The Palestinian nationalist struggle: between state and state-building

Martin Bunton

University of Victoria

September 2003

There is much that is specific and unique to the ways in which Palestinian nationalism has emerged and developed over the course of the 20th century. Nonetheless, an understanding of this history can be achieved in terms of typologies of nationalism that stress its constructed, complex, and contested nature. Variations experienced in the contingent material conditions of Palestinians (for example, of occupation, exile or foreign rule) have resulted in the need to distinguish between a multiple layering of identities which are neither mutually exclusive nor necessarily irreversible but need to be understood in terms of specific conjunctions of political and socio-economic factors. A new historical conjuncture is now being faced. The proto-statist political institutions PLO, originally founded on armed struggle, has since 1993 been tied to an identifiable territorial base in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This has required a new demarcation of the Palestinian nation, but one that is now hotly contested by Islamist groups who form the main political opposition. Far from negating the nation-state model, opposition groups appear to want emphasize their own patriotic credentials, and in doing so re-invent Islamic traditions while at the same time challenging our understandings of nationalism.