For most Western audiences, the story of Israel and Palestine begins abruptly in 1948. In textbooks and television coverage, Palestinians appear as if they were born at the very moment Israel was declared. The war is framed as a sudden eruption, with the Palestinian people cast either as refugees without a past or as obstacles to a new state. This narrative truncation has profound consequences for how we understand the present conflict.
Zachary J. Foster, a Jewish historian of Palestine and founder of the digital archive Palestine Nexus, has spent years challenging this narrative. His research shows that Palestinians carried a strong sense of identity long before Israel’s founding, and that their displacement did not end with the Nakba. Instead, expulsion became a recurring method, carried forward through law, bureaucracy, and military force across multiple decades.
“History did not begin on October 7,” Foster emphasizes, referring to the tendency to view complex historical situations through the lens of singular dramatic events. “If you keep the lens that narrow, you miss what Palestinians have lived through for more than a century.”
This approach follows Foster’s methodology, looking both backward to the pre-1948 period and forward to the decades of displacement that followed. It is an attempt to tell the longer story, one that Western readers rarely hear, but one that Palestinians continue to live. By examining the documentary evidence of Palestinian identity before 1948 and tracing the patterns of displacement after it, we can better understand how historical narratives shape contemporary political realities.
Palestine Before the State: Documents of Identity
Passports and Legal Recognition
In 1925, Britain issued the Palestinian Citizenship Order-in-Council, establishing a legal category of Palestinian citizenship that would remain in effect until 1948. The brown passports that followed carried the word “Palestine” in English, Arabic, and Hebrew. They were accepted at border crossings around the world, allowing their holders to travel from Damascus to New York, from Cairo to London.
These documents represent more than bureaucratic artifacts. They demonstrate that “Palestinian” was a recognized identity in international law and diplomacy. A person holding such a passport was acknowledged worldwide as Palestinian, not simply as an Arab or a resident of a geographic region. The passports contained photographs, personal details, and official stamps that marked their bearers as citizens of Palestine under the British Mandate.
Foster highlights these documents to counter the claim that Palestinians were merely “a nameless mass of Arabs” before 1948. The existence of Palestinian citizenship, codified in law and recognized internationally, proves that Palestinian identity had official status and legal meaning. When critics argue that Palestinian identity was invented after the creation of Israel, these passports serve as concrete evidence to the contrary.
The significance extends beyond the documents themselves to what they represent: a bureaucratic infrastructure that treated Palestine as a distinct political entity. Immigration offices, customs houses, and consular services around the world processed these passports according to the same procedures used for other national documents. This administrative recognition reinforced Palestinian identity in practical, everyday terms.
Newspapers that Named a Nation
In 1911, cousins Issa and Yousef al-Issa founded a newspaper in Jaffa called Falastin. Over nearly four decades, it became one of the most influential Arabic dailies in the region. Its masthead displayed the word “Palestine” every single day, anchoring the name in public consciousness across multiple generations of readers.
Falastin was more than a news publication; it served as a forum for Palestinian intellectual and political discourse. The paper reported extensively on land disputes between Palestinian farmers and incoming Zionist settlers, criticized British Mandate policies that favored Jewish immigration, and covered cultural debates about Arab identity and Palestinian distinctiveness. Its editorial stance consistently defended Palestinian interests while fostering a sense of shared community among its diverse readership.
The newspaper’s circulation extended from urban professionals in Jerusalem and Haifa to rural communities throughout Palestine. Shopkeepers discussed its articles, teachers referenced its reporting, and political activists used its pages to organize resistance efforts. Through daily consumption of news framed explicitly as Palestinian, readers developed what Benedict Anderson would call an “imagined community” centered on Palestinian identity.
Foster argues that such media outlets prove that “Palestine” was not simply invented in 1948 as a response to Israeli statehood. The name appeared in headlines, advertisements, and opinion pieces for decades before the war. Readers internalized Palestinian identity through regular exposure to news presented from a distinctly Palestinian perspective, creating cultural foundations that predated political independence.
