This dissertation investigates the question of why and how sectarianism emerged as a major feature of the modern Palestinian Arab political landscape. It follows the declining political fortunes of Palestinian Arab Christians during the mandate period, from a prominent and influential position within an elite, multi-religious nationalist movement in the early years of the mandate to a position of almost total exclusion from Muslim-dominated national politics by the late 1930s. This loss of power resulted from the British colonial administration's early decision to promote communally organized legal and political structures in Palestine, on the model of imperial policy in India and elsewhere. The new imperial approach allowed for the easy incorporation of a relatively autonomous European Jewish community into the mandate state; it also deliberately encouraged the construction of sectarian identities among Palestinian Arabs.

Using a wide range of Arabic-language and British archival sources gathered in Israel, the Palestinian territories and the United Kingdom, this study examines the ramifications of this decision for Arab Christians and looks at the various ways that elite Arab Christian leaders attempted to reconstitute their religious communities as political entities, in an effort to maintain their influence in Palestinian civil and political society. It historicizes the movement of Palestinian Arab politics towards sectarianism, and demonstrates that both Muslim and Christian sectarian identifications, far from representing an entrenched mode of Palestinian Arab political action, constituted a considered response to the new conditions of the mandate state.