Summary
In Chapter 6 of For Palestine — Essays from the Tom Hurndall Memorial Lecture Group, Karma Nabulsi’s term, drawn from Rousseau’s Social Contract, for what makes the Palestinian people cohere and the exclusive basis of her Palestinian identity: not ethnicity, language, custom, religion, race or nation, and never static (For Palestine — Essays from the Tom Hurndall Memorial Lecture Group, PDF p.105-106).
Details
- Nabulsi quotes GDH Cole: “The General Will is realized not whenever that is done which is best for the community, but when, in addition, the community as a whole has willed the doing of it” (PDF p.106).
- The 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence is presented as an expression of the general will of the Palestinian people, defining the state as “the state of Palestinians wherever they may be” (PDF p.109-111).
- Sovereignty, as the exercise of the general will, “can never be alienated”, and the power may be transmitted but not the will (PDF p.116-117).
Related pages
For Palestine — Essays from the Tom Hurndall Memorial Lecture Group, Karma Nabulsi, Right of Return