Throughout the 20th century, Palestine consisted of a scattered group of people who shared a common purpose. Israeli forces suppressed Palestinians and gained control of Palestine's lost homeland. Palestinians were mostly Muslims and resented their Jewish oppressors. During the late 1960's and the early 1970's, the Palestinian people resisted Jewish control and resurfaced the quest to achieve independence as both a nation and a religious group. (Kimmerling 211). Palestinians expressed burgeoning Islamic nationalism through their alienating pursuit for an identity, the chauvinistic leadership of their political organizations, and by their guerrilla attacks against Israel.

During the mid-1960's, the tension between the alienation and identity of Palestinian existence generated the revival of Palestinian nationalism. The Palestinian people were estranged from Palestine's homeland, which gave them a sense of social identity. Mahmud Darwish captured the Palestinian's lack of belonging when he wrote, "What is a man worth... Without a homeland...