The Origins of the Palestinian Arabs
by Daniel Pipes
No "Palestinian Arab people" existed at
the start of 1920, but, by December, it took shape in a form
recognizably similar to today's.
Until the late nineteenth century, residents
living in the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean
identified themselves primarily in terms of religion: Moslems felt
far stronger bonds with remote co-religionists than with nearby
Christians and Jews. Living in that area did not imply any sense of
common political purpose.
Then came the ideology of nationalism from Europe;
its ideal of a government that embodies the spirit of its people was
alien but appealing to Middle Easterners. How to apply this ideal,
though? Who constitutes a nation and where must the boundaries be?
These questions stimulated huge debates.
Some said the residents of the Levant are a
nation; others said Eastern Arabic speakers; or all Arabic speakers;
or all Moslems.
But no one suggested "Palestinians," and
for good reason. Palestine, then a secular way of saying Eretz
Yisra'el or Terra Sancta, embodied a purely Jewish and Christian
concept, one utterly foreign to Moslems, even repugnant to them.
This distaste was confirmed in April 1920, when
the British occupying force carved out a "Palestine."
Moslems reacted very suspiciously, rightly seeing this designation as
a victory for Zionism. Less accurately, they worried about it
signaling a revival in the Crusader impulse. No prominent Moslem voices endorsed the delineation of
Palestine in 1920; all protested it.
Instead, Moslems west of the Jordan directed their
allegiance to Damascus, where the great-great-uncle of Jordan's King
Abdullah II was then ruling; they identified themselves as
Southern Syrians.
Interestingly, no one advocated this affiliation
more emphatically than a young man named Amin
Husseini. In July 1920, however, the French overthrew this
Hashemite king, in the process killing the notion of a Southern
Syria.
Isolated by the events of April and July, the
Moslems of Palestine made the best of a bad situation. One prominent
Jerusalemite commented, just days following the fall of the Hashemite
kingdom: "after the recent events in Damascus, we have to effect
a complete change in our plans here. Southern Syria no longer exists.
We must defend Palestine."
Following this advice, the leadership in December
1920 adopted the goal of establishing an independent Palestinian
state. Within a few years, this effort was led by Husseini.
Other identities - Syrian, Arab, and Moslem -
continued to compete for decades afterward with the Palestinian one,
but the latter has by now mostly swept the others aside and reigns
nearly supreme.
The writer is director of the Philadelphia-based Middle
East Forum |