>The Palestinian identity is historically bound up with opposition to Israel All cultural and ethnic identities are synthetic. Whether we choose to accept a de

>The Palestinian identity is historically bound up with opposition to Israel All cultural and ethnic identities are synthetic. Whether we choose to accept a definition of Palestinian identity "in opposition to Israel" or not, we are not simply reading off a list, but creating new language. The area that became Israel and Palestine was partitioned between the Sanjuk of Jerusalem and the Vilayet of Beirut under the Ottomans, and the local and regional cultures and identities formed then were not in opposition to anything. To build a future, we are better off taking the good things from the past, rather than the bad ones.