My Distant Ancestors In Arabia Were The First Palestinians

By Saeb Erekat

I have had quite enough of the Zionist trope that “Jews are from Judea; Arabs are from Arabia.” It’s nice and pat, and pretty straightforward, but it pointedly neglects the fact that my distant ancestors in Arabia were the first Palestinians.

It’s not hard to comprehend: my ancestors were whoever might make it possible for me to claim they had an established civilization and culture in Palestine before Jews came and took it all away. That can change from week to week. It’s the Philistines until you point out they were foreign seafaring people from the Aegean; it’s the Canaanites until you note that those seem to have disappeared from the historical record in ancient times; it’s the Muslims until you remember the Muslim conquest happened in the seventh century CE and that many of today’s Palestinian Muslims are descended from migrants who came from everywhere else. The point is that actual evidence is secondary to the emotional resonance of the claim of indigenous status. That being the case, it is perfectly congruent for me to assert that my distant ancestors in Arabia were the first Palestinians. Anything to one-up the Jews.

Preempting Jewish claims, after all, is one of our civilization’s great pastimes. Christians got there first with replacement theology, but we Muslims have taken it much further, projecting all of our shortcomings onto the Jews and blasting them for it – literally, when we can manage. We accuse the victims of the greatest genocide of committing the same crime. We squat on lands all over the place while accusing them of stealing it. We steal water and blame them for creating the resulting problems.

We deny they have any heritage that connects them to this land by calling them the descendants of central Asian Khazar converts, when in fact that holds no genetic water – all while claiming to be descended of ancient inhabitants of this land despite last names meaning “Egyptian,” “from Aleppo,” “From the western coastal region of Saudi Arabia,” and the like. My own tribal affiliation is a group that came from northern Arabia – modern-day Jordan – in the nineteenth century. And that’s exactly what I’m saying: the important thing is to drown out the other side with rhetoric, not to support that rhetoric with actual, credible evidence. Thus, as a Palestinian I can claim that nationality through my distant forebears in the deserts of Arabia.

Did I say Arabia? Wait, that was so last week. This week we’re claiming to be descended of the Natufians.