Palestinian nationalism is the national movement
of the Palestinian people for self-determination
in and sovereignty over Palestine. Originally
formed in opposition to Zionism, Palestinian
nationalism later internationalized and attached
itself to other ideologies. Thus it has rejected
the historic occupation of the Palestinian
territories by Israel and the non-domestic
Arab rule by Egypt over the Gaza Strip and
Jordan over the West Bank.
== Background ==
Before the development of modern nationalism,
loyalty tended to focus on a city or a particular
leader. The term "Nationalismus", translated
as nationalism, was coined by Johann Gottfried
Herder in the late 1770s. Palestinian nationalism
has been compared to other nationalist movements,
such as Pan-Arabism and Zionism. Some nationalists
(primordialists) argue that "the nation was
always there, indeed it is part of the natural
order, even when it was submerged in the hearts
of its members." In keeping with this philosophy,
Al-Quds University states that although "Palestine
was conquered in times past by ancient Egyptians,
Hittites, Philistines, Israelites, Assyrians,
Babylonians, Persians, Romans, Muslim Arabs,
Mamlukes, Ottomans, the British, the Zionists
… the population remained constant—and
is now still Palestinian."Zachary J. Foster
argued in a 2015 Foreign Affairs article that
"based on hundreds of manuscripts, Islamic
court records, books, magazines, and newspapers
from the Ottoman period (1516–1918), it
seems that the first Arab to use the term
“Palestinian” was Farid Georges Kassab,
a Beirut-based Orthodox Christian." He explained
further that Kassab’s 1909 book Palestine,
Hellenism, and Clericalism noted in passing
that “the Orthodox Palestinian Ottomans
call themselves Arabs, and are in fact Arabs,”
despite describing the Arabic speakers of
Palestine as Palestinians throughout the rest
of the book."
Foster later revised his view in a 2016 piece
published in Palestine Square, arguing that
already in 1898 Khalil Beidas used the term
“Palestinian” to describe the region's
Arab inhabitants in the preface to a book
he translated from Russian to Arabic. In the
book, Akim Olesnitsky's A Description of the
Holy Land, Beidas explained that the summer
agricultural work in Palestine began in May
with the wheat and barley harvest. After enduring
the entire summer with no rain at all—leaving
the water cisterns depleted and the rivers
and springs dry—”the Palestinian peasant
waits impatiently for winter to come, for
the season’s rain to moisten his fossilized
fields.” Foster explained that this is the
first instance in modern history where the
term ‘Palestinian’ or ‘Filastini’
appears in Arabic. He added, though, that
the term Palestinian had already been used
decades earlier in Western languages by the
British James Finn, the German Ludwig Schneller,
and the American James Wells.In his 1997 book,
Palestinian Identity: The Construction of
Modern National Consciousness, historian Rashid
Khalidi notes that the archaeological strata
that denote the history of Palestine—encompassing
the Biblical, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Fatimid,
Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods—form
part of the identity of the modern-day Palestinian
people, as they have come to understand it
over the last century, but derides the efforts
of some Palestinian nationalists to attempt
to "anachronistically" read back into history
a nationalist consciousness that is in fact
"relatively modern." Khalidi stresses that
Palestinian identity has never been an exclusive
one, with "Arabism, religion, and local loyalties"
playing an important role. He argues that
the modern national identity of Palestinians
has its roots in nationalist discourses that
emerged among the peoples of the Ottoman Empire
in the late 19th century which sharpened following
the demarcation of modern nation-state boundaries
in the Middle East after World War I. He acknowledges
that Zionism played a role in shaping this
identity, though "it is a serious mistake
to suggest that Palestinian identity emerged
mainly as a response to Zionism." Khalidi
describes the Arab population of British Mandatory
Palestine as having "overlapping identities,"
with some or many expressing loyalties to
villages, regions, a projected nation of Palestine,
an alternative of inclusion in a Greater Syria,
an Arab national project, as well as to Islam.
He writes that,"local patriotism could not
yet be described as nation-state nationalism."Israeli
historian Haim Gerber, a professor of Islamic
History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
traces Arab nationalism back to a 17th-century
religious leader, Mufti Khayr al-Din al-Ramli
(1585–1671) who lived in Ramla. He claims
that Khayr al-Din al-Ramli's religious edicts
(fatwa, plural fatawa), collected into final
form in 1670 under the name al-Fatawa al-Khayriyah,
attest to territorial awareness: "These fatawa
are a contemporary record of the time, and
also give a complex view of agrarian relations."
