Palestinian State Formation: Education and the Construction of National Identity

This book examines the role of education in building a new Palestinian state, and especially on the role and function of the education system in the process of state formation. Since education frames a people’s identity, the nature of the education system affects how Palestinians relate to their state. Through education the Palestinian Authority (PA) transforms the parameters of identity to serve the requirements of state-building and the peace process. International assistance to the PA affects all of these processes through the disbursal of political rent, whose primary function is to bolster the PA and to keep the peace process going. The new Palestinian Authority has assumed two seemingly contradictory functions: state building and resistance, and the dynamic tensions between the two raise key questions for political and policy analysis. Are these functions mutually exclusive or complementary in the context of the ongoing peace negotiations, and state-building? Can the Palestinian leadership transform the Palestinian national movement from a revolutionary organization to a pragmatic state apparatus? Are the PLO and the PA interchangeable? What type of power does the PA need to cultivate the support, or to secure the compliance, of the Palestinian people for the state-building project? Clearly, the answers to these questions have a direct bearing on the education system. Will this system promote a resistance identity or a state-building legitimizing identity