A descendant is a descendant is a descendant.
If you say so. So what conclusion do you propose that we should derive from somebody being a descendant?
(The thing to keep in mind, though, is that the rights and wrongs of the modern conflict aren't determined by genetics. Politesse had it right: "But I don't think the concept of indigeneity applies to the situation at all." ...
I do think the concept applies.
How would you apply it? What follows from indigeneity? If being a descendant makes you indigenous then the Ashkenazi and Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews who immigrated in the 30s and 40s were indigenous too. A descendant is a descendant is a descendant.
Being a descendant does not imply indigeneity. It only implies some degree of ancestry.
The term
indigenous means something else.
From your link:
"...considerable thinking and debate have been devoted to the question of the definition or understanding of “indigenous peoples”. But no such definition has ever been adopted by any United Nations-system body.
...
observers from indigenous organizations developed a common position that rejected the idea of a formal definition of indigenous peoples at the international level to be adopted by states. Similarly, government delegations expressed the view that it was neither desirable nor necessary to elaborate a universal definition of indigenous peoples. Finally, at its fifteenth session, in 1997, the Working Group concluded that a definition of indigenous peoples at the global level was not possible at that time, and this did not prove necessary for the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
...
Article 1 indicates that self-identification as indigenous or tribal shall be regarded as a fundamental criterion for determining the groups to which the provisions of this Convention apply."
So yes, it means something else: it evidently means whatever a speaker wants it to mean. So how would you apply it? What follows from indigeneity?
The Ashkenazi are of
mixed European and Middle Eastern ancestry. They might be considered indigenous in parts of Europe where their families lived for thousands of years but they don't have the same heritage as the Palestinian Jews who are part of the indigenous population of Palestine.
The Palestinian Jews and Arabs also have mixed European and Middle Eastern ancestry.
From your link:
"One of the most cited descriptions of the concept of “indigenous” ... Martínez Cobo offered a working definition of “indigenous communities, peoples and nations”. In doing so, he expressed a number of basic ideas forming the intellectual framework for this effort, including the right of indigenous peoples themselves to define what and who indigenous peoples are. The working definition reads as follows:
Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with
pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves
distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them.
They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop
and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the
basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns,
social institutions and legal system.
This historical continuity may consist of the continuation, for an extended period reaching into
the present of one or more of the following factors:
a. Occupation of ancestral lands, or at least of part of them
b. Common ancestry with the original occupants of these lands
c. Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such as religion, living under a tribal system,
membership of an indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle, etc.)
d. Language (whether used as the only language, as mother-tongue, as the habitual means
of communication at home or in the family, or as the main, preferred, habitual, general or
normal language)
e. Residence in certain parts of the country, or in certain regions of the world
f. Other relevant factors.
On an individual basis, an indigenous person is one who belongs to these indigenous populations through self-identification as indigenous (group consciousness) and is recognized and accepted by these populations as one of its members (acceptance by the group)."
The Israelis clearly satisfy Cobo's criteria.
Golda Meir once called Palestine "a land without a people for a people without a land".
That's anachronistic. Cite? ...
You're right. I apologize for the error.
She said:
"There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist." <link>
She later said this:
"When were Palestinians born? What was all of this area before the First World War when Britain got the Mandate over Palestine? What was Palestine, then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqian border. East and West Bank was Palestine. I am a Palestinian, from 1921 and 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport. There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians, There were Jews and Arabs." <link>
Then she made a bit of a quibble:
"I don't say there are no Palestinians, but I say there is no such thing as a distinct Palestinian people."
So first she says Palestinian people did not exist,
"a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people". So no, she said "a" Palestinian people did not exist.
As I said, using "people" in the singular is always propaganda. Her words in no way imply Palestinian people did not exist. The Arabs and the native Jews and the Ukrainian immigrant Jews like herself were all Palestinian people and she did not say any of them didn't exist. She was simply rejecting the "a Palestinian people" propaganda narrative. (In favor of her own propaganda narrative, of course.)
even as she admits there were people in what she herself calls Palestine
"admits". Nice. Shall I describe you as "admitting" Israelis are capable of human speech? Of course there were people there; when is Meir supposed to have denied it, or made some argument it's a point against?
and that the Zionists threw them out.
Not seeing where she admits that. Her point appears to be quite the contrary: that the Israelis never threw the Arabs out of Palestine, because the people supposedly thrown out are still in Palestine. The Jews and the Arabs were all Palestinians, all living together in Palestine, and since they weren't getting along, it was
partitioned: the Jews getting a fifth and the Arabs getting four fifths. This was the original two-state solution -- the Arab Palestinians already got their own Arab Palestinian state, which was renamed "Jordan".
Then she asks "what was all this before Britain got the Mandate over Palestine?" Obviously the answer is, it was Palestine. And then she pivoted to talking about "a distinct Palestinian people", which begs the question, distinct from what? Egyptians?
Distinct from Jordanians, presumably. Perhaps she meant Egyptians too, since the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian control then.
She was denying the existence of the indigenous population of Palestine
That is not a reasonable interpretation. "There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians, There were Jews and Arabs." is explicitly
asserting the existence of the indigenous population; what she's denying is that "Palestinians" is a more appropriate term for the non-Jews than "Arabs".
so she could hand wave away the "we came and threw them out and took their country from them" part.
From her perspective, it was "we came and took control of a fifth of their country and those who didn't want to be in a place we controlled were free to move to the other four fifths." Why should she have accepted a "we came and threw them out and took their country from them" narrative, which plainly implies the Jews took their whole country, when they only got a fifth of it? Can you show Jordan was objectively not part of Palestine?
Zuheir Mohsen, a PLO bigwig, said the following to a Dutch newspaper:
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism."
Was he denying the existence of the indigenous population of Palestine? Was he hand waving away the "came and threw them out and took their country from them" part? Was he claiming Palestinian people did not exist, with no "a"? Golda Meir appears to have simply been agreeing with the PLO's real views instead of with a narrative the PLO peddled for propaganda purposes.
The denial that there even is such a thing as an indigenous Palestinian people has direct bearing on the current conflict.
"such a thing as an"? "People" is plural for "person". Using it in the singular is always an exercise in propaganda,
It's the word sociologists, anthropologists, Native Alaskans, and probably quite a few others use when talking about communities of individual persons who share a common ancestry, history, heritage, culture, and long term occupation of a specific area across multiple generations. For example:
the Zuni people,
the Scottish people,
the Alutiiq/Sugpiaq people, etc.
Yes, I'm familiar with the usage, thank you. So can you show that Palestinians and Jordanians were objectively two "peoples" and not "a people", or can't you? Sociology and anthropology rarely rise to the level of sciences. What falsifiable prediction can be derived from labeling Scottish persons "a people"?
whether you're claiming the Palestinians aren't "a people", or are. There exists no "truth-maker", no objective criterion, for one group of people having "a people"-hood and another group not. Whether "there even is such a thing as an indigenous Palestinian people" is irreducibly a matter of subjective opinion.
Ah, semantics.
Ah, another entry for the 'Phrases that mean “I have no argument but I want to post a neener-neener.”' thread.
