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Portal:Palestine

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Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in the southern Levant region of West Asia. It encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, collectively known as the Palestinian territories, within the larger historic Palestine region. The country shares most of its borders with Israel, and it borders Jordan to the east and Egypt to the southwest. It has a total land area of 6,020 square kilometres (2,320 sq mi) while its population exceeds five million people. Its proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, while Ramallah serves as its administrative center. Gaza City was its largest city until 2023.

During World War I, the United Kingdom supported the establishment of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine, based on the ideology of Zionism. The war saw Britain occupying Palestine from the Ottoman Empire, where it set up Mandatory Palestine under the auspices of the League of Nations. During this period, large-scale Jewish immigration allowed by the British authorities led to increased tensions and violence with the local Palestinian Arab population. By 1947, Britain handed the issue to the United Nations, which proposed a partition plan, for two independent Arab and Jewish states and an independent entity for Jerusalem, but a civil war broke out, and the plan was not implemented.

The 1948 Palestine war saw the forcible displacement of most of its predominantly Palestinian Arab population, and consequently the establishment of Israel, in what Palestinians call the Nakba. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which had been held by Jordan and Egypt respectively. In 1993, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the Oslo peace accords with Israel, creating the Palestinian Authority (PA). In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in its unilateral disengagement, but the territory is still considered to be under military occupation and was put under blockade by Israel. In 2007, internal divisions between Palestinian political factions led to a takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas. Since then, the West Bank has been governed in part by the PA, led by Fatah, while the Gaza Strip has remained under the control of Hamas. Israel has constructed large settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories since 1967, where currently more than 670,000 Israeli settlers live in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law.

Currently, the biggest challenges to the country include the Israeli occupation, a blockade, restrictions on movement, Israeli settlements and settler violence, as well as an overall poor security situation. The questions of Palestine's borders, the legal and diplomatic status of Jerusalem, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees remain unsolved. Despite these challenges, the country maintains an emerging economy and sees frequent tourism. Arabic is the official language. The majority of Palestinians practice Islam while Christianity also has a presence. Palestine is also a member of several international organizations, including the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. It has been a non-member observer state of the United Nations since 2012. (Full article...)

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View of Bethlehem, 1898

Bethlehem is a city located in the central West Bank and approximately 8 kilometers (5.0 mi) south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. The Hebrew Bible identifies Bethlehem as the city David was from and the location where he was crowned as the king of Israel. The New Testament identifies Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth. The town is inhabited by one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, although the size of the community has shrunk due to emigration. The city was sacked by the Samaritans in 529, but rebuilt by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I. With the coming of the Mamluks in 1250, the city's walls were demolished, and were subsequently rebuilt during the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The British wrested control of the city from the Ottomans during World War I and it was to be included in an international zone under the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. It was occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Since 1995, Bethlehem has been governed by the Palestinian National Authority. Bethlehem has a Muslim majority, but is also home to one of the largest Palestinian Christian communities. Bethlehem's chief economic sector is tourism which peaks during the Christmas season when Christian pilgrims throng to the Church of the Nativity.

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Palestinian costume
Palestinian costume
Credit: American colony photographers (edited by Durova)

A Bedouin woman in Jerusalem, sometime between 1898 and 1914, dressed in Palestinian costume, the traditional clothing worn by Palestinians. Many of the handcrafted garments were richly embroidered and the creation and maintenance of these items played a significant role in the lives of the region's women. Until the 1940s, traditional Palestinian costumes reflected a woman's economic status, whether married or single, and the town or district of origin, and a knowledgeable observer could glean such information from the fabric, colors, cut, and embroidery motifs (or lack thereof) in a given woman's apparel.

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1927 Mandatory Palestine stamp

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Nelson Mandela
Yasser Arafat was one of the outstanding freedom fighters of this generation, one who gave his entire life to the cause of the Palestinian people.

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Selected biography

Edward Wadie Saïd (Arabic pronunciation: [wædiːʕ sæʕiːd] Arabic: إدوارد وديع سعيد, Idwārd Wadīʿ Saʿīd; 1 November 1935 – 25 September 2003) was an American-Palestinian literary theorist, and University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He was a founding figure of the critical field of post-colonialism. Saïd was a Palestinian Arab born in Jerusalem (then in the British Mandate of Palestine), and held an American passport through his father who was a Palestinian U.S. citizen with Protestant origins. Said was an advocate for the human rights of the Palestinian people, whom the commentator Robert Fisk described as the Palestinians' most powerful voice. As an influential cultural critic, academic, and writer, Edward Saïd was known best for the book Orientalism (1978), a critical analysis of the ideas that are the bases of Orientalism — the Western study of Eastern cultures. As a public intellectual, he discussed contemporary politics, music, culture, and literature, in lectures, newspaper and magazine articles, and books. Drawing from his family experiences as a Palestinian Christian in the Middle East, at the time of the establishment of Israel (1948), Saïd argued for the establishment of a Palestinian state, equal political and human rights for the Palestinians in Israel — including the right of return — and for increased U.S. political pressure upon Israel to recognize, grant, and respect said rights; he also criticized the political and cultural politics of Arab and Muslim régimes. He received a Western education in the U.S., where he resided from adolescence until his death in 2003; as such, in his memoirs, Out of Place (1999), Saïd applied his dual cultural heritage to narrow the gap of political and cultural understanding between The West and the Middle East, to improve Western understanding of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. His decade-long membership in the Palestinian National Council, and his pro–Palestinian political activism, made him a controversial public intellectual.

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Topics

Demographics: Definitions · State of Palestine · History · Name · People · Diaspora  · Refugee camps · Arab citizens of Israel

Politics: Arab Higher Committee · All-Palestine Gov-t · PLO · PFLP · Depopulated villages

Today: Fatah · Hamas · Islamic Jihad · Political parties · PNA · Hamas gov-t · Governorates · Governorates · Cities · Arab localities in Israel · PNC · PLC ·

General: Flag · Law

Palestine: West Bank · Gaza Strip · E. Jerusalem

Religion: Islam · Christianity · Judaism · Dome of the Rock · Al-Aqsa Mosque · Great Mosque of Gaza · Cave of the Patriarchs · Church of the Holy Sepulchre · Basilica of the Annunciation · Church of the Nativity · Joseph's Tomb · Rachel's Tomb · Lot's Tomb · Nabi Samwil

Culture: Art · Traditional costumes · Cinema · Cuisine · Dance · Handicrafts · Language · Literature · Music


Religions in Palestine


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