The difference between a "Palestinian" and an "Arab Palestinian" - according to the PLO

The 1968 Palestinian National Covenant (Charter) has an interesting paragraph:

Article 6:

The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.

The Palestine Ministry of Information notes that the year of the "Zionist invasion" is considered to be 1917. It does not appear that they are including descendants of those Jews, so the issue is moot, but it points to something interesting in official Palestinian language.

This is one of the few uses of the word "Palestinians" in the document. Most of it refers to "Palestinian Arabs." So, for example:

Article 3:

The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland and have the right to determine their destiny after achieving the liberation of their country in accordance with their wishes and entirely of their own accord and will.

If the only people that have the legal right to the land are Arabs, then the Jews - even those they call "Palestinians," who had been there continuously for thousands of years - do not. 

In other words, the Charter gives legal rights to Arabs that it withholds from non-Arabs. 

Isn't that apartheid?

This is besides the explicit antisemitism in the charter itself - which has never been revoked - that denied the existence of the Jewish people to begin with. "Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong."

Now look at the 2003 Palestinian constitution. There, they refer repeatedly to the Arab Palestinian people. The first paragraph of the preamble says:

The continuous attachment of the Arab Palestinian people to the land of their fathers and forefathers, on which this people has historically lived, is a fact that has been expressed in the Declaration of Independence, issued by the Palestine National Council. The strength of this attachment is confirmed by its consistency over time and place, by keeping faith with and holding onto national identity, and in the realization of wondrous accomplishments of struggle. The organic relationship between the Palestinian people, their history and their land has confirmed itself in their unceasing effort to prompt the world to recognize the rights of the Arab Palestinian people and their national entity, on equal footing with other nations.

Why the need to emphasize "Arab Palestinian people"? By 2003 (and unlike 1968), the term "Palestinian" was well known. 

It appears that the term is used specifically to exclude Jews from calling themselves "Palestinian."

The Palestinian Arabs are well aware that the term "Palestinian" usually referred to Jews before 1948. They want not only to make sure that they are the only "Palestinians" with rights to the land but to ensure that they assert that Jews have no historic or legal rights to the land.

That explains why they call themselves "Palestinian Arabs" or "Arab Palestinians." 

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