Reddit reviews The Population of Palestine: Population History and Statistics of the Late Ottoman Period and the Mandate (Institute for Palestine Studies Series)

I don't know why you just quoted that part, but the fact that Palestinian newspapers (1911) were using the term Palestinian is enough textual proof that the people of the land called themselves Palestinians, including Jews and Christians. That is fact.


I hope you're not trying to perpetuate the myth behind the slogan "A land without a people for a people without a land." It's a defunct view. There was a civilization already in place on that land, a civilization that endured many significant historical events, such as the Crusades. As the Ottoman census records show Palestine was widely inhabited in the late 19th and early 20th century, especially in the rural areas where agriculture was the main profession. According to Justine McCarthy (p. 26), an authority on the Ottoman Turks, Palestine's population in the early 19th century was 350,000, and in 1914 Palestine had a population of 657,000 Muslim Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs, and 59,000 Jews (including many European Jews from the first and second Aliyah).


As for common culture, language, and sense of nationality I hope you're joking about that. It really does make me doubt that you have Arab friends or even live in Israel since it demonstrates such a gross ignorance of the Palestinian people. But at the same time, the Israeli educational system is typically weak when it comes to teaching about the history of the land. I could list a hundred distinct Palestinian customs particular to their culture that are not found anywhere else in the Arab world. And I could point out to you a great number of linguistic differences in their Arabic. That doesn't even include the distinct and ancient languages found among Palestinians, although most of them are pretty much dead now.


Why would I ask the Sunni and Shi'a in Iraq about Palestine?