Palestinians

Ghada Hashem Talhami, Ian Skoggard, and John Beierle

Filastinyoun

Palestinians inhabit an area east of the Mediterranean Sea and south of Lebanon. The Jordan River, Lakes Huleh and Tiberias, and the Dead Sea separate Palestine from Jordan. Palestinian territory stretches as far south as the Gulf of Aqaba. Palestinians refer to their land as Filastin, the name of an Aegean population (Philistines) who inhabited coastal Palestine before the Israelites. Christians refer to Palestine as the Holy Land. Today Palestine is divided among Israel and the Palestine National Authority. Palestinian territory falls into two major geographic zones: the coastal area, and the northern extension of the Great Rift Valley.

Palestine is located between 30° and 33° N and 34° and 36° E. Its total land area is 27,128 square kilometers, divided between Israel and the two towns (Gaza and Jericho) administered by the Palestine National Authority. The total area under direct Palestinian control since 1993 is 135 square kilometers. Palestine lies at the southern tip of the fertile eastern Mediterranean region, and almost half of its total area is arid or semiarid. Only parts of the narrow coastal plain, the Jordan Valley, and the Galilee region in the north receive adequate rainfall. Palestine, on the whole, enjoys typical Mediterranean weather. The Great Rift Valley, or the Jordan Valley, has a semitropical climate. The main city in the Jordan valley, Jericho, is the lowest spot on earth—250 meters below sea level. The arid and semiarid areas to the south enjoy a desertlike dry and hot climate.

Between 5.8 million and 6 million Palestinians live in Israel, on the West Bank, in the Gaza Strip, and dispersed all over the world. As of 1989, there were 900,000 living in the West Bank, 550,000 to 770,000 in the Gaza Strip, and 800,000 in Israel proper. East Jerusalem, annexed to Israel since 1967, is the home of 155,000 Palestinians. Those living under the Palestine National Authority since 1993 number 775,000 in Gaza and 20,000 in Jericho. There are also 1.7 million Palestinians living in Jordan, 350,000 in Lebanon, 225,000 in Syria, 70,000 in Iraq, 60,000 in Egypt, 25,000 in Libya, and 250,000 in Saudi Arabia. Until the Gulf War, there were 400,000 in Kuwait. There are other, smaller Palestinian communities in the Persian Gulf area, amounting to 113,543 people. It is estimated that 104,856 Palestinians live in the United States and another 140,000 around the globe. The highest ratio people to land is in Gaza, where there are 3,577 people per square kilometer. Many Palestinians live as refugees in camps: 248,000 in the Gaza Strip, 100,000 on the West Bank, 187,000 in Jordan, 143,300 in Lebanon, and 67,000 in Syria. Palestinians speak Arabic, but most are bilingual, their second language depending on their place of residence.

Arabic is a member of the Hamito-Semitic Family of languages. Modern Arabic is a South Semitic language. Palestinians speak a distinct dialect of Arabic but write classical Arabic, like the rest of the Arab world.

The Palestinians are an amalgam of the indigenous pre-Israelite population and later groups that settled in Palestine. Even though the Canaanite and Philistine city-states were defeated by the Israelites under King David in 1,000 B.C., their populations were not exterminated. The Muslim Arab conquest of A.D. 638 did not result in a large transfusion of Arabs, but the local inhabitants' culture became increasingly Arabized, and large numbers converted to Islam. The Peninsular Arab conquerors took great interest in Palestine because of the Prophet Mohammed's association with Jerusalem: his nocturnal journey there in A.D. 621 and his ascension to heaven from the spot where the Jewish Temple once stood bestowed a holy status on the city. When Muslims conquered Jerusalem, Caliph Omar came to receive the keys to the city from the Byzantine patriarch, Sophronius, and issued the Pledge of Omar: he vowed to protect the holy sites and freedom of worship of all religious communities. During the Umayyad dynasty (A.D. 661-750), Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan built a magnificent mosque (691-692) over the ruins of Solomon's Temple to commemorate Mohammed's ascension to heaven.

