TO DEFINE PALESTINIAN: NATIONAL IDENTITY TODAY, AND YESTERDAY.

Epistemology teaches that early in human development there is a decision made between
what relates to the individual, and what does not.. Once humans can figure out who they are not, it
becomes easy to find others that are like them. A country, or, more loosely in certain cases, a
region, develops a sense of who it is as the collective thoughts of its members in the same fashion
as the individual. This is the framework of national identity. National identity is the mortar that
holds together a people and builds them in culture and beauty. Just as often as it binds them
through success, it binds them to failure. In the Palestinian region, there are many factors that get
in the way of the idea of a Palestinian people. All interference aside, there is a strong sense of
Palestinian identity through nationalism, religion, and a history that tethers the people to this small
swatch of land off the east of the Mediterranean Sea.
Palestine as a region has seen a bombardment of religion, culture, foreign empires,
languages, and everything that comes along with those concepts. Throughout pre-history, history,
and modernity, Palestine has been a place of rich human involvement and life. Not only was it
inhabited early, but also the civilization advanced at a rate unprecedented to the rest of the world.
Some of the earliest evidence of set agricultural areas was excavated in the fertile areas of the
region. Also, the city of Jericho was the first walled city in the history of mankind during the
Neolithic period (Richard, 1987). Countless empires and peoples have occupied the region since
the dawn of written history. Such peoples as the ancient Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the eventual
take over of Islamic kingdoms, the Ottomans, and a myriad of others have all put a historical mark
on the land and people that is key to understanding national identity.
The region of Palestine, geographically between Jordan and Egypt, has been a crucible
throughout early history, and remains to be so today. It is easy to come to the conclusion that there
could not possibly be any concept of a unified people; no possible set group with the name of

TO DEFINE PALESTINIAN: NATIONAL IDENTITY TODAY, AND YESTERDAY.

Palestinians. In fact, many scholars have tried to argue that the Palestinian region cannot have any
sense of national identity, as it is not singular, clearly defined nation, even today. This, however, is
not the case. The most commonly accepted scholarship on national identity is by Anthony Smith, an
esteemed Nationalism Studies professor. His philosophy on the matter is that national identity can
exist outside of the precepts of a nation because the idea of a nation is something so new to human
history. He says that all that is needed is a few common bonds amongst the people of a region to
develop a basic sense of national identity, which if fostered, can develop (Gerber, 2008, p. 3). The
reason the region is and has been so contested is that the people feel a deep sense of belonging and
ownership towards it both through land, culture, and religious identity, which are strong common
ties that have bound the people in Palestine for millennia.
One of the first indicators of when national identity formed earliest, and how it evolved is to
pinpoint moments in history when a name is given to a region. Names are vital ways to understand
how and precisely when group self-identity takes place. Humans as a race didnt come up with
modern notion of a country for thousands upon thousands of years. Before national borders were
established, land was divided in large population center and the surrounding areas, geographical
regions that were distinguished from one another, or sometimes by a group coming forth with a
specific identity and giving a name to the land to reflect themselves as owners. The naming of these
regions is the crucial and very first step humans take towards creating an us and a them. This is
why it is vastly important to pin point the exact times in history where the modern national name, or
its equivalent notion, was established. The Palestinian region, though different in categorization
than most modern countries, is no exception.
While some scholars argue that Egyptians may have called the region Pelest as early as the
12th century BC, the first real concrete and relevant evidence comes from ancient Greek historian
Herodotus. At the time his text was written, the land was inhabited by the Israelites, and it was their

TO DEFINE PALESTINIAN: NATIONAL IDENTITY TODAY, AND YESTERDAY.