Mufti Khayr al-Din al-Ramli's 1670 collection
entitled al-Fatawa al-Khayriyah mentions the
concepts Filastin, biladuna (our country),
al-Sham (Syria), Misr (Egypt), and diyar (country),
in senses that appear to go beyond objective
geography. Gerber describes this as "embryonic
territorial awareness, though the reference
is to social awareness rather than to a political
one."Baruch Kimmerling and Joel Migdal consider
the 1834 Arab revolt in Palestine as the first
formative event of the Palestinian people,
whereas Benny Morris attests that the Arabs
in Palestine remained part of a larger Pan-Islamist
or Pan-Arab national movement.In his book
The Israel–Palestine Conflict: One Hundred
Years of War, James L. Gelvin states that
"Palestinian nationalism emerged during the
interwar period in response to Zionist immigration
and settlement." However, this does not make
Palestinian identity any less legitimate:
"The fact that Palestinian nationalism developed
later than Zionism and indeed in response
to it does not in any way diminish the legitimacy
of Palestinian nationalism or make it less
valid than Zionism. All nationalisms arise
in opposition to some "other." Why else would
there be the need to specify who you are?
And all nationalisms are defined by what they
oppose."Bernard Lewis argues it was not as
a Palestinian nation that the Palestinian
Arabs of the Ottoman Empire objected to Zionists,
since the very concept of such a nation was
unknown to the Arabs of the area at the time
and did not come into being until later. Even
the concept of Arab nationalism in the Arab
provinces of the Ottoman Empire, "had not
reached significant proportions before the
outbreak of World War I."Daniel Pipes asserts
that "No 'Palestinian Arab people' existed
at the start of 1920 but by December it took
shape in a form recognizably similar to today's."
Pipes argues that with the carving of the
British Mandate of Palestine out of Greater
Syria the Arabs of the new Mandate were forced
to make the best they could of their situation,
and therefore began to define themselves as
Palestinian.
== History ==
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire was accompanied
by an increasing sense of Arab identity in
the Empire's Arab provinces, most notably
Syria, considered to include both northern
Palestine and Lebanon. This development is
often seen as connected to the wider reformist
trend known as al-Nahda ("awakening", sometimes
called "the Arab renaissance"), which in the
late 19th century brought about a redefinition
of Arab cultural and political identities
with the unifying feature of Arabic.Under
the Ottomans, Palestine's Arab population
mostly saw themselves as Ottoman subjects.
In the 1830s however, Palestine was occupied
by the Egyptian vassal of the Ottomans, Muhammad
Ali and his son Ibrahim Pasha. The Palestinian
Arab revolt was precipitated by popular resistance
against heavy demands for conscripts, as peasants
were well aware that conscription was little
more than a death sentence. Starting in May
1834 the rebels took many cities, among them
Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus. In response,
Ibrahim Pasha sent in an army, finally defeating
the last rebels on 4 August in Hebron.
While Arab nationalism, at least in an early
form, and Syrian nationalism were the dominant
tendencies along with continuing loyalty to
the Ottoman state, Palestinian politics were
marked by a reaction to foreign predominance
and the growth of foreign immigration, particularly
Zionist.The Egyptian occupation of Palestine
in the 1830s resulted in the destruction of
Acre and thus, the political importance of
Nablus increased. The Ottomans wrested back
control of Palestine from the Egyptians in
1840-41. As a result, the Abd al-Hadi clan,
who originated in Arrabah in the Sahl Arraba
region in northern Samaria, rose to prominence.
Loyal allies of Jezzar Pasha and the Tuqans,
they gained the governorship of Jabal Nablus
and other sanjaqs.In 1887 the mutassariflik
of Jerusalem was constituted as part of an
Ottoman government policy dividing the vilayet
of Greater Syria into smaller administrative
units. The administration of the mutassariflik
took on a distinctly local appearance.Michelle
Compos records that "Later, after the founding
of Tel Aviv in 1909, conflicts over land grew
in the direction of explicit national rivalry."
Zionist ambitions were increasingly identified
as a threat by Palestinian leaders, while
cases of purchase of lands by Zionist settlers
and the subsequent eviction of Palestinian
peasants aggravated the issue.
