One of the lynchpins of palestinian propaganda in recent times has been the indigenous argument – the claim they are the indigenous people of this land. Of course, it is utter baloney – as Israellycool contributor Ryan Bellerose has shown on numerous occasions, it is the Jewish people who fall under the definition of indigenous. At best, the Arabs who were here at the time we returned on mass to our homeland after centuries in exile have rights of longstanding presence. But indigenous they ain’t – something they even used to admit.
In fact, I would credit Ryan with helping bring this idea back to the mainstream discourse among Zionist Jews, and, as usual, the other side co-opted the claim. Around the same time, we have seen them and their supporters refer to the palestinian Arabs as “brown people”, which both plays in to this idea of indigenousness but also evokes the idea of an intersectional bond between the palestinian Arabs, African Americans, and other marginalized groups (not including Jews, of course, because No Jews Allowed).
This week, on anti-Israel propaganda site Quds News Network (QNN), we see an example of this in action:
(For the record, the person who tweeted this, Samar Jarrah, identifies as a “Kuwait-born Palestinian-American”, but the surname Jarrah comes from Saudi Arabia, a further hint to her likely true roots).
But here’s the kicker…
(and biter and puncher)
The reason that ‘Shirley Temper’ Ahed Tamimi was passed off as a Ukranian girl is because he looks like one! Or more specifically from Bosnia – her family could very well be Bushnaks descended from Bosniak soldiers who were brought to Palestine in the late 1800s to provide reinforcements for the Ottoman army.
These two posts from QNN show how their indigenous argument is more aptly a disingenuous argument. If the haters like QNN want to claim palestinian Arabs are indigenous and use their appearance as some kind of proof, they cannot have it both ways. Just like many palestinian Arabs look “White”, many Jews – who they constantly refer to as “White colonizers” – look very “brown” and Middle Eastern.
Being indigenous has nothing to do with one’s appearance. I should know.
Thanks to Uri for first drawing my attention to the Shirley Temper photos.