Holy center for hundreds of years. It can be extrapolated that the people would identify nationally
with their individual cities and regions as well through the nation of the Islamic people as whole.
Herodotus wrote of the region on the east coast of the Mediterranean and called it Palaistin
(Jacobson, 1999). His usage of the word in context does not indicate that he created the name solely
for the sake of distinction. Herodotus got the name from others, which indicates that the people
there must have been calling the area this name for long enough, and widely enough, that a 3rd
person observer picked up on it and wrote of it. Romans came to occupy Palestine years later, and in
135 CE the Romans banished all Jews from the Holy Land of Jerusalem. For the first time in over
1,300 years, others had power in the sacred lands of Jewish Palestinians. Though, in many ways,
Jewish imprint lived on. During the Roman occupation of the area, they gave it the name of
Palaestina, mostly as an attempt to remove of the Jewish name Judea, and partially because the
name had existed in the region for centuries and had been part of the vernacular (Gerber, 2008, p.
48).
Once the Islamic empire took control of the Fertile Crescent in the mid 7th century, they named
the region at question Jund Filastin, or the administrative region of Palestine. The area was
highly turbulent during the crusades, and around 1250, all use of Jund Filastin drops from the
official record books. Here is where something interesting happens. The people of the region, though
the empire ceased to call it so, continued to refer to the region as Filastin, or Palestine after 1250.
This acceptance of the term by the common people right after the crusade period, without any kind of
official mandate, highlights an early identity as a united people of the region now by Islamic peoples.
The Arabs in Palestine, which as a mass had no borders due to the expanse of Islamic territories, still
referred to their small area as Palestine as late as the 13th century (Gerber, 2008, p. 49).
This very early example of people beginning to have some consciousness of a nation in
Palestine is key to the argument that there are indeed strong sentiments of national identity in the

TO DEFINE PALESTINIAN: NATIONAL IDENTITY TODAY, AND YESTERDAY.

region. A couple centuries later, in the 1490s, a man named Mujir al-Din al-Hanbali al-Ulaymi
wrote a history of Jerusalem and Hebron (a city in the modern day West-Bank). While the book was
titled in being about those two cities, it talks much about the region surrounding them as well. Here,
as author Gerber (2008) puts it [there is a] major methodological problem, that [al-Dins book
brings up]: to what degree do individual writersrepresent the public, (p. 49). He continues to
raise an answer to the methodological issue by stating that his book was written to be read and
distributed to the masses in his region, and therefore, it must be assumed that he used terms and
language that was according to the social milieu, or he would not have written it. Going off of this, a
substantially important piece of information arises: in this history written just before the beginning
of the 16th century, al-Din uses the word Filastin (Palestine), and not just once or twice, but he
uses it 22 times through the course of his work (Gerber, 2008, p. 49). This is an exceptionally vital
piece of knowledge towards understanding the idea of Palestinian identity and its development. This
text by al-Din is so important as a work in fact, that it is used and quoted extensively in and as
sources about Palestinian history up to World War I, when the entire landscape changed. Filastin
had not been discussed with any legitimacy for about 240 years at the time of al-Dins writing, and
yet he used the name Palestine as though it was never forgotten from the days of Rome. Another
essential aspect of al-Dins book is that he refers to the region not only as Palestine, but as the Holy
Land as well. Calling the region the Holy Land appropriately sets up the remainder of where
Palestinian identity comes from. Three major world religions all have deep history in Palestine,
which will dramatically change what Palestine means, and who the people are that live there.
The times following al-Dins history are very important, and a turning point, and even
transitional period, can be found in the Palestinian identity. Here, important distinctions in
geography come to play in Palestine identity. In 1517, Palestine was taken over by the Ottoman
Empire. Under Ottoman rule, Jews were allowed to reenter Palestine, where they had been

TO DEFINE PALESTINIAN: NATIONAL IDENTITY TODAY, AND YESTERDAY.

forbidden for hundreds of years, starting with exile from Roman Palestine, and continuing through
Christian Byzantine rule, and then through the expanse of the early Islamic kingdoms (Isseroff,
2006). A collection of documents from 16th century Ottoman Palestine detail how although Palestine
was not a separate administrative province, it had a unique character. The documents continue to
detail how the region is separate from all surrounding areas because of geography, religious ideas,
and way of life. These archives even refer to Palestine as a country, the first time this is done in such
a legitimate way (Gerber, 2008, p. 56). In another area of the documents, Palestine is said to have
begun to form a border out of religion. Pilgrimages increased heavily in this period, and the sites of
Islamic pilgrimage in the region created an outline of a border.
For almost 300 years Palestine was left undisturbed by foreign bodies, having only
experienced rule from the Ottomans. In 1798, Napoleon attempted to conquer Palestine. He did not
succeed, but instead left the region ravished. Arab and Jew populations were decreased; both
populations saw significant loss through death in war, and from natives fleeing to safer areas outside
Palestine. The war, and problems with Ottoman administration led to riots by the Palestinian people.
Many scholars point to this as the blue print for modern nationalism by the people of Palestine as a
group (Isseroff, 2006). Around the same time, Ottoman lawmakers are referring to the land around
Jerusalem as a region, defining the area of Palestine as one body. This is all crucial information to
be focused on in this transitional period.
In the latter half of the 19th century, something happened that changed Palestinian identity,
and continues to define it today. European Jews, having assimilated in various parts of the world
after being exiled from Palestine through the Islamic kingdoms, began to realize as a national group
that they had no belonging in any particular country. 89% of the worlds Jews lived in Europe at the
time, but few of them belonged as nationals. Despite experiencing better treatment by European
governments, Jews still faced extreme social ostracism. They were not allowed to keep high society,

