Who were the people of Palestine and what were their lives about in the late 19th century, before the first Zionists began arriving from Europe in the 1880s?

This episode focuses on the fellahin – the peasants of Palestine who comprised 70% of its population in the late 19th century, who are the first to clash with Zionist immigrants, and who later bore the brunt of the 1948 war which established the modern state of Israel.

We also look at the Bedouin, whose social structure and culture are the archetype for fellahin culture, and who were the founders of Arab civilization as a whole.

This is the 2nd in a multipart series about the “secret” or hidden origins of the Israel/Palestine conflict, focusing on episodes of history that both Israeli and Palestinian nationalist historians and partisans ignore and overlook because they don’t fit into either nationalist narrative.