Capital: Jerusalem Language: Today the language is Levantine Arabic, although long ago Palestinians spoke Aramaic, and Greek Religion: Sunni Islam, Druze, Baha'i, Christianity (Orthodox, Catholicism, Protestantism,) and Judaism (Samaritanism and Orthodox Jew).
Palestine is one of several names for the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The land is considered Holy Land to the religions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Historically, the land was referred to as Canaan, and the original inhabitants were a Semitic people called the Canaanites. The land was called Syria-Palaestina (later shortened to Palaestina) by the Romans, after the Philistines. Today, most of this land is called Israel. However, Gaza and West Bank are referred to as "Palestine."
Ancient History Overview
Throughout history, Palestine has been conquered many times. This is due to its strategic location in the middle of the European, African, and Asian continents. Its historical religious significance was also a factor in the reasons why it was wanted and conquered by many, including: the Canaanites--the first known inhabitants, Egyptians, Amorites, Hittites, Hurrians, Philistines, Hebrews, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, European Crusaders, Mamluks, and the Ottoman Turks.
Modern History Overview
British Mandate
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, under the Sykes-Picot Agreement, Britain gained control of Palestine under the British Mandate. Shortly thereafter, British foreign minister Arthur Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which laid plans for a Jewish homeland to be established in Palestine. Many European Jewish colonists settled in Palestine among indigenous Palestinian populations.
In the years following World War II, Britain's position in Palestine gradually worsened. This was caused by a combination of factors, including:
• The situation in Palestine itself rapidly deteriorated, due to the incessant attacks by Irgun and Lehi on British officials, armed forces, and strategic installations. This caused severe damage to British morale and prestige, as well as increasing opposition to the mandate in Britain itself, public opinion demanding to "bring the boys home".
• World public opinion turned against Britain as a result of the British policy of preventing the Jewish Holocaust survivors from reaching Palestine, sending them instead to refugee camps in Cyprus, or even back to Germany, as in the case of Exodus 1947.
• The costs of maintaining an army of over 100,000 men in Palestine weighed heavily on a British economy suffering from post-war depression, and was another cause for British public opinion to demand an end to the Mandate. Finally in early 1947 the British Government announced their desire to terminate the Mandate, and passed the responsibility over Palestine to the United Nations.
1948 Arab-Israeli War
In 1948, after the British Mandate had left, Israel declared itself a Jewish state. After the United Nations proposed to partition the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine into two states, Jewish and Arab, the neighboring Arab nations refused to accept it and the armies of Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq, supported by others, attacked the newly established State of Israel.
1949 Armistice Agreements ended the war.
During the Arab-Israeli War, even though they weren’t directly involved in the war, Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes. This period in time is referred to by Palestinians as Al-Nakba, which means the catastrophe in Arabic. The UN estimates that approximately 711,000 (2/3 of the population) Palestinians were expelled into refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Gaza, and West Bank. In some cases, many Palestinians were massacred by Zionist gangs such as the Irgun or Haganah. Over 530 Palestinian villages and towns were ethnically cleansed and confiscated by the newly established state of Israel in order to make room for new Jewish immigrants. In 1950, the Absentee Property Law was passed in Israel. It provided for confiscation of the property and land left behind by departing Palestinians, the so-called "absentees". Arabs who never left Israel, and received citizenship after the war, but stayed for a few days in a nearby village had their property confiscated.
Al-Nakba marked the beginning of the Palestinian refugee crisis. According to the UNRWA, the number of registered Palestinian refugees today is approximately 4.9 million. These refugees are scattered throughout the world, many of which are still living in poverty-stricken refugee camps.
Israel has since refused to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland, and has refused to pay them compensation as required by UN Resolution 194.
Six-Day War
In 1967, a war was fought between Israel and the Arab states of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria. When Egypt expelled the United Nations Emergency Force from the Sinai Peninsula, increased its military activity near the border, and blockaded the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack on Egypt's airforce fearing an imminent attack by Egypt.[1] Jordan in turn attacked the Israeli cities of Jerusalem and Netanya.
At the war's end, Israel had gained control of the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. The results of the war affect the geopolitics of the region to this day.
Intifada
The First Intifada, an Arabic term meaning "uprising," began in 1987. Palestinians began using violent resistance against the Israeli occupation of West Bank and Gaza. This uprising ended in 1991 with the Oslo accords (August 1993) and the creation of the Palestinian National Authority.
