CI. De mi abuelo, clarito sale donde nacio en 1890, y dicen que PALESTINA no existia. pic.twitter.com/0m75BCRk0V
— Jalo10 (@ivanmisle) July 9, 2020
This is an embedded tweet from Twitter which shows an old passport of a Palestinian-Chilean. It lists that the bearer was born in Beit Jala in 1890, in the province of Jerusalem, and arrived in Chile in 1906 – when he was 16. He probably came over with his parents and siblings.
Arabs started immigrating to Chile around 1890, and this is proof of that early migration.
What is interesting is that the passport lists the place where he was born as Palestine, and lists Palestinian as a nationality.
The twitter account claims that the passport was the possession of his grandfather Clarito. I have to suspect that the passport is of his great-grandfather if it goes that far back.
The Tweet says (CI. From my grandfather, Clarito leaves where he was born in 1890, and they say that PALESTINE did not exist.)[ translated by a Google app].
The tweeter uses the passport to defend that Palestine was an identity, even at that early date.
I support Israel’s right to exist, but I do not deny that Palestinians have an identity, though some Zionists deny this. I know what the tweeter means. And, as noted, I have no problem using the term Palestinian.
However, the Palestinians who went to Chile were often Christian. They would have had no problem calling themselves Palestinians. Muslims operate under a different worldview, and see a problem with nation-states. They prefer the idea of an Ummah (Muslim homeland).
Nor is the date – that the passport was issued – noted. The passport may have been issued much, much later in the bearer’s lifetime.
