Question 1With a rationale that aligns with Hobsbawm’s prerequisites for the manifestation of a proto-nationalism, Rashid Khalidi, in his important book Palestinian Identity, locates the Palestinian proto-nationalist identity as the product of many years of growing nationalist sentiment during the final years of Ottoman rule during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He claims that the momentum of this nationalist sentiment snowballed with the “unsettling changes” brought about from the “outset of World War I” to the “British mandate for Palestine,” creating a sense of nationalism unrivaled by that which existed before.[1] Khalidi acknowledges that the profundity of these events was intensified by the already existent “constituents” of Palestinian identity, namely “patriotic feeling,” “local loyalties,” and “religious sentiment” that had been in development during the Ottoman rule.[2]Khalidi illustrates that “a strong and growing national identification with Palestine” came to fruition as the “Arab residents of the country” came to “imagine themselves as part of a single community” on both a national and “local” level.
[3] One of the most important resultants of this historical period was “religious attachment to Palestine as a holy land,” especially by “Muslims and Christians”.[4] While these two groups had “different conceptions” from one another of what “made” Palestine a Holy Land, Khalidi asserts that they both “shared a similar general idea” that the country was a “special and holy” “unit”. [5] Indeed, “religion” is an “ancient and well tried” mean of unity to establish “a sort of brotherhood between people” and most certainly acts as “paradoxical cement for proto-nationalism”. [6] This “cement,” of course, is the common religiously based attachment to Palestine as a holy land. [7] It is easily observable that religion was a major factor in bringing about a nationalist sentiment.
Khalidi presents both local loyalties and national patriotism as another unifying factor for Palestinian identity. Khalidi describes sense of “urban patriotism” that fostered a “powerful local attachment” to Palestine. [8] However, it is important to note that this sentiment also occurred “outside of the cities” in more rural areas as “pride in the village” and “pride in family and lineage” also took form. [9] As this “notion of patriotism” geographically expanded, become less local, and “reached wider circles of the population” with the “establishment of roads and railways” what developed was a “sense of belonging” to an entity “larger than a city, town, or village”…a nation.[10] Khalidi illustrates that this once local Palestinian patriotism soon became a national, potent manifestation of nationalism.
The “collective belonging” that came about in Palestine most certainly created “proto-national” “bonds”. [11]Both of the aforementioned factors (Religion and Patriotism (Both local and national)) combined synergistically to form what became the Palestinian national movement. The Arab residents began to, in an “Andersonian” manner, “imagine” themselves as a part of a “single” unified “community” or nation. [12] The events that constituted the “formative period in the genesis of Palestinian nationalist identity” acted as the catalyst while the aforementioned elements of proto-nationalism were the driving force that created the Palestinian national movement.Question 2The development of a unified Palestinian peasant identity was largely the result of the threatening of their land and labor interests by Zionist settlers. While Palestinian Anti-Zionism had its roots in the peasantry it eventually became a national issue.
According to Khalidi, “it can be argued” that “the reaction of the peasantry” was both “central” to the Palestinian-Zionist “struggle over colonization in Palestine” and to the eventual construction of both a unique “peasant” identity and a Palestinian identity independent of class; the combined reaction of the peasantry and the elite broke barriers of class and geography to create this mutual Palestinian identity. [13]Although “most” peasants were “illiterate,” they were keenly “aware of events in their immediate region” and “farther afield”. [14]By no means were the “Fellahin” (Peasants) ignorant of the “physical removal of the traditional Arab cultivators” in favor of Zionist “newcomers,” and oftentimes they “resisted their dispossession” with violence, which only served to fuel the Palestinian-Zionist conflict and further strengthen the unity of the peasantry. [15] “Desperately” trying to “cling” to their territory, this resistance “united the peasants” against the Zionist settlers and further bolstered their solidarity.
[16] Their unified identity most certainly resulted from their conflict with the Zionists. Khalidi asserts that the peasants played a “vital role” in the “mobilization” of this anti-Zionist sentiment and would eventually bring it to the attention of the elites and city dwellers. [17]With the “flowering” of the “Arabic-language press,” these once exclusively peasant issues became a “focus of criticism “ for the “Ottoman authorities” and elites in the “newly free press”. [18] At this point, the “opposition to land sales to the Zionists” became an “important shared element” between the fellahin and the Palestinian elite who already opposed Zionism on “grounds of principle”.
[19] This served to eliminate the imagined bridge between the elite and the peasantry and unite them in their Palestinian identity, an identity that opposes Zionism on “grounds of principle”. [20]The “negative impact” of Zionism came to affect both the “influential people in the country” and the peasants as the Zionists took “possession of their land, village by village”. [21]Alas, the social distinctions of peasant and elite eventually meant nothing, for they were merely Palestinians united against a common enemy. Not only were Palestinians united on a level of class, they were united on a geographical level as well. A “shared identity” formed between “those in the cities and towns” of Palestine and “those in the countryside” as a result of the peasant’s strife. [22]Resulting from the invasion of Zionist settlers, Palestinians developed a “shared sense of destiny,” between “city and country side” and “peasant” and “elite”.
[23] Soon, it mattered not what class one came from or where they lived, for there was a common enemy to be dealt with. The threatening of fellahin territory by Zionists not only spawned a unified Palestinian peasant identity that united against a common enemy, it created a national consciousness, universal amongst all Palestinians.
