Chile has the largest Palestinian community outside of the Mideast. And now, France 24 Español has done a video report on the community.
You can get English subtitles by following the instructions below:
This is in Spanish, but it there is an option to have it translated to English.
1) Click Settings Wheel and choose Subtitles/CC.
2) Click to turn on: Spanish (auto-generated) .
3) Click – for a second time – to turn on: Subtitles/CC(1) Spanish (auto-generated) .
4) Click auto-translate.
5) Choose English – THIS CAN BE TRICKY – I suggest using up and down arrows to chose English, and then press Enter.
This can be very touchy, and you may have to play with it, but it works. Once you get the hang of it, you can turn the option on in a few seconds.
But the Palestinians in Chile are a prosperous and major political force in South America. They can be called Chilestinos, and they are over 90% Christian.
Many of their ancestors fled the Holy Land around the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The Ottoman Empire ruled the Holy Land at that time, and the Christians were fleeing the abuse they suffered at the hands of the Muslim Turks.
Many of them went to Chile.
Given that the Palestinian cause today is often conflated with Islam (such as with Hamas or Islamic Jihad) — and given that their ancestors were persecuted by Muslims — it is odd that the Chilestinos are so caught up in the Palestinian cause.
But they are.
There identification with the land overrides any religious animosities that might have existed.
If you are like me, and most Americans – and dare I say, most Westerners as well – you never knew about the major Arab subculture in South America.
And that’s just Chile. Argentina and Brazil have more!
Europe has about 6+ million Arabs [many Euro-Muslims are not Arab] in a continent of 746 Million people, and yet we hear nothing but panic.
Egads! Eurabia! The Arabs are coming! The Arabs are coming!
What if I were to tell you that South America alone has 25+ Million Arabs, most of whom are assimilated, Christians, and getting along quite well in their respective countries.
WHAT?!
Yes! It is true. What did South America do that was so right; and what can we learn from them.
Each country in South America has a different profile. All they share is a common Latin language; and even that shows heavy dialectal differences.
Likewise, the Arabs among the Latins show some considerable differences.
Country
Numbers of Arabs
% of Population
Ethnic Makeup of Arabs (N/A to Suriname)
Religious Makeup of Arabs (not of total population)
Many are assimilated
and probably unaware of Arab ancestry
99+% Christian
Only ~15,000 Muslims
Surimame
81,0008
~ 13.9%
Indonesian, Asians, Arabs, Africans Muslims, not necessarily Arabs
Not Applicable
Uruguay
50-70,000
~ 2%
Mostly Lebanese.
Almost all Christian
Venezuela
~1,600,000
~ 5%
A mix of everything.
Almost all Christian
1Numbers vary. Fearab Argentina claims 4 million / 10%. Others claim less. But there is a large amount of intermarriage now. 9% is a good estimate. 2Numbers vary, but the estimate of Lebanese-Brazilians alone is 7 Million, so 12 – 15 million for all Arabs is a conservative estimate. In 2017, the president of Brazil was Michel Temer, who is of Christian Lebanese descent. 3Very rough estimate. Doubled number of Lebanese. The key was that many arrived as Eastern Christian, but the Maronites are affiliated with Roman Catholicism. So those who arrived as Eastern Christian were probably not Lebanese. 4Many arrived as Eastern Christians, but became Roman Catholic 5Wikipedia reports varying figures. From 20,000 (official) to 97,500 (private figures). However given the tendency of Lebanese Maronites to not identify as Arabs, and given their incredible tendency to assimilate rapidly, the higher numbers are probably more reasonable. Most, however, would be intermarried with other ethnics, which might explain why they do not show up on official figures. Ecuador has had 3 presidents with Lebanese ancestry, so we have to assume the higher figures were more accurate. What is clear is that they still constitute less than 1% of the population. To produce 3 presidents shows their elite status. 6Though small, El Salvador has had a president of Palestinian ancestry. Antonio Saca. His opponent, Schafik Handal, in the election was also Palestinian. Even more amazing, Saca, the winner, is a devout Evangelical. 7Former President Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé’s mother was Palestinian born. 8Suriname is 13.9% Muslim; however, it is not clear how much of these are Arabs, or the relic Islam of black slaves or the descendents of Javanese/Indonesian/Asian laborers. I used the Muslim figure. Suriname was populated by peoples from the former Dutch empire, and the Arabs in the country may be minimal. The country also is: 48.4% Christian, 22.3% Hindu, with various indigineous religions as well. Guyana and Suriname are members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
What must be remembered, however, is that Suriname and the Guyanas have very small populations. In total, not even equal to a good size Latin America city. Their Muslims are usually not even Arab, but often descended from Indonesians or Asians brought over the the colonial powers.
