Disintegration as an Integrative Process: Revisiting Palestinian Cohesiveness from the Late Ottoman Era through the End of the British Mandate

Abstract

The common narrative regarding the Palestinian Arabs during the British Mandate period highlights the disastrous effects of social and political disintegration on their integration as a national community, as well as on their ability to deal with the British and the Jewish Yishuv. The analysis offered here examines integration and disintegration processes in Palestinian society through diverse local, regional and national networks. The main argument is that disintegration and integration processes were not exclusively contradictory, as is commonly perceived, but rather dialectical developments that often ultimately served Palestinian integration, although this process did not mature until the fateful War of 1948.