Just because there were all sorts of people living in historic Palestine that used the word “Palestinian” to mean a geographic origin does not mean that the people that are known today as Palestinians do not exist as a people with the right to its own self determination and nationhood. Saying that kind of thing because Palestinian Jews existed (who today in their vast majority clearly identify as blue-passport Israeli, and no longer as Palestinian) is at best as ludicrous as the stupid claim that “Arabs cannot possibly be anti-Semitic as they are themselves Semites”. At worst the denial of the existence of Palestinians as a people is Putin style genocidal language.

I don’t know of any Jewish people genuinely identifying themselves with that people. When Golda Meir was saying she is a Palestinian she was not identifying the Arabs, Muslims and Christians as her compatriots, she was doing it to deny them peoplehood. And again, no, the existence of the Mizrahim, the Arab Jews does not imply that the term Arab does not today have a specific meaning in the Israeli-Palestinian context. When Israeli fascists chant “death to Arabs” the don’t mean the Mizrahim…

On the other hand I know plenty Muslims, Christians and atheists who do identify as Palestinian. The Israeli state does the same thing giving these people green passports and prohibiting their descendants from entering.

I’m Greek. My country made a huge stupid stink about the Macedonians. The fact that historic Macedon was Greek does not mean that Macedonians as a people don’t exist. The fact that Macedonia the region contains Macedonian Greeks, Macedonian Albanians, Macedonian Bulgarians does not mean that the Macedonian people don’t exist. I’m an anti-nationalist from the Balkans, buddy, not some naive amerikanaki, ready to swallow national ideologies and mythologies with wide eyes.