The Israel-Palestine Conflict A History

This chapter explores how Jews and the indigenous inhabitants came to see themselves as members of national communities. It begins with a description of “culture of nationalism” –– a collective belief in society that the assumptions that undergird nationalism are part of the natural order. It then describes how the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine and the Jews of mainly Eastern Europe, embedded within empires undergoing transformations that imbued them with structures associated with modern states, came to see themselves as a homogeneous grouping. In the case of the indigenous population of Palestine, that grouping was imperial in scope. The Jews of Eastern Europe, however, were “othered” by the majority community, and thus came to see themselves as a people apart.