The question of when did the palestinians come to israel isn’t just a history lesson. Honestly, it’s one of the most heated debates on the planet. If you spend five minutes on social media, you’ll see people shouting that one group has been there since the Stone Age while the other just showed up last Tuesday. But history is messy. It doesn’t fit into a tidy 30-second clip.
People have been moving in and out of that tiny slice of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea for thousands of years. It’s a land bridge. It connects Africa, Asia, and Europe. Of course everyone walked through it. Of course people stayed. To understand when Palestinians became "Palestinian" and how they relate to the land of Israel, you have to look at layers of DNA, empires, and language shifts that span millennia.
The Identity Layer: Canaanites and Early Roots
First off, we need to talk about the "Canaanite" elephant in the room. Genetic studies—real ones, like the 2020 study published in Cell led by Lily Agranat-Tamir—show that most modern populations in the Levant, including both Palestinians and Jews, share a massive chunk of their DNA with the ancient Canaanites. These were the folks living there roughly 3,500 to 4,500 years ago.
They didn't just vanish.
When empires like the Assyrians, Babylonians, or Romans swept through, they didn't usually deport every single person living in every single village. They took the elites. They took the craftsmen. But the farmers? They stayed. They kept tilling the soil. Over centuries, these people changed their religions. They changed their languages. A family that was pagan in 1500 BCE might have become Jewish in 800 BCE, then Christian in 300 CE, and eventually Muslim after the Arab conquests in the 7th century.
So, when we ask when did the palestinians come to israel, the biological answer for many is: they didn't "come" from anywhere else; they were already there, just under different names.
The Arab Conquest and the Language Shift
The year 634 CE changed everything. This is when the Muslim Arab armies under the Rashidun Caliphate moved into the region. This is a crucial moment for the "Arabization" of the area. But here is the thing: "Arab" back then didn't mean a massive replacement of the population. It wasn't like the entire population of the Arabian Peninsula moved to Jerusalem.
It was more of a cultural takeover.
The local people—who were mostly Greek-speaking Christians, Samaritans, and Jews at the time—gradually adopted the Arabic language and Islamic faith. This process took hundreds of years. By the time the Crusaders showed up in 1099, the majority of the population was Arabic-speaking, though still religiously diverse. This "indigenous" mix of people forms the backbone of the Palestinian ancestry. They are the descendants of the various groups that inhabited the land through the Byzantine, Umayyad, and Abbasid periods.
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The Ottoman Centuries and Migration Myths
For 400 years, from 1517 to 1917, the Ottoman Empire ruled the roost. If you’re looking for a specific time when people moved, this is where it gets interesting.
The population wasn't static. People moved between Damascus, Cairo, and Jerusalem like we move between states today. It was all one big empire. Some critics of Palestinian indigeneity point to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, arguing that most Palestinians "came" to the land during the Zionist Aliyahs to find work.
Is there truth to that? Sorta.
There was definitely migration. You had Bosnians fleeing the Austro-Hungarian Empire who settled in Caesarea. You had Egyptians moving north during the rule of Ibrahim Pasha in the 1830s. You had Algerians fleeing French colonialism. But the idea that the land was "empty" before 1880 is just historically wrong. Ottoman census records from the 1870s show a settled population of hundreds of thousands of Arabic speakers. They were living in established cities like Nablus, Hebron, and Jaffa. They weren't tourists.
The 19th Century Population Boom
Let's look at the numbers because they matter. In the mid-1800s, the population of Palestine was around 350,000. By 1914, it was closer to 700,000. Why the jump?
- Better Healthcare: Simple stuff. Less plague, better sanitation.
- Stability: The Ottomans tightened up their administration.
- Economic Opportunity: As Jewish pioneers started building farms and European powers started investing in the Holy Land, jobs appeared.
Yes, workers came from Hauran (Syria) and Egypt. Historians like Joan Peters (in her controversial book From Time Immemorial) argued that most Palestinians were recent immigrants. However, many mainstream historians, like Yehoshua Porath, have debunked the idea that migration accounted for the majority of the population growth. Most of it was natural increase. The people were already there. They were just having more kids who actually survived to adulthood.
The British Mandate and the Birth of "Palestinian"
Before 1920, if you asked a guy in Ramallah who he was, he might say he was a Syrian, a Muslim, or a member of his specific clan. The term "Palestinian" as a national identity really gelled under the British Mandate.