Known as the Dome of the Rock, it is the oldest example of early Islamic architecture in the world. The Western Wall (the Wailing Wall), which is the only remaining portion of Solomon's Temple, was consecrated as a Muslim charitable trust in later years on the grounds that Mohammed tethered his steed, al-Buraq, at the wall. In view of its holy status, Jerusalem was never made into an Arab capital. Muslims also permitted the return of Jews to Jerusalem, from which they had been barred since the Roman period. Under the Abbasid Emperor, Harun al-Rashid (786-809), the number of hostels for European pilgrims increased. Jerusalem's religious status attracted foreign invaders, including the Christian Crusaders, who took over the city in 1099. Frankish invaders established the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which lasted until 1187. Disputes between the Arabized eastern Christians, who coexisted peacefully with Muslims, and the European Crusaders cemented a lasting bond between Palestine's two religious communities. During the Latin Kingdom, the Dome of the Rock was converted into a Christian site known as Templum Domini. Jerusalem was liberated by Saladin (Salah al-Din) the Ayyubid sultan of Egypt and Syria in 1187. Muslim families were restored as the guardians of the holy sites, and Jews were permitted to return in large numbers.

The Crusaders repossessed the city from 1229 to 1244. The Egyptian Mamluk dynasty liberated the city again, but in 1516 Jerusalem and Palestine fell to the Ottoman Turks. Under their rule, Palestine was divided into districts and attached to the province of Syria. In the nineteenth century European Jews began to settle in Ottoman-controlled Palestine. Jewish efforts to purchase the Wailing Wall and large areas of land with the help of foreign consuls were met with stiff resistance. With the financial support of European banking families, Jews fleeing Russian pogroms during the second half of the nineteenth century were able to establish collective farms. There was also significant Arab economic development. Following the Crimean War (1854-1856), Gaza emerged as a major grain-producing area. Cotton production expanded during the 1860s.

Palestinians also became successful citrus growers, producing 33 million oranges in 1873. Jewish colonists who settled at Petach Tikva, near Jaffa, were exporting 15 percent of Palestine's total orange crop by 1913. Arab economic activity expanded around Nablus, an area specializing in olive oil and soap production. Jewish purchase of Arab land had a detrimental effect on Palestinian prosperity. Once bought, land became the perpetual property of Jews, and Arab laborers were thrown off. The land problem continued to be-devil Arab-Jewish relations after Britain took over Palestine. British interest in Palestine was the result of the strategic significance of the Suez Canal. During World War I, the British concluded several secret agreements regarding the future of Ottoman-held territories. One of these agreements, the Balfour Declaration, granted Jews the right to establish a national homeland in Palestine. In 1920, when the British acquired control over Palestine as a mandate under the League of Nations, they made the Balfour Declaration official policy, which was at variance with their responsibility under the mandate: to prepare the native population for eventual independence and majority rule. As a result, Palestinian demographics changed drastically. According to the 1922 census, the total population of Palestine was 752,000, of whom 660,000 were Arabs and 84,000 were Jews. The Arab population included 71,000 indigenous Christians who shared most of the sociocultural traits of the Muslim Palestinian population. By the end of World War II, the Palestinian population grew to two million. By 1946, there were 1,269,000 Arabs, as opposed to 608,000 Jews. Around 70,000 of the Jews were unauthorized immigrants who entered Palestine in the immediate postwar period. Throughout the mandate era (1920-1948), Arab despair over Jewish immigration fostered a policy of noncooperation with the mandate government.

