Should have said Palestine. Palestine had Palestine people living there before Israel was even formed as its nation.
From the nit-picking desk:
"Palestinians" is cognate to "Philistines" which is assumed to refer to the "Sea People" of unknown origin who settled in Gaza after their defeat in the Battle of the Delta circa 1175 BC.
The Hebrew people had been living in Canaan long before 1175 BC. The earliest documentary attestation of "Hebrew" is a letter written circa 1800 BC by Terru of Urkesh to the King of Mari: "I am always praying to my lord. I have just now left the comfort of my home and gone out to Sinah to live as a hebrew."
Cultures of the area have a much older word "Habiru" which means "wanderer" or "itinerant people" or "wandering mercenary group" or perhaps "slaves and workers from elsewhere".
Yes, I transcribed "Habiru" into "Hebrew." That these words are cognates -- different spellings and/or pronunciations of the very same word -- is SO obvious that I am befuddled by those who deny the equivalence of the words.
This is NOT to assert that the Habiru/Hebrew from different centuries were the same ethnic or religious group. Just as the "Travellers/Gypsies" of Ireland (or the "Gypsy" cabdrivers of New York) have no relation to the Romani ethnic group which were the earlier "Gypsies", so the term "Habiru" might have referred to different ethnic groups over the centuries.
I find this earliest mention of Habiru/Hebrew to be informative:
"to live as a hebrew." "Hebrew" at that time seems to have been a life-style choice, and NOT an ethnic group.
The earliest mention of "Hebrew" in
Genesis is where (the mythical?) Abram (later Abraham) is introduced as a "Hebrew." (This was BEFORE he conversed with Yahweh.) In Jewish myth he was the son of the Terru of Urkesh that I mentioned.
They were clearly outsiders as of 2000-1800BCE, their whole culture having taken its name from the word for it, or perhaps had given it's name to the region for co-opting to that meaning.
I think it's futile to attempt to trace Canaanites earlier than 1800 BC. What does appear clear is that Canaan and the lands (e.g. Ugarit) to its north, as well as Mari all spoke languages in the West Semitic family.
The existence of the word and it's etymology suggests that it is the Hebrews who came in to "settle" the area, or who were "unsettled" prior to ~1800bce regardless of where they came from.
The Bible suggests that they were a nomadic people for a time, found conflicts with the people of the fertile crescent, wanting to settle but nobody wanting them to settle nearby (because they were armed and itinerant), and this creating grudges which blossomed later in a coordinated genocidal campaign some time around 17-1200 BCE... Or several of them.
I wonder, following a campaign of displacement of local peoples, where all these "sea people" came from. Actually I don't. They were those displaced by the previous campaign of genocide when the nomadic people decided to settle down and kick people off their land, forcing THEM into itinerance.
The "Sea People" are something of a mystery. One thing that seems to be agreed upon is that, unlike the pastoral progenitors of the Israelites, the Sea People traveled by Sea. Many historians agree that, much like the Völkerwanderung ca 300-700 AD as the Western Empire collapsed, various groups took advantage of the (unexplained?) collapse of Mycenaean, Hittite and Assyrian Empires circa 1200 BC.