The longevity of Falastin also demonstrates the durability of Palestinian identity across changing political circumstances. The newspaper operated under Ottoman rule, through World War I, and throughout the British Mandate period, maintaining consistent editorial support for Palestinian interests despite shifting political winds. This continuity suggests that Palestinian identity was not merely reactive to external events but had developed its own internal logic and momentum.
Coins, Stamps, and Everyday Symbols
Between 1927 and 1946, Mandate authorities issued coins and stamps inscribed with the name Palestine in three languages. The coins bore Arabic text reading “Filastin,” English text reading “Palestine,” and Hebrew text reading “Palestina” with additional letters indicating Eretz Yisrael. Similarly, postage stamps carried trilingual inscriptions that circulated Palestinian identity through everyday commercial transactions.
These items matter precisely because of their ordinariness. A shopkeeper in Jerusalem receiving payment, a farmer in Galilee buying supplies, or a family in Gaza sending letters all handled objects that declared “Palestine” in multiple languages. The constant circulation of such items embedded Palestinian identity in the most routine aspects of daily life, making it impossible to conduct normal business without encountering the name Palestine.
The trilingual inscriptions also reveal the complex linguistic landscape of Mandate Palestine. By including Arabic, English, and Hebrew text, the authorities acknowledged that Palestine contained multiple communities while maintaining that all operated within a shared political framework called Palestine. Even as tensions mounted between different groups, the coins and stamps continued to assert Palestinian identity as the overarching category.
Foster emphasizes that such everyday objects create what historians call “banal nationalism” or routine reinforcement of national identity through mundane symbols and practices. When people use the same currency and postal system, they participate in a shared institutional framework that reinforces collective identity. Palestinian coins and stamps performed this function for nearly two decades, creating habits of thought that associated daily transactions with Palestinian identity.
The international acceptance of Palestinian stamps and currency further reinforced this identity beyond Palestine’s borders. Collectors around the world acquired Palestinian stamps, while Palestinian coins were accepted in neighboring countries. This international circulation meant that Palestinian identity was not merely local but had achieved global recognition through institutional channels.
Maps and Geographic Recognition
Decades before 1948, maps produced by European cartographers, Ottoman administrators, and British surveyors labeled the region as Palestine. The Palestine Exploration Fund, established by British scholars in the 1860s, produced detailed topographical surveys that used “Palestine” as the primary geographic designation. European atlases routinely listed “Palestine” alongside “Syria” and “Egypt” as a distinct territorial unit with recognizable boundaries.
These maps were not neutral technical documents but tools that shaped how people understood the world. Students in British schools learned geography from atlases that showed Palestine as a named place. Travelers consulted maps that directed them to “Palestine” rather than to vague references to “the Holy Land” or “southern Syria.” Military planners during World War I used maps that treated Palestine as a strategic unit requiring unified administration.
The cartographic consensus around Palestinian identity created what geographers call “spatial knowledge” or shared understanding of how territories relate to each other. When maps consistently showed Palestine as a bounded space with a specific name, they reinforced the idea that Palestine was a place with its own characteristics and identity, distinct from surrounding regions.
Foster stresses that the presence of “Palestine” on maps undercuts claims that Palestinian identity was invented after 1948. The name was already embedded in global geographic knowledge, appearing in classrooms, government offices, and travel guides throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This widespread cartographic usage created expectations that Palestine existed as a recognizable place with its own identity.
The durability of Palestinian geographic identity across different political systems also demonstrates its independence from any particular government or administration. Ottoman maps showed Palestine, British maps showed Palestine, and academic maps produced in various European countries showed Palestine. This consistency across different mapmaking traditions suggests that Palestinian geographic identity had achieved broad international acceptance.
Political Awakening Before 1948
Beyond documents and maps, Palestinians developed political institutions and movements under Ottoman and British rule. During the late Ottoman period, administrative reforms created new opportunities for local participation in government. Village councils gained authority over local affairs, while urban notable families assumed leadership roles in provincial administration. These institutions fostered Palestinian political consciousness by creating forums for discussing shared interests and concerns.
Under the British Mandate, Palestinian political activity intensified dramatically. The Palestinian Arab Congress, first convened in 1919, brought together representatives from across Palestine to coordinate resistance to Zionist immigration and British policies. Political parties emerged to advocate for Palestinian interests, while newspapers like Falastin provided platforms for debating strategy and goals.