A proposed constitution offered in 1922 by the high commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel, was rejected by both Muslim and Christian Palestinians. The only body that continued to represent the Palestinians was the Supreme Muslim Council, which supervised the Islamic charitable trusts and the court system. The appointed head of this institution, Amin Husseini, was the highest religious authority and emerged as the sole leader of the Palestinian community. He became the head of the Arab Higher Committee, representing both Christians and Muslims, following the 1936 Arab Revolt. The first major outbreak of Arab-Jewish violence was a result of attempts by Revisionist Zionists, led by Vladimir Jabotinsky, to expand Jewish rights over the Wailing Wall. This violence was investigated by British parlimentary commissions, which concluded that unrestricted Zionist immigration and land purchases led to the impoverishment and anger of the Palestinian peasantry. A general Arab strike and uprising in 1936 led the British to convene the Peel Commission, the first such commission to recommend the partitioning of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state. The Peel Commission allotted 20 percent of the most fertile land to the Jews, and 80 percent to the Arabs.

The Commission also recommended the internationalization of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Both the Higher Arab Committee and Arab governments rejected this plan. By 1942, Zionist lobbying efforts shifted from Britain to the United States. A Zionist conference in 1942, which was held at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City, called openly for the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine, and efforts were made to obtain the endorsement of major U.S. political parties and members of Congress. The Nazi Holocaust against European Jews succeeded in winning powerful world leaders, including U.S. president Truman, over to the cause of Israeli statehood. Once the British Government made the decision in 1947 to end its mandate over Palestine, the latter became the responsibility of the United Nations. A special eleven-member committee, known as UNSCOP, was organized to make recommendations to the General Assembly regarding the future of Palestine. These recommendations were made in the form of majority (8 votes) and minority (3 votes) reports. The majority report, which was adopted by the General Assembly on 29 November 1947, stipulated that Palestine be partitioned into a Jewish state and an Arab state, with Jerusalem and Bethlehem brought under a UN regime as a corpus separatum. Both the United States and the Soviet Union voted for General Assembly Resolution 181, the majority plan.

Palestinians were outraged over the decision by an outside agency to give away half of their land without consulting them. Arab states in the United Nations did not oppose the Vatican-sponsored resolution on Jerusalem. During the following year, a U.S. State Department report by George F. Kennan predicted that the partition resolution could not be enforced without war. Clashes between Jewish armed forces and Palestinian and other Arab armies quickly followed. Jewish forces moved not only to consolidate their UN lands but to acquire additional areas in the Galilee and Negev areas. The UN partition plan granted one-third of the population—namely, the Jewish community—one-half of the total land area of Palestine. The Jewish community at the time owned 20 percent of all cultivable areas, amounting to 6 percent of the total land area of Palestine. At the end of this conflict, the Egyptian army remained in control of the Gaza Strip and the Jordanian Arab Legion maintained control over eastern Palestine and eastern Jerusalem. The Arab states signed separate armistice agreements with newly founded Israel. Soon thereafter, Transjordan changed its name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, naming the area east of the Jordan River the East Bank and the area west of the river the West Bank. The 1947-1948 Arab-Jewish War produced one of the Middle East's major refugee problems. Palestinians who fled their homes or were driven out by Jewish forces numbered between 500,000 and 750,000 people.

Some placed the percentage of Palestinians who became refugees at 80 percent of the total Arab population. Between 125,000 and 150,000 of the Palestinian peasantry retained their homes but lost their agricultural lands. The state of Israel continuously rejected UN resolutions calling for the return of the refugees or providing them with financial compensation. The only Arab country that granted citizenship rights to the Palestinians was Jordan. The rest of the Arab countries declined to extend citizenship rights for fear of jeopardizing the refugees' right of return. The League of Arab States created a seat for Palestine, which was occupied by the Gaza-based government of All Palestine until 1957. The Gaza government was a rump Palestinian authority that was directed by Amin Husseini's deputy, Ahmad Hilmi Abd al-Baqi; it existed under the watchful eye of the Egyptian military governor. By 1964, a new Palestinian authority—the Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by Ahmad Shuqairy—was created at the behest of President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Conflicts with the Egyptians forced Shuqairy's resignation in 1968.

