About Jewishness

While the term "anti-Semitic" (or "anti-Semite") usually refers to Jews only, the term "Semites" refers to any of various ancient and modern Semitic-speaking peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, Arabs, and Ethiopian Semites. The word "Semitic" is an adjective derived from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Bible. The other sons were Cham and Japhet. Japhet is regarded as the founder of the Indo-European people, Cham is regarded as the founder of the African people and Shem is regarded as the founder of the Semites.
The children of Shem were Elam, Asshur, Aram, Arpachshad and Lud, in addition to daughters. Abraham, the patriarch of the Hebrews and Arabs, was one of the descendants of Arpachshad.

Biblical history
According to the book of Genisis, Abraham is the founding patriarch of the Ishmaelites (descendants of Ishmael, Abraham's first born son), Israelites (descendants of Isaac, son of Abraham, and Jacob, grandson of Abraham), Edomites (descendants of Esau, grandson of Abraham) and the Midianites (descendants of Keturah, the woman whom Abraham, the patriarch of the Israelites, married after the death of his wife, Sarah. Her nationality is Ethiopian; she was the mother of Sheba).

Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was born in Mecca in ca. 570/571 in Mecca and died in Medina, on June 8, 632. Muslims regard him as a messenger and prophet of God. Muhammad was a Hanif (Hanifs are native pre-Islamic Arab monotheists) and one of the descendants of Ishmael, son of Abraham, and Hagar, Egyptian handmaiden of Abraham's wife Sarah.
The historic grounds of Muhammad and Islam are the Arab Peninsula, while the historic grounds of the Ishmaelites (Arabs) are in Iraq, Jordan, Arabia and the Negev desert in southern Israel.

Isaac, the only son of Abraham with his wife Sarah, and the founder of the Israelites, was the only Biblical patriarch who did not leave Canaan, a region encompassing modern-day Israel, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, plus adjoining coastal lands and parts of Jordan, Syria and northeastern Egypt. Thus these are the historic grounds of the Israelites (Jews).

The Canaanites - A secular approach
Canaan is an ancient term for a region encompassing modern-day Israel, Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories, plus adjoining coastal lands and parts of Jordan, Syria and northeastern Egypt. In the Hebrew Bible, the "Land of Canaan" extends from Lebanon southward across Gaza to the "Brook of Egypt" and eastward to the Jordan River Valley, thus including modern Israel and the Palestinian Territories. In far ancient times, the southern area included various ethnic groups. The Amarna Letters found in Ancient Egypt mention Canaan in connection with Gaza and other cities along the Phoenician coast and into Upper Galilee.
Various Canaanite sites have been excavated by archaeologists. Canaanites spoke Canaanite (Hebraic) languages, closely related to other West Semitic languages. Canaanites are mentioned in the Bible, Mesopotamian and Ancient Egyptian texts. Hebrew is the only Canaanite dialect that survived.
Jonathan Tubbs, a British archaeologist, argued that the Israelites were themselves Canaanites, and that "historical Israel", as distinct from "literary" or "Biblical Israel" was a subset of Canaanite culture. Canaan when used in this sense refers to the entire Ancient Near Eastern Levant down to about 100 AD, including the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. For example, Mark Smith in "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" states "Despite the long regnant model that the Canaanites and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and Canaanites in the Iron I period (ca. 1200–1000 BC). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period."

There is no evidence of Jewish presence in Egypt or in the Sinai desert. One would think that after hundreds of years in Egypt and 40 years in Sinai, Hebrews would've left traces of their culture - but they did not. Furthermore, we now have evidence that by the time Joshua came to Jericho, its walls were already destroyed by an earthquake, so they were not magically destroyed by the noise from the Hebrew's horns. And most importantly, Land of Canaan was occupied by Egypt at it's height of power. To suggest that Hebrews were able to defeat the Egyptians and establish a state in part of Egypt is like suggesting that a group of Gypsy migrants could attack the United States, conquer Florida and establish a state there. The Bible says that the Hebrews were in Egypt. Canaan was part of Egypt at the time when the events described in the Bible were taking place, so technically speaking, Hebrews were in Egypt.

