dismiss it immediately . Still : the author is no Historian and Demographer to even warrant having his opinion in an article . He merely replicates the Peter method of selective data and evidence to turn the 19th century into a graveyard on a deserted island , and give a "WTF" vibe of an enormous increase in Ottoman period , using the same source as Peters , Ernst Frankenstein's 1942 Polemic , quoting dubious figures from an early 19th Travel book.

..I am going to suggest either of two things  :

A) The section is to be completely removed , as it is irrelevant , and out of place for this article .

B) The section is to be greatly expanded , with some sources replaced . It would be retitled "Denial of Palestinian Antiquity on the land" . This can also be linked with the new Palestinian Genocide Accusation and Nakba Denial articles to reinforce this phenomena of the "Illegitimate nation" within Israeli society .

Readers want balanced ,on-topic , Non-POV historical articles , especially regarding a people in which many act in bad faith either for or against them , prejudicing impartiality for partisan reasons .

A part of that involves separating contemporary politics from History-studies  ; there is no need to add 'contrary opinions' section just for the sake of it , especially when they are often Politically-charged rather than out of good-will and the sake of discourse and academic integrity .

Hope editors respond . 2.88.143.222 (talk) 00:32, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Jews and Samaritans were a majority of the population up to the 7th century.

For the historical analysis section, please consider including this: Moshe Gil argues that even after suppression by Heraclius, Jews and Samaritans were still the majority in Palestine by the time of the Islamic Conquest (638 CE)

"We may reasonably state that at the time of the Muslim conquest, a large Jewish population still lived in Palestine. We do not know whether they formed the majority but we may assume with some certainty that they did so when grouped together with the Samaritans. An important source regarding Palestine's demographic structure during Byzantine rule are the stories of the Christian monk Bar-Sawma. In the biography of this fighting monk, who was born in Samosata in Asia Minor and active in Palestine in the fifth century AD, it is told that the Jews, together with the heathens, constituted the majority in Palestine, Phoenicia and Arabia (which included the south ofPalestine). There were as yet few Christians. The Jews and the Samaritans virtually governed the land and were persecuting the Christians."

This is a recent historical analysis, as compared to other sources which posit that Jews and Samaritans were around a quarter of the population.

Source: Gil, Moshe. "A History of Palestine", p. 3 Gamalny (talk) 04:53, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Questionable Source

One of the sources here is from ted.com, which is not a reliable source. Suggest either that a better source be added or that the section be deleted HonestEditor51 (talk) 04:03, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

It should be replaced by a reliable written source. Zero^talk 07:48, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Source 17 is a TedX talk. While it is unreliable as it is a talk, it is also misrepresented in the footnotes (it appears twice) as an article. And in the 2nd appearance it is also falsely claimed to base the text in the page at that point. Sections refering to this source 17 should be deleted. 147.235.192.176 (talk) 21:55, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Source 19 does not support the text

Source 19 is an article about dna origin of ancient people, not modern one. In fact this source doesn't even even include the word Palestinians. It does not support the text in the section refering to source 19. It seems there is no correlation between source 19 and the section. The correct source should be mentioned or the section should be deleted. 147.235.192.176 (talk) 22:05, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Actually it does cover Palestinians. Look at the figures. Zero^talk 22:57, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Failed to locate the claim that Palestinians "were found to derive 81–87% of their ancestry from Bronze age Levantines" in Source 20.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Palestinians, among other Levantine groups, were found to derive 81–87% of their ancestry from Bronze age Levantines, relating to Canaanites as well as Kura–Araxes culture impact from before 2400 BCE (4400 years before present); 8–12% from an East African source and 5–10% from Bronze age Europeans. Results show that a significant European component was added to the region since the Bronze Age (on average ~8.7%), seemingly related to the Sea Peoples, excluding Ashkenazi and Moroccan Jews who harbour ~31–42% European-related ancestry, both populations having a history in Europe.