Another PLO emerged during that year and was soon headed by Yasser Arafat, the leader of Fatah, a militant underground organization. The new PLO rejected the need to rely on Arab governments and promoted the principle of the armed struggle. After a brief stay in Jordan, armed conflict with the Jordanian army drove the PLO to Lebanon, where it established itself inside Palestinian refugee camps. The launching of attacks against Israel from Lebanon's southern borders eventually resulted in a massive retaliation by the Israeli Defense Forces in 1982. The PLO was forced to evacuate its militias out of Lebanon under U.S. protection and relocate to Tunisia. The Israeli invasion of Beirut during the latter days of that war resulted in a Lebanese-led massacre of Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatilla camps. The PLO's rehabilitation by the world community was a slow process, which began in 1974. During that year, the Arab summit meeting at Rabat, Morocco, recognized the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Also in 1974, the United Nations confirmed this designation by granting the PLO observer status. The United Nations also recognized the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, a gesture of enormous symbolic significance because it was the United Nations that divided the Palestinian homeland in the first place. The outbreak of the intifada (uprising) in 1987, in the West Bank and Gaza, provided the PLO with another opportunity to integrate itself with the international community.

The PLO declared itself a state and sought recognition by the United States. This was granted upon the PLO's unilateral recognition of Israel and of Security Council Resolution 242. Following the Gulf War in 1991, the PLO agreed to participate in a U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace conference. During these talks, a secret channel to the Israelis was opened with the mediation of the Norwegian government. In 1993 Israel and the PLO signed a declaration of principles that provided a framework for settling all issues pertaining to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and granted the newly created Palestine National Authority autonomous rule over Gaza and Jericho. Negotiations over the future of the rest of the West Bank, as well as that of Jerusalem, were to follow.

The Olso peace talks were hindered by the inability of the two sides to agree on the following issues: borders of the Palestinian entity; control over water resources of the West Bank; the future of Jerusalem; Israeli settlements; the Palestinian refugees' right of return. Palestinians were able to mount one election in 1996 when the PLO won the majority of seats in the new Legislative Council. The peace talks resulted in a very slow turnover of government to the Palestinians. By the summer of 1999, the final status talks were held at Camp David under the sponsorship of President Clinton but failed to bridge the gap between the two parties. The situation on the ground continued to deteriorate. Illegal Israeli settlements on Arab lands continued to be built, while Israel's record on human rights in the occupied territories worsened. Questionable practices such as collective punishment, targeted killing of Palestinian civilians and military incursions into Palestinian lands did not abate. This led to the outbreak of Al-Aqsa Intifada and the near-total Israeli military reoccupation of the areas of the PNA. By 2002, the PNA itself was gravely weakened by the repeated military blows of the Sharon Government. New Islamic factions centered mostly in Gaza and totally independent of the PNA sharpened their acts of military resistance.

Until the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Palestinian coastline was dotted with Arab villages. The Galilee area in the north was also heavily settled. The Bedouin (nomadic) population was concentrated in the Negev Desert area. After the division of Palestine into Israel and the West Bank, the coastal area became heavily Jewish. The Jordan Valley was less settled than the Mediterranean coast. After Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, Israeli settlements were built on Palestinian lands, using up to 50 percent of these territories. Around 125,000 Israeli settlers began to live within the Arab area. Under international law, these settlements are considered illegal and may be dismantled as the price of a lasting peace settlement. There are also ancient cities in Palestine: Jerusalem (built by the Jebusites), Jericho (the oldest city in the world), Bethlehem, Beershiba, Gaza, and Nablus (ancient Samaria). Most of these urban centers have an old city surrounded by walls and modern suburbs in the nearby hills. Typical village dwellings are built of local building material, stone in the hills and mud and straw in the villages. Jerusalem's old city and ancient walls are built exclusively of Jerusalem limestone. Wood, which has always been in short supply, is rarely used.

