Itβs like when people try and sayΒ βWhere as the Palestinian state before 1948, then??β [a question which, by their own standards, should then delegitimize Israel, as there was no Israeli state prior to 1948 either?]
When that is a hugely colonial way to look at it
The Palestinian people existed
Palestinian culture flourished and the land of Palestine thrived for those who inhabited it
The region of Palestine was part of a greater empire, that of the Ottoman Empire. There were noΒ βstatesβ or internal borders within the Ottoman Empire. There were loosely named regions, such as Palestine and Syria, but there werenβt solid lines signaling borders or territorial control. It was all under the control of the Ottomans, which each general region simply ruling over itself with free roam/entry into other Ottoman regions
During this time, the Arabs of the Ottoman empire simply identified as Arab, because the identities were mostly to distinguish by race, and not by nationality/ethnicityΒ
Despite this, especially near the end of the Ottoman empire as it began to crumble and fall apart, various regions/groups of people [with British whisperings in their ears] began to vie for independence.Β
After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France divvied up the Middle East as they saw fit, arbitrarily drawing up lines and establishing newΒ βstatesβ to foment further nationalist ambitions within each region, further instigated by these Western forces propping up affluent or friendly families to lead these newly established states.Β
The downside is that these borders were drawn with very little care, and cut up a region that had historically lived under the rule of an empire in which they were all essentially equals, all Arabs, with no real differences between them
All of a sudden, these people had new national identities thrust upon them, had new leadership forced upon them, and were cut off from other members of their tribes/families due to these borders, or would be forced into a nationality that they simply wouldnβt have identified with otherwise.Β
As a result, these different nationalities were born, and moreΒ βspecificβ identifications began to flourish. Cut to Palestine, where the British maintained their occupation while openly discussing plans to cut up the land and establish a new state on top of the people already inhabiting the land, and the Palestinian identity was clung to as a means of survival, both of the Palestinian people, and of the Palestinian culture and history.
Much of theΒ βturmoilβ in the Middle East can still be attributed to these same arbitrary borders that were drawn those hundred years ago, because you simply cannot force these identities upon people who had lived under a radically different way and system of life for centuries and centuries prior and hope it all goes well. Weβre literally barely into the second and third generations of people removed from this previous way of life, with much of the conflict and bloodshed being remnants of shitty and failed post-WWI actions
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