I attempted to find this 81-87% figure in Source 20, but failed to do so. Is it actually in the source? 2600:1700:4002:1C10:84A5:AA65:2C59:6522 (talk) 09:20, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

See this diff if that helps. @Yezhi283825:? Selfstudier (talk) 09:53, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Didnt find "81%" nor "Palestinian" listed in the source. Ironically found this in the source, which appears to contradict what is written in wiki:

"We found that both Arabic-speaking and Jewish populations are compatible with having more than 50% Middle Eastern-related ancestry. This does not mean that any these present-day groups bear direct ancestry from people who lived in the Middle to Late Bronze Age Levant or in Chalcolithic Zagros; rather, it indicates that they have ancestries from populations whose ancient proxy can be related to the Middle East" 2600:6C8A:AE40:C:A428:E9D0:F8BF:D3E6 (talk) 14:37, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

This RS, referring to this study, says "Still, the genetic commonalities between modern Levantine groups and their Canaanite predecessors are strong.....Saudi Arabians, Bedouins and Iranian Jews had the highest ratio, hovering around 90 percent. These were followed by Palestinians, Jordanians and Syrians, with an 80 percent of ancestry shared with the ancient Levantines. Moroccan and Ashkenazi Jews had a roughly 70 and 60 percent contribution."

So it must be in there somewhere? Selfstudier (talk) 14:56, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

1) The Haaretz article from 2020 is not sourced for that wiki section. Only #20 is sourced for that section, "The Genomic History of the Bronze Age Southern Levant" from National library of medicine

2)The Haaretz article is a secondary source. It is a commentary from journalist Ariel David on the primary source which is, "The Genomic History of the Bronze Age Southern Levant."

3) I should have quoted further from the study: "This does not mean that any these present-day groups bear direct ancestry from people who lived in the Middle to Late Bronze Age Levant or in Chalcolithic Zagros... The Zagros-/Caucasian-related ancestry flow into the region apparently continued after the Bronze Age. We also see an Eastern African-related ancestry entering the region after the Bronze Age, with an approximate south-to-north gradient. In addition, we observe a European-related ancestry with the opposite gradient (north-to-south). Given the difficulties in separating the ancestry components arriving from the Southern Levant and the Zagros, an important direction for future work will be to reconstruct in high resolution the ancestry trajectories of each present-day group, and to understand how people from the Southern Levant Bronze Age mixed with other people in later periods in the context of processes known from the rich archaeological and historical records of the last three millennia."

There is a reason why in the study, they state "Middle Eastern related ancestry" and not "Canaanite ancestry."

There were difficulties "in separating the ancestry components arriving from the Southern Levant and the Zagros." Meaning it was difficult to differentiate between Iran_ChL (zagros, but also most likely have arrived through the Caucasus) and Megiddo_MLBA ( middle to late bronze age southern levant) Both components played a part in "Canaanite" genome. In figure 5 of the study, where they break down seventeen present day populations, both of these DNA components are combined as they were/are very similar ( keep in mind that in the figure each name of the population is shifted to the left). Going by this chart one could deduce that Iranian, Iranian jews, Bedouin, Syrian and Saudis were more closely related to Canaanites than Palestinians(Haaretz makes a similar deduction under the tile "Canaanite descendants in Saudi Arabia and Iran"). This is because as, the study admits, the study cannot show the direct and accurate relationship between present day groups and "people who lived in the middle to late bronze age Levant or in Chacolithic Zagros."

The study also states that the Africa and European DNA component into the region, most likely sometime after the bronze age, still needs to be determined. Can be seen in figure under "Graphical Abstract" where Europe and Africa are both labeled as "time TBD." 2600:6C8A:AE40:C:F467:CCB5:7462:5F40 (talk) 03:14, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The Haaretz source says "this study, titled "The Genomic History of the Bronze Age Southern Levant"" which is the same study as #20. What I am saying is that your original comment was that you could not find Palestinian or 81% but we have a secondary source saying Palestinian and 80% so it is in there somewhere. I am not interested in all that other stuff you have written, if you want to make a specific edit request, then please do that in the form change X to Y with appropriate sources.Selfstudier (talk) 09:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for editing a closed section. The information comes from Figure 5 in the paper. Zero^talk 12:43, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Edit Request-- Ancient Levantines cluster with Palestinians and Bedouins

Please add the following text to the end of the Genetics, Levantine origins section

