Benny Morris commented on Cohen’s view of the integral role of Islam in the Palestinian national identity: “From the first, the nationalism of Palestine's Arabs was blatantly religious. Almost all the ‘nationalist’ statements Cohen quotes were couched in religious or semi- religious terms. We are dealing here with an Islamic nationalism.”[2] In The New Republic he wrote: "His perspective—and this is one of his book's strengths--is neither pro-Palestinian nor anti-Palestinian, neither pro-Zionist nor anti-Zionist.