NOTE: The data can be tricky to collect.
As a rule, if you just look for Arab-Argentine or Arab-Brazilian in Wikipedia or another source, the population numbers cited will sometimes be low, and quite often less than Lebanese-Argentine or Lebanese-Brazilian. There is a history to this. The persecution of Lebanese Maronite Catholics by Muslims made the Lebanese-Christians consider themselves as Phoenician Westerners, NOT Arabs. Hence, Lebanese Maronites often refuse to be classified with other Arabs, and so demographic statistics for Arabs can be woefully underestimated.
One often gets ridiculous statistics for Argentina and the USA where there are more Lebanese listed than Arabs, which is an impossibility, as Lebanese are a subset of Arabs in general. The subset cannot be greater than the whole.
A good rule of thumb is to roughly double the amount of Lebanese – maybe add 10% on top of that. When you keep that in mind, and do some cross-checking, the numbers often make sense.
For example: Doubling the number of Lebanese-Argentines and adding 10% comes close to the 3.5 – 4 million Arab-Argentines claimed by Fearab Argentina.
A) Lebanese-Argentine figures are 1.5 Million according to Wikipedia.
B) Double that to get 3 Million
C) Add 10% to that, and one gets 3.3 Million, which is close to the high estimate of 3.5 Million Arab-Argentines in Wikipedia. Note: that Wikipedia gives a low estimate of 1.3 Million Arab-Argentines. The low estimate is ridiculous since Wikipedia lists 1.5 Million Lebanese-Argentines alone.
Mexico is another classic example. 45% of the Arabs in Mexico are Lebanese. Double that 45% figure and you get 90%. Add 10% to the 90%, and you get 100% of the Arabs. The rule is generally true, with the exceptions of Chile and Honduras where Palestinians are high in percentage numbers.
For my discussion about the difficulty caused by Maronite misidentification: (Click Here)
RELIGION: Do not trust Wikipedia’s statistics for Islam. The imams often rely on dated statistics. For ex:
The imams of Argentina claimed 3 million Muslims.
The census claims only 400-700,000 Muslims.
The number of Christian Arabs is over 3,000,000.
The reality is that less than 20,000 Muslims are practicing. The rest will intermarry into Christianity over time.
The media goes to imams for statistics and we get exaggerated news reports of creeping Islam in Latin America; but the reports lack substance.
The number of practicing Muslims in South America is rather small, in spite of media exaggerations.
The numbers of Muslims is changing, but South America is also in the midst of a major Evangelical Revival which is sweeping up tens of millions, so do not be confused if the news reports many more Muslims in Brazil. In the same period of time there are probably 10 Million more Pentecostal Christians. Traditional Islam has no experience of competing against Western Evangelical Christianity, and may not be able to compete against it.
May 8, 2017 – Edited: Had to update some figures.
May 22, 2017 – Edited: Adjustments. November 23, 2017 – Edited: Rewrites. August 28, 2019 – Updated number of Muslims in Ecuador, and adjusted overall numbers for Ecuador. September 2, 2020 – Updated a number. May 3, 2021 – Edited: Updated Brazilian numbers. May 4, 2021 – Edited: Updated Bolivian numbers. October 4, 2023 – Edited: Added Peruvian numbers. November 22, 2024 – Edited: Added categories.
Newt Gingrich is usually a very excellent historian; but in this video he was playing to the audience, in this case a Jewish audience. Quite understandable! but the comment turned out to haunt him.
You see, even though Israel has a right to the land, there were people in the land, many of whom did identify as Palestinians.
Palestinians are invented?!
So were we Americans in 1776?