It was a reaction.
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As Zionist immigration increased and the British began formalizing borders, the local Arabic-speaking population started seeing themselves as a distinct political group. They weren't just "Arabs" generally—they were the people of Palestine. This is when the question of when did the palestinians come to israel gets complicated by semantics. The people had been there for generations, but the national identity was newborn.
The DNA Evidence Doesn't Lie
If you want to get away from the politics, look at the biology. Modern genetic research is pretty clear. A 2017 study on the "Continuity and Admixture in the Last Five Millennia of Levantine History" showed that modern Levantines (Palestinians, Lebanese, Druze) derive over 80% of their ancestry from Bronze Age populations.
Basically, the people living in the West Bank or Gaza today are genetically very similar to the people who were living there during the time of King David or the Roman occupation. They didn't just "arrive" in 1948 or 1880. They are a mosaic. They are what happens when you leave a population in one spot for 3,000 years and let every passing empire leave a little bit of its DNA behind.
Common Misconceptions to Toss Out
People love simple narratives. They’re easy to digest. But they’re usually wrong.
One big myth is that "Palestinians are just Saudis." While some families can trace their lineage back to the Arabian Peninsula (often through prestigious tribal names), the vast majority of the population consists of the descendants of local converts.
Another myth is that "there were no Arabs in Jerusalem until the 1900s." Mark Twain is often quoted here. He visited in 1867 and called the land "desolate." But Twain was a travel writer looking for a punchline. He visited during the dry season and stayed on the main roads. If you look at Ottoman tax records from the same decade, you see thousands of thriving olive groves and bustling village markets.
So, When Did They Actually Arrive?
The answer is "in waves."
- Ancient Era: The indigenous foundation (Canaanites, Jebusites, Philistines).
- 7th Century: The Arab elite and soldiers (relatively small numbers).
- 9th-12th Centuries: Migration from the wider Islamic world (Persians, Kurds).
- 1830s: A wave of Egyptian laborers and soldiers.
- 1880s-1940s: Regional migration from Syria, Lebanon, and Transjordan seeking work in the growing Mandate economy.
If you’re looking for a single date, you won’t find it. Palestinian history is a story of accumulation. It’s not a story of a single "arrival" event like the Mayflower.
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What This Means for the Modern Context
Understanding the timeline helps cut through the "who was here first" game, which is mostly a dead end. International law and modern human rights don't usually care who was there in 1000 BCE. They care about who has lived there for the last several generations.
The Palestinians have a documented, continuous presence in the land that stretches back centuries, with deep ancestral roots that go back millennia. At the same time, the Jewish connection to the land is archaeologically and historically undeniable. Both things are true.
When you ask when did the palestinians come to israel, the most honest answer is that they grew out of the land itself, through a long process of cultural and religious evolution, supplemented by regional migrations that characterize every single country in the Middle East.
Practical Steps for Deeper Research
If you really want to get into the weeds of this, stop reading opinion pieces.
Go to the primary sources. Look at the Ottoman Tapu (land registry) records. They are dry and boring, but they list names, plots of land, and taxes paid in the 16th and 17th centuries. It’s hard to argue with a tax bill from 1550.
Check out the Survey of Western Palestine conducted by the British in the 1870s. It’s a massive, multi-volume set that maps every single ruin, village, and well. It provides a snapshot of the land just before modern Zionism began to change the landscape.
Finally, read "The Palestinian People: A History" by Kimmerling and Migdal. It’s widely considered one of the most balanced academic looks at how this specific national identity formed.
History isn't a weapon; it's a map. The more you know about the specific migrations and the long-term continuity of the people in the Levant, the less likely you are to fall for the "empty land" or "foreign invaders" myths that dominate the conversation today.
Actionable Insights:
- Verify DNA Claims: Look at peer-reviewed journals like Nature or The American Journal of Human Genetics rather than blog posts when investigating "who is indigenous."
- Study the Ottoman Era: Focus on the "Tanzimat" reforms of the 1800s to see how land ownership and population shifted before the British arrived.
- Distinguish Between People and Labels: Recognize that the people existed long before the modern political labels of "Palestinian" or "Israeli" were formalized.
- Consult Population Surveys: Use the 1922 and 1931 British Mandate censuses to see granular data on where people were living and what languages they spoke.