Palestinian nationalism
[6][7] 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.
[9] James L. Gelvin suggests the emergence of Palestinian nationalism during the interwar period was a "response to Zionist immigration and settlement".
As a result, the Abd al-Hadi clan, who originated in Arrabah in the Sahl Arraba region in northern Samaria, rose to prominence.
[22] In 1887 the Mutassariflik (Mutasarrifate) of Jerusalem was constituted as part of an Ottoman government policy dividing the vilayet of Greater Syria into smaller administrative units.
[23] Michelle Compos records that "Later, after the founding of Tel Aviv in 1909, conflicts over land grew in the direction of explicit national rivalry.
The al-Husayni family were a major force in rebelling against Muhammad Ali who governed Egypt and Palestine in defiance of the Ottoman Empire.
[26] 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.
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.
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 Darweesh, Jamal al-Husayni, Kamel Al Budeiri, and Sheikh Hassan Abu Al-So’oud in establishing the Arab Club.
[33] 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.
[34] After the April riots an event took place that turned the traditional rivalry between the Husayni and Nashashibi clans into a serious rift,[35] 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.
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.
[40] 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.
Muhammad Nimr al-Hawari, who had started his career as a devoted follower of Hajj Amin, broke with the influential Husayni family in the early 1940s.
[48] The Nashashibis broke with the Arab High Committee and Hajj Amīn shortly after the contents of the Palestine Royal Commission report were released on 7 July 1937, announcing a territorial partition plan.
[52] 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.
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.
[65] 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.
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.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western observers were optimistic, as Francis Fukuyama wrote in an article, titled "The End of History".
However, the belief in the ultimate necessity of Israel's destruction and/or its Zionist foundation (i.e., its existence as a specifically Jewish state) is still advocated by many, such as the religiously motivated Hamas movement, although no longer by the PLO leadership.
[citation needed] 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.
[83] 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).
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.
[citation needed] 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.
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.
