The Recent Origins of “Palestinians”:Grandchildren of Arab Immigrants, Conveniently Rebranded

The Recent Origins of “Palestinians”:
Grandchildren of Arab Immigrants, Conveniently Rebranded

In the ongoing conflict between Israel and its neighbors, the battlefield has evolved from physical confrontations to a war of narratives. One persistent claim is that the people now known as “Palestinians” are the ancient, indigenous inhabitants of the land, descendants of Canaanites or Philistines, with roots stretching back millennia. This narrative positions them as the rightful owners, dispossessed by Jewish “settlers” and colonial forces.

Historical records, demographic data, and eyewitness accounts tell a very different story: the overwhelming majority of the Arab population in what became Mandatory Palestine arrived relatively recently, drawn by the economic opportunities created largely by Jewish immigration and development. The grandchildren of these 19th- and 20th-century Arab migrants are today conveniently rebranded as “Palestinians”—a term that only gained widespread political currency in the 1960s as a tool to forge a distinct national identity in opposition to Israel.

Jewish claims to the land are supported by abundant archaeological artifacts and uninterrupted historical records spanning more than three thousand years. In contrast, the Arab presence, while ancient in isolated pockets, remained sparse and fluid for centuries under successive empires. It was only with the Zionist revival—beginning in the late Ottoman period and accelerating under the British Mandate—that massive Arab immigration transformed the demographic landscape.

“So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased.”
— Winston Churchill, 1938

“The Arab immigration into Palestine since 1921 has vastly exceeded the total Jewish immigration during this whole period.”
— Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1939

Cities and villages near Jewish settlements exploded in population. Haifa’s Arab community grew 130 % between 1922 and 1936; Jaffa’s grew 80 %; Jerusalem’s 55 %. Purely Arab regions such as Nablus grew only 7 %, and Hebron actually declined. Whole villages in Syria’s Hauran emptied as residents moved to Palestine for higher wages and better living conditions created by Jewish enterprise.

British policy openly facilitated this influx while simultaneously restricting Jewish immigration. Illegal Arab entrants were ignored or welcomed; tens of thousands of Egyptian, Syrian, and Lebanese workers were brought in by the British military during World War II, most of whom stayed permanently.

Family names still betray these origins: al-Masri (“the Egyptian”), al-Haurani, al-Yamani (“the Yemeni”), al-Lubnani (“the Lebanese”), al-Mughrabi (“the North African”), and dozens more. A former Hamas minister admitted that half of Gaza’s population descends from Egyptian clans bearing the surname Al-Masri.

Most telling of all is the terminology itself. Until the mid-1960s, the Arabic-speaking population of the region was universally referred to as “Arabs” or “Palestine Arabs”—in newspapers, UN documents, and even by Arab leaders themselves. The sudden emergence of the term “Palestinians” as a distinct national group coincides exactly with the founding of the PLO in 1964 and the need for a new political identity after the collapse of pan-Arabism.

This historical reality does not deny the legitimate ties that today’s residents have to the land after generations of living there. But it decisively debunks the myth of exclusive, ancient Palestinian Arab indigeneity—and with it, the moral foundation of claims that Israel is a “colonial” enterprise built on the theft of an indigenous people’s homeland.

Notes & Sources

1. Daniel Grynglas, “Debunking the claim that ‘Palestinians’ are the indigenous people of Israel,” Jerusalem Post, 12 May 2015.
https://www.jpost.com/blogs/why-world-opinion-matters/are-arabs-the-indigenous-people-of-palestine-402785

2. Sheree Roth, “Were the Arabs Indigenous to Mandatory Palestine?” Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2016 (originally 18 Nov 2016).
meforum.org/6275

3. Daniel Pipes, “A Muslim Aliyah Paralleled the Jewish Aliyah: Part I, to 1948,” Middle East Forum, Summer 2024.
Quotes Churchill (1938) and FDR (1939).
cis.org article

4. Yoram Ettinger, “Arab migration shaped Palestinian society,” 30 Aug 2019.
theettingerreport.com

5. Rivka Shpak Lissak, When and How the Arabs and Muslims Immigrated to the Land of Israel—Period of British Rule, 1918–1948 (Volume Two), Xlibris, 2021.
Google Books

6. Reddit discussion summarizing estimates of 300,000–400,000 Arab migrants 1897–1948, 3 Jan 2025.
reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine

7. Historical usage of “Arabs” vs. sudden emergence of “Palestinians” post-1960s in newspaper and book archives.
Google Newspaper Archive searches: “Arabs Palestine” (pre-1960s dominant) vs. “Palestinians” (surge after 1964).
news.google.com/newspapers

Published November 2025