TO DEFINE PALESTINIAN: NATIONAL IDENTITY TODAY, AND YESTERDAY.

and were considered to be, as a people, degenerative (Jones & Murphy, 2002, p. 4). Fueled by this
anti-Semitism and scores of other factors, Judaism as a religion began to grow roots in a
nationalistic idea: the land of their holy fathers was rightfully theirs. This was a radical change in
ideology for the Jewish peoples (Shimoni 2007).
During the same time, other nations in Europe were experiencing similar radical changes in
identity, but none had the deep-seated feeling of belonging that the Jews did to Palestine. Zionists
suggested that Jews belong in Palestine because it had been promised to them, and there had been a
consistent Jewish presence there for over 3,000 years. These sentiments combined with harsh
prejudice and political pressure forced a lot of Jews to move back into Palestine (Jones & Murphy,
2002, p. 5). Zionism is so fundamentally important because the movement claims hold on the
Palestinian land that Arabs had inhabited for over a thousand years. In WWI, when the Ottomans
fall, distinction between Islamic and Jewish Palestine became far clearer, while at once being far
more blurred. The clash of Jewish and Islamic identities in Palestine form the lasting conflict that is
to ensue, and sculpts modern constructs of identity in Palestine. Not only is Zionism important in its
implications and changes, but also for the first time Palestine became a clearly defined area of the
world to be contested. No longer was it just a sub-region of a vast empire, where only its denizens
see a national identity. Jewish claim over the land raised essential questions, involving an inherit
belonging. The idea of Jews belonging inherently to Palestine highlighted and challenges what it
meant to be Palestinian. This issue is disputed still today (Jones & Murphy, 2002, p. 6).
WWI invigorated Zionism as a movement. Britain established a mandatory government in
Palestine after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. This forced government created a rift in who would
lead, whether Islam should remain true in Palestine, or if a Jewish state was to be established by
Western Power. Britain told the Arabs that they would have control still over the lands in the eastern
Mediterranean. At the same time, it was publicly announced through the Balfour Declaration that

TO DEFINE PALESTINIAN: NATIONAL IDENTITY TODAY, AND YESTERDAY.

Britain was in favor of a Jewish state in Palestine, as long as it would not prejudice the cultural and
religious rights of the non-Jews there (Jones & Murphy, 2002, p. 9).
Britain was to stay in control of Palestine as a (loosely termed) colony. A key point to the
Balfour declaration is that it fails to recognize land and political rights of the non-Jews, just that
Jews have the right to a national land there, and the Arabs (and small trace Christian minority
communities) were not to be prejudiced. The problem herein lies in the fact that the Palestinian nonJews had been in Palestine since the middle of the 7th century. The deep ideas of home and
ownership in the land of the Palestinian region ran through the very blood of the Islamic peoples
there (Khallidi, 2007, p. 4). After WWI, Western powers, seeing the Ottomans collapse, thought
that all of the area once Ottoman had nationally identified with the Ottoman state, which was very
untrue. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire meant little in terms of identity of the people of
Palestine, as they were not displaced from the war, and had their religion to bind them. The Arabs
despite not having an established nation in Palestine felt in everyway to be a part of a pseudo-nation
in Palestine. A clear distinction was to be drawn between Jews and Arabs that became as much
about politics as it was for religion (Gerber, 2008, p. 108). The Balfour Declaration was right in
foreshadowing a Jewish state, but the anti-prejudice ideas did not come to fruition, and because of
this, national identity in Palestine begins to change rapidly.
There are a number of ways in which national identity and pride can manifest in a group.
One of the strongest displays of national identification is through acts of violence, war or terrorism.
Unfortunately, post WWI Palestine was filled with tensions that often times ended in violent acts. It
would seem as though as soon as Britain mandated the Jews into Palestine, conflict and tension
between the two religious groups began. In 1929, something happened that showed identity across
the two sides. A group of Israeli boys started a protest in Jerusalem, which by the standards of the
British Mandate was still in possession both culturally and religiously of the Islam peopleand

