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Notes -
Your last sentence rests on a category error fallacy. Arab is an umbrella group, but Palestinian is a specific ethnic group. The Palestinian homeland is Egypt in the same way that the Irish homeland is Spain, both being Europeans of Celtic origin; in other words, it’s a mistake to assume that an ethnic homeland is the same as an umbrella group’s territory. The DNA of Palestinians is closer to Samaritans than “North African Sunni Arab Muslims” for this reason. Also, I don’t think this argument would be made if the Palestinians sought to repatriate Israelis to Brooklyn or Lakewood. Isn’t Israeli culture unique despite belonging to the general umbrella group “Jews”?
The opposing argument will be that “Palestinian” as a distinct and/or overriding identity didn’t crystallize until the mid-20th century (there exist people arguing for earlier, have not read, can’t comment on quality of argument). Of course, pre-nationalist identity for non-Jati-like groups* was generally more local/regional than what replaced it, so it still wouldn’t make sense to “repatriate” them to other Arab countries.
To anticipate another counter-argument, there was some migration between Muslim regions (especially at urban and elite levels), so that some Palestinians have surnames indicating, e.g., Egyptian origin at some point. This is accurate, though the scale can be significantly exaggerated. My main complaint about this line of argument is that (except with very recent migrants) it makes about as much sense as “repatriating” all the Slovak Horváths to Croatia.
*Actual Hindu Jatis, but also Bosnian Muslims, Jews, Gypsies, Druze, Zoroastrians, etc. - (at least mostly) endogamous, religiously-defined groups with severe intercommunal purity barriers that reinforce common identity at a relatively early date.
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