**Canaanism** was a small but influential ideological movement active from the 1930s-1960s.

They believed that:

* Modern Hebrew-speaking Jews were becoming a new national identity distinct from the Jewish diaspora.
* This new "Hebrew nation" belonged to the people of the ancient Near East rather than primarily to the global Jewish people.
* Religion (Judaism) should be separated from national identity.
* The new Hebrew nation should embrace the region's pre-biblical Canaanite heritage rather than define itself solely through biblical Israelite history.

The movement rejected the idea that nationhood was based primarily on shared religion across the diaspora.

Canaanists believed that Palestinian Arabs were descendants at least in part of the ancient peoples of the Levant, including the Canaanites, Israelites, Phoenicians, and others, who had gradually adopted Christianity and later Islam over centuries.

The movement also regarded many Lebanese especially because of the region's association with the ancient Phoenicians as belonging to the broader ancient Canaanite cultural world.

Canaanists envisioned that:

* Hebrew Jews,
* Palestinians,
* Lebanese,
* and possibly Syrians and Jordanians

shared deep historical roots in the ancient Levant and could form a broader regional people and these populations would merge into a common Levantine or Canaanite nation.

Flag of the Canaanists (1930s-1960s)