By place of birth

A "Palestinian" can mean a person who is born in the geographical area known prior to 1918 as "Palestine", or a former citizen of the British Mandate territory called Palestine, or an institution related to either of these. Using this definition, both Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jew

Palestinian Jew

A Palestinian Jew is a Jewish inhabitant of Palestine at various points in the region's history . Jews in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel are more commonly referred to as "Yishuv"...

s were called "Palestinians".

Before the establishment of the State of Israel, the meaning of the word "Palestinian" didn't discriminate on ethnic grounds, but rather referred to anything associated with the region. The local newspaper, founded in 1932 by Gershon Agron

Gershon Agron

Gershon Agron was an Israeli newspaper editor and mayor of Jerusalem in 1955-1959.-Biography:Gershon Agron was born in the Ukraine and emigrated with his family to the United States at the age of five. He grew up in Philadelphia. During World War I, he fought with the Jewish Legion in Palestine...

, was called The Palestine Post. In 1950, its name was changed to The Jerusalem Post

The Jerusalem Post

The Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....

.

In 1923, Pinhas Rutenberg

Pinhas Rutenberg

Pinhas Rutenberg was a prominent engineer and a businessman, a Russian socialist and a Zionist leader. He played an active role in two Russian revolutions, in 1905 and 1917. During World War I, he was among the founders of the Jewish Legion and of the American Jewish Congress...

 founded the Palestine Electric Company, Ltd. (later to become the Israel Electric Corporation, Ltd.)
There was a [Jewish] Palestine Symphony Orchestra, and in World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the British assembled a Jewish Brigade

Jewish Brigade

The Jewish Infantry Brigade Group was a military formation of the British Army that served in Europe during the Second World War. The brigade was formed in late 1944, and its personnel fought the Germans in Italy...

, to fight the Axis powers

Axis Powers

The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...

, that was known as the Palestine regiment.

Since the establishment of Israel, its citizens are called Israelis, while the term Palestinians usually refers to the Palestinian Arabs.

Mandate definition

Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 used the term "Palestinian" to refer to all persons legally residing in or born in the boundaries of the British Mandate of Palestine without regard to their ethnicity, religion, or place of origin.

By place of origin

In its common usage today, the term "Palestinian" refers to a person whose ancestors had lived in the territory corresponding to British Mandate Palestine for some length of time prior to 1948.UNRWA definition: Palestinian refugees are those whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 This definition includes the inhabitants of the West Bank

West Bank

The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...

 and Gaza Strip

Gaza Strip

thumb|Gaza city skylineThe Gaza Strip lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest and Israel on the south, east and north. It is about long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres wide, with a total area of...

 (including Dom and Samaritan

Samaritan

The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...

s, but excluding Israeli settlers

Israeli settlement

An Israeli settlement is a Jewish civilian community built on land that was captured by Israel from Jordan, Egypt, and Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and is considered occupied territory by the international community. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank...

 and most Armenians

Armenians

Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

), the Israeli Arabs (including Druze

Druze

The Druze are an esoteric, monotheistic religious community, found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, which emerged during the 11th century from Ismailism. The Druze have an eclectic set of beliefs that incorporate several elements from Abrahamic religions, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism...

 and Bedouin

Bedouin

The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...

), the Israeli Jews whose families moved there prior to The founding of the State of Israel, and the Non-Jewish Arab refugees and émigrés from 1948 and their descendants (though not the pre-Israeli Independence (1948) non-Bedouin

Bedouin

The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...

 population of Jordan

Jordan

Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

.)

The Jewish Virtual Library

Jewish Virtual Library

Jewish Virtual Library is an online encyclopedia published by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise . Established in 1993, it is a comprehensive website covering Israel, the Jewish people, and Jewish culture.-History:...

 uses a similar but slightly narrower definition: "Although anyone with roots in the land that is now Israel, the West Bank and Gaza is technically a Palestinian, the term is now more commonly used to refer to Non-Jew Arabs with such roots ... Most of the world's Palestinian population is concentrated in Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jordan, although many Palestinians live in Lebanon, Syria and other Arab countries."

By citizenship

A more specific widespread usage of "Palestinian" sometimes heard is to refer to native residents of historic Palestine.

Referring to the Arab subculture of the southern Levant

The word "Palestinian" is occasionally used by ethnographers and linguists to denote the specific Arab subculture of the southern Levant

Levant

The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

; in that sense, it includes not only the Arabs of British Mandate Palestine, but also those inhabitants of Jordan

Jordan

Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

 who are originally from Palestine and the Druze

Druze

The Druze are an esoteric, monotheistic religious community, found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, which emerged during the 11th century from Ismailism. The Druze have an eclectic set of beliefs that incorporate several elements from Abrahamic religions, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism...

, while excluding both Bedouin

Bedouin

The Bedouin are a part of a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group traditionally divided into tribes or clans, known in Arabic as ..-Etymology:...

 (who culturally and linguistically group with Arabia) and ethnic minorities such as the Dom and Samaritan

Samaritan

The Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant. Religiously, they are the adherents to Samaritanism, an Abrahamic religion closely related to Judaism...

s. However, some of this definition is not accepted. The Samaritans of the West Bank are usually referred to as Palestinian.

Referring to Jews in an ethnic rather than religious sense

The term "Palestinian" used to refer to Jews in Europe who were regarded as an alien presence. For example, Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....

referred to European Jews as "the Palestinians living among us."