Argentina, Mexico, Chile, etc. were invented in 1810, when most of Latin America rose up to declare Independence.
Brazil invented itself in 1822.
Iceland invented itself in 1944, when it declared independence from Denmark.
An invented people does not signify illegitimacy.
What is clear is that Palestinian identity precedes the British Mandate.
What is not clear is if this identity was more established in the Christian Palestinians than in Muslims who tend to be more centered on the idea of a transnational Caliphate. It is clear that the Christians, who were a considerable part of the population in Palestine at that time, had such an identity1; and if it was common among Christians, it would have been found in some of their more educated Muslim neighbors, too.
Otherwise, we would not see some Palestinian Christians moving to Chile, in the late part of the 19th century into the 20th; and setting up an ethnic soccer team called Palestino in 1920 (some say 1916), which would rise to become a major league soccer team in Chile.
El Club Deportivo Palestino nace en la ciudad de Osorno, localidad al sur de Chile, capital de la provincia que lleva su nombre. El club nace en unas olimpiadas de colonias, siendo fundado por inmigrantes palestinos el 20 de agosto de 1920.
The Palestinian Sports club was born in the city of Osorno, located in the south of Chile, capital of the province that bears its name. The club was born in an olympic colony, being founded by Palestinian immigrants, 20th of August, 1920.
Why would those immigrants suddenly start calling their team Palestino, UNLESS THEY ALREADY HAD A PALESTINIAN IDENTITY?
Of course, this alone does not necessarily void Jewish claim to the land!
Israel still has a right to the land; but it still has to deal with this issue. It can’t deal with a problem if it denies the existence of the problem.
It does mean that the land was not as empty2 as the Zionists claimed it was; and it does mean there was a competing national identity.
In the end, how would Gingrich explain this: Palestino Soccer Club in Chile, founded in 1920.
The Club was formed in 1920 by Palestinian immigrants.
They did not call themselves South Syrians as some claim.
1If you think about it, according to the official story, the Romans gave the name to the area after crushing a Jewish revolt. When Rome Christianized, the name would have stuck, and the Christians would have embraced it. Even after the Roman Empire split into Latin and Greek areas, and the corresponding areas split religously into Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy, the name would have persisted among the Christians.
Is an imposed name invalid? Ask yourself. Is America an invalid name because it was given by an Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci? Is Argentina an invalid name because it derives from the latin word for silver?
Names are imposed all the time.
2Many Zionist supporters will refer to Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad, published in 1869, which describes areas of the Holy Land as barren and devoid of habitation; but anyone who has driven in Arizona or Nevada knows full well that one can encounter empty wilderness even in populated countries. Twain was only describing one area.
What the people rarely tell you is this quote by Twain, in the same book:
“The narrow canon in which Nablous, or Shechem, is situated, is under high cultivation, and the soil is exceedingly black and fertile. It is well watered, and its affluent vegetation gains effect by contrast with the barren hills that tower on either side”…”We came finally to the noble grove of orange-trees in which the Oriental city of Jaffa lies buried” (Source: Wikipedia Demographics of Palestine)
Mason Martin, an American author who spent sixteen years as an analyst for the CIA, was critical of attempts to use Twain’s humorous writing as a literal description of Palestine at that time. She writes that “Twain’s descriptions are high in Israeli government press handouts that present a case for Israel’s redemption of a land that had previously been empty and barren. His gross characterizations of the land and the people in the time before mass Jewish immigration are also often used by US propagandists for Israel.” For example she noted that Twain described the Samaritans of Nablus at length without mentioning the much larger Arab population at all. The Arab population of Nablus at the time was about 20,000.
I am NOT anti-Zionist – in fact, I am a mild Christian Zionist – but there was a considerable population in the area at the time. Estimates are over 500,000 around 1900.
Even early Jewish Zionists were dismayed by the number of the indigenous population.
The issue of Israel aside, the existence of these people is an historical fact that Zionism cannot ignore, just because it is inconvenient to their narrative. To deal with the problem, Israel is going to have to face the issue head on.
May 9, 2017 – Edited: Updated a link. September 4, 2020 – Edited: Updated a link. November 22, 2020 – Edited: Added categories. Converted from page to post.
