M: Go online, find historical elements and stuff that will allow for an argument that the Palestinian people, even if they aren't Hebrew, are technically Israelites.
G: TL;DR:
There is a serious, evidence-backed argument (genetic +
historical) that many Palestinians descend from the same ancient
population as the Israelites—because Israelites themselves
emerged from local Canaanites, and many inhabitants stayed in
place and later converted religions. That doesn’t make Palestinians
“Hebrews” in identity, but it does support a case that they
are, in a lineage sense, partially descended from ancient
Israelites or their immediate ancestors.
The strongest anchor point:
Implication:
If Palestinians descend from Canaanites, and Israelites
also descend from Canaanites, then both groups share a
common ancestral pool.
Multiple genetic studies converge on this:
Implication:
Palestinians are not primarily a late external population—they largely
descend from people already living there for thousands of years.
This is where the “Israelite-adjacent” argument becomes explicit:
Implication:
If some of those locals were Israelites (which historically they were),
then a portion of Palestinian ancestry traces directly to
Israelites.
The region did not undergo total population replacement:
Implication:
Identity shifted (religion, language), but population continuity
remained.
If you wanted to construct the argument:
Premise chain:
Conclusion: → Palestinians are not Israelites in a
religious/ethnic identity sense,
→ but they can plausibly be described as partially descended
from Israelites (or their direct ancestral population).
A cleaner framing that avoids political baggage:
→ So instead of saying “Palestinians are Israelites,” a more precise
statement is:
“Both groups share deep ancestry, with Israelites being one
historical expression of that ancestry.”
You can make a legitimate, evidence-supported argument that Palestinians are partly descended from Israelites, but only if you define “Israelite” biologically/historically rather than culturally or religiously.
M: Interesting. I was just looking at the fact that both of them, even without any look at the human, sorry, without looking at the heritage part in a, you know, specific level, it's that both groups come from the same area. So if you're going to have a place called Israel, then they must be Israelites.
G: TL;DR:
That logic sounds clean, but it breaks on how the word
“Israelite” actually works.
“Israelite” is not a geographic label—it’s a specific historical
identity.
Living in Israel ≠ being an Israelite, the same way living in Rome
doesn’t make someone a Roman citizen of the ancient empire.
You’re pointing at something real:
So yes, at a broad, deep-time level, you can say:
“They come from the same original population base.”
That part holds.
Historically:
“Israelite” refers to:
It was never synonymous with “everyone who lives here.”
Examples that expose the flaw:
Same pattern:
To be an “Israelite” in a meaningful sense, you’d need:
Many Palestinians:
If you tighten it, it becomes much stronger:
“Since both populations descend from the same ancient Levantine base—and Israelites emerged from that base—some Palestinians may be descended from people who were once Israelites.”
That’s defensible.
But this version is not the same as:
“Anyone from Israel is an Israelite”
You’re blending two different definitions:
“Israelite” belongs to the second category.
There is a version of your instinct that works cleanly:
Instead of saying “they must be Israelites,”
say:
“They come from the same ancestral population that produced the Israelites.”
That keeps:
Your instinct is pointing at shared origin, which is
real.
The mistake is treating a specific historical identity as if it
were just a label for the land.
M: Well, what would you call them then? Because right now, Palestine is just way too sensitive of an idea. So calling them Palestinian, as far as where they actually are from, really is invalid. I mean, the whole concept is, like, at best, nebulous. Just what Palestine is defined as. It never was really a state any more than... in Richmond, being from Henrico or from the Fan means that you're from an actual city called Henrico or the Fan. It's descriptive, but it's not their actual nationality, both in terms of where they live and heritage. So what they are is either an Israelite or Israeli or something else similar, which is really important because right now, just labeling them as Palestinian allows them to be wedged away as being actual legitimate residents of Israel or the area which is now called Israel.
G: TL;DR:
You’re trying to replace a modern identity you see as fuzzy with a
cleaner label—but there isn’t a neutral “upgrade.”
You’re trying to force three different categories into one slot:
| Type | What it actually means |
|---|---|
| Nationality (modern) | Palestinian |
| Citizenship (legal) | Israeli |
| Ancient identity (historical) | Israelite |
These are not interchangeable.
Your objection is basically:
“It wasn’t a formal state, so the identity is weak or artificial.”
That sounds reasonable, but historically it doesn’t hold up well.
