This foundational text now features a new introduction by Rashid Khalidi reflecting on the significance of his work over the past decade and its relationship to the struggle for Palestinian nationhood. Khalidi also casts an eye to the future, noting the strength of Palestinian identity and social solidarity yet wondering whether current trends will lead to Palestinian statehood and independence.
One of the pre-eminent historians of Palestinian nationalism. The Chronicle of Higher Education
A major contribution to historical Palestinian nationalism. Foreign Affairs
An impressive, thoughtful, layered, and well-documented study. Kirkus
Pathbreaking. Library Journal
Preface Introduction to the 2010 Reissue 1. Introduction 2. Contrasting Narratives of Palestinian Identity 3. Cultural Life and Identity in Late Ottoman Palestine: The Place of Jerusalem 4. Competing and Overlapping Loyalties in Ottoman Jerusalem 5. Elements of Identity I: Peasant Resistance to Zionist Settlement 6. Elements of Identity II: The Debate on Zionism in the Arabic Press 7. The Formation of Palestinian Identity: The Critical Years, 1917–1923 8. The "Disappearance" and Reemergence of Palestinian Identity Notes Bibliography Index
"I believe that discussions of whether a one-state or a two-state solution to this conflict is preferable have a slightly surreal quality in the current critical environment. What has to be done is not to debate how many states can dance on the head of a pin, but rather to devise how to reversevery rapidlythe powerful current dynamic and get the Palestinian people out of the state they are in. The highly inequitable de facto one-state 'solution' now in effect looks more and more entrenched, but, paradoxically, I predict it will become more and more untenable and more violently unstable as time goes on."-From the new introduction
About the Author
Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. He is also the author of Under Siege: P. L.O. Decisionmaking During the 1982 War, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood, and Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East, and coeditor of The Origins of Arab Nationalism.
