The first 8 Palestinians in modern history.
Previously, I wrote about the first three Palestinians in modern history: Khalil Baydas, Najib Nassar and Salim Qub’ayn, whose writings date to 1898, 1901 and 1901, respectively. This post is about the 4th, 5th and 6th, 7th and 8th Palestinians, whose writings date to 1909–1914.
I know it’s a bit weird to think of the Palestinians lined up in order of their appearance in the historical record, but I think methodical (if boring) fact-establishing is necessary to help undue decades of ill-informed propaganda about the origins of the modern Palestinian people.
To clarify one point — when I say “first” or “fourth” Palestinian — I mean this is the first or fourth Arab or Arabic speaker to use the term “Palestinian”, or “Filastini”, in their writings.
Farid Georges Kassab, a Beirut Orthodox Christian, published a book in 1909 called Palestine, Hellenism, and Clericalism. The book was about the status of Greek Orthodox Christianity in Palestine, and Kassab calls the Arabs of Palestine “Palestinian” throughout the book. He also calls them Ottomans, and even writes at one point that “Palestinian Ottomans” call themselves “Arabs” — which illustrates well how a Palestinian identity came into being alongside preexisting identities. Although note that Kassab himself was from Beirut, and so he probably didn’t consider himself a Palestinian. See here for the source).
Next, in 1910, Ilya Zakka, from Haifa, the editor of the newspaper al-Nafir, published a piece from an anonymous writer praising another Egyptian writer for acknowledging that Palestinians had made significant literary contributions, but criticized him for failing to mention the Palestinians by name (see my dissertation here, p.195, note 291).
Yousef El-Issa (aka Yusif al-Issa) and Issa el-Issa (aka ‘Issa al-‘Issa) published a newspaper called Filastin in 1911, and used the term “Palestinian” or “Palestinians” in their newspaper at least a dozen times from 1911–1914 (see my dissertation here, p.195, note 291).
In a 1912 op-ed, Raghib al-Khalidi commended the editors of the newspaper Filastin for having criticized village elders for accepting bribes during the 1912 Ottoman parliamentary elections. He described it as an “insult to the Palestinian people.”
In 1913, Muhammad Musa al-Maghribi wrote that his paper al-Munadi would only cover news relevant to “the Palestinians.” (see my dissertation here, p. 199 note 224).
Muhammad al-Shanti warned “Palestinian youth” of the dangers of Zionism in a 1914 article in his Egyptian newspaper, al-Iqdam (see my dissertation here, p. 199 note 224).
Hopefully, this clears up some of the confusion around when people started to call themselves Palestinians.
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