During the Egyptian rule of Canaan, it reorganized the territory. As a result, many peasants were left homeless and had to live in their caravans. Egyptians began calling them "caravan people." The ancient Egyptian word for caravan people was similar to the word Hebrew. Hebrews were not a separate nation - they were merely peasant Canaanites who were left homeless. They made their residence in the Judean desert, which was part of the Egyptian empire at the time. "Joshua and the Hebrews were not conquerors of Canaanites. They were Canaanites," according to "Ancient Evidence: Joshua and the Walls of Jericho." What separated Hebrews from Canaanites was theology, not genetics: the peasant Canaanite caravan people did not eat pork, they believed in a single God, etc. Other than theology and poverty, Hebrews did not differ from any other Canaanite people. Originally, Hebrews referred to their God by the word "Baal" - which has come to mean "Lord" in the Hebrew language. Baal was the name of one of the Canaanite Gods.
Around the time when the Caravan People revolted against the Pharaoh, a series of natural disasters, including massive earthquakes swept through the land. This was interpreted by them as punishment of Egyptians by God. After a few years, Egyptians no longer wanted to hang on to the land that was constantly rocked by huge earthquakes and withdrew. The earthquakes continued on very regular basis for a total of about half a century, which explains why the Hebrews had to wonder around the (Judean) desert for 40 years and could not settle down. At the end of the series of earthquakes, the Caravan People revolted against the urban Canaanites who used to be wealthy before the earthquakes, but were now poor and not as well organized as the peasants. The peasants quickly defeated the urbanites, took over their cities and declared themselves to be "God's princes." The word for "God's Prince" is "Israelite."

The Philistines occupied the five cities of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath, along the coastal strip of southwestern Canaan, that belonged to Egypt up to the closing days of the Nineteenth Dynasty (ended 1185 BC).


In the 9th century BCE the area of Israel and the Palestine Territories was devided into the Kingdom of Israel (the Northern Kingdom) in the North, with cities as Shomron, Shechem, Jerash (including the West Bank), Beit El, Jericho and Jaffa, the Kingdom of Judea (the Southern Kingdom) in the centre, with cities as Lachish, Hebron, Be'ersheva and Jerusalem, the Philistine (Palestine) city states in the South-West, with cities as Ashdod, Ashkelon and Gaza, and the Kingdom of Edom in the South, with Petra as the main city.

Israel existed as an independent state until around 720 BC when it was conquered by the Assyrian Empire, just as Philistia, the Palestinian state. Many Jews fled south to Jerusalem, which appears to have expanded in size fivefold during this period, requiring a new wall to be built, and a new source of water (Siloam) to be provided by King Hezekiah.
In 604 BCE, when Assyrian troops commanded by the Babylonian empire carried off significant numbers of the population into slavery, the distinctly Philistine character of the coastal cities dwindled away, and the history of the Philistines as a distinct people effectively ended.
After the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel, the Kingdom of Judah continued to exist for about a century and a half until being conquered by the Babylonians, in 586 BC. The Babyloníans, under king Nebuchadnezzar II, captured Jerusalem. The First Temple was destroyed as was the city of Jerusalem. Much of the population was deported from the land and throughout the Babylonian Empire, putting an end to the independent Kingdom of Judah.
The House of David continued to be respected and recognised as leaders of the Babylonian Jewish community as Exilarchs. A Jewish kingdom was revived by the Maccabees four centuries later, in a modified form.
The Maccabees were a rebel army who liberated parts of the Land of Israel from the rule of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE, reasserting the Jewish religion, expanding the boundaries of Israel and reducing the influence of Hellenism.
From 63 BCE to 330 CE the area was under Roman rule. In 132 CE, the Emperor Hadrian changed the name of the province from Iudaea to Syria Palaestina, renamed Jerusalem "Aelia Capitolina" and built temples there to honor Jupiter. Christianity was practiced in secret and the Hellenization of Palestine continued under Septimius Severus (193–211 CE). New pagan cities were founded in Judea at Eleutheropolis (Bayt Jibrin), Diopolis (Lydd), and Nicopolis (Emmaus).
The name "Palestina" was not chosen because there were Philistines (Palestinians) living there (their history as a distinct people ended in 604 BCE), but to get rid of anything that reminded the Roman occupiers of the Jews.
From 330 to 640 the entire area was under Byzantine rule. Emperor Constantine I's conversion to Christianity around 330 CE made Christianity the official religion of Palaestina.

