Well I just read the biggest pile of horseshit, where Palestinians are of course protrayed as the colonizers and repeats every pathetic myth and talking point I've heard and rolls it up into a pretty bad article.

The article begins by claiming to be about how Jews are indiginous. If I were to make this arguement, I'd point out that there has been Jewish inhabitation of historic Palestine continously for thousands of years, and that at no point was Palestine without a Jewish population

I'd also explain the concept of ancestral land, & how we shouldn't try to apply standards meant for European colonization to a more complex situation in the Middle East. Instead, Ryan Bellrose only mentions Jews a tiny bit before focusing on Palestinians in his Tabletmag article

He makes it very clear the purpose of his article is to deny Palestinian claims to the land. When you have to focus on denying other's claims, you have a very weak arguement. Here is his claims about my people, which I will address in turn.

It should be clear his ignorance when it comes to Arabs. When Arabs arrived to areas of the Middle East, such as Palestine and Iraq, they intermarried with the local population. In fact in his ignorance, he mentions the Arabs conquering local populations.

He of course makes the mistake to assume Arabs forced coverted the populations. But what's important is to understand Arabs intermarried with the new converts as religion was the main thing that mattered. Up until the late 1800s, Arabs were only those who were bedouins

He then compares us to White Europeans in America. This is a farce. We would be more like a Mestizo. Additionally would he claim the English are not indiginous to England because they came from Germany originally?

His erasing of Arabs intermixed with locals essintially is him claiming Syrians, Egyptians, Iraqis etc have no claim to the land they live in, an absolute absurdity. Gulf Arabs are different than their Levant or North African brothers.

He also has an obsession with religion. It's true Jews have holy places and rituals in Eretz Israel. It's also true historic Palestine is home to many Christian and Muslim holysites. It should be noted Jews are an ethno-religious groups, while Christians and Muslims aren't

His ignorance includes claiming Jerusalem isn't holy to Islam due to it not being mentioned in the Quran, ignoring hadiths and traditions. In fact originally the Prophet PBUH had us face towards Jerusalem in prayers before switching it to facing the Kaaba

What's more revealing is he at no point mentions Palestinian Chrisitians, who make up 20 percent of Palestinian diaspora, and who were founders of modern Palestinian identity. Why? Because it in turn ruins his portrayal of Palestinians as Islamic conquerers

Palestine and Palestinians were terms used by Greeks to discribe all people between Phonicia (Lebanon), and Egypt. It was a term used by Romans then Arab caliphates. Many of the people who lived there during the conquest became Muslims while others remained Jewish, & Christian

This meant that our roots went well past 1400 years, though that should be more than long enough to make someone indigious. Our ancestors include Samartians, Jews, as well as other indiginous and migrantory peoples (Kurds, Circassians, etc)

Bellrose's ignorace even includes the false claim that before 48, Palestinians only meant Jews. Khalil Beidas uses the term Palestinian to refer to his people in 1898, and Tawfiq Canaan used Palestinians in many of his works about his people (Both are Palestinian Christians)

Bellrose mentions how some Palestinian leaders attempt to erase Jewish heritage to the land, which is an absurd thing for them to do, while he himself does it to Palestinians. While Bellrose may be an "activist", he is not a historian.