TO DEFINE PALESTINIAN: NATIONAL IDENTITY TODAY, AND YESTERDAY.

therefore belonged territorially to them. The boys went to the Western Wall in Old Jerusalem and
started a loud, disruptive, and politically driven protest of Muslim rules toward the sacred Jewish
spot. This event brought a year or so of debates, tensions, and threats over the Wall to an active
head. The protest brought about a counter protest by Muslims, who were afraid of religious and
political ramifications of Jews gaining control of the temple mount. The counter demonstration
ended with minor fistfights between the groups. As the tension increased between the two sides, a
riot ensued which ended in the death of a Jewish boy, and the severe wounding of an Arab boy.
Three days after that, tensions reached the breaking point, and Muslim protestors began to rush out
and attack Jewish shop owners and bystanders. This act of violence ended with the death 133 Jews,
and 116 Arabs (Gerber, 2002, p. 108-111). Here is the first major event where a distinct separation
in national identity surfaces through acts of violent nationalism. This sort of act between Arabs and
Jews was repeated numerous times, both in ways more and less severe for the next two decades.
In 1948 the British Mandate of Palestine collapses and Israel immerges as an independent
country through rebellion, nationalism, terror, and war. With the introduction of a Jewish nation, it
was only natural that Jews who once had identified together in their religion began to identify with
Israel as a body. This didnt come easily to the Islamic peoples, though it had been in the works for
almost 30 years, and there had been distinct shows of nationalism. The Arabs felt as though the
Jewish people had no right to the land that they were claiming as solely theirs. Both groups held
onto the idea that the Holy Land belonged to their people (Baum, 2009). At this time however,
another key movement begins. With this, a true dichotomy appears clearly for the first time in
history. Palestine as a region is broken up into the Jewish Israeli state and the Islamic Palestinian
state.
The United Nations drew lines in 1947 for the distinction between Arab states and Jewish
states. The land mass was cut up evenly, with Jerusalem and its immediate area remaining in a zone

TO DEFINE PALESTINIAN: NATIONAL IDENTITY TODAY, AND YESTERDAY.

that was to be internationally governed. When Israel surfaced a year later, tensions had never gone
away from the days of rebellion and violence, and an armistice agreement between the Arab state
and Israel was reached, which drew new heavily defined borderlines. Under the armistice, UN lines
were changed, and Israel took up more than three quarters of the landmass, and gave Jews and
Arabs both a piece of Jerusalem (Jones & Murphy, 2002). The new Israel exploded in economy,
power, and became an international presence in a very short time. The people of Israel not only had
land to call their own, but they had a successful government and economy that fueled the flames of
national identity, and propagated the us and them mentality towards the Arabs. At the advent of
Israel, 750,000 of the 900,000 Palestinian-Muslims in Israeli lands fled or were banished to Syria,
or Jordan, but mostly, and importantly, about half of the Palestinians stayed in the Gaza Strip the
and West Bank (Gerber, 2008, p. 189). Despite Islam-Egypt taking claim to the Gaza-Strip, and
Jordan claiming the West Bank, the people that inhabited the areas were chiefly Palestinian in
identity. They not only lived in historic Palestine, but they also lived in close proximity to one
another, a fact that Gerber (2008) calls a fact of supreme political importance for the region in the
coming decades, (p. 190). While Jewish identity was soaring visibly, Palestinian Muslims were
forced into the background, though their idea of self stayed with them. Here the idea of the
Palestinian State is seen to spark.
1967, Israel fought in the Six Day War and acquired the Gaza Strip and parts of the West
Bank, both of which were under Islamic-Palestinian control under the armistice in 1949.
Through the remainder of the 20th century up until