Until the creation of Israel and the dispersal of the Palestinians, 60 percent of the population was engaged in agricultural activities and food processing. Village crafts included the rich and ancient tradition of embroidery. Mother-of-pearl and olive-wood artifacts were common in the cities. After 1948, Palestinians who became refugees subsisted on daily rations supplied by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Skilled and educated refugees became professional and white-collar workers in the Persian Gulf oil countries.

Along with food processing and tourist related arts and crafts, Palestinians were engaged in oil refining, a British-run industry, in Haifa. After 1948, Palestinians lost access to this industry and turned to phosphate mining in the Dead Sea area. There was also a thriving glass industry in Hebron.

Before 1948, Palestinians exported citrus fruits to Egypt and other parts of the Middle East. Fruits, vegetables, hand soap, and olive oil were the mainstay of trade with Arab markets after the West Bank was taken over by Jordan. Since 1967, this area has become a captive market for Israeli goods.

Palestinian village women and Bedouin women always participated in agricultural work. In towns and cities, women have been increasingly integrated in gender-specific occupations such as teaching, nursing, and clerical positions. Palestinian women are also employed as teachers in the Persian Gulf area. Since 1967, many West Bank women have been proletarianized and work as migratory laborers within Israel proper, employed in food processing and the garment industry. Women have also become heads of households as a result of the imprisonment or exiling of Palestinian men.

Until the British period, there were three types of landholding: public lands ( miri), privately owned land ( mulk), and state and private lands cultivated by peasants as communal lands ( musha). The cultivation of land by the peasants of an entire village was abolished by the British in the 1940s in order to facilitate the purchase and sale of land held by individuals. Jewish efforts to buy land were facilitated by the existence of absentee landlords in the Galilee region, such as the Lebanese Sursuq family. After 1967, public lands previously considered the property of the Ottoman, British, and Jordanian governments were transferred to Israeli settlers.

The basic unit in society is the family, with the village unit quite often being an extended family. Political upheaval over a long period of time strengthened the traditional family structure. Kin groups, as exemplified by the family or the clan ( hamula), survived despite increased mobility and urbanization. Entire families and clans from the same village relocated together to the same refugee camps after 1948. Descent, as in all Muslim societies, is traced patrilineally.

Palestinians follow the Sudanese kinship terminology commonly found in patrilineal societies such as those in North Africa. Kinship terms referring to the mother's side of the family are distinguished from those referring to the father's side of the family.

Palestinians are, generally speaking, monogamous, although polygyny is sanctioned by Islam. Marriages are normally determined by families, but, increasingly, individual choice is accepted. Statistics for the 1931 census indicate that early marriages were rare. The average age of marriage within the Muslim community was 20 years for women and 25 for men. Until around the mid-twentieth century, the preferred match, in both the Christian and Muslim communities, was between first cousins.

Postmarital residence is patrilocal. A woman returns to her natal unit only in the event of divorce or widowhood. The authority of the male head of the family is exercised over matters of marital, educational, and occupational choice despite frequent geographic separation of members of the nuclear family. Grandparents and unmarried aunts and uncles frequently share the domestic unit. Women rarely establish independent places of residence.

Muslim law regulates division of the estate and does not ignore female members of the family. Land is divided equally among surviving males, but females inherit half of the male's share because they are not expected to support the family. Among the indigenous Christian population, inheritance customs are not regulated by church law and often mirror Muslim customs.

Children are socialized by various generations within the household, commonly along gender lines. The socialization of Palestinian children encourages a commitment to education and to family solidarity.

Before 1948, Palestinians were divided along class lines determined by private wealth. In the Christian community, class differentiation accorded more to educational level than to wealth. The Muslim and Christian communities were always allied in the national struggle. The Palestinian diaspora after 1948 had a great leveling impact. The massive loss of land weakened the landowning class. Education is highly valued as a movable form of wealth and the determinant of status. Today there is a large professional class that prospered as a result of employment in the Persian Gulf countries.

