Portal:Palestine

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Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by a majority of UN member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, collectively known as the occupied Palestinian territories, within the broader geographic and historical Palestine region. Palestine 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 prior to evacuations in 2023.

Situated at a continental crossroad, the region of Palestine was ruled by various empires and experienced various demographic changes from antiquity to the modern era. Being a bridge between Asia and Africa, it was treading ground for the Nile and Mesopotamian armies and merchants from North Africa, China and India. The region is known for its religious significance. The ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict dates back to the rise of the Zionist movement, supported by the United Kingdom during World War I. The war saw Britain occupying Palestine from the Ottoman Empire, where it set up Mandatory Palestine under the auspices of the League of Nations. Increased Jewish immigration led to intercommunal conflict between Jews and Palestinian Arabs, which escalated into a civil war in 1947 after a proposed partitioning by the United Nations was rejected by the Palestinians.

The 1948 Palestine war saw the forcible displacement of a majority of the Arab population, and consequently the establishment of Israel; these events are referred to by Palestinians as the Nakba ('catastrophe' in Arabic). In the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which had been held by Jordan and Egypt respectively. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) declared independence in 1988. In 1993, the PLO signed the Oslo Accords with Israel, creating limited PLO governance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip through the Palestinian Authority (PA). Israel withdrew from Gaza in its unilateral disengagement in 2005, but the territory is still considered to be under military occupation and has been blockaded by Israel. In 2007, internal divisions between political factions led to a takeover of Gaza by Hamas. Since then, the West Bank has been governed in part by the Fatah-led PA, while the Gaza Strip has remained under the control of Hamas.

Israel has constructed large settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, which currently house more than 670,000 Israeli settlers, which are illegal under international law. Attacks by Hamas-led armed groups in October 2023 in Israel were followed by the Gaza war, which has caused widespread destruction and a humanitarian crisis throughout the Gaza Strip, including the displacement of nearly all of its population. The United Nations special committee and a number of experts and rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have concluded that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinian people during its ongoing invasion and bombing of the Gaza Strip. (Full article...)

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Joseph's Tomb (Hebrew: קבר יוסף, Qever Yosef, Arabic: قبر يوسف, Qabr Yūsuf) is a funerary monument located at the eastern entrance to the valley that separates Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, 325 yards northwest of Jacob's Well, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus, near Tell Balāṭa, the site of biblical Shechem. Biblical tradition identifies the general area of Shechem as the resting-place of the biblical patriarch Joseph, the eponymous ancestor of the northern kingdom of Israel, and his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh. Joseph's tomb has been venerated throughout the ages by Jews, Samaritans, Christians and Muslims. Recently the structure has been refurbished, with a new cupola installed, and visits by Jewish worshippers have resumed.

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Credit: American Colony (Jerusalem) Photo Depart.

A young woman from Ramallah, c. 1898-1914. Until the 1940s, women of Palestine wore elaborate handcrafted garments. The creation and maintenance of these items played a significant role in their lives. A knowledgeable observer could determine a woman's village of origin and social status from her clothing. The circular band near this woman's forehead is a ring of coins made from a portion of her dowry money, and indicates that she is unmarried.

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Did you know...

...that Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett (pictured) was born in the United States to a Scottish father, educated in England and eventually became the Australian Chief of the Air Staff?
...that the Palestinian Fedayeen campaign against Israel was one of the causes of the 1956 Suez Crisis?
...that although it was destroyed by the Jordanian Arab Legion in the 1948 War, the moshav Atarot is now the site of Jerusalem's largest industrial park?

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I simply want tomorrow to be better than today. I want Palestine to be independent and sovereign... Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.

— Mahmoud Abbas

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WikiProjects

You are invited to participate in WikiProject Palestine, a WikiProject dedicated to developing and improving articles about Palestine.

Parent projects: Asia • Countering systemic bias • Western Asia • Arab World • Countries •

Main project: WikiProject Palestine

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Middle Eastern military history

Related projects: Geography • Egypt • Iraq • Israel • Jordan • Lebanon • Islam • Syria

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Norman Gary Finkelstein (born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust, an interest motivated by the experiences of his parents who are Jewish Holocaust survivors. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University. He has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University, and, most recently, DePaul University, where he was an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007. In 2007, after a highly publicized row between Finkelstein and a notable opponent of his, Alan Dershowitz, Finkelstein's tenure bid at DePaul was denied. Finkelstein was placed on administrative leave for the 2007–2008 academic year, and on September 5, 2007, he announced his resignation after coming to a settlement with the university on generally undisclosed terms.

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This is a list of recognized content, updated weekly by JL-Bot (talk · contribs) (typically on Saturdays). There is no need to edit the list yourself. If an article is missing from the list, make sure it is tagged (e.g. {{WikiProject Palestine}}) or categorized correctly and wait for the next update. See WP:RECOG for configuration options.