The programmes of four Palestinian nationalist
societies jamyyat al-Ikha’ wal-‘Afaf (Brotherhood
and Purity), al-jam’iyya al-Khayriyya al-Islamiyya,
Shirkat al-Iqtissad alFalastini al-Arabi and
Shirkat al-Tijara al-Wataniyya al-Iqtisadiyya
were reported in the newspaper Falastin in
June 1914 by letter from R. Abu al-Sal’ud.
The four societies has similarities in function
and ideals; the promotion of patriotism, educational
aspirations and support for national industries.
== Palestinian nationalist groups ==
=== 
Notables ===
Palestinian Arab A’ayan ("Notables") were
a group of urban elites at the apex of the
Palestinian socio-economic pyramid where the
combination of economic and political power
dominated Palestinian Arab politics throughout
the British mandate period. The dominance
of the A’ayan had been encouraged and utilised
during the Ottoman period and later, by the
British during the Mandate period, to act
as intermediaries between the authority and
the people to administer the local affairs
of Palestine.
The al-Husayni family were a major force in
rebelling against Muhammad Ali who governed
Egypt and Palestine in defiance of the Ottoman
Empire. This solidified a cooperative relationship
with the returning Ottoman authority. The
family took part in fighting the Qaisi family
in an alliance with a rural lord of the Jerusalem
area Mustafa Abu Ghosh, who clashed with the
tribe frequently. The feuds gradually occurred
in the city between the clan and the Khalidis
that led the Qaisis, however these conflicts
dealt with city positions and not Qaisi-Yamani
rivalry. The Husaynis later led resistance
and propaganda movements against the Young
Turks who controlled the Ottoman Empire and
more so against the British Mandate government
and early Zionist immigration. Jamal al-Husayni
was the founder and chairman of the Palestine
Arab Party (PAP) in 1935. Emil Ghoury was
elected as General Secretary, a post he held
until the end of the British Mandate in 1948.
In 1948, after Jordan had occupied Jerusalem,
King Abdullah of Jordan removed Hajj Amīn
al-Husayni from the post of Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem and banned him from entering Jerusalem.
The Nashashibi family had particularly strong
influence in Palestine during the British
Mandate Period from 1920 until 1948. Throughout
this period, they competed with the Husaynis,
for dominance of the Palestinian Arab political
scene. As with other A’ayan their lack of
identification with the Palestinian Arab population
allowed them to rise as leaders but not as
representatives of the Palestinian Arab community.
The Nashashibi family was led by Raghib Nashashibi,
who was appointed as Mayor of Jerusalem in
1920. Raghib was an influential political
figure throughout the British Mandate period,
and helped form the National Defence Party
in 1934. He also served as a minister in the
Jordanian government, governor of the West
Bank, member of the Jordanian Senate, and
the first military governor in Palestine.
The Tuqan family, originally from northern
Syria, was led by Hajj Salih Pasha Tuqan in
the early eighteenth century and were the
competitors of the Nimr family in the Jabal
Nablus (the sub-district of Nablus and Jenin).
Members of the Tuqan family held the post
of mutasallim (sub-district governor) longer
than did any other family in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries.The rivalry between
the Tuqans and Nimr family continued until
the 1820s.Awni Abd al-Hadi of the ‘Abd al
Hadi family. The Abd al-Hadis were a leading
landowning family in the Palestinian districts
of Afula, Baysan, Jenin, and Nablus. Awni
established the Hizb al-Istiqlal (Independence
Party) as a branch of the pan-Arab party.
Rushdi Abd al-Hadi joined the British administrative
service in 1921. Amin Abd al-Hadi joined the
SMC in 1929, and Tahsin Abd al-Hadi was mayor
of Jenin. Some family members secretly sold
their shares of Zirʿin village to the Jewish
National Fund in July 1930 despite nationalist
opposition to such land sales. Tarab ‘Abd
al Hadi feminist and activist was the wife
of Awni ‘Abd al Hadi, Abd al-Hadi Palace
built by Mahmud ‘Abd al Hadi in Nablus stands
testament to the power and prestige of the
family.
Other A’ayan were the Khalidi family, al-Dajjani
family, and the al-Shanti family. The views
of the A’ayan and their allies largely shaped
the divergent political stances of Palestinian
Arabs at the time.