In their 2017 paper, Ranajit Das, Paul Wexler, Mehdi Pirooznia and Eran Elhaik analyzed the Lazaridis et al. study (2016) concluding that the Natufians, together with one Neolithic Levantine sample, clustered in the proximity to modern Palestinians and Bedouins, and also "marginally overlapped" with Yemenite Jews.[49] Ferreira et al. in 2021 found that ancient Natufians cluster with modern Saudi Arabians and Yemenis.[50] Sirak et al. 2024 found that medieval Socotra (the Soqotri people), like modern Saudis, Yemenis and Bedouin, have a majority component that is "maximized in Late Pleistocene (Epipaleolithic) Natufian hunter–gatherers from the Levant".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natufian_culture#Archaeogenetics

Sweet Polly Purebred (talk) 15:52, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

The 2017 study has already been mentioned in the article. The sentences about the later studies don't seem relevant to this article. Finncle (talk) 19:16, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Although, the 2017 study is actually kind of misleading, since, as those later studies have shown, Natufians were closer to modern Arabian Peninsula populations, who have high Natufian-like ancestry, than to modern Levantines or the BA Canaanites who were already heavily admixed. This can already be deduced to some extent from the article, but perhaps it could be further clarified. I don't know. Finncle (talk) 19:51, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Then

Change this---

"in a principal component analysis (PCA) [of DNA], the ancient Levantines clustered predominantly with modern-day Palestinians and [Levantine] Bedouins..."

To this---

"DNA analysis of six Natufians and a Levantine Neolithic, in a principal component analysis (PCA), the ancient Levantines clustered predominantly with modern-day Palestinians and [Levantine] Bedouins..."

To reinforce this, from above---

While Palestinian culture is today primarily Arab and Islamic, many Palestinians identify themselves with earlier civilizations that inhabited the land of Palestine, including Natufians and Canaanites Sweet Polly Purebred (talk) 20:18, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I made some changes to the text. Finncle (talk) 20:57, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much, you are very kind. Sweet Polly Purebred (talk) 21:22, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Minor edit proposed: majority -> plurality

There are uses of the term “majority” in reference to percentages in the range of 30-40. In this case, the correct term to use would be “plurality.” Also, it would be nice to note explicitly that the study (Y-chromosome analysis of Christian and Muslim Palestinians) is rather small: 37% of 44 people is only 16 people, and smaller percentages are even less meaningful. Perhaps there are larger studies in existence now? 97.113.41.188 (talk) 03:58, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Lead change

Recently i added some well sourced and important points to the lead and removed an WP:UNDUE passage, but @Skitash reverted me and suggested discussing it here first, so i’ll break each point alone for more organized talk:

1. “ethnonational group”. There are tons of cited sources stating that Palestinians are ethnonational group, why was all these sources ignored ?, besides, not a single arab group is described in wikipedia lead as merely an “arab people”, not the Syrians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Yemenis, or saudis.
2. “they represent a highly homogeneous community who share one cultural and ethnic identity …. Like in other Arab groups inside and outside levant, the Arab identity of Palestinians is largely based on linguistic and cultural affiliation and is independent of the existence of any actual Arabian origins.” , any explanation of why this sourced passage was removed ?
3. I replaced the very due weight that listed every single group that had few dozens of people who ever immigrated to palestine and levant in 19th-20th century with “some Muslim immigrants came from surrounding regions came to Palestine and Levant in general during the 20th and late 19th century.” with the link redirecting to the detailed section of the few immigrants of this period. Mentioning every ethnic group that has few dozens of people in palestine such as turkman or circassians who are 4000 today is very undue and gives a false impression that the society is heterogeneous contrary to what sources say in (2)
4. “Historical records and later genetic studies indicate that Palestinian people descend mostly from from Ancient levantines extending back to Bronze Age inhabitants of levant. ” summarized everything about the origins of the Palestinians in the article, but was also removed.

Please while discussing write which point exactly you are talking about for a better organized discussion. Stephan rostie (talk) 16:15, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Roger Courtney quote

Recently @Skitash, yet again, reverted another part again where i added Roger Courtney quote about how distinct where the palestinians from what he described as “true arabs of the desert anf transjordan” in 1939, but skitash removed it arguing that it is “WP:UNDUE + outdated personal narrative”, can you elaborate how exactly is a primary eye-witnessing historical source is “outdated” when the point of providing his quote itself is to provide an insight of someone living of this period itself ? It is like providing any quote in general for any past historian or figure in wikipedia.are quotes UNDUE should be instantly deleted ?