Palestinians inhabiting the West Bank are under Israeli rule, but in Gaza and Jericho they live under the Palestine National Authority. In Jordan, where they constitute 60 to 70 percent of the population, they are full citizens. In other Arab countries, Palestinians are resident aliens, carrying temporary UN travel document. Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem are still Jordanian nationals. In Gaza they are stateless, and within Israel they are citizens of the Jewish state.

In the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians have been living under Israeli military rule since 1967. Those living in Arab Jerusalem, annexed to Israel in 1967, are allowed to participate in municipal elections but are barred from national elections. Because Jerusalem's Arabs are Jordanian citizens, they do not enjoy Israeli civil liberties. The Israelis permitted one round of municipal elections in the West Bank and Gaza in 1976, but since then most town councils have been headed by Israeli military officers. The Islamic religious institutions of Jerusalem and the West Bank, which are linked to Jordan, are still under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Muslim Council. Within Israel proper, Palestinians are full citizens, but they suffer from frequent land confiscations and exclusion from military service and from higher political office. The PLO, on the other hand, functions as a nonterritorial state, with a parliament in exile, an executive committee, and militia units.

Social control is exercised by the family, females being subjected to greater restrictions than males. In some refugee camps, social control was dictated by the PLO, which attempted to influence the patterns of female education and female morality.

Palestinians suffer from harsh military rule in the West Bank and from constant police surveillance in Arab countries. Clashes with the Israeli military and with Israeli settlers are frequent. The mythology of the popular uprising of 1987, the intifada, still exercises a powerful influence on the popular imagination.

As al-Aqsa Intifada progressed, the intensity of the violence deepened. A new phenomenon dominated the activities of some factions of the Palestinian resistance, namely suicide bombings directed primarily at Israeli civilians. Israel was accused by international observers of practicing war crimes particularly as a a result of its incursion into the town of Jenin. By the end of 2002, casualties on both sides neared 3,000 with many more maimed and injured.

Muslims make up two-thirds of the population. The majority are Sunni, but there is also a small Druze community. Christians are almost one-third of the population. The largest denomination is Greek Orthodox, followed by the Greek Melkite Catholic, the Roman Catholic, the Episcopal, and the Lutheran. Muslim-Christian harmony was always the norm. The rise of militant Islamic groups like Hamas is a new phenomenon among people who have a powerful ecumenical tradition.

Palestinian Muslims view themselves as guardians of the Muslim holy sites, especially the Dome of the Rock, considered the third holiest in Islam. Christian Palestinians maintain a similar view of their role as guardians of the holiest places of Christendom, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity.

Palestinian arts center around village group dances, such as dabka. Village music is performed on traditional instruments such as the flute ( nay), drums ( tabla), and the lute (oud). Since the rise of the PLO, Palestinian music and song have for the most part reflected patriotic themes. Art flourished after 1948, with several artists depicting the Palestinian refugee experience. The PLO has fostered political poster art and holds exhibits in many parts of the world.

Modern medical facilities are badly lacking in the West Bank and Gaza. Most medical institutions are supported by Arab donations from outside and private donations from within the country.

Funerals are conducted by the family and the entire neighborhood. Long periods of mourning are observed by the Muslim and Christian communities. Cemeteries are public lands. Both communities believe strongly in an afterlife. Muslims, who believe Jerusalem will be the site of the Day of Judgment, consider burial there to be greatly desirable.

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF collection and are referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number.