=== British Mandate period ===
In 1918, as the Palestinian Arab national
movements gained strength in Jerusalem, Jaffa,
Haifa, Acre and Nablus, Aref al-Aref joined
Hajj Amīn, his brother Fakhri Al Husseini,
Ishaaq Darweesh, Ibrahim Daeweesh, Jamal al-Husayni,
Kamel Al Budeiri, and Sheikh Hassan Abu Al-So’oud
in establishing the Arab Club.
Following the arrival of the British a number
of Muslim-Christian Associations were established
in all the major towns. In 1919 they joined
together to hold the first Palestine Arab
Congress in Jerusalem. Its main platforms
were a call for representative government
and opposition to the Balfour Declaration.
The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement led the Palestinian
Arab population to reject the Syrian-Arab-Nationalist
movement led by Faisal (in which many previously
placed their hopes) and instead to agitate
for Palestine to become a separate state,
with an Arab majority. To further that objective,
they demanded an elected assembly. In 1919,
in response to Palestinian Arab fears of the
inclusion of the Balfour declaration to process
the secret society al-Kaff al-Sawada’ (the
Black-hand, its name soon changed to al-Fida’iyya,
The Self-Sacrificers) was founded, it later
played an important role in clandestine anti-British
and anti-Zionist activities. The society was
run by the al-Dajjani and al-Shanti families,
with Ibrahim Hammani in charge of training
and ‘Isa al-Sifri developed a secret code
for correspondence. The society was initially
based in Jaffa but moved its headquarters
to Nablus, the Jerusalem branch was run by
Mahmud Aziz al-Khalidi.
After the April riots an event took place
that turned the traditional rivalry between
the Husayni and Nashashibi clans into a serious
rift, with long-term consequences for al-Husayni
and Palestinian nationalism. According to
Sir Louis Bols, great pressure was brought
to bear on the military administration from
Zionist leaders and officials such as David
Yellin, to have the Mayor of Jerusalem, Mousa
Kazzim al-Husayni, dismissed, given his presence
in the Nabi Musa riots of the previous March.
Colonel Storrs, the Military Governor of Jerusalem,
removed him without further inquiry, replacing
him with Raghib. This, according to the Palin
report, 'had a profound effect on his co-religionists,
definitely confirming the conviction they
had already formed from other evidence that
the Civil Administration was the mere puppet
of the Zionist Organization.'The High Commissioner
of Palestine, Herbert Samuel, as a counterbalance
the Nashashibis gaining the position of Mayor
of Jerusalem, pardoned Hajj Amīn and Aref
al-Aref and established a Supreme Muslim Sharia
Council (SMC) on 20 December 1921. The SMC
was to have authority over all the Muslim
Waqfs (religious endowments) and Sharia (religious
law) Courts in Palestine. The members of the
Council were to be elected by an electoral
college and appointed Hajj Amīn as president
of the Council with the powers of employment
over all Muslim officials throughout Palestine.
The Anglo American committee termed it a powerful
political machine. The Hajj Amin rarely delegated
authority, consequently most of the council's
executive work was carried out by Hajj Amīn.
Nepotism and favoritism played a central part
to Hajj Amīn's tenure as president of the
SMC, Amīn al-Tamīmī was appointed as acting
president when the Hajj Amīn was abroad,
The secretaries appointed were ‘Abdallah
Shafĩq and Muhammad al’Afĩfĩ and from
1928-1930 the secretary was Hajj Amīn's relative
Jamāl al-Husaynī, Sa’d al Dīn al-Khaţīb
and later another of the Hajj Amīn's relatives
‘Alī al-Husaynī and ‘Ajaj Nuwayhid,
a Druze was an adviser.It was during the British
mandate period that politicisation of the
Wailing Wall occurred. The disturbances at
the Wailing wall in 1928 were repeated in
1929, however the violence in the riots that
followed, that left 116 Palestinian Arabs,
133 Jews dead and 339 wounded, were surprising
in their intensity and was the first instance
that indigenous Sephardi and Mizrahi had been
killed.Izz ad-Din al-Qassam established the
Black hand gang in 1935. Izz ad-Din died in
a shoot out against the British forces. He
has been popularised in Palestinian nationalist
folklore for his fight against Zionism.The
Nashashibis broke with the Arab High Committee
and Hajj Amīn shortly after the contents
of the Palestine Royal Commission report were
released announcing a Partition plan.The Great
revolt 1936-1939 was an uprising by Palestinian
Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine
in protest against mass Jewish Immigration.