lastly, i wonder if skitash had violated the WP:1RR of the article. As he made two separate reverts of two sections, one in the lead , and the other in one of the sections when he reverted the quote that i added after he made his first revert which didn’t contain the quote yet. Stephan rostie (talk) 16:41, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

This article was created fairly recently by a now blocked sock, probably it should be merged with Palestinians. Selfstudier (talk) 16:51, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

This quote you're plastering into multiple Palestine-related articles is a prime example of WP:CHERRYPICKING. Apart from the fact that the author is a soldier and not an anthropologist or a historian, what relevance does a quote from an outdated personal narrative book published in 1939 have to #In Palestinian historical discourse, #Emergence of a distinct identity, and #In Ethnography? There is significant contradictory evidence, so it's pretty unclear why you're attempting to push a WP:FRINGE viewpoint in several articles. Skitash (talk) 18:48, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Because this whole article is/was cherrypicked, probably. See #Deletion or merge? above. Selfstudier (talk) 19:09, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

there is no contradiction between the sources you cited or George courney quote, your sources neither claim that all arabs are identical nor deny their distinctions that george courney describe, no source deny that levantines and Palestinians are distinct from saudis and moroccans or claim otherwise,all sources existing sources assert this diversity of arabs. So how exactly is the quote “fringe” or “cherrypicking” ?

Maybe justcthe sections i added the quote to arent the most relevant sections ? Should I create another section specific for their cultural sphere and similarities, differences and relatedness to other arab groups ? Stephan rostie (talk) 10:12, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

Please fix this typo

Someone with access, please fix "predominately"—the correct spelling is predominantly. Thank you. 173.18.56.34 (talk) 19:46, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Fixed. Thank you. Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 22:19, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

References

Edit warring

@Rajoub570: Please refrain from this persistent long-term edit-warring and self-revert to gain consensus for your contested addition sourced to unreliable sources such as Algemeiner and Netanyahu's propaganda arm Israel Hayom, as well as some random scholar named Litvak. [2] [3] [4]. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:44, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

The scholarly sources usually are considered good sources. Probably should not include Algemeiner or Hayom for contentious content. Wafflefrites (talk) 16:03, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Statements by political leaders do not belong here anyway. Furthermore, believing their edits are right does not absolve the edit warrior from their disruptive behavior. Makeandtoss (talk) 07:02, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

@Zero0000: Thanks for removing the content that had no consensus for its inclusion. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:44, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Synthesis and Original Research - Bases of the Current Article

Reading through this article and examining the sources used (or how they are used at least), it is clear that it is essentially based on original research and synthesis. There is no credible source I could locate where the actual subject is the 'origins of the Palestinians' outside of the 'Genetics' section, which could be better discussed either in a more condensed form in Palestinians#Origins or as a separate article Genetic studies of Palestinians (similar to Genetic studies of Jews and other peoples). Instead, we have cobbled together bits and pieces regarding at best the demographic history of the Palestine region over the centuries and millenia and we have extrapolated from this (on our own authority) the origins of the present-day Palestinian people. Nowhere is this more flagrant than in the 'Historical analysis' and 'In oral traditions' sections. Barring a rewrite based on actual academic studies of the Palestinians' origins, we ought to seriously consider splitting the current article as broken down below because what we have here is our own synthesis of distinct subjects into one and I am not sure for what purpose. It may simply be that the 'origins of Palestinians' has not been a subject of serious academic study, which if true is a red flag.

1. 'Genetics', 'Linguistics' and 'Palestinian identity' (the last of which is 5 sentences-long) belong in the Palestinians article or as I proposed above (regarding 'Genetics') into a new article Genetic studies of Palestinians.

2. Some of the contents of 'Historical analysis' and even less parts of 'In oral traditions' can be safely merged into Demographic history of Palestine. Some of the remaining parts of 'oral traditions' really only would belong to individual family or village articles. It also needs to be stated that a serious encyclopedia should take 'oral traditions' with a huge grain of salt when they are being used to demonstrate actual origins.

3. Dealing with 'In Palestinian historical discourse' and 'In Zionist thinking' is a bit more complicated as these sections are about Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals' and politicians' views on the Palestinians and thus could be merged, in part, with Palestinian nationalism and Zionism#Beliefs.