The Great Revolt of 1936 to 1939 represented the culmination of Palestinian political development during the Mandate period. Beginning with a general strike that paralyzed the Palestinian economy, the revolt eventually escalated into armed resistance that required significant British military intervention to suppress. The revolt demonstrated that Palestinians had developed the organizational capacity and collective consciousness necessary for sustained political action.
Foster situates this period as crucial evidence that Palestinians were active historical agents rather than passive bystanders. They developed political vocabularies, built institutional networks, and organized collective resistance based on shared Palestinian identity. Their political activities in the 1930s were rooted in decades of community building and identity formation, not in reaction to events yet to come.
The leadership of the revolt also reveals the geographic scope of Palestinian identity during this period. Participants came from cities and villages throughout Palestine, suggesting that Palestinian political consciousness had spread beyond urban intellectual circles to encompass rural communities. This broad-based participation indicates that Palestinian identity had become a mass phenomenon with the capacity to motivate sustained sacrifice and risk-taking.
Expulsion After the War: The Ongoing Nakba
The Nakba as Beginning, Not End
The events of 1948 displaced over 700,000 Palestinians from their homes, creating the refugee population that continues to shape Middle Eastern politics today. In Western narratives, the Nakba is often portrayed as a tragic but discrete historical event, a one-time catastrophe that occurred during the chaos of war. Foster argues that this framing fundamentally misunderstands the nature of Palestinian displacement by treating 1948 as both the beginning and end of forced removal.
Instead, Foster contends that the Nakba represented the beginning of an ongoing process rather than a single historical moment. Expulsion adapted to new circumstances and political opportunities, sometimes operating through military orders during wartime, sometimes through legal mechanisms during periods of calm, and sometimes through bureaucratic measures that achieved removal through administrative means rather than physical force.
“The Nakba is not just memory,” Foster explains. “It is a process still unfolding.” This perspective shifts attention from the traumatic events of 1948 to the systematic patterns of displacement that continued for decades afterward. By examining specific cases of post-1948 expulsion, we can trace how the logic of removal adapted to changing political circumstances while maintaining consistent goals.
This approach challenges Western audiences to reconsider their understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather than viewing 1948 as ancient history that explains the origins of contemporary problems, Foster’s research suggests that displacement has been a continuous feature of Palestinian experience. This continuity helps explain why Palestinian political discourse continues to emphasize the Nakba and why refugee return remains a central demand in political negotiations.
Case Study: Al-Majdal to Gaza, 1950
Two years after the armistice agreements ended active fighting, Israeli authorities forced the remaining Palestinian residents of al-Majdal to relocate to the Gaza Strip. The operation took place during what was ostensibly peacetime, under the supervision of Israeli officials who had established administrative control over the area. The town was subsequently renamed Ashkelon and repopulated with Jewish immigrants.
This case dismantles several common misconceptions about Palestinian displacement. First, it shows that expulsion continued well beyond the wartime period of 1948–49, occurring under the cover of administrative normalization rather than military emergency. Second, it demonstrates that displacement often targeted Palestinians who had initially remained in their homes, suggesting that the goal was comprehensive removal rather than simply wartime population movement.
The residents of al-Majdal had survived the battles of 1948 and attempted to resume normal life under Israeli rule. Many had accepted Israeli identity cards and believed they would be permitted to remain in their homes. Their subsequent forced removal revealed that initial survival provided no guarantee of long-term security, creating a precedent for future displacements that would target Palestinians regardless of their legal status or political behavior.
The renaming of al-Majdal as Ashkelon also illustrates the symbolic dimensions of displacement. By changing the town’s name from Arabic to Hebrew, Israeli authorities sought to erase evidence of prior Palestinian presence and establish new historical narratives about the area’s identity. This practice of renaming would become a standard feature of post-1948 displacement, ensuring that removal was accompanied by efforts to rewrite local history.