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni member of the Palestine
Arab Party he served as its Secretary-General
and became editor-in-chief of the party's
paper Al-Liwa’ and other newspapers, including
Al-Jami’a Al-Islamiyya. In 1938, Abd al-Qadir
was exiled and in 1939 fled to Iraq where
he took part in the Rashid Ali al-Gaylani
coup.
al-Hawari who had started his career as a
devoted follower of Hajj Amin, broke with
the influential Husayni family in the early
1940s. The British had estimated the al-Najjada
para military scout movement, led by Muhammad
Nimr al-Hawari, strength as 8,000 prior to
1947. The revolt of 1936-39 led to an imbalance
of power between the Jewish community and
the Palestinian Arab community, as the latter
had been substantially disarmed.al-Qadir moved
to Egypt in 1946, but secretly returned to
Palestine to lead the Army of the Holy War
(AHW) in January 1948, and was killed during
hand-to-hand fighting against Haganah; where
AHW captured Qastal Hill on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem
road, on 8 April 1948. al-Qadir's death was
a factor in the loss of morale among his forces,
Ghuri, who had no experience of military command
was appointed as commander of the AHW. Fawzi
al-Qawuqji, at the head of the Arab Liberation
Army remained as the only prominent military
commander.The split in the ranks of the Arab
High Committee (this was nothing more than
a group of "traditional Notables") between
rejectionists and pro Partitionists led to
Hajj Amin taking control of the AHC and with
the support of the Arab League, rejected the
plan, however many Palestinians, principally
Nashashibi clan and the Arab Palestinian Communist
Party, accepted the plan.
=== After 1948–1964 ===
In September 1948, the All-Palestine Government
was proclaimed in Egyptian-controlled Gaza
Strip, and immediately won the support of
Arab League members except Jordan. Though
jurisdiction of the Government was declared
to cover the whole of the former Mandatory
Palestine, its effective jurisdiction was
limited to the Gaza Strip. The Prime Minister
of the Gaza-seated administration was named
Ahmed Hilmi Pasha, and the President was named
Hajj Amin al-Husseini, former chairman of
the Arab Higher Committee.
The All-Palestine Government however lacked
any significant authority and was in fact
seated in Cairo. In 1959 it was officially
merged into the United Arab Republic by the
decree of Nasser, crippling any Palestinian
hope for self governance. With the establishment
in 1948 of the State of Israel, along with
the migration of the Palestinian exodus, the
common experience of the Palestinian refugee
Arabs was mirrored in a fading of Palestinian
identity. The institutions of a Palestinian
nationality emerged slowly in the Palestinian
refugee diaspora. In 1950 Yasser Arafat founded
Ittihad Talabat Filastin. After the 1948 Arab–Israeli
War, most of the Husseini clan relocated to
Jordan and the Gulf States. Many family heads
that remained in the Old City and the northern
neighborhoods of East Jerusalem fled due to
hostility with the Jordanian government, which
controlled that part of the city; King Abdullah's
assassin was a member of an underground Palestinian
organization led by Daoud al-Husayni.The Fatah
movement, which espoused a Palestinian nationalist
ideology in which Palestinians would be liberated
by the actions of Palestinian Arabs, was founded
in 1954 by members of the Palestinian diaspora—principally
professionals working in the Gulf States who
had been refugees in Gaza and had gone on
to study in Cairo or Beirut. The founders
included Yasser Arafat who was head of the
General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS)
(1952–56) in Cairo University, Salah Khalaf,
Khalil al-Wazir, Khaled Yashruti was head
of the GUPS in Beirut (1958–62).
=== The emergence of PLO ===
The Palestine Liberation Organisation was
founded by a meeting of 422 Palestinian national
figures in Jerusalem in May 1964, following
an earlier decision of the Arab League, its
goal was the liberation of Palestine through
armed struggle. The original PLO Charter (issued
on 28 May 1964) stated that "Palestine with
its boundaries that existed at the time of
the British mandate is an integral regional
unit" and sought to "prohibit... the existence
and activity" of Zionism. The charter also
called for a right of return and self-determination
for Palestinians.
Defeat suffered by the Arab states in the
June 1967 Six-Day War, brought the West Bank,
East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip under Israeli
military control.
