Elements of Palestinian-Arab Identity in the Past

Abstract

As noted in the Introduction, scholars almost universally agree that there were no traces of Palestinian identity before it was invented by the British in 1918. Rashid Khalidi and Yehoshua Porath are alone in claiming that such an identity existed a little earlier, although for Porath it was no more than a reaction to Zionism. Rashid Khalidi is the only scholar who identifies a positive Palestinian identity not connected to Zionism. In this chapter I try to delve into this issue more deeply by using new kinds of sources and relying on new kinds of theories. My general conclusion is that something was present, substantially more than formerly thought. I also claim that this “something” was crucially important for the development of Palestinian nationalism in the twentieth century. This is not a perennialist but an ethnosymbolist claim, and an explanation is called for. I do not argue that a Palestinian nation existed before 1920. I do not even argue the existence of a full-fledged, self-conscious ethnic community. What existed was a community of some meaning, difficult to categorize exactly, but highly relevant to the way Palestinian nationalism was created, which is why the topic is extremely important as a subject of study. Furthermore, I am not claiming here that the transformation from pre-modern Palestinian identity to modern nationalism was inevitable.