For Foster, this case proves that expulsions were not simply byproducts of war but deliberate policies carried out during periods of administrative control. The systematic nature of the al-Majdal expulsion, occurring two years after fighting had ended, suggests that displacement was a peacetime strategy rather than an emergency measure.
Case Study: Kafr Birʿim and Iqrit, 1951–52
The destruction of the Christian villages of Kafr Birʿim and Iqrit presents one of the most legally complex cases of post-1948 displacement. In 1951, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the villagers from Iqrit had the right to return to their homes, acknowledging that their initial removal had lacked proper legal justification. Instead of implementing the court’s decision, Israeli military forces dynamited the village on Christmas Day 1951, ensuring that return would be physically impossible.
The nearby village of Kafr Birʿim faced a similar fate in 1953, despite repeated legal challenges and international advocacy efforts. Both villages were predominantly Christian, and their destruction was particularly controversial because it targeted Palestinian citizens of Israel rather than refugees in neighboring countries. The timing of the Iqrit destruction, on Christianity’s most important holiday, seemed calculated to maximize the symbolic impact of the village’s erasure.
This case reveals the complex relationship between legal processes and military actions in post-1948 displacement. Even when Israeli courts acknowledged Palestinian rights, military authorities could override judicial decisions through physical destruction that rendered legal victories meaningless. The Supreme Court’s recognition of the villagers’ rights became irrelevant once their homes no longer existed.
Foster uses this episode to illustrate how displacement was enforced even against judicial recognition of Palestinian rights. The destruction of the villages sent a clear message that Palestinian claims, even when legally validated, could be nullified through military action. This precedent established that legal protections for Palestinian citizens were contingent rather than absolute, subject to cancellation through administrative or military decisions.
The international dimensions of these cases also proved significant. Both villages had attracted attention from Christian organizations worldwide, particularly after the Christmas Day destruction of Iqrit. However, international criticism failed to prevent the demolitions or secure meaningful accountability for the decisions. This pattern would repeat in subsequent cases, establishing that international attention provided little protection against displacement policies.
Case Study: Latrun Villages, 1967
During the Six-Day War of 1967, Israeli forces destroyed the villages of Imwas, Yalo, and Beit Nuba in the Latrun salient, expelling more than 7,000 residents. Unlike the earlier cases, which occurred during nominal peacetime, the Latrun demolitions took place during active warfare, allowing Israeli authorities to justify them as military necessities. The destroyed area was later developed as Canada Park, a recreational forest funded by donations from Canadian supporters of Israel.
The Latrun case illustrates how wartime conditions could accelerate and legitimize displacement policies that might have faced greater scrutiny during peacetime. Military commanders claimed that the villages posed security threats due to their location near the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, though critics argued that the real motivation was to clear valuable land for development. The speed of the demolitions, which occurred within days of the area’s capture, suggests that plans for village destruction had been prepared in advance.
The creation of Canada Park over the destroyed villages demonstrates how landscape manipulation could erase evidence of prior Palestinian presence. Trees were planted over demolished homes, hiking trails were carved through former agricultural areas, and recreational facilities were built on sites where villages had once stood. Visitors to the park today find little indication that Palestinian communities had ever existed in the area.
Foster argues that such acts represent efforts to rewrite history as much as to remove people. By destroying villages and replanting landscapes, Israeli authorities sought to create new historical narratives that would naturalize Jewish presence while erasing evidence of Palestinian connections to the land. The involvement of foreign donors in funding Canada Park also shows how international supporters could become complicit in displacement policies through seemingly benign recreational projects.
The bureaucratic language used to justify the Latrun demolitions also established patterns that would appear in later cases. Officials described the action as “clearing” or “developing” the area rather than as destroying villages or expelling residents. This euphemistic vocabulary made displacement sound like urban planning rather than forced removal, obscuring the human consequences of the policies.
Case Study: Gaza Camp Clearances, 1971
In 1971, Israeli forces operating in the occupied Gaza Strip demolished approximately 2,000 homes in refugee camps, displacing 16,000 people who had already been refugees since 1948. Israeli authorities justified the demolitions as security measures designed to create patrol routes through densely populated areas and to eliminate hiding places for Palestinian guerrillas. The operation was conducted under the supervision of Ariel Sharon, then serving as commander of the Southern Military District.
