Internalization of the Concept of “National Self-Determination” in the Early Palestinian Leadership (1918-1922)

From the Perspective of Critical Discourse Studies

Abstract

From the perspective of critical discourse studies (CDS), this paper examines how the Palestinian leadership internalized the concept of self-determination in 1918, when the concept gained international recognition, and shortly thereafter. This is a particularly important period to consider with regard to how Palestinians felt about the emergence of the concept and how it was incorporated into their discourses. First, this paper shows that discourse in Palestinian leadership can be understood at three levels: identity, subject of demand, and international legitimacy. The analysis shows how the discourse, which initially appealed for protection of individual rights to residence and ownership, gradually transformed itself into one that sought collective independence and even made the right to national self-determination itself a goal. Furthermore, such discourse is found to have merged with that of the League of Nations and the Allies for strengthened legitimacy. In other words, international discourse clearly played an ideological role in the formation of discourse for the Palestinians and contributed to the reduction of discourse’s dialogicality. Moreover, the roles of the Muslim Christian Association in Palestine, the Palestinian Arab Council, and the Palestinian delegation dispatched by the Council to London were particularly important as actors in the formation of discourse.