3. Pre 1967 Palestinian-Arab Cultural and Political Identity
Palestine has never been an exclusively Arab country. Although Arabic gradually became the language of most of the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century, no independent Arab or Palestinian state has ever existed in the territory called Palestine.
When the Jews began to immigrate to Palestine in large numbers in 1882, fewer than 250,000 Arabs lived there. “The great majority of the Arab population in recent decades were comparative newcomers – either late immigrants or descendants of persons who had immigrated into Palestine in the previous 70 years.” (Carl Voss, “The Palestine Problem Today, Israel and its Neighbours” Beacon Press 1953 cited in Bard)
Prior to partition in 1948, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:
We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds (Yehoshua Porat, Palestinian Arab National Movement 1918-1929, London Frank Cass 1977 pp.81-82 cited in Bard)
This perception of Palestine persisted even after World War I, when in 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, stated in evidence before the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine:
“There is no such country [as Palestine]! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries, part of Syria. (Jerusalem Post, November 2, 1991)
As late as 1947 the political perspective of the Arabs in Palestine had not changed. The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 stating: “Palestine was part of the Province of Syria” and that “politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity.” A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.”
Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-World War I creation but it did not become as a significant political movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War when Palestinian-Arab terrorist organisations emerged as the embodiment of their vision for self-determination to be realised by violent struggle. The adoption of a distinctive Palestinian identity was forged initially during the first Intifada, (1987–1993) while the resort to violence in the attainment of self determination still remains still remains a potent element as ever in Arab culture and Palestinian segmentary society. This topic will be examined in depth in a later Chapter (see Tal Beker, Self-Determination in Perspective: Palestinian Claims to Statehood and the Relativity of the Right of Self-Determination, (1998) 32 Israel L. rev. 301)
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