Palestinian Identity [Paperback]

Rashid Khalidi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 22, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0231105150 | ISBN-13: 978-0231105156

Khalidi critically assesses the narratives that make up Palestinian history and identity and examines the ways in which the Palestinian national consciousness has come full circle.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Noted Palestinian historian Khalidi presents the most credible argument to date in English for the existence of an amorphous Palestinian territory with an identifiable population existing before the emergence of political Zionism. The author's primary purpose is to establish the origins of a Palestinian national consciousness, which he does superbly, even with the obvious animus toward Israel and Zionism. Khalidi's research was greatly enhanced by his access to the family library in Jerusalem, bringing to light certain documentation for the first time. His historiographic method is path-breaking, including coverage of nonelite elements of Palestinian society involved in the development of a nationalistic sentiment. Essential reading along with Muhammad Muslih's The Origins of Palestinian Nationalism (Columbia Univ., 1990), this is highly recommended for specialists and general readers alike.?Sanford R. Silverburg, Catawba Coll., Salisbury, N.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

An impressively thoughtful, layered, and well documented study of key aspects of the evolution of modern Palestinian nationalism. Those expecting either a comprehensive history of the modern Palestinian movement or a polemic against Zionism and Israel should look elsewhere. Khalidi, who teaches history and directs the Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago, and who was a member of the Palestinian delegation to the Mideast peace negotiations, focuses almost entirely on the late Ottoman and early Mandate period (1880s through 1920s). He sees Palestinian nationalism emerging far earlier than is generally thought--in the preWW I period, when absentee landlords in Beirut and elsewhere sold large tracts of Palestinian land to the Jewish Colonization Association. Yet while modern Palestinian history is inextricably intertwined with that of Zionism, Khalidi focuses as much on other constituents of modern Palestinian identity, which include ``patriotic feelings, local loyalties, Arabism, religious sentiments, [and] higher levels of education and literacy.'' He demonstrates how the long-term influence of modernization, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and concomitant European incursion in the preWW I era, followed by the betrayal of promises made by both the British and French, contributed as much to Palestinian nationalism as the 1917 Balfour Declaration and Zionist immigration. The only flaw here is that Khalidi races through the last 70 years of the development of Palestinian identity. Even here, however, he offers a fascinating analysis of why Palestinian nationalism seemingly became ``submerged'' after the first Arab- Israeli War (194749) and until the PLO's founding in 1964. At a time when the end of the hundred years' war between Zionism/Israel and the Palestinians appears on the horizon, this illuminating study will help readers gain a sophisticated understanding of how the Palestinians came to be who they are. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (March 22, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231105150
• ISBN-13: 978-0231105156
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #942,258 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rashid Khalidi, author of six books about the Middle East--Sowing Crisis, The Iron Cage, Resurrecting Empire, Origins of Arab Nationalism, Under Siege, and the award-winning Palestinian Identity--is the Edward Said Chair in Arab Studies at Columbia University. He has written more than eighty articles on Middle Eastern history and politics, including pieces in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and many journals. Professor Khalidi has received fellowships and grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the American Research Center in Egypt, and the Rockefeller Foundation; he was also the recipient of a Fulbright research award. Professor Khalidi has been a regular guest on numerous radio and TV shows, including All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, Morning Edition, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and Nightline.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Achieves its goal eloquently, March 24, 2001

By 

Tron Honto - See all my reviews

This review is from: Palestinian Identity (Paperback)

Khalidi's goal is to make a case for Palestinian Nationalism's existence as not necessarily presuppossing the existence of Zionism; therefore, he places the locus of its origin before the *nakba* of 1948. To be specific, Khalidi situates the crucial years during the late and post-Ottoman period in Palestine. The author is not a primordialist, but rather, he is a constructivist. Taking nationalism as peculiar phenomenon to modernity, it locates him in a precarious position in which to create room for his argument, for he insists that Palestinian identity can be seen as a process which could have potentially evolved w/o Zionism as its interlocutor (though, of course, it did not). His arguments and presentation are masterful.

Recommended for anyone who studys the area and/or conflict, essential read.

25 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars this is not a chronology, February 23, 2005

By 

Maurice Ebileeni - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Palestinian Identity (Paperback)

Unfortunately, some of my fellow-reviewers seem to consider this book another interpretation of the Palestinian history. Although Khalidi's book is largely based on research in primary sources (traditional approach of historicist), it largely attempts to explore matrix of narratives that make up the Palestinian identity.
Khalidi takes us back to the mid-ninteenth century where he traces the first basic elements of the Palestinian identity as a collective identity. He then stresses the importance of Jerusalem around which a grand part of the Palestinian identity revolves. The emergence of Arab nationalism as a liberation movement against Ottmoam occupation, and today's Arab leaders misuse of Arab nationalism as a ruling device through which they maintain their power, and the combination of a Palestinian identity with the larger concept of Pan-Arabism are all underlying constituents of the 'Palestinian'. Of course, Khalidi also relates to Palestinians' relation to Zionism and then Israel and the establishment of the PLO.
This is a very ambitious book, but I think that it misses a very important chapter on a particular group of Palestinians - the Arabs of Israel. Their experience is unique and indispensable to the Palestinian identity and somehow Khalidi misses to acknowldge their prence and contribution to the Palestinian identity. Otherwise, this is a 'must' for those who wants to really know who the Palestinians really are instead of sticking to the constantly ludicrous images of the Palestinian as a bloodthirsty terrorist.
Khalidi seem to turn every stone in order to provide a comprehensive picture of today's Palestinian.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seeing Beyond the Terrorist: Palestinians Exposed, October 29, 2008

By 

Listen&Learn (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (Hardcover)

As an American Jew who spent a decade living in Israel and loathing "the Arabs" - this book has done more for my own personal transformation of "understanding the other" than any other experience. Khalidi is meticulous, yet dispassionate in his gathering of primary sources in which he documents the every day details of Palestinian life, particularly in the periods of Ottoman Empire rule and the British Mandate (before the founding of Israel). REGARDLESS of your views on "the conflict" this book is essential reading in exposing the HUMANITY of Palestine and Palestinians to the West. I found it particularly refreshing that unlike some researchers, Mr. Khalidi does not lament the tragedy of the Palestinian as solely a "travesty perpetrated by the Zionists". Rather, he takes to task his own people calling them on the failures that have perpetuated their misery, and the complicity of neighboring Arab states as well in the complex, sad, and often shadowy events that have befallen the Palestinian people.