As a consequence of the policies of openness which have been organised over the past twenty-five years, the Arabic political language has integrated the notion of civil society without however giving it any extensive substance. The experience of the application of the Oslo agreements gave the Palestinian society the opportunity to consolidate the civil institutions which had permitted it, in exile and during the first Intifada, to make up for the absence of instituted political power and to organise pluralism. Despite the bankruptcy of the Oslo process, the question here is whether these particular conditions facilitated the construction of a public space which promotes civility and is likely to establish politically creative differentiations.