The Second Intifada was the violent Palestinian-Israeli conflict that began in September of 2000 and is still happening today.
Traditional Dress: Palestinian traditional dress varies slightly from village to village.
Palestinian culture is most closely related to the cultures of the nearby Levantine countries such as Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. It includes unique literature, music, and cuisine. The culture of the Palestinian people has also flourished in the Palestinian diaspora.
Palestinian music is well-known and respected throughout the Arab world. The shared Palestinian identity first arose during the period after 1948, and a new wave of performers emerged with distinctively Palestinian themes, relating to the dreams of statehood and the burgeoning nationalist sentiment. The Israeli government exerted considerable control over Palestinian music recordings, and many of the most popular cassettes had to be distributed through the black market. A popular instrument played in Palestinian traditional music is the oud.
In weddings, Palestinians dance the dabke: a complex dance formed by linked groups of dancers. There have developed over the years many Palestinian dabke groups, such as El-Funoun. El-Funoun is world renowned and has performed throughout the Middle East as well as Europe and the U.S. Their performance combines dabke with bellydancing, and a story that interprets the Palestinian pain and struggle through dance.
Both Jaffa oranges and olive trees serve as a symbols in the Palestinian folklore and literature. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Palestinian farmers were separated from orange groves and olive trees that their families had tended for generations. Palestinians were known for having the sweetest oranges and the best olive oil. For many Palestinians, Jaffa oranges and olive trees symbolize the bounty of what they view to be their lost homeland.
Palestinians are considered Arabs today, but genetically they are a mix of people. Many Palestinians trace their ancestry back to the time of the Canaanites, and thereby mixed with the many conquerers who settled and assimilated into the population. Canaanite culture is still very much prevalent in Palestinian culture. We can see this through much Palestinian artwork. Many paintings feature a woman as the central figure. This woman, Anat, the ancient goddess of the Canaanites, symbolizes the soul and the strength of Palestine.
Palestinian cuisine is very similar to that of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and to a lesser extent Egypt. The signature dish in Palestine is stuffed grape leaves (warak dawali). Nablus is famous for the creation of knafeh, a Palestinian culinary specialty consisting of white goat cheese, pastry, and syrup served in hot square slices.
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1948 Nakba design (shown on my page)
keffiyeh design
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Websites relating to Palestine
(Courtesy of http://www.flwi.ugent.be/cie/links2.htm)
(If you want to add your testimonial about your experience at an Israeli Checkpoint, please send it as a message (myspace mail) Thanks)
Testimonials: Scenes and Experiences of Israeli Checkpoints.
One of the village neighbors called me up the other day from London where he’s studying and told me he had that dream again. His name is Omar, a smart cat, kind of a hippy with long hair and wobby gait. I was a little bewildered as to why he was still trippin’ about it, at least for a couple seconds. It was the American in me. It was the Novocain called American consumerism, a thousand miles long and still riddling my soul. I didn’t care that it took him 4 hours to get to his school that should have taken 15 minutes. I didn’t care that he couldn’t even remember the lesson plan that day, only that old lady who lives in his nightmares—could have been my stoic Grandma, anyone’s dear old-granny—for God and a gun holder; her grey and black hair sticking out of his clenched fist, her old legs trying to make the dirt and stone path below her a forgotten moment instead of a ruthless scrape. He might as well have dragged me, my mother, my brother, my dad and all my uncles and aunts, cousins and neighbors, my entire history, my olive groves and my stories, linked in arms and tumbling with no dignity, eating dirt behind this kid, scraping our knees and crying to God (even the Atheists).
But still. I wondered for a couple of seconds. Still…. I thought “Why’s this kid still trippin’?”
-Husam Z. (Arabic and Spanish Double major, UC Berkeley Undergraduate)
One word springs to mind when I think of the checkpoints: as an Israeli, I again and again experienced deep shame. Once outside Ramallah, after a joint peace demostration – a long line of families, poor people, waiting and waiting, and a dilemma: I wanted to get out, to return to Tel Aviv as soon as I can. I am late, so I took the fast lane, the one for Israelis – flashing mu blue identity card, passing by all the tired faces, leaving them behind in the hot sun.
A second memory is from a checkpoint near Nablus – on a way to a meeting with Palestinian students. This is a small checkpoint, out minibus stops far away and we hear a shot in the air. Soldiers are shouting at someone. We are paralyzed, but there is an international volunteer there, standing between the soldiers and a Palestinian, taking a beating. We are too afraid to go any nearer. Nothing can convey the deep, deep, feeling of shame.
