On the term "Palestinian"

The prominent Israeli blogger Yisrael Medad has been looking into the history and application of the term "Palestinian".

He writes, inter alia:

'The term "Palestinian Arabs" is ubiquitous today. It means there is a "Palestine", and some people, too many, presume there always was a "Palestine", and that it is/was a state, a very real geo-political entity and that it was Arab. These Arabs that were "Palestinian" always existed as a national group. And then, the Jews came and stole it away. That's a very short version.

"Palestinian" is now applied only to Arabs, as if there is/was a political, social and demographic identity of Arabs as distinctly "Palestinian". Not Syrian. Not Jordanian (more on this later) or any other Arab community....

Taken all together, the object in the usage of "Palestinian Arabs" is first and foremost not connected with Arabs but to negate and deny any Jewish connection or rights to the geographical entity known as the Land of Israel (Eretz-Yisrael)....

I've said it before and I will say it again, in the history of the world, Palestine has never existed as a nation. The region known as Palestine was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their ancestral homeland. It was never ruled by Arabs as a separate nation.

         ... when did the term come into use. What was its history?'

To find out, read all of Yisrael Medad's post:

http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/03/on-usage-of-palestinian-arabs-in-1920s.html