Continuing to expand this article is making it, and will continue to make it, more and more of a synthesized hodgepodge of loosely related or non-related information that the sources themselves are not connecting in an explicit way as to the origins of the Palestinian people. It would not be the only article on Wikipedia to accomplish this (OR in the M/E topic area seems to driving the creation of more and more such articles without serious challenge from the community), but that is no justification for keeping it. --Al Ameer (talk) 17:26, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, the article is mostly a collection of random facts with no RS to support the context. Notably, this article was created by a now-banned sockpuppet. Makeandtoss (talk) 20:48, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Al Ameer, I agree with your judgement completely. Zero^talk 08:52, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Al Ameer son @Makeandtoss @Zero0000 I am really confused by the original research policy. There was this issue of OR in Martyrdom in Palestinian society, and we fixed that by making sure every source in that article contained “martyrdom” or “martyr”, etc. I can kind of see how that similarity applies here (maybe all sources used need to contain the word “origin”). Looking for specific words in the sources is a straightforward way to determine OR it seems.

However, what really confuses me is @Selfstudier’s comments in Weaponization of antisemitism here: he says, “Except if it is clear from the context that it is weaponization, that is, misuse of antisemitism accusations for political purposes.”[5]. So it seems to me, based on Selfstudier’s logic, that everything related to where the group of people called Palestinians, including demographic history, should be included (based on Selfstudier’s logic, and not the strict suggestion of removing sources that don’t contain the word “origin”.)

I am also confused by some other articles like Gaza humanitarian crisis (2023–present). A lot of the sources don’t contain the words “humanitarian crisis”, so how do we know if it belongs in the article or is original research? Would like some clarity on this so I am also tagging experienced editors like @Nableezy@Iskandar323 @BilledMammal that I have seen often editing in this topic area, if they would like to comment at all on this. Wafflefrites (talk) 19:00, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Scope is title + opening sentence(s). Start there. Selfstudier (talk) 19:05, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

The relevance of a source to a topic is not determined by the use of particular words, but by the meaning of the words that are used. Zero^talk 01:11, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I cannot speak on the other articles because I'm not familiar with them and they are not related to this matter, other than being very broadly part of the I-P topic area. But no, the lack of the word 'origin' or the phrasing 'origin of the Palestinians' in the sources is not the sole reason this article is based on original research and synthesis of the sources. It is mainly the lack of intent, in particular with regard to the sections 'Historical analysis' (which does not read as an analysis btw), 'In oral traditions' and 'Linguistics'. The sources, as far as I can tell, are not attempting to trace or determine or analyze the origins of the Palestinian people, but we seem to be doing that for them. That is OR and synthesis and it is not allowed. Those sections have no place here and the remaining article could at best be called 'Origin theories of the Palestinians', but even then it would probably fail the OR test. Therefore, I propose breaking it up as outlined above. (Note: there are very few similar examples on WP—for instance there is no "Origin of the Jews" or "Origins of the Israelis", although there is the more appropriate Genetic studies of Jews. One good example to possibly go by would be Origin of the Armenians, where the article is informed by academic sources that are actually about the origins of the Armenians. We don't have that here because such sources don't appear to exist. Creating the article anyway is OR and better done outside WP.) Al Ameer (talk) 19:08, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@Al Ameer son Thanks for the detailed response. Looking at Origin of the Armenians or Origin of the Romanians, which contains the word Ethnogenesis as part of the short description, it was hard to find any info about ethnogenesis of Palestinians. This is too bad because I thought this Wikipedia article was interesting and informative but yes more research should be done outside Wikipedia instead of user generated on Wikipedia.

Origin of the Israelites is here, and origins of Israeli Jews is here, btw. Wafflefrites (talk) 00:09, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

@Wafflefrites: OR-based content is often interesting and (mis)informative but those are not grounds for admissibility in WP. I am aware that our articles about Israelites and Jews have sections on 'Origins', as with nearly all of our articles on peoples, including Palestinians#Origins. Part of my proposal above supports shifting part of the material we have here back to Palestinians#Origins, provided the material we'd be moving there is not OR content. Other parts of this article are better suited at Demographic history of Palestine, and many parts really have no place in either (oral traditions or actual origins for part of the population of certain villages and families really just belong in those individual articles, for example). Al Ameer (talk) 03:20, 14 November 2024 (UTC)