From 638 CE to 1099 CE the area was under the rule of the Arab Caliphate. Christians and Jews where considered People of the Book, enjoyed some protection but had to pay a special poll tax called jizyah. During the early years of Muslim control of the city, a small permanent Jewish population returned to Jerusalem after a 500-year absence.
Under Umayyad rule (661-750), the Byzantine province of Palaestina Prima became the administrative and military sub-province (jund) of Filastin – the Arabic name for Palestine from that point forward. It formed part of the larger province of ash-Sham (Arabic for Greater Syria). Jund Filastin (literally "the army of Palestine") was a region extending from the Sinai to the plain of Acre. Major towns included Rafah, , Gaza, Jaffa, and Jericho. Lod served as the headquarters of the province of Filastin and the capital later moved to Ramla. Jund al-Urdunn (literally "the army of Jordan") was a region to the north and east of Filastin which included the cities of Acre, Bisan and Tiberias.
After the 10th century, the division into Junds began to break down. In the second half of the 11th Century the Fatimids empire (969-1098) suffered setback from fighting with the Seljuk . Warfare between the Fatimids and Seljuks caused great disruption for the local Christians and for western pilgrims. The Fatimids had lost Jerusalem to the Seljuks in 1073, but recaptured it from the Ortoqids, a smaller Turkic tribe associated with the Seljuks, in 1098, just before the arrival of the crusaders.
From 1099 to 1187 the area was under Crusader rule.The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Christian kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. It lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks.
During the period of Crusader control, it has been estimated that Palestine had only 1,000 poor Jewish families. Jews fought alongside the Muslims in Jerusalem in 1099 and Haifa in 1100 against the Crusaders. They were not allowed to live in Jerusalem and initially most of cities saw the destruction of the Jewish communities, but communities did continue in the rural areas. For instance, it is known about at least 24 villages in the were Jews lived. Later in the history of the Crusaders state Jews settled in the Coastal cities. Unlike the treatment of Jews by the Crusaders Europe, where many Massacres occurred, in Palestine no distinction was made between Jews and other non Christians and there were no laws specifically against Jews. Some Jews from Europe visited the country, like Benjamin of Tudela who wrote about it. Maimonides escaped to Palestine from the in 1165 and visited Acre, Jerusalem and Hebron, finally settling in Fostat in Egypt.
From 1270 to 1516 the area was under Mamluk rule. The Mamluks, continuing the policy of the Ayyubids, made the strategic decision to destroy the coastal area and to bring desolation to many of its cities, from Tyre in the north to Gaza in the south. Ports were destroyed and various materials were dumped to make them inoperable. The goal was to prevent attacks from the sea, given the fear of the return of the crusaders. This had a long term affect on those areas, that remained sparsely populated for centuries. In Jerusalem, the walls, gates and fortifications were destroyed as well, for similar reasons. The activity in that time concentrated more inland. The Mamluks constructed a "postal road" from Cairo to Damascus, that included lodgings for travelers and bridges, some of which survive to this day (Jisr Jindas, near Lod). They also saw the construction of many schools and the renovation of mosques neglected or destroyed during the Crusader period.
In 1267 the Catalan Rabbi Nahmanides left Europe, seeking refuge in Muslim lands from Christian persecution, he made aliyah to Jerusalem. There he established a synagogue in the Old City that exists until present day, known as the Ramban Synagogue and re-established Jewish communal life in Jerusalem.
In 1486, hostilities broke out between the Mamluks and the Ottoman Turks in a battle for control over western Asia. The Mamluk armies were eventually defeated by the forces of the Ottoman Sultan, Selim I, and lost control of Palestine after the 1516 battle of Marj Dabiq.
From 1516 to 1831 and from 1841 to 1917 the area was under Ottoman rule. (The Egyptians ruled the area from 1831 to 1841, as a result of the 1831 Egyptian-Ottoman War, in which the Ottomans were assisted by British troops.)
After the Ottoman conquest, the name "Palestine" disappeared as the official name of an administrative unit, as the Turks often called their (sub)provinces after the capital. From 7 March 1799 to July 1799 was the French occupation of Jaffa, Haifa, and Caesarea. During the in Siege of Acre in 1799, Napoleon prepared a proclamation declaring a Jewish state in Palestine.
The end of the 19th century, during the Ottoman rule, saw the beginning of Zionist immigration. The "First Aliyah" was the first modern widespread wave of Zionist aliyah. Jews who migrated to Palestine in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. This wave of aliyah began in 1881–82 and lasted until 1903. An estimated 25,000–35,000 Jews immigrated during the First Aliyah. The First Aliyah laid the cornerstone for Jewish settlement in Israel and created several settlements such as Rishon LeZion, Rosh Pina, Zikhron Ya'aqov and Gedera. The "Second Aliyah" took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 40,000 Jews immigrated, mostly from Russia and Poland, and some from Yemen. The Second Aliyah immigrants were primarily idealists, inspired by the revolutionary ideals then sweeping the Russian Empire who sought to create a communal agricultural settlement system in Palestine. They thus founded the kibbutz movement. The first kibbutz, Degania, was founded in 1909. Tel Aviv was founded at that time, though its founders were not necessarily from the new immigrants. The Second Aliyah is largely credited with the Revival of the Hebrew language and establishing it as the standard language for Jews in Israel. contributed to the creation of the first modern Hebrew dictionary. Although he was an immigrant of the First Aliyah, his work mostly bore fruit during the second.
For 400 years foreigners enjoyed extraterritorial rights under the terms of the Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire. One American diplomat wrote that "Extraordinary privileges and immunities had become so embodied in successive treaties between the great Christian Powers and the Sublime Porte that for most intents and purposes many nationalities in the Ottoman empire formed a state within the state". The Moslem, Christian, and Jewish communities of Palestine were allowed to exercise jurisdiction over their own members according to charters granted to them. For centuries the Jews and Christians had enjoyed a large degree of communal autonomy in matters of worship, jurisdiction over personal status, taxes, and in managing their schools and charitable institutions. In the 19th century those rights were formally recognized as part of the reforms and when the communities were placed under the protection of European public law.
Under the Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916, it was envisioned that most of Palestine, when freed from Ottoman control, would become an international zone not under direct French or British colonial control. Shortly thereafter, British foreign minister Arthur Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which promised to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine.
The British-led Egyptian Expeditionary Force, commanded by Edmund Allenby, captured Jerusalem on 9 December 1917 and occupied the whole of the Levant following the defeat of Turkish forces in Palestine at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918 and the capitulation of Turkey on 31 October 1918.
From 1920 to 1948 the area was under the rule of the British Mandate. Great Britain administered Palestine on behalf of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1948, a period referred to as the "British Mandate." Two states were established within the boundaries of the Mandate territory, Palestine and Transjordan.The preamble of the mandate declared:
"Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." In April 1920 violent Arab disturbances against the Jews in Jerusalem occurred which became to be known as the 1920 Palestine riots. The riots followed rising tensions in Arab-Jewish relations over the implications of Zionist immigration. The British military administration's erratic response failed to contain the rioting, which continued for four days. As a result of the events, trust between the British, Jews, and Arabs eroded. One consequence was that the Jewish community increased moves towards an autonomous infrastructure and security apparatus parallel to that of the British administration.
Under the British Mandate, the country developed economically and culturally. In 1919 the Jewish community founded a centralized Hebrew school system, and the following year established the , the Jewish National Council and the labor federation. The Technion university was founded in 1924, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1925.
Sparked off by the death of Shaykh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam at the hands of the British police near Jenin in November 1935, in the years 1936–1939 the Arabs participated in an uprising and protest against British rule and against mass Jewish Immigration. The revolt manifested in a strike and armed insurrection started sporadically, becoming more organized with time. Attacks were mainly directed at British strategic installation such as the Trans Arabian Pipeline (TAP) and railways, and to a lesser extent against Jewish settlements, secluded Jewish neighborhoods in the mixed cities, and Jews, both individually and in groups. The British responded to the violence by greatly expanding their military forces and clamping down on Arab dissent. "Administrative detention" (imprisonment without charges or trial), curfews, and house demolitions were among British practices during this period. More than 120 Arabs were sentenced to death and about 40 hanged. The main Arab leaders were arrested or expelled.
The Haganah (Hebrew for "defense"), an illegal Jewish paramilitary organization, actively supported British efforts to quell the insurgency, which reached 10,000 Arab fighters at their peak during the summer and fall of 1938. Although the British administration didn't officially recognize the Haganah, the British security forces cooperated with it by forming the Jewish Settlement Police and Special Night Squads.
The revolt did not achieve its goals, although it is "credited with signifying the birth of the Arab Palestinian identity.".[168] It is generally credited with forcing the issuance of the White Paper of 1939 which renounced Britain's intent of creating a Jewish National Home in Palestine, as proclaimed in the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
Another outcome of the hostilities was the partial disengagement of the Jewish and Arab economies in Palestine, which were more or less intertwined until that time. For example, whereas the Jewish city of Tel Aviv previously relied on the nearby Arab seaport of Jaffa, hostilities dictated the construction of a separate Jewish-run seaport for Tel-Aviv.
When the Second World War broke out, the Jewish population sided with Britain. As in most of the Arab world, there was no unanimity amongst the Palestinian Arabs as to their position regarding the combatants in World War II. A number of leaders and public figures saw an victory as the likely outcome and a way of securing Palestine back from the Zionists and the British. Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, spent the rest of the war in Nazi Germany and the occupied areas, in particular encouraging Muslim to join the Waffen SS in German-conquered Bosnia. About 6,000 Palestinian Arabs and 30,000 Palestinian Jews joined the British forces.
Starting in 1939 and throughout the war and the Holocaust, the British reduced the number of immigrants allowed into Palestine, following the publication of the MacDonald White Paper. Once the 15,000 annual quota was exceeded, Jews fleeing Nazi persecution were placed in detention camps or deported to places such as Mauritius.
In early 1947 the British Government announced their desire to terminate the Mandate, and asked the United Nations General Assembly to make recommendations regarding the future of the country. The British Administration declined to accept the responsibility for implementing any solution that wasn't acceptable to both the Jewish and the Arab communities, or to allow other authorities to take over responsibility for public security prior to the termination of its mandate on 15 May 1948.
On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted 33 to 13 with 10 abstentions, in favour of a plan to partition the territory into separate Jewish and Arab states, under economic union, with the Greater Jerusalem area (encompassing Bethlehem) coming under international control. Zionist leaders (including the Jewish Agency), accepted the plan, while Palestinian Arab leaders rejected it and all independent Muslim and Arab states voted against it. Almost immediately, sectarian violence erupted and spread, killing over the ensuing months hundreds of Arabs, Jews and British.
The rapid evolution of events precipitated into a Civil War. Arab volunteers of the Arab Liberation Army entered Palestine to fight with the Palestinians, but the April-May offensive of Yishuv's forces crushed the Arabs and Palestinian society collapsed. Some 300,000 to 350,000 Palestinians caught up in the turmoil fled or were driven from their homes.
On 14 May, the Jewish Agency declared the independence of the state of Israel. The neighbouring Arab state intervened to prevent the partition and support the Palestinian Arab population. While Transjordan took control of territory designated for the future Arab State, Syrian, Iraqi and Egyptian expeditionary forces attacked Israel without success. The most intensive battles were waged between the Jordanian and Israeli forces over the control of Jerusalem.
On June 11, a truce was accepted by all parties. Israel used the lull to undertake a large-scale reinforcement of its army. In a series of military operations, it then conquered the whole of the Galilee region, both the Lydda and Ramle areas, and the Negev. It also managed to secure, in the Battles of Latrun, a road linking Jerusalem to Israel. In this phase, 350,000 more Arab Palestinians fled or were expelled from the conquered areas.
During the first 6 months of 1949, negotiations between the belligerents came to terms over armistice lines that delimited Israel's borders. On the other side, no Palestinian Arab state was founded: Jordan annexed the Arab territories of the Mandatory regions of Samaria and Judea (today known as the West Bank), as well as East Jerusalem, while the Gaza strip came under Egyptian administration.
On the same day that the State of Israel was announced, the Arab League announced that it would set up a single Arab civil administration throughout Palestine, and launched an attack on the new Israeli state. The All-Palestine government was declared in Gaza on 1 October 1948, partly as an Arab League move to limit the influence of Transjordan over the Palestinian issue. The former mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was appointed as president. The government was recognised by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, but not by Transjordan (later known as Jordan) or any non-Arab country. It was little more than an Egyptian protectorate and had negligible influence or funding. Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the area allocated to the Palestinian Arabs and the international zone of Jerusalem were occupied by Israel and the neighboring Arab states in accordance with the terms of the 1949 Armistice Agreements. Palestinian Arabs living in the Gaza Strip or Egypt were issued with All-Palestine passports until 1959, when Gamal Abdul Nasser, president of Egypt, issued a decree that annulled the All-Palestine government.
In addition to the UN-partitioned area allotted to the Jewish state, Israel captured and incorporated a further 26% of the Mandate territory (namely of the territory to the west of the Jordan river). Jordan , which it referred to as the West Bank (to differentiate it from the newly-named East Bank – the original Transjordan). Jerusalem was divided, with Jordan taking the eastern parts, including the Old City, and Israel taking the western parts. The Gaza Strip was captured by Egypt. In addition, Syria held on to small slivers of Mandate territory to the south and east of the West Bank, which had been allocated in the UN partition plan to the Jewish state.
In the course of the Six Day War in June 1967, Israel captured the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.

