Posted on: 1999

By Dr. Hala Fattah

Over the years, a number of misstatements have entered the academic field and obscured the true meaning of the Palestinian experience. One of these is the notion that Palestinian nationalism was non-existent until the birth of Zionism and that, much like the rest of the Arab world, it only flourish  under the impact of a model imported wholesale from the West.

Professor Rashid Khalidi has written a subtle and powerful book that examines the issue within a historical framework entitledPalestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness.

Rashid Khalidi believes that, much like the rest of the world’s nationalisms, Palestinian identity is both a construct and a process. In other words, the Palestinian sense of selfhood and nationality is at once a concrete set of expression arising from a collective notion of people hood and “belonging”, and a phenomenon that changes over time. It is therefore both fixed and fluid. Moreover, like all “ imagined”constructions, it incorporates within it different levels of affiliation. Khalidi states,” the intellectuals, writers and politicians who were instrumental in the evolution of the first forms of Palestinian identity at the end of the last century and early in this century…identified with the Ottoman empire, their religion, Arabism, their homeland Palestine, their city or region, and their family, without feeling any contradiction, or sense of conflicting loyalties”. After the collapse of the empire, a wrenching transformation occurred that forced a reorientation from an Ottoman and pan-Islamic identity to Palestinian national consciousness. Once existing among a set of loyalties, Palestinian identity became the primary focus of the leaders, intellectuals and politicians of Mandate-era Palestine.

In the period that followed, this sense of nationhood only developed and strengthened among the different Arab communities in Palestine. Khalidi believes that “Although the Zionist challenge definitely helped to shape the specific form Palestinian national identification took, it is a serious mistake to suggest that Palestinian identity emerged mainly as a response to Zionism”. This is because Palestinian nationalism developed alongside the nationalism of the Arab world, and in fact helped revitalize and refocus a Arab identity that had roots as far as the 18^th century. And he goes on the caution that “While studies of Palestinian nationalism have concentrated on its evolution in recent decades, in fact most elements of Palestinian identity- particularly the enduring and parochial, local ones- were well-developed before the climactic events of 1948, although they continued to overlap and change both before and after that date”.

Because of its important religious and , Jerusalem became a significant symbol of that new identity. As described in our preceding article on the building and population of Jerusalem, the rise of Western schools and new Western-influenced juridical codes opened up the educational and legal system to novel changes. This displaced the locus of power from the traditionalist Muslim religious elite to the “new men”. Moreover, as a result of trying to thwart the constant interference of foreign consuls and governments, Ottoman central authority took on more authority, thus jeopardizing further the influence of the local religious hierarchy.

Eventually the old notability adapted, switching their sons to the new schools and training their offspring in the new law codes and systems.

Alongside the adaptability of the class of notables in Jerusalem, and their continued hold on the intellectual and social life of the city, another literate section of the city turned to the publication of newspapers. Among the most important was the official al-Quds al-Sharif [published in Arabic and Turkish], another paper published purely in Arabic called Al-Quds, and al-Najah, al Nafir, al-Munadi, al-Dustur and Baytal-Maqdis. Khalidi states that “As the Ottoman era drew to a close, what can be seen in the press, as in a few other sources, is the increasing usage of the terms, “Palestine” and Palestinian”, and a focus on Palestine as a country”. However, this literary and intellectual ferment came to an end with the collapse of the Ottoman centuries. Again Khalidi puts it best: “As the Ottoman era in Palestine ended with the capture of Jerusalem by General Allenby’s troops in December 1917, there passed with it not only sovereign domination-transferred from one power to another-but also the possibilities of autonomous development for the indigenous population, and of unfettered economic social and intellectual interaction between Palestine and other parts of the region.”

Of Iraqi origin, Dr. Hala is a historian of the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire, especiallyIraq. She is the author of The Politics of Regional Trade of Iraq, Arabia and the Gulf, 1745-1900(S.U.N.Y Press, 1996). Presently, she is an Independent Scholar.