For the displaced families, the 1971 demolitions represented yet another chapter in a cycle of forced removal that had begun more than two decades earlier. Many of the targeted residents had originally fled from villages in what became Israel during 1948, had lived in temporary refugee shelters for over twenty years, and were now being displaced for a second time. Their experience illustrates how displacement could become a recurring feature of Palestinian life rather than a single traumatic event.
The security justifications offered for the Gaza demolitions established a template that would be used repeatedly in subsequent displacement operations. By framing removal as a military necessity rather than a political choice, Israeli authorities could justify actions that might otherwise be criticized as violations of international law. The language of security made displacement appear reactive and defensive rather than proactive and aggressive.
Foster stresses that the Gaza case reveals how administrative language was used to obscure the continuities between different phases of displacement. Officials described the 1971 demolitions as counterterrorism measures rather than as extensions of policies that had begun in 1948. This framing made each displacement operation appear as an isolated response to immediate security threats rather than as part of a systematic pattern stretching across decades.
The scale of the Gaza demolitions also demonstrates how displacement could affect large populations during single operations. The removal of 16,000 people represented a significant percentage of Gaza’s refugee population and required extensive logistical coordination. The ability to conduct such operations suggests that displacement had become an institutionalized practice with established procedures and resources.
Case Study: East Jerusalem Residency Revocations
Since Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, Israeli authorities have revoked the residency permits of more than 14,500 Palestinian residents of the city. The revocations typically target Palestinians who have lived abroad for work or education, who have moved to areas just outside the municipal boundaries, or who have been unable to prove their continuous presence in the city according to Israeli bureaucratic standards.
This system of administrative displacement operates through paperwork rather than bulldozers, but achieves similar results by making it impossible for targeted Palestinians to return to their homes legally. Families who leave Jerusalem for economic opportunities elsewhere often discover that their absence has been interpreted as abandonment of residency, permanently barring their return. The threat of residency revocation also constrains Palestinian movement by making travel or relocation risky.
The residency revocation system illustrates how displacement adapted to new political circumstances after 1967. Direct military expulsion of Jerusalem Palestinians would have attracted significant international criticism and potentially undermined Israel’s claims to sovereignty over the entire city. Administrative removal through residency requirements achieved similar demographic results while maintaining plausible legal justifications.
Foster calls this process “administrative expulsion” and argues that it represents an evolution of the same logic that drove earlier demolitions and forced transfers. The goal remains the reduction of Palestinian presence and the consolidation of control over valuable land, but the methods have become more bureaucratic and less visibly coercive. This evolution makes displacement more difficult for international observers to recognize and criticize.
The cumulative effect of residency revocations has been to shrink the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem gradually while maintaining the appearance of legal regularity. Each individual case can be justified according to bureaucratic rules, but the overall pattern reveals a systematic effort to limit Palestinian presence in the city. This approach achieves displacement goals while avoiding the dramatic confrontations that might result from more direct methods.
Continuities and Patterns: The Logic of Removal
When examined together, these cases reveal a consistent pattern of displacement that adapts to changing political circumstances while maintaining consistent goals. The methods shift from forced transfers in 1950 to village demolitions in the 1950s and 1960s, to camp clearances in the 1970s, to administrative revocations from the 1960s onward. Each approach responds to the political opportunities and constraints of its particular moment while serving the same underlying purpose: reducing Palestinian presence and consolidating control over land.
The evolution of displacement methods also reveals how policies adapted to international scrutiny and legal challenges. Early cases like al-Majdal involved direct military force and explicit removal orders. Later cases increasingly relied on legal justifications, security rationales, and administrative procedures that made displacement appear more legitimate to external observers. This evolution suggests that policymakers learned from earlier controversies and developed more sophisticated approaches to achieving similar results.
Foster argues that recognizing these continuities is essential for understanding contemporary Palestinian politics. The persistence of displacement across multiple decades helps explain why Palestinian political discourse continues to emphasize themes of return and resistance. For communities that have experienced repeated removal, the threat of future displacement remains a constant concern that shapes political priorities and strategies.
