ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the work of Yezid Sayigh, who has claimed that a distinctive Palestinian nationalist agenda emerged with the formation of factions such as Fatah and lay the foundation upon which a disparate refugee population was mobilised in a liberation movement post-exile. It focuses the accounts that traditionally explain the emerging guerrilla formations upon which a Palestinian nationalist movement was constructed. The chapter presents some of the claims made about Palestinian political identity and specifically the role of "armed struggle" in the liberation of Palestine through popular participation. When Palestinian refugees were mobilised as proxy forces in pan-Arab and pan-Islamic movements by powerful states to undermine rival governments, foreign state sponsorship of guerrilla organisations represented continuity with the past. Many landowners, fearing the loss of power during the revolt, regrouped into the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), under the leadership of the Mufti, in an attempt to reassert their authority over the peasantry.
