Palestinian Culture, Part 1: Origins
7th August 2026
The Investigative Project on Terrorism.
In March 2023, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich claimed at a conference in France that, “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.” News outlets quoted him saying “There is no such thing as a Palestinian nation. There is no Palestinian history. There is no Palestinian language,” and asking rhetorically “Is there a Palestinian history or culture? There is none.”
Smotrich was correct in many respects. There is no nation called “Palestine” and no “Palestinian” language, but there is a Palestinian culture. It was forged mostly by Yasser Arafat, the PLO’s leader for five decades, and is singularly defined by violence. Unique among all other Arab cultures and national identities, Palestinian culture and the Palestinian identity are predicated on a single political goal – the unceasing desire to destroy an existing country, in this case Israel.
Take away the resistance, and there’s nothing left of a distinctly Palestinian culture.
Not all Muslims are terrorists (just as not all Nazis were genocides) but almost all terrorists are Muslims.