| Talkback | |
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Title: | The Poor Palestinian National Identity - | |||
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| Name: | chafeeka | | |||
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| Palestinians you might say are jealous of Israel One obstacle is the trajectory of Palestinian national identity. It?s important to understand that in the Arab world, national borders reflect post-World War I geopolitics, not fundamental differences in language, religion, or culture. (One of the most telling boasts of the 20th Century was Winston Churchill?s remark that he created the Kingdom of Jordan ?with a stroke of my pen on a Sunday afternoon.") Beyond geography, there is little to differentiate Palestinian national identity from that of, say, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, or Egypt. There is no uniquely Palestinian language, religion, or deep historical experience; Palestinian identity arose largely in response to Zionism, a statement with which Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian scholar and author of ?Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness," probably would agree. Because Palestinian identity exists so much within the context of the clash with Zionism, there are few positive building blocks of a national identity based on distinct cultural, ethnic, or religious values. Thus, too, the widespread appeal of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, movements that put primacy on pan-Islamic ideals. According to their view, Palestinian national identity exists to further Islamist goals in the Arab confrontation with Israel rather than for the purpose of fulfilling a self-contained Palestinian destiny. A second factor driving the Palestinians? self-destructive confrontation with Israel is a kind of jealous loathing. Would the Palestinians change places with Israel? You bet! Despite millennia of exile and persecution capped by genocide, the Zionist ideal was ? and to a great extent remains ? to create a unique national identity based on a distinct language (Hebrew), religion (Judaism), and culture (a synthesis of historical and modern Jewish experience). The experiment has been a wild success, the likes of which exists no where else. And it drives the Arabs crazy. Israel is a leader in high-tech industries and agriculture; its universities, medical centers, and research facilities are second-to-none; with the help of world Jewry, the country has achieved what no other nation (except the United States) has; namely, saving millions of people from physical destruction and spiritual desiccation. The Arabs of the Levant (first under Ottoman rule and then under the British mandate) had different plans for the land the Roman Empire had named ?Palestine" as an insult to the dispossessed Jews. And now that this dispossessed civilization has again flowered there, having returned to the land of its birth and its dreams, it is more than the Palestinian Arabs can bear. |
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