Yasser Arafat, claimed the Battle of Karameh
as a victory (in Arabic, "karameh" means "dignity")
and quickly became a Palestinian national
hero; portrayed as one who dared to confront
Israel. Masses of young Arabs joined the ranks
of his group Fatah. Under pressure, Ahmad
Shukeiri resigned from the PLO leadership
and in July 1969, Fatah joined and soon controlled
the PLO. The fierce Palestinian guerrilla
fighting and the Jordanian Artillery bombardment
forced the IDF withdrawal and gave the Palestinian
Arabs an important morale boost. Israel was
calling their army the indomitable army but
this was the first chance for Arabs to claim
victory after defeat in 1948, '53, and '67.
After the battle, Fatah began to engage in
communal projects to achieve popular affiliation.
After the Battle of Karameh there was a subsequent
increase in the PLO's strength.In 1974 the
PLO called for an independent state in the
territory of Mandate Palestine. The group
used guerilla tactics to attack Israel from
their bases in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria,
as well as from within the Gaza Strip and
West Bank. In 1988, the PLO officially endorsed
a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine
living side by side contingent on specific
terms such as making East Jerusalem capital
of the Palestinian state and giving Palestinians
the right of return to land occupied by Palestinians
prior to the 1948 and 1967 wars with Israel.The
First Intifada (1987–93) would prove another
watershed in Palestinian nationalism, as it
brought the Palestinians of the West Bank
and Gaza to the forefront of the struggle.
The Unified National Leadership of the Uprising
(UNLU) (al-Qiyada al Muwhhada) mobilised grassroots
support for the uprising. In 1987 The Intifada
caught the (PLO) by surprise, the leadership
abroad could only indirectly influence the
events., A new local leadership emerged; the
UNLU comprising many leading Palestinian factions.
The disturbances initially spontaneous soon
came under local leadership from groups and
organizations loyal to the PLO that operated
within the Occupied Territories; Fatah, the
Popular Front, the Democratic Front and the
Palestine Communist Party. The UNLU was the
focus of the social cohesion that sustained
the persistent disturbances. After King Hussein
of Jordan proclaimed the administrative and
legal separation of the West Bank from Jordan
in 1988, the UNLU organised to fill the political
vacuum. During the intifada Hamas replaced
the monopoly of the PLO as sole representative
of the Palestinian people. Some Israelis had
become tired of the constant violence of the
First Intifada, and many were willing to take
risks for peace. Some wanted to realize the
economic benefits in the new global economy.
The Gulf War (1990–1991) did much to persuade
Israelis that the defensive value of territory
had been overstated, and that the Iraqi invasion
of Kuwait psychologically reduced their sense
of security.
A renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian quest
for peace began at the end of the Cold War
as the United States took the lead in international
affairs. After the collapse of the Soviet
Union, Western observers were optimistic,
as Francis Fukuyama wrote in an article, titled
"The End of History". The hope was that the
end of the Cold War heralded the beginning
of a new international order. President George
H. W. Bush, in a speech on 11 September 1990,
spoke of a "rare opportunity" to move toward
a "New world order" in which "the nations
of the world, east and west, north and south,
can prosper and live in harmony," adding that
"today the new world is struggling to be born".The
demands of these populations were somewhat
differing from those of the Palestinian diaspora,
which had constituted the main base of the
PLO until then, in that they were primarily
interested in independence, rather than refugee
return. The resulting 1993 Oslo Agreement
cemented the belief in a two-state solution
in the mainstream Palestinian movement, as
opposed to the PLO's original goal, a one-state
solution which entailed the destruction of
Israel and its replacement with a secular,
democratic Palestinian state. The idea had
first been seriously discussed in the 1970s,
and gradually become the unofficial negotiating
stance of the PLO leadership under Arafat,
but it had still remained a taboo subject
for most, until Arafat officially recognized
Israel in 1988, under strong pressure from
the United States. However, the belief in
the ultimate necessity of Israel's destruction
and/or its Zionist foundation (i.e. its existence
as specifically Jewish state) is still advocated
by many, such as the religiously motivated
Hamas movement, although no longer by the
PLO leadership.
=== Palestinian National Authority ===
In 1993, with the transfer of increased control
of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem from Israel
to the Palestinians, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat
appointed Sulaiman Ja'abari as Grand Mufti.