-Tom P. (Israeli Citizen, Graduate Program Sociology, UC Berkeley)
On my way back to Ramallah I went through the Al’hoowarah checkpoint again. I was in line for two and a half hours. It was hot. The dust and dirt from the street rose from the wheels of taxies drving away because no car was let through. There were people lined up for hours. Young men were turned away. Women and children and older men just stood in line. Each person before crossing was on one side of an arbitrary line separating “over here” and “over there”. Like cattle we lined up caged in a rotating door for about a minute the subject to searches. First, the soldiers told us to walk into the door buzz one person in then keep the other caged till they are ready for the next Palestinian to harrass. Then the soldiers asked for the person’s Hawaweeia (passport) they asked a few questions like “why don’t you leave this place?” and “why are you in a city filled with terrorists?” The woman ahead of me had two kids and a really big bag. When her and her two kids got through the rotating steal door the soldier asked her to open her bag and she did. In it was another bag. The soldier accused her of smugging weapons. She said that the brown paper bag was just warec’kk 3’neb (grape leaves). His face looked unsympathetic as he stabbed the bag and ripped it open with a sharp piece of metal at the end of his gun. She just stood there stoic, her two kids crying. When it was my turn I was obviously annoyed and I gave the soldier a hard time. He asked me where I was from and I said Palestine. He asked why I was in Nablus and I said nothing. He said I was American and that he liked tu-pac and I said nothing. He said Nablus is filled with terrorists and dangerous people and I said “you should be afraid”. I could still hear Nablus in the distance—young, vibrant, breathing. This experience however, at the checkpoint, makes me so fed up I think for a split second—I never want to come back here again. I was scared out of my wits because the soldier that asked me for my passport—he was an Israeli kid about 18 years old, he was pointing a gun right at my head. The soldier that was checking my passport asked if I was an Arab and this young kid said that I needed to be careful because there are terrorists in Nablus; this young kid was the terrorist. I felt like sticking out my tongue and making a funny face at him to first, confuse him and second make him feel as ridiculous as he sounded. I am planning on going back anyway this Saturday, which just proves that constant harassment can only be endured but it can also be overcome
-Journal Entry, July 3
-Dinna O. (Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies Double major, UC Berkeley Undergraduate)
I mumbled something-in Arabic—to the Palestinian teenager sitting next to me. I was apprehensive, anxious for a movement or a voice to quell my fear; I had never been in a situation like this. We were two people on a mini-bus—the Ram Allah-Jerusalem Line—and an Israeli soldier flagged it down at a checkpoint. My de facto companion smiled; his face too old and haggard for his years. He spoke to me in Arabic: “Don’t worry, it’s normal”. I worried. The soldier swaggered onto the bus, a pair of aviator sunglasses over his eyes and an uzi clanking at his side. He took the drivers keys, pocketed them and surveyed the passengers. He seemed board, apathetic. He spotted an old Palestinian man. “Come here,” he commanded impertinently. The man was obstinate, “What, I’m not doing anything,” he said, “I’m going to see my grand kids. Shabbat Shalom” “What’s in the bag?” The soldier demanded. “Gifts! Food! Here, take a look. Shabbat Shalom”. The soldier tensed up. He was still standing at the door of the bus, the old man sitting midway. “I want you to come here” “Why, you’re a big boy. Go to him yourself!” A Palestinian-American girl piped up in English. The soldier relaxed and said in a remarkably calm voice: “Listen, you. Shut up or it’s your face on the pavement. Got it?” He looked at the old man again and relented, board of our company. He gave the driver back his keys and hopped off the bus. We were off again. I listened to that grandfather all the way to Jerusalem. He spoke of how he respected the Jewish religion, of his love for his grand kids, of his pain at seeing innocents, any innocents, die and of his anger. Then he said something I did not expect. He looked at me and wheezed enthusiastically: “Don’t blame that kid, it’s not his fault.”
-Brett W. (UC Berkeley Undergraduate)
And now….. Our Featured Documentary… “CHECKPOINT”
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B’tselem on Checkpoints
(http://www.btselem.org/)
The restrictions ..ment that Israel has imposed on the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories over the past five years are unprecedented in the history of the Israeli occupation in their scope, time, and severity of damage they cause to the three and a half million Palestinians. In the past, Israel imposed a comprehensive closure on the Occupied Territories or a curfew on a specific town or village to restrict Palestinian freedom of movement; however, it never imposed sweeping and prolonged restrictions comparable to those currently in practice.