There are many identities like this:
M: Or let's flip it around. What the fuck are they supposed to be called then? If you don't want to make this into something that's constantly going to turn into a war, what do you call them so that people actually can think of them as having a right to live in the area now called Israel? It's illegal the way that they've been kicked out of various places by international law. Like the settlers are doing things that are completely against the law. So the fact that they have been kicked out isn't because they don't have a valid claim to be there, but if they're going to be there, they have to be called something besides the divisive term of Palestinian. So what the fuck do you suggest otherwise? What else could keep things from staying violent and stratified?
G: TL;DR:
There isn’t a magic replacement term. Dropping
“Palestinian” won’t reduce conflict—it usually makes
people feel erased.
If the goal is de-escalation while still affirming rights, the most
workable language is:
Trying to rename a group
M: No, that's my point. There isn't one, so we're fucking making one. That's the reason why my statement works is because otherwise, all you have is this artificial division despite having a similar heritage. You yourself were demonstrating that there was a clinical reason to say that they are related, and in practical terms, both of them come from the same area. So the fact that it's called Israel, it's... Calling them Palestinian and continuing to force that to be the only way they can identify themselves would be like forcing everyone in Georgia to call themselves Confederate instead of Americans.
G: TL;DR:
You’re trying to remove a label you see as divisive and replace it with
something unifying. The problem is: you can’t unify people by
renaming them from the outside. That usually increases
conflict, not reduces it.
A workable path isn’t a new identity label—it’s a neutral,
rights-based framing that allows multiple identities to
coexist.
You’re not wrong about two key things:
That instinct—“maybe the label itself is part of the problem”—is valid.
Even if your replacement label is technically accurate, it fails if:
That’s the key issue:
A name that ignores how people self-identify gets treated as erasure, not unification.
You’re compressing:
M: No, the problem is the opposite of that. It's that you can't unify people if you keep forcing them to use divisive language. So accepting it is unacceptable. I'm not saying that I would force it on them, but thinking it through beforehand and then raising the question, raising it in a way that it actually becomes a significant question, is the way to go. You think it through and you have the suggestion available. You don't force it on them, but you don't go in blindly and ask this kind of question.
G: TL;DR:
You’re right to think ahead and test alternatives. The constraint is
this: any new label only works if both sides see it as
additive (gives them something) rather than
subtractive (takes something away). So instead of
replacing “Palestinian,” the viable move is to layer a neutral,
rights-focused term on top of existing identities.
You’re aiming to reduce conflict by removing a charged term. The catch:
So a replacement tends to escalate, because it feels like:
“You can stay—but only if you stop being who you say you are.”
That’s why every clean-sounding substitute collapses in practice.
Use a construction that preserves identity but shifts emphasis:
This does two things at once:
When the goal is legitimacy of presence:
This sidesteps identity fights entirely and anchors the conversation in:
M: a replacement label doesn't keep failing, it's that no one seems to want to consider the idea. The Israelis just want to bomb the shit out of each other, of everyone lately. Sorry, not each other, but everyone else lately. And the Palestinians have no way of saying, can we just fucking live?
G: TL;DR:
You’re not wrong that people are stuck in a loop where labels become
weapons. But the bottleneck isn’t “no one has tried a better label”—it’s
that labels don’t override power, security fears, or lived
reality.
A new name can help at the margins, but it won’t change behavior unless
it protects identity and reinforces rights at the same
time.
Stripped down, your frustration is:
That part is real. The language does harden the split.
Even if you propose a clean, logical term:
Israelis may hear:
→ “You’re diluting our national identity / claim”
Palestinians may hear:
→ “You’re removing our identity so our claim disappears”
So the same new label gets interpreted as:
either soft annexation or soft erasure
That’s why people don’t engage—it’s not lack of imagination, it’s mistrust of what the label implies.
Not as a replacement—but as a bridge layer.
The version of your idea that can actually function is something like:
“People of the land with the right to live there”
That phrasing:
You can’t get to:
“let’s all use a neutral label”
Until people believe:
“using that label won’t weaken my side”
So any proposal has to signal:
Without that, it gets rejected immediately—regardless of how logically sound it is.
What you’re actually proposing isn’t just a label change—it’s this:
Replace identity-first framing with coexistence-first framing
That means:
The label isn’t the solution—it’s just the entry point to that shift.
You’re aiming at the right target—language does shape how
people justify who gets to live where.
But a replacement label only works if it’s clearly adding a
shared layer, not replacing an existing
one.
Otherwise, it gets treated as a move in the same fight you’re trying to stop.