Every polity is a fiction created to organize a group of people within a geographic area. However, in most cases, nation-states or their underlying claims to nationality are the product of the development of a national culture over a long period of time, including common language, history, religion, aspiration, outlook, mores, art and so on. Moreover, it is an organic product, emerging from the cultural petri dish in a given geographic area.
You will not find these characteristics in the “Palestinian” claim. To begin with, there has not been a long-standing, recognizable group of people identifying themselves with the land of Israel, except, of course for the Jews. The pre-Israel Arab population was dominated by 2 cohorts: One, town and village dwellers who defined themselves nationally, if at all, as subjects of the Ottoman empire and religiously, culturally and ethnically as Arab, primarily muslim. It is noteworthy that many of these people were actually tenant farmers, while their landlords were often absentees preferring the major cities of Turkey, Syria and Lebanon. These tenant farmers were often quite transitory and developed little attachment to the land as their own, moving from place to place as conditions warranted: drought, rents, food prices. Two, nomadic folk, like Bedouins and other tribal Arabs, who not only did not see themselves as “Palestinians”, but probably rejected any notion of belonging to a geographically defined “nationality”, including the Ottoman empire. In both cases, the populations were historically very small as can be attested from numerous sources, most famously Mark Twain in “Innocents Abroad”. Written just 80 years before the founding of the state of Israel, Twain’s pilgrimage account describes a land appallingly desolate and depopulated. Likewise, in both cases, you will not find a shred of evidence that they thought of themselves as “palestinians”.
If you attempt to go further back in time, you find no evidence at all that there was any homogeneous constant settlement in the land, except for the pitifully poor and oft persecuted Jewish communities which stayed on throughout the centuries going back to the days of the Temple.
In sum, you do not have the historical context of a single, defined population organically evolving into a common culture and sharing a particular attachment to the land. It was only with the rise of Jewish migration to Israel that brought a steady flow of arabs into Israel, seeking the markets and job opportunities created by vibrant Jewish development.
Invention in the Palestinian sense also differs from organic nationalities in another vital way: You may scour newspapers and other media sources for the period up to the early 1960’s and you will not find a hint of an Arab Palestinian claim or aspiration. Arabs rioting and slaughtering Jews in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s did not raise a single banner emblazoned with a nascent Palestinian flag or other symbol of a desire for Palestinian self-determination, nor were such claims heard in protest chants or preached in mosques or written in editorials. The only point the Arabs were making was they wanted no Jews. Period.
It was after Yassir Arafat (may his name be blotted from the memory of mankind) received his Politburo and KGB training that the idea of claiming nationhood was introduced. As the Soviets well understood, useful Western idiots could be relied upon to fall prey to misty claims of “self-determination” accompanied with the pathetic plight of the refugees who just wanted to return to their homeland.
Gingrich is absolutely right (on this) and it is stunning to hear a major American politician actually tell the truth on this subject today.
That sort of thing was true throughout the multi-national empires -- Ottoman, Russian, Austro-Hungarian. Many people described themselves merely as "local" or by religion. It's like that in places where nationalism hasn't yet taken root. After it has, you find people who are ready to kill and die for a concept of peoplehood or nationhood. That's regrettable, but you can't decide to freeze some groups in the state prevailing before national consciousness develops and grant national consciousness to others.
In both cases, the populations were historically very small as can be attested from numerous sources, most famously Mark Twain in “Innocents Abroad”. Written just 80 years before the founding of the state of Israel, Twain’s pilgrimage account describes a land appallingly desolate and depopulated.
Not the most informed or objective observer. Twain also saw Greece and Syria as desolate and depopulated. He was comparing ancient or desert lands to the America he knew and finding them uncultivated and underpopulated. He would have said the same thing about Ireland or Norway if he'd visited there. That doesn't mean he was right.
If you attempt to go further back in time, you find no evidence at all that there was any homogeneous constant settlement in the land, except for the pitifully poor and oft persecuted Jewish communities which stayed on throughout the centuries going back to the days of the Temple.
So they were all transients and nomads? That seems quite unlikely, certainly in terms of what you yourself write about the two groups. Perhaps you're putting too much importance on homogeneity or defining homogeneity in some perverse way.
But my point is, once national consciousness develops it takes on a life of its own. The argument that, say, Ukranians or East Timoreans or Bosnians or Kosovars, aren't legitimately a people doesn't carry much weight once consciousness of nationhood or peoplehood develops.