Was there ever a Palestine

Answer 1

Answer 1

yes for a long time.

Answer 2

No. Palestine was never an individually governed Arab territory. No Arab Empire from the Rashidun Caliphate to the Ayyubid Caliphate ever ruled from Jerusalem nor was Palestine administered as a central territory. It was a near-permanent backwater, especially during the Ottoman Period, when it was actually portioned off in three pieces that were smaller parts of governates headquarted outside of Palestine.

Prior to the Nakba in 1948-1949, there was not even a unique Palestinian identity as we know it today. The Palestinian Arabs called themselves Fellahin (which means settled peasant) and considered themselves to be ethnically 'Arab Bilaad ash-Shaam or Levantine Arabs or Greater Syrian Arabs.

The first ever Palestinian Arab state in the history of the world was declared in absentia in Tunisia in 1988 and was partially realized in 1993 with the Oslo Accords.