Reply #42: How oddly incoherent.

[Igel]

When writing about history one has to keep in mind history. One cannot discuss "Maryland" in 2000 BC, or the Western Shoshone's present in Nevada and Utah in 100 AD or the "Cree" language in 4000 BC. They are 'facts' that arose at a given time: Maryland required a speech act, the Western Shoshone required migration and ethnogenesis, and the Cree language resulted from language change long after 4000 BC. The territory currently covered by Maryland existed in 2000 BC, but almost certainly not as the quasi-coherent entity it now is. The ancestors of the Western Shoshone existed in 100 AD, but almost certainly not as Western Shoshone. A linguistic system that changed to become Cree existed in 4000 BC, but many of the features necessary to define it at Cree, to identity it as Cree, didn't yet exist.

We use sometimes use terms as though they inherently mean something outside of any context. This allows their meanings to be adapted, flexed, expanded and contracted as needed to make sure that the argument goes through.

Sometimes details matter. I had a roommate who said he was Pol-Russ. He was Jewish. But he said his grandfather had been born in Poland to parents who were born and raised in Lithuania; that he was raised in Russia, died in Poland, and is buried in Belorussia. Which is to say, he, like his parents, was born, lived his life, died and was buried in one little village. He could be said to be Polish. Or Russian. Or Belorussian. Or all three, although he was of Lithuanian descent, yet none of the above. Area of residence, ethnicity, language, and citizenship are confused because we use one term for all of them and can't think, "Gee, what does this term mean?" before we use it.

"Palestinian" means a number of different things. It is polysemous. It can refer, for some, to the Philistines--the probably non-Semitic peoples that occupied the southern Levant coast in 1000 BC. They were newcomers to the area. The area it extends over varies over time: Sometimes Jerusalem is Palestinian, sometimes it isn't. Jesus was born in the area now called Palestine, if you buy the Gospel narrative; he was not a Palestinian in the ethnic sense that developed mostly in the 20th century, or in the sense generally used in this millennium (by which time the generic Palestinian was Arab). While the population is genetically similar to what it was 2k years ago, it's also true that Arabization proceeded mostly by assimilation of the then-current population and that ethnogenesis tends to not fall neatly along genetic lines. Forgetting about polysemy and letting terms wander aimlessly around even after they're supposed to be harnessed and pulling a particular train of thought is fine rhetoric. But let's not confuse speech with reality, and speech acts with deeds. If an eggbeater in somebody's gray matter can destroy geopolitical reality spanning thousands of square miles and thousands of years with a simple turn of the crank, then we need to back up and reconsider what "reality" is.

As for the Ma'an article, I'd point out that using the same terms in the sloppy manner would force us to admit that Bibi Netanyahu was born in Palestine, and is therefore Palestinian. He is consequently an elected leader of a Palestinian state, elected by Palestinians--although I'm sure Abbas would not be pleased to have it pointed out that there is a more legitimately elected Palestinian leader to represent the Palestinians than Abbas himself. Therefore the occupation is basically fratricide and cannot be genocide nor can it be apartheid. Or we can introduce rigor into keeping terms unchanged and historically correct--requiring a bit of mental sophistication and concentration--and let the current understanding be expressed in the commonly used terms, according to their current common definitions. (Of course, we then introduce the word "indigenous," which is true of Palestinian qua current ethnicity--they produced a moderately distinct ethnicity there; then again, Israeli is also an ethnicity unlike Polish or German or even Egyptian, and that ethnicity is also indigenous to the area. Terms are squirrelly. It's best to keep them grounded and not to follow them up trees after nuts or as they jump from branch to branch.)