Palestinian Identity, The Construction of Modern National Consciousness

By Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University Press, 1997, 309 pp. List: $16.50; AET: $15.

Reviewed by Raja’ M. Abu-Jabr

“The quintessential Palestinian experience, which illustrates some of the most basic issues raised by Palestinian identity, takes place at a border, an airport, a checkpoint: in short, at any one of those many modern barriers where identities are checked and verified…For it is at these borders and barriers that the six million Palestinians are singled out for ‘special treatment,’ and are forcefully reminded of their identity: of who they are, and of why they are different from others.”

—Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity

Although the Oslo agreements provided worldwide acknowledgment of Palestinian identity, it remains subject to question at all international borders where, in the words of Palestinian-American Prof. Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian is “suspect almost by definition.” In his impressive work Palestinian Identity, Dr. Khalidi, professor of history at the University of Chicago and director of its Center for International Studies, examines the evolution of Palestinian identity and modern Palestinian nationalism.

In 309 pages, Khalidi assesses the construction of the Palestinian national identity, its historical phases, and the obstacles it faced. Divided into eight well-documented chapters, Palestinian Identity, winner of the 1997 Albert Hourani Book Award of the Middle East Studies Association,opens with “Contrasting Narratives of Palestinian Identity,” a chapter that explores different versions of the history of Palestine. A major reason for the lack of previous scholarship on the construction of identity in Palestine is the conjunction there of many contradictory views of self and of history.

“These may be religious, whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim; or secular, as for example, the focus of Masonic ritual on the Temple in Jerusalem; or they may be national or supranational, whether Arab or Jewish,” Khalidi explains. The chapter emphasizes a distinctive argument that Palestinian identity did not evolve in recent decades as some studies of Palestinian nationalism claim, but in fact was well developed before the climactic events of 1948.

“The assertion that Palestinian nationalism developed in response to the challenge of Zionism embodies a kernel of a much older truth: this modern nationalism was rooted in long-standing attitudes of concern for the city of Jerusalem and for Palestine as a sacred entity which were a response to perceived external threats,” Khalidi argues. “The incursions of the European powers and the Zionist movement in the late 19th century were only the most recent examples of this threat.”

Palestinian Identity also provides a thoughtful analysis of cultural life and identity in late Ottoman Palestine, with special concentration on Jerusalem. This is the city that was most affected by the change in the final half-century of Ottoman rule from Islamic systems of justice and education to Western-based forms. Dr. Khalidi presents detailed looks into the lives of two individuals from the late Ottoman era, Yusuf Diya’ al-Khalidi and Ruhi al-Khalidi, to illustrate the political and ideological transitions occurring at the end of that period. According to the author, a distinctive characteristic of both of these men is that they “found no contradiction between a firm commitment to Ottomanism and taking pride in their Arab heritage…defending Palestine against what they perceived as the danger of Zionist colonization, and opposing the government party on this issue.”

Focusing on the critical role Zionism played in shaping Palestinian national identity, Khalidi argues that Arab awareness of Zionism and its danger to the Palestinians began much earlier than the Mandate period and was “deeply rooted” in Palestine and the Arab regions of the Ottoman Empire. It was the fellahin (peasants) who first suffered in encounters with the Zionist settlers over “increased land purchases and the replacement of Arab wage-laborers on Jewish estates by Jewish workers,” Khalidi writes.

This Zionist policy was explained in the words of Dr. Arthur Ruppin, the foremost land expert in the Jewish Agency, who announced: “Land is the most necessary thing for our establishing roots in Palestine. Since there are hardly any more arable unsettled lands in Palestine, we are bound in each case of the purchase of land and its settlement to remove the peasants who cultivated the land so far, both owners of the land and tenants.”

The land purchase phenomenon, along with the realization of many Arabs that Zionism was planning to establish an independent Jewish entity in Palestine, shaped a strong Palestinian reaction embodied in various political activities between 1908 and 1914. Arab attacks on Jewish settlements, according to Khalidi, were “the result of a real process of dispossession which…can be conclusively documented not in the words of the victims, but rather on the basis of contemporary Zionist sources and recent research based on them.” The fellahin resistance to Zionism and the resulting solidarity created between different segments of the Palestinian community were encouraged by the press.

The existence of Palestinian identity faced severe challenges, especially with the expulsion and dispossession of the Palestinian people in 1948. A major obstacle also was the absence of a Palestinian political entity from 1948 to 1964, the year the Palestine Liberation Organization emerged.

“During the 1950s and early 1960s there were few indications to outside observers of the existence of an independent Palestinian identity or of Palestinian nationalism,” Khalidi acknowledges. These obstacles, and many others, however, did not kill Palestinian national identity. It continued to exist despite Golda Meir’s claim in 1969 that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian.”

Palestinian Identity is an impressive piece of history that challenges existing biases of the written modern historiography of Palestine. As Khalidi argues in Chapter 5, “history is written by the victors.” Fortunately, with historians such as Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said and many others who have undertaken the task of retrieving Palestinian history, the Palestinians themselves may soon be victors.

Raja’ M. Abu-Jabr is the public relations and advertising director for the Washington Report.