When he died in 1994, Arafat appointed Ekrima
Sa'id Sabri. Sabri was removed in 2006 by
Palestinian National Authority president Mahmoud
Abbas, who was concerned that Sabri was involved
too heavily in political matters. Abbas appointed
Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, who was perceived
as a political moderate.
== Goals ==
=== Palestinian statehood ===
Proposals for a Palestinian state refer to
the proposed establishment of an independent
state for the Palestinian people in Palestine
on land that was occupied by Israel since
the Six-Day War of 1967 and prior to that
year by Egypt (Gaza) and by Jordan (West Bank).
The proposals include the Gaza Strip, which
is controlled by the Hamas faction of the
Palestinian National Authority, the West Bank,
which is administered by the Fatah faction
of the Palestinian National Authority, and
East Jerusalem which is controlled by Israel
under a claim of sovereignty.
=== From the river to the sea ===
"Palestine from the river to the sea" was
claimed as Palestine by the PLO from its establishment
in 1964 until the signing of the Oslo Accords.
The PLO claim was originally set on areas,
controlled by the State of Israel prior to
1967 War, meaning the combined Coastal Plain,
Galilee, Yizrael Valley, Arava Valley and
Negev Desert, but excluding West Bank (controlled
then by Jordan) and Gaza Strip (occupied between
1959 and 1967 by Egypt). In a slightly different
fashion "Palestine from the river to the sea"
is still claimed by Hamas, referring to all
areas of former Mandatory Palestine.
From the River to the Sea (Arabic: min al-nahr
ila al-bahr ) is, and forms part of, a popular
political slogan used by Palestinian nationalists.
It contains the notion that the land which
lies between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean
Sea be entirely placed under Arab rule at
the cost of the State of Israel, excluding
the contested Golan Heights, conquered from
Syria in 1967 and unilaterally annexed in
1981. It has been used frequently by Arab
leaders and is often chanted at anti-Israel
demonstrations.The slogan is versatile with
numerous variations including "From the river
to the sea, Palestine will be free," "Palestine
is ours from the river to the sea," "Palestine
is Islamic from the river to the sea," Islamic
scholars also claim the Mahdi will also declare
the slogan in the following format: "Jerusalem
is Arab Muslim, and Palestine — all of it,
from the river to the sea — is Arab Muslim."
== 
Competing national, political and religious
loyalties ==
=== Pan-Arabism ===
Some groups within the PLO hold a more pan-Arabist
view than Fatah, and Fatah itself has never
renounced Arab nationalism in favour of a
strictly Palestinian nationalist ideology.
Some of the pan-Arabist members justifying
their views by claiming that the Palestinian
struggle must be the spearhead of a wider,
pan-Arab movement. For example, the Marxist
PFLP viewed the "Palestinian revolution" as
the first step to Arab unity as well as inseparable
from a global anti-Imperialist struggle. This
said, however, there seems to be a general
consensus among the main Palestinian factions
that national liberation takes precedence
over other loyalties, including Pan-Arabism,
Islamism and proletarian internationalism.
Source?
=== Pan-Islamism ===
In a later repetition of these developments,
the pan-Islamic sentiments embodied by the
Muslim Brotherhood and other religious movements,
would similarly provoke conflict with Palestinian
nationalism. About 90% of Palestinians are
Sunni Muslims, and while never absent from
the rhetoric and thinking of the secularist
PLO factions, Islamic political doctrines,
or Islamism, didn't become a large part of
the Palestinian movement until the 1980s rise
of Hamas.
By early Islamic thinkers, nationalism had
been viewed as an ungodly ideology, substituting
"the nation" for God as an object of worship
and reverence. The struggle for Palestine
was viewed exclusively through a religious
prism, as a struggle to retrieve Muslim land
and the holy places of Jerusalem. However,
later developments, not least as a result
of Muslim sympathy with the Palestinian struggle,
led to many Islamic movements accepting nationalism
as a legitimate ideology. In the case of Hamas,
the Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood,
Palestinian nationalism has almost completely
fused with the ideologically pan-Islamic sentiments
originally held by the Islamists.
== See also ==
Concepts and events:
1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine
History of Palestine
Greater Palestine
Palestinian government
Palestinian political violence
State of Palestine
Timeline of the name "Palestine"
Views of Palestinian statehood
Individuals:
Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
Khalil al-Sakakini
Musa al-Husayni
Yousef al-Khalidi
Zuheir Mohsen