There are 39 documents in the eHRAF Palestinians file of which 18 are books and the rest are articles. The time period covered by the documents in this file is from 1830 to 2000. Only one source was published before the British Mandate period (1917-1948), a short article on place spirits by Baldensperger (1893, document no. 20.) Ten documents were published before 1950, one in the 1960s, six works in the 1970s, and the rest, 23 documents, in the 1990s or later. The classic ethnographies of Arab village life during the British Mandate period are a two-volume set by Granquist (1931, no. 9; 1935, no. 10), who did her fieldwork in the late 1920s and Shimon (1947, no. 8), who covers a period from the turn of the century to 1946. Granquist (1947, no. 16; 1947, no. 17) wrote an additional two-volume monograph on the Arab child, which includes discussions of child-rearing practices and familial relationships. Other work done in this period are by Canaan on spirits (Canaan 1922, no. 11) and shrines (Canaan 1927, no. 18), Haddad (1922, no. 23) on guest houses, and Loftus (1949, no. 25) on illegal Arab immigration. Community studies carried out in the early post-1948 period include Lutfiyya's study of a Palestinian village in Jordan, circa 1960 (Lutfiyya 1966, no. 38), and two studies on Palestinian communities in Israel (Cohen 1972, no. 31; Zureik 1979, no. 54). Rosenfeld wrote a series of articles around this period on social change (Rosenfeld 1968, no. 46), visiting patterns (Rosenfeld 1979, no. 47) and marriage patterns (Rosenfeld 1976, no. 48). Two comprehensive books on more technical subjects are Atran (1986, no. 27) on the Palestinian land tenure system and Moors (1995, no. 40) on women's property. Sayigh (1979, no. 50) has written the classic history of the region from the Palestinian point of view. The rest of the works in the eHRAF collection are published after 1989 and are influenced by the intifada (1987-present). Most of them are based on research conducted in the Occupi ed Territories. Swedenburg (2003, no. 52) examines how elderly freedom fighters remembered the Great Revolt (1936-1939). He also wrote an article on how peasants became the symbol of the national movement. Two books address the relationship between the national, trade, and women's movements (Hilterman 1991, no. 34; Peteet 1991, no. 43). The latter reference (Peteet 1991, no. 43) is the only source in the collection based on research carried out in southern Lebanon. Abdulhadi (1998, no. 26) wrote an article on the women's movement. Other women's issues discussed in context of the resistance are family planning, a book by Kanaaneh (2002, no. 37), and articles on motherhood (Peteet 1997, no. 41) and the wearing of the HAJIB (Hammami 1990, no. 33). Three articles focus on male activist youth, or SHEBAB (Peteet 1994, no. 42; Pitcher 1991, no. 44; Jean-Klein 2000, no. 36). Other articles examine the influence of the resistance on folksongs (Barghouthi 1996, no. 28), religious and secular ceremonies (Bowman 1993, no. 30), identity (Haidar 2001, no. 32), cultural values (Huntington 2001, no. 35), and spirit possession (Rothenberg 2001, no. 49). Three books examine Israeli-Palestinian relations in Israel (Rabinowitz 1996, no. 45; Slyomovics 1998, no. 51) and across the Green Line (Bornstein 2002, no. 29). Finally, Monterescu (2001, no. 39) has written an article on men, manhood, and café life in Jaffa.

For more detailed information on the content of the individual works in the file, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

The culture summary was update in 2003 by Ghada Hashem Talhami. It was originally published in: Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 9, Africa and the Middle East, edited by John Middleton and Amal Rassam. Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall & Co: 1995. We thank Julie Peteet for supplying the original bibliography from which we made the final selections. Ian Skoggard wrote the SYNOPSIS and John Beierle and Ian Skoggard wrote the indexing notes, July 2004.

