“When did a significant proportion of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine begin to think of themselves as Palestinians? What are the constituent elements of this sense of identification with Palestine, and how does it relate to other forms of identity, whether national, religious, or otherwise? These and other basic questions touch-ing on Palestinian identity have generated an extensive polemical litera-ture. 1 They have also produced some valuable scholarship.2 These ques-tions have informed our consideration of the identity of Palestinian Arabs in the pre-World War I period. These same questions are the primary focus of this chapter, which argues that the answers to them can be found largely in the years at the end of World War I and immediately afterwards.”
– Rashid Khalidi (first paragraph of chapter 7 of his book Palestinian identity)