So if the history of the Philistines as a distinct people ended in 604 BCE, who were these "new" Palestinians and were did they come from?



American historian Bernard Lewis writes:
"Clearly, in Palestine as elsewhere in the Middle East, the modern inhabitants include among their ancestors those who lived in the country in antiquity. Equally obviously, the demographic mix was greatly modified over the centuries by migration, deportation, immigration, and settlement. This was particularly true in Palestine..."
Ali Qleibo, a Palestinian anthropologist, explains:
"Throughout history a great diversity of peoples has moved into the region and made Palestine their homeland: Jebusites, Canaanites, Philistines from Crete, Anatolian and Greeks, Hebrews, Amorites, Edomites, Nabateans, Arameans, Romans, Arabs, and European crusaders, to name a few. Each of them appropriated different regions that overlapped in time and competed for sovereignty and land. Others, such as Ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Persians, Babylonians, and Mongols, were historical 'events' whose successive occupations were as ravaging as the effects of major earthquakes ... Like shooting stars, the various cultures shine for a brief moment before they fade out of official historical and cultural records of Palestine. The people, however, survive. In their customs and manners, fossils of these ancient civilizations survived until modernity—albeit modernity camouflaged under the veneer of Islam and Arabic culture."
Much of the local Palestinian population in Nablus is believed to be descended from Samaritans (Jews) who converted to Islam. Even today, certain Nabulsi surnames including Muslimani, Yaish, and Shakshir among others, are associated with a Samaritan origin.
Samaritans refer to themselves as Bene Yisrael ("Children of Israel") which is a term used by all Jewish denominations as a name for the Jewish people as a whole. They however do not refer to themselves as Yehudim (Judeans), the standard Hebrew name for Jews, considering the latter to denote only mainstream Jews.
The Talmudic attitude expressed in tractate Kutim is that they are to be treated as Jews in matters where their practice coincides with the mainstream but are treated as non-Jews where their practice differs. Since the 19th century, mainstream Judaism has regarded the Samaritans as a Jewish sect and the term Samaritan Jews has been used for them.

