Summary
Raymond Rocco’s formulation, as Banko uses it for Mandate Palestine, under which rights are conceptualised as a function of membership in a historically specific society or community, so that Palestinian Arabs understood birth or descent in the Arab community as granting that community ownership of its territorial political entity and inherent civil and political rights to the state (The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918–1947, PDF p.16-18 / printed p.5-7, PDF p.67-69 / printed p.56-58).
Details
- Rocco argues that a challenge from new spaces and institutions disrupts long-established political and civic boundaries of identity and transforms notions of identity and membership in the nation-state; Banko applies this to the mandate as an institution and the growth of civil society in Palestine (PDF p.67 / printed p.56).
- Alongside new institutions, spaces and civic behaviours, rights are conceptualised as a function of membership in a historically specific society or community, and the cultural context plays a formative role in defining the nature and significance of claims to rights (PDF p.74 / printed p.63).
- By 1920 the Arab leadership in Palestine strongly identified with a communitarian formulation of citizenship, although the influence of liberal and republican citizenship conceptions was clearly expressed in their words and actions; as early as 1920 their discussions emphasised that by virtue of membership in a primordial, Arab community, Palestine’s Arab inhabitants had rights to the state as its sovereigns (PDF p.68 / printed p.57).
- Neither citizenship nor nationality, on this account, could be imposed by a foreign power, nor rights and duties granted by colonial authorities; national identity and rights existed as natural elements of membership within a nation (PDF p.17-18 / printed p.6-7).
- Civic associations that strengthened Palestinian Arab solidarity did not necessarily constitute citizenship claims in themselves, but were a ‘vital factor’ leading to activities and behaviours that did, because they promoted ‘a stronger sense of participatory rights and responsibilities’ in traditionally non-political arenas (PDF p.74-75 / printed p.63-64).
- The concept of citizenship to emerge in the Levant in the interwar period had little to do with individual claims to rights from the state; claims came out of the interpretation that membership in the Arab community on the basis of nationality and culture granted that particular community the rights to the nation-state (PDF p.72 / printed p.61).
Where sources disagree
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This use differs from Communitarianism in The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry: Culture, Politics, and the Formation of a Modern Diaspora, where the term names the Ottoman millet identity of Jews and other non-Muslims — a worldview of protected religious community inside a hierarchy — rather than a formulation of rights claims by a national community.
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Banko’s Chapter 6 framing: in the Levant generally and Palestine specifically, the framework within which understandings of ‘rights’, ‘obligations’ and ‘justice’ were constituted was a communitarian understanding of national identity and belonging (PDF p.162 / printed p.151).
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Banko’s Chapter 7: the ideas of citizenship expressed by Palestinian Arabs during the mandate were increasingly conceived within a conceptual framework of primordial or communitarian citizenship and nationality, alongside strong influences of democratic, liberal citizenship, while rooted in jus sanguinis and jus soli nationality influenced by late Ottoman practice (PDF p.182 / printed p.171).
Related pages
The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918–1947, Communitarianism, Palestinian nationality, Muslim-Christian Association, Arab Executive Committee