• ALWIYA -- districts -- category 634

• AQDIYA (QADĀ) -- subdistricts -- category 634

• 'AYLI -- the family -- category 592

• BADĪLA arrangement-- a form of exchange marriage -- category 583

• DAQQĀQ -- skilled stone carvers -- categories 324, 463

• DARWĪSH -- a religious mystic -- category 791

• DAYA -- a midwife -- categories 844, 759

• DIWĀN -- a guest house, maintained by one HAMŪLA -- category 344

• FALLAH(IN) -- peasants -- category 565

• FATWA -- a legal opinion or decree -- category 671

• GUPW -- General Union of Palestinian Women -- category 668

• HAJIB -- head covering -- categories 291, 292

• HAMŪLA -- clan, sometimes referred to as lineage -- cateories 614, 613

• HAMA'IL -- see HAMŪLA

• HAMAS -- Islamic Resistance Movement -- categories 668, 669

• HARA -- the sectional division of a village -- category 621

• HISTADRŪT -- a powerful labor organization -- category 467

• IMAM -- a Muslim holy man or "priest" -- category 793

• Intifada -- uprising -- category 669

• JEB -- a patrilineal unit -- category 613

• JINN -- spirit -- categories 776, 787

• KĀDI -- a Sharia judge -- category 693

• KUFIYA -- a head scarf -- category 291

• MADĀFAH -- guest house, maintained by the village -- category 344

• MAHR -- dower -- category 583

• MAJLIS QARAWI -- village councils -- category 623

• martyrs -- categories 727, 769

• MASHA'A -- see MUSHĀ

• memorial books -- category 5310

• MUJÂHID(IN)-- freedom fighter -- category 669

• MUKHTAR -- village headman -- categories 622, 631

• MUSHĀ -- land tenure system -- category 423

• MUTASARRIFS -- the governors of the districts -- category 634

• NĀTŪR -- crop guards -- categories 624m 625

• PLO -- Palestinian Liberation Organization -- category 668

• QĀ' IMMAQĀMS -- administrative officers of the sub-districts -- category 634

• QASSÂM -- a hero of the 1936 Arab Revolt -- category 769

• reconciliation committee -- category 627

• refugee camps -- category 727

• resistance -- category 668

• SHARI'A law -- categories 671, 779

• SHEBAB -- male youth activists -- categories 561, 668

• subaltern -- category 565

• TANKĪT -- the handing over of money gifts to the groom by men, and to the bride by women -- categories 585, 431

• THAWRA -- resistance movement -- category 668

• TITRĪZ --needlework -- 5311

• UNLU -- Unified National Leadership of the Uprising -- categories 646, 668

• UNRWA -- United Nations Relief and Work Agency -- categories 648, 747

• WĀLI --a woman's legal representative -- category 693

• WASĪT -- a marriage go-between -- category 584

• WATAN -- home, homeland, nation -- category 186

• WWC -- Women's Work Committee -- categories 562, 668

• ZĀ' ILA -- the joint family -- category 596

Abu-Lughod, Ibrahim, ed. (1971). The Transformation of Palestine. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press.

Beatty, Ilene (1971). The Land of Canaan. In From Haven to Conquest, edited by Walid Khalidi, 3-19. Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies.

Boullata, Isa (1989). Modern Palestinian Literature. In Palestine and the Palestinians: A Handbook, 72-76. Toronto: Near East Cultural and Educational Foundation of Canada.

Graham-Brown, Sarah (1980). Palestinians and Their Society, 1880-1946. London: Quartet Books.

Khalidi, Walid (1984). Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians, 1876-1948. Washington, D.C., Institute for Palestine Studies.

Nassar, Jamal, and Roger Heacock, eds. (1990) Intifada: Palestine at the Crossroads. New York: Praeger.

Near East Cultural and Educational Foundation of Canada (1989). Palestine and the Palestinians: A Handbook. Toronto: Near East Cultural and Educational Foundation of Canada.

Polk, William R., David M. Stamler, and Edmund Asfour (1957). Backdrop to Tragedy: The Struggle for Palestine. Boston: Beacon Press.

Said, Edward (1980). The Question of Palestine. New York: Vintage.

Smith, Charles D. (1988). Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Talhami, Ghada (1986). From Palestinian Nationhood to Palestinian Nationalism.. Arab Studies Quarterly. 8:346-357.

Talhami, Ghada (1994). The History of Jerusalem: A Muslim Perspective. In: The Spiritual Significance of Jerusalem for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, edited by Hans Ucko, 21-31. Geneva: World Council of Churches.