Remembering and Imagining Palestine : Identity and Nationalism From the Crusades to the Present

The book sets out to explore the history of Palestinian nationalism by asking if there were historical antecedents of this identity prior to the twentieth century, and whether this nationalism existed on every social level. It argues that such identity, or a kind of popular nationalism, did exist, aroused by the memory of the Crusades, the Holy Land, and the term Palestine. Remembering and Imagining Palestine sets out to explore the history of Palestinian nationalism and identity, an identity which stretches back to the time of the Crusades and beyond. In those days it was an identity whose character was more social than political; two of its most significant elements were the community of fear which coalesced around the possible return of the Crusades, and the use of 3Palestine4 as the name of the country. The nature of this traditional identity came to exert a strong influence on the emergence of Palestinian nationalism following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. As time progressed, the mixture of old memories and new imaginings created amongst the Palestinians a sense of preordained ethnic responsibility : they became conscious that they were elected by God to serve as guards of the holy sites of Jerusalem for the entire world of Islam. This book demonstrates that this idea became the main driving force of Palestinian nationalism and, indeed, remains so to the present day Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction....Pages 1-13 The Wider Historical and Theoretical Context....Pages 14-41 Elements of Palestinian-Arab Identity in the Past....Pages 42-79 The Formative Period: 1918–22....Pages 80-105 From Riots to Radicalization: 1922–36....Pages 106-134 The Great Rebellion and Its Aftermath....Pages 135-162 The Ideology of the Palestinian Arabs during the Mandate....Pages 163-186 Palestinian Nationalism after 1948....Pages 187-206 Summary and Conclusion....Pages 207-213 Back Matter....Pages 214-243