Israel has dissected the West Bank into a number of sections and makes it hard for Palestinians to move from one to the other. Israel has set up dozens of checkpoints, prohibits Palestinians from traveling on dozens of roads, and forbids Palestinians without special permits to enter the Jordan Valley and East Jerusalem, which are integral parts of the West Bank . Also, Israel forbids almost completely movement of Palestinians between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and impedes Palestinians from entering Israel and from going abroad.
These restrictions have significantly affected the daily lives of Palestinians in commerce, in access to medical treatment and educational institutions, and in conducting social activities. A simple action such as going to work in the nearby town, marketing farm produce, obtaining medical treatment, and visiting relatives entails bureaucratic procedures, at the end of which the army often denies the application for a movement permit.
International human rights law requires Israel to respect the right of residents of the Occupied Territories to move about freely in the occupied territory. This right is recognized in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Furthermore, international humanitarian law requires Israel, in its capacity as the occupier, to ensure the safety and well-being of the local residents, and to maintain, as far as possible, normal living conditions.
Freedom of movement is important because it is a prerequisite to the exercise of other rights, such as those set forth in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, among them the right to work (Article 6), the right to an adequate standard of living (Article 11), the right to health (Article 12), the right to education (Article 13), and the right to protection of family life (Article 10).
Israel is entitled to protect itself by taking various means, including restrictions ..ment. However, the sweeping and prolonged restrictions it has imposed, and the grave harm its policy has caused to the local population in all aspects of life, constitute a flagrant breach of its legal obligations.
Furthermore, Israel’s policy is blatant discrimination based on national origin, in that the restrictions apply only to Palestinians. Jewish residents are permitted to enter and leave the settlements without restriction. The IDF has even explicitly admitted that the restrictions ..ment imposed on Palestinians are intended to ensure the free movement of Jews in the Occupied Territories. Thus, Israel’s policy violates the right to equality, which is incorporated in human rights conventions to which Israel is party.
Statistics on checkpoints and roadblocks
(http://www.btselem.org/)
Permanent internal checkpoints
Israel currently maintains 54 permanent checkpoints within the West Bank . Staffing of the checkpoints varies: some are staffed around the clock, others only during the day or for part of the day. These checkpoints impose the harshest restrictions ..ment. Palestinians wanting to cross undergo inspection and often long delays. At some, soldiers only allow Palestinians with special permits to cross.
Green Line checkpoints
There are 29 checkpoints that are the last inspection point between the West Bank and Israel . Some of these checkpoints are situated inside the West Bank , up to several kilometers from the Green Line. These checkpoints are permanent and are staffed. In addition, there are 73 gates in the separation barrier. Only 38 of them are for Palestinians. These are open only part of the day, and all Palestinians wanting to cross must have a special permit.
Surprise [flying] checkpoints
According to OCHA's figures, in December 2006, there was a weekly average of some 160 flying checkpoints throughout the West Bank . These are staffed checkpoints set up for a period of a few hours.
Internal checkpoints in Hebron
Twelve checkpoints are situated in Hebron , in areas where there is friction between settlers and Palestinians. They are permanently staffed and the persons who cross are checked.
Physical obstructions
In addition to the staffed checkpoints, the military has set up hundreds of physical obstructions (concrete blocks, dirt piles, trenches) which close off roads and prevent access to and from Palestinian communities. OCHA has tabulated the number of such obstacles within the West Bank as follows:
- 219 dirt piles at entrances to villages or to block roads
- 38 Km of fences along roadways
- 35 Km of a one-meter-high fence, primarily in the southern Hebron hills
- 31 Km of trenches that prevent vehicles from crossing
- 69 locked gates at entrances to villages, with the keys being held by the army
Forbidden Roads
Forty-one sections of roads in the West Bank , covering a distance of some 700 Km, are restricted to Palestinian traffic, while Israelis are allowed to travel on them freely.
(featured topic end)
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In the 1994 Pulitzer Prize nominee, Kevin Carter took this photograpgh above of an African girl, nothing but a skeleton, was trying to crawl towards a U.N. Food Shelter, about one kilometer away. Behind his back, a few yards away was a vulture waiting for the girl to die to feast. The picture of the vulture stalking a starving girl is real and was taken in Sudan in 1993
Why is Israel receiving so much U.S. aid that other countries could use to feed and care for people? EXPOSE TRUTH.
Navy personnel of the USS Liberty share their experience:
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