In a 2004 article on the genetic ancestry of the Samaritans, Shen, et al. concluded from a sample comparing Samaritans to several Jewish populations, all currently living in Israel — representing , Ashkenazi Jews, Iraqi Jews, Libyan Jews, Moroccan Jews, and Yemenite Jews, as well as Druze and non-Druze Palestinians — that the principal components analysis suggested a common ancestry of Samaritan and Jewish patrilineages. Most of the former may be traced back to a common ancestor in what is today identified as the paternally-inherited Israelite high priesthood (Cohanim) with a common ancestor projected to the time of the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel.

Whatever today's Palestinians may be, they are Semites, just like the Jews. History shows us that the Jews and the Arabs from this region have lived peacefully alongside each other for many, many centuries, that their biggest mutual enemies were the Romans and the Christians, and that their friendship came to an end because of Revisionist (Nationalist) Zionism. The revisionists advocated the formation of a Jewish Army in Palestine to force the Arab population to accept mass Jewish migration. Revisionist Zionism evolved into the Likud Party in Israel, which has dominated most governments since 1977. It advocates Israel maintaining control of the West-Bank and East Jerusalem and takes a hard-line approach in the Israeli-Arab conflict. In 2005 the Likud split over the issue of creation of a Palestinian state on the occupied territories and party members advocating peace talks helped form the Kadima party. Likud now leads the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Most current Likud members support the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and oppose Palestinian statehood and the disengagement from Gaza.

Jews are Semites as well as Palestinians are Semites, but in all their (religious and political) differences they are so alike: they use the Hebrew Bible (or the Quoran) when it suits them, they use modern democratic rules when it suits them, they use the Jewish Laws (or the Sharia) when it suits them, and they use the United Nations when it suits them.
Innocents abroad (like Western politicians) should realise that. Any traffic warden realises that.