The geographic scope of displacement cases also reveals their systematic character. From the Mediterranean coast to the Jordan Valley, from northern Galilee to southern Gaza, displacement has affected Palestinian communities throughout the territory. This geographic breadth suggests that removal was not simply a response to local security concerns but part of a broader strategy for reshaping the demographic and political landscape.
Why Western Narratives Miss the Point
Foster identifies two fundamental errors that prevent Western audiences from understanding Palestinian displacement. First, most narratives start too late, beginning with the 1948 war or even later events like the 1967 occupation. This temporal framing makes Palestinians appear rootless, as if they had no established identity or institutional presence before these dramatic moments. The evidence of pre-1948 Palestinian identity challenges this assumption and provides essential context for understanding subsequent displacement.
Second, Western narratives typically end too early, treating 1948 as the conclusion of displacement rather than its beginning. This framing makes Palestinian refugee status appear as a temporary consequence of ancient warfare rather than the ongoing result of continuing policies. By failing to trace displacement patterns into the post-1948 period, Western observers miss the systematic nature of removal and its continuing impact on Palestinian communities.
These temporal errors create a flattened narrative that reduces the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to cycles of violence interrupted by peace processes, missing the structural reality of ongoing dispossession. When displacement appears as either ancient history or immediate crisis, it becomes difficult to recognize the institutional patterns and policy continuities that connect different historical moments.
The preference for dramatic events over systematic processes also reflects broader tendencies in Western media and academic coverage. Wars, terrorism, and diplomatic negotiations provide clear narrative arcs that can be packaged for mass consumption. Bureaucratic displacement, administrative removal, and legal marginalization are more difficult to dramatize but may be more important for understanding how the conflict actually operates on a day-to-day basis.
Foster’s research suggests that correcting these narrative distortions requires sustained attention to documentary evidence and systematic analysis of policy patterns across extended time periods. Rather than focusing on dramatic moments, scholars and journalists need to trace the mundane administrative processes that often determine Palestinian life chances more directly than headline-grabbing events.
Toward Equal Rights: Documentation as Resistance
Foster excavates this historical evidence not merely to catalogue past injustices but to clarify present realities and future possibilities. His digital archive, Palestine Nexus, preserves documents, maps, photographs, and testimonies that might otherwise be lost or forgotten. By maintaining accessible records of Palestinian identity and displacement, the archive serves as both historical resource and political intervention.
The preservation of historical evidence becomes particularly important in contexts where official narratives seek to minimize or deny Palestinian connections to the land. When Israeli officials claim that Palestinian identity was invented after 1948, pre-1948 passports and newspapers provide concrete refutation. When displacement is described as a temporary consequence of warfare, post-1948 cases prove its systematic and continuing character.
Foster argues that the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea currently functions as a single political space under Israeli sovereignty, within which two populations live under fundamentally different legal systems. Palestinians in the West Bank live under military law, Palestinians in Gaza face blockade and periodic military attack, Palestinian citizens of Israel encounter systematic discrimination, and Palestinian refugees remain excluded from return. Meanwhile, Jewish Israelis enjoy democratic rights and freedom of movement throughout the territory.
This analysis leads Foster to conclude that the current system cannot be reformed through minor adjustments or procedural improvements. Either the logic of separation and dispossession continues, or it must be replaced by a framework based on equal rights for all residents regardless of ethnicity or religion. The historical evidence he has assembled suggests that current inequalities are not accidental outcomes of temporary conflicts but systematic results of policies designed to privilege one population over another.
The choice, as Foster frames it, is ultimately between continued dispossession and genuine equality. His historical work aims to make this choice clearer by documenting the full scope of Palestinian displacement and the deep roots of Palestinian identity. By preserving the sources that prove what happened, Foster hopes to make erasure impossible and to create conditions where more equitable futures become imaginable.
“If you lose the sources,” Foster warns, “you lose the ability to prove what happened.” The archive thus becomes a form of resistance against forgetting, ensuring that Palestinian experiences remain visible in historical records even when they disappear from political discourse. This preservation of memory serves not only Palestinian communities but anyone seeking to understand how systematic displacement operates and how it might finally be overcome.