Palestinian indigeneity was discursively recast via biblical Philistine identification into savagery.

Evidence

Palestinians were the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. They were indigenous in the sense of being and being “found” in the area, both by the nineteenth-century colonizing powers and by the increasing convergence of Zionist-inspired Jews in the territory after the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and especially in the wake of World War II. This is not to say Jews weren’t present in the area prior to the migrations from the 1880s, only that the numbers were small and overwhelmingly Sephardic, locally born and bred. Identified as the direct kin of biblical Philistines, by the mid-twentieth century Palestinians as a people were often seen as philistines as much in characterization as in scriptural name, conceived in the representational struggles as bloodthirsty and warmongering, constantly harassing modern-day Israelites, debauched and lacking altogether in liberal culture. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 560

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the specific sense of ‘indigenous’ at play — being ‘found’ by colonizers rather than first-arrival priority.
• SEED: The double meaning of ‘philistine’ (biblical enemy + uncultured boor) fusing in one representational smear is a ready-made essay on how etymology launders racism.