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The Failure of Palestinian Nationalism

(BESA Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University) Dr. Alex Joffe - The February 2019 Warsaw Summit, which saw the Israeli PM take his seat beside Arab leaders, was a turning point that signaled the ebbing fortunes of the Palestinian cause. The continuing inability of the Palestinian Authority to build a functioning state has generated frustration among once-reliable supporters, as has the ever-looming presidential succession crisis. The steady cutoff of American aid, including to UNRWA, has not prompted a fundamental rethinking of Palestinian goals, but rather a retrenchment. Why has Palestinian nationalism failed to construct a state? On the one hand, it relies on romantic visions of an imaginary past, the myth of ancestors sitting beneath their lemon trees. This is at odds with the hardscrabble reality of pre-modern Palestine, which was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, dominated by its leading families, and beset by endemic poverty and disease. On the other hand, Palestinian nationalism is resolutely negative. The essential symbols of Palestine - a fighter holding a rifle and a map that erases Israel completely - is a nationalism based in large part on negation of the Other, preferably through violence. The writer, an archaeologist and historian, is a senior non-resident fellow at the BESA Center.
2019-03-13 00:00:00
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