Jump to content

Portal:Palestine

Extended-protected page
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PortalProjectResources

The Palestine portal

Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in the southern Levant region of West Asia, encompassing the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, within the larger historic Palestine region. The country shares most of its borders with Israel, and borders Jordan to the east and Egypt to the southwest. It has a combined 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 and Gaza City was its largest city until 2023. Arabic is the official language.

During World War I, Britain supported the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, later occupying and partitioning it from the Ottoman Empire, and setting up Mandatory Palestine. During the mandate period, large European Jewish immigration allowed by the British authorities increased tensions with the local Palestinian Arab population, and the United Nations adopted a partition plan, recommending the creation of two independent Arab and Jewish states and an independent Jerusalem entity. A civil war broke out in 1947 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. In 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) declared the establishment of the State, which later signed the 1993 Oslo peace accords with Israel, creating the Palestinian Authority (PA). 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 Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, while the Gaza Strip has remained under the control of Hamas. Israel has built settlements in the territories since its 1967 occupation, with the ones in Gaza being dismantled following Israel's unilateral disengagement in 2005. Approximately 670,000 Israeli settlers live in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

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. It 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. The majority of Palestinians practice Islam while Christianity also has a presence. (Full article...)

Selected article

The flag of the American Palestine Line

The American Palestine Line was a steamship company formed in 1924 for the purpose of providing direct passenger service from New York to Palestine and was reportedly the first steamship company owned and operated by Jews. The company negotiated to purchase three ocean liners from the United States Shipping Board but was only able to purchase one, SS President Arthur, a former North German Lloyd steamer that operated as Princess Alice before being seized by the United States during World War I. After refurbishing the liner, the company inaugurated service between New York and Palestine in March 1925, when President Arthur sailed on her maiden voyage. A crowd of 15,000 witnessed ceremonies that included songs, prayers, and speeches in English and Yiddish. The company claimed that President Arthur was the first ocean liner to fly the Israeli flag at sea and the first ocean liner ever to have female officers. The line had labor difficulties and financial difficulties throughout its existence. On President Arthur's first trip, rumors of a mutiny were reported in The New York Times, and several crew members got into an altercation with members of the Blackshirts, the Italian fascist paramilitary group, when the liner made an intermediary stop in Naples. Financial difficulties included unpaid bills and resultant court actions as well as accusations of fraud against company officers that were leveled in the press. In late 1925 the company was placed in the hands of a receiver; President Arthur—after a two-alarm fire in her forward cargo hold—ended up back in the hands of the United States Shipping Board (USSB), and the company's office furniture and fixtures were sold at auction in early 1926.

Selected picture

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.

Did you know...

Giraffa camelopardalis at Qalqilya Zoo

Selected quote

Yasser Arafat
Our basic aim is to liberate the land from the Mediterranean Seas to the Jordan River. We are not concerned with what took place in June 1967 or in eliminating the consequences of the June war. The Palestinian revolution's basic concern is the uprooting of the Zionist entity from our land and liberating it.

WikiProjects

You are invited to participate in WikiProject Palestine, a WikiProject dedicated to developing and improving articles about Palestine.
Parent projects
AsiaCountering systemic biasWestern AsiaArab WorldCountries
Main project
WikiProject Palestine
Sub-projects
WikiProjects
WikiProjects
Middle Eastern military history
Related projects
GeographyEgyptIraqIsraelJordanLebanonIslamSyria


What are WikiProjects?

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.

Categories

To display all subcategories click on the "►":


Good articles

Did you know? articles

In the News articles

Picture of the day pictures


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


Arab states


Other countries

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals