Lexicon

A group of 300 or so women representing various parts of Palestine, whose first meeting was held in Jerusalem on October 26, 1929. This was the first nationwide women’s political meeting. The organizers were wives of prominent figures and included Wahida al-Khalidi (wife of Hussein al-Khalidi) and Amina al-Husseini (wife of Jamal al-Husseini), and the congress was led by Salma al-Husseini (wife of Musa Kazim al-Husseini). It adopted resolutions consistent with Palestinian national demands: repealing the Balfour Declaration, ending Jewish immigration, annulling the Collecting Punishment Ordinance, and ending the mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners and demonstrators. The congress established a 14-member Executive Committee and called for the establishment of women’s societies in Palestinian cities. The first congress is generally regarded as marking the beginning of the modern Palestinian women’s movement—although it was not a feminist movement per se—protesting Jewish immigration and economic conditions with a gender consciousness.

Similar societies, some called Arab Women’s Committees, were founded in most cities. They were active during the general strike and revolt of 1936 to 1939. These committees also made sure to attend trials of rebels to show the authorities that the prisoners had mass support and to raise the rebels’ morale.

The military contingent of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—both were founded at the Arab League Summit in 1964. The PLO encouraged Palestinians to enroll in military academies in Arab countries, effectively doing military service in Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) units within host Arab armies. Sometimes this meant that the host country had authority over the PLA unit. There were four main PLA units: ‘Ayn Jalut in Egypt, Qadisiyya in Iraq, al-Badr in Jordan, and Hattin in Syria. While these units never fought as a single body for the PLO, their brigades were used by their host governments for military support. One example is the assistance that PLA brigades provided to the Egyptian military in the 1967 War. Some units also participated in the 1973 War. After the 1993 signing of the Oslo I Agreement, the Palestinian Authority (PA) was created as an interim self-governing body in parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. As a part of this process, a number of PLA fighters under PLO command were incorporated into PA security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 

An umbrella political entity founded in 1964 to liberate Palestine, implement the Palestinians’ right of return, and achieve national self-determination. Founded on June 2, 1964 in Jerusalem at the behest of the Arab League, the PLO was recognized by the United Nations General Assembly as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people” in 1974. The PLO became a nonmember state, Palestine, in 2012 and is signatory to the Oslo Accords between Israel and Palestinians. The PLO’s legislature, the Palestinian National Council (PNC), includes more than 700 Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT) and in the diaspora. It elects the PLO’s Central Council of 124 people. The PNC or the Central Council can elect the 18-member Executive Committee, which in turn elects the PLO chairman. Yasser Arafat served as PLO chairman from 1964 until his death in 2004, when he was succeeded by the current chairman, Mahmoud Abbas.

After the PLO signed the Oslo Accords that created the Palestinian Authority, an interim government in the oPT, much of the PLO leadership moved from its base in Tunis to the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat’s faction Fatah had always dominated the PLO, but smaller factions that rejected the unfolding agreements with Israel remained in exile and were marginalized. Instead of being a ragtag group in exile seeking international legitimacy, the PLO and its role was largely subsumed by the offices of the Palestinian Authority, which was funded by the international donor community and took center stage. Within the oPT, however, non-PLO member Hamas became stronger, leading the opposition to the two-state solution and finally rivaling Fatah by defeating it in 2006 Palestinian Authority parliamentary elections. Reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas center upon the Islamist movement’s demand to join the PLO and share leadership, which Fatah has rejected to date, and Hamas’ repudiation of the Oslo process, including an end to armed resistance.

Interim administrative and political entity, established in 1994. The Palestinian Authority (PA) was established as an interim administrative body by the Gaza-Jericho Agreement that detailed the Declaration of Principles (DOP, or Oslo I Accord) signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel in September 1993. The DOP stipulated  that a “Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority” would last for no longer than five years, during which there would be final status negotiations between the parties leading to a permanent settlement based upon United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. The negotiations broke down and the five-year interim period has long expired, but the PA continues to exist, albeit with limited power.

The PA administers the affairs of the Palestinians residing in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem), looking after the interests of the Palestinians who live within the confines of areas A, B, and C, according to the limits permitted by Israel’s ongoing occupation. The PA also has a police force and several security branches and is mandated to coordinate its security with Israel.

The PA also refers to itself as the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and the State of Palestine (since 2013). But it has no jurisdiction over Jewish or Palestinian citizens of Israel, even if they are within areas under its control. As an administrative body, it also cannot address issues of national concern to the Palestinian people as a whole, such as refugees, the future political horizon, or Palestinian citizens of other countries—these issues are the responsibility of the PLO. The Israeli shekel is the official currency, and the PA does not control its own borders, airspace, immigration, or customs regime.

The occupied Gaza Strip also falls under PA administration. However, after Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections in 2006, the resulting political enmity and clashes culminated in Hamas taking over control of Gaza’s security and administrative offices in 2007, creating a deep fissure in Palestinian politics. The PA continues to pay some functionaries in the Gaza Strip.

The PA is headed by an elected president. However, Palestinian elections for president have not been held since January 2005. The work of the PLC has been frozen since the 2006 vote, after which many newly elected Hamas members were detained by Israel and internal political dissension took hold.

A campaign “initiated in 2004 to contribute to the struggle for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality,” according to its website. Emulating the 1980s campaign against South African apartheid, PACBI advocates for a boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions in response to Israel’s flouting of international law and denial of Palestinian basic rights. It is a founding member of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) National Committee (BNC), a coalition group that promotes BDS. Israel has attacked the BDS movement and its proponents throughout the world, using a variety of tactics and accusing them of anti-Semitism. 

A left-wing political party that split from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) in 1990. Better known by its Arabic name, al-Ittihad al-Dimuqrati al-Filastini, and its nickname, FIDA, the democratic socialist party is part of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). It is primarily based in the occupied West Bank, with some presence in the diaspora. Yasser Abed Rabbo, who was chosen as FIDA’s secretary-general, and other senior members of the DFLP split away largely over the democratic practices of leftist groups, as well as political strategy. While the DFLP espouses a Marxist–Leninist philosophy of leadership and focuses on armed struggle, FIDA fashioned itself a reformist party that called for political pluralism, institution-building, and a negotiated settlement with Israel. FIDA emphasizes diplomacy and international law in order to achieve a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as the capital. While a relatively small party, FIDA has been influential within leftist circles. In recent years, it has continued to call for reform and unity within the Palestinian political establishment; criticized authoritarian practices in Palestinian governance; and pushed for elections, accountability, and peaceful resistance. 

The legislative branch of the Palestinian Authority (PA) created by the Oslo Accords to represent Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. The 132-member council approves the PA’s budget as well as the prime minister and his government. Members are elected to serve four-year terms. However, the last elections, which Hamas won, were held in 2006. In 2007, President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the government and declared an emergency, and thereafter ruled by decree.

The “supreme legislative representative body for all the Palestinian people inside Palestine and in the Diaspora,” according to its website. Established in 1964, the role of the PNC is to establish Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) policies and plans. It has 747 members, representing Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT) and the Diaspora. While the PNC originally represented most Palestinian factions, after the signing of the Oslo Accords, important members such as Edward Said resigned from the PNC in protest. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which became prominent during the Oslo process, have asked to be incorporated into the PNC in reconciliation negotiations with the PLO’s main faction Fatah. (This conflict broke out into the open after Hamas won elections for the Palestinian Authority parliamentary in 2006, and took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007. The split rendered the PNC largely inoperative.)

According to PLO laws and PNC bylaws, PNC members serve three-year terms and must be chosen through direct election by all of the Palestinian people. With the challenges of holding elections among Palestinians in the diaspora and the oPT, PNC members had been appointed by a quota system where Fatah is most dominant, followed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PNC has not held a regular full session since 1996; limited meetings have been held in controversy. In April-May 2018, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, also PLO head, called a quorum of the PNC in Ramallah to elect a new PLO Central Council and Executive Committee. This was the first meeting of the PNC in 22 years. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP boycotted the meeting.

Al-Mubadara (“Initiative” in English) is a political movement. On June 17, 2002, Palestinian National Initiative (PNI) cofounders Haider Abdel Shafi in Gaza City, Mustafa Barghouti in Ramallah, and Ibrahim Dakkak in Jerusalem announced the start of the movement from their respective cities. PNI was established as a secular opposition to the Oslo Accords. It has consultative party status in The Socialist International and is a founding member of the Progressive Alliance. It aims to advance the Palestinian people toward freedom and independence, justice, integrity, and decent living. The initiative’s program has focused on fighting for the release of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees from Israeli prisons; engaging Palestinians in the diaspora; strengthening local civil society; and encouraging international solidarity. PNI seeks to achieve the Palestinian dream of establishing a free and independent Palestinian state.

The oldest Palestinian political party, tracing its roots in Palestine to over a century ago. While the current group, known as the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP), was founded in 1982 as the Palestinian Communist Party (PCP), the leftist group first emerged as an underground anti-Zionist communist movement during the early Colonial British Mandate period. Led mostly by Jewish activists involved in the Socialist Workers’ Party (formed in 1919), these workers joined the Communist International (Comintern) in 1924 and formed the Palestine Communist Party, unique in including both Arab and Jewish members. Following pressure from the Comintern to Arabize the movement’s leadership, several Palestinians, including Mahmoud al-Atrash, Najati Sidqi, and Radwan al-Hilu, assumed leadership roles starting in the late 1920s and into the 1930s. 

In 1948, the movement was split geographically, as most Palestinians were made refugees. Communist Palestinians in the West Bank joined the Jordanian Communist Party, while those in Gaza formed the Palestinian Communist Organization. In 1982, these disparate branches reunited to form the PCP, severing ties with Jordan. Bashir Barghouti served as general secretary from 1982 to1998 and led the PCP through its most significant transition, moving from a Marxist-Leninist communist party to a more moderate socialist nationalist movement. For example, in 1987, during the First Intifada, the PCP called for grassroots civil disobedience, unions, and popular committees instead of guerrilla resistance. That same year, the PCP joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and was one of the first factions to advocate for a two-state solution along the 1967 borders. While the party was initially in support of the 1993 Oslo Accords framework, it grew increasingly critical of the failure of the negotiation process with Israel. 

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the PCP rebranded as the PPP and adopted Barghouti’s more moderate socialist platform. Unlike traditional Marxism, Barghouti argued that class struggle should come second to national liberation. In 1998, Barghouti suffered a debilitating stroke, and leadership of the PPP was shared between several members, including Hannah Amireh, Abdel Majid Hamdan, and Mustafa Barghouti, among others. In 2002, in the midst of the Second Intifada, Mustafa Barghouti left the PPP with a group of supporters and formed the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI) due to Barghouti’s belief that the PPP was failing to provide a sufficiently strong secular and democratic alternative to Fatah and Hamas during the uprising. In 2005, Bassam al-Salhi was elected general secretary of the PPP, a position he holds to this day. 

Over the last two decades, PPP influence has waned. Nonetheless, it remains vocally critical of Palestinian Authority (PA) policy, and in 2021, it officially withdrew from the government in protest of the killing of activist Nizar Banat in Palestinian custody and the general curtailing of Palestinian civil freedoms. It continues to advocate for democratic social reform and national unity in Palestinian leadership. 

Were established in 1941 as elite mobile strike brigades within the Haganah. (Palmach is variously translated as “Strike Companies,” “Assault,” or “Shock Forces.”) Palmach volunteers helped the British fend off Vichy control of Lebanon and Syria; in the spring and summer of 1942, they were trained by the British to defend the country against a possible German invasion. Their training included sabotage, patrolling, marksmanship, face-to-face combat, field training, and squad commander training. Among the units established by the Palmach was the Arab Unit, consisting of fighters dressed as Arabs. As the German threat to Palestine receded, cooperation between the Palmach and the British army dwindled—although the brigades’ ranks swelled with young men and women volunteers. It developed into an organized fighting force with commanders and limited weapons, using offensive assault and subterfuge, night operations, and underground warfare. Between 1945 and 1947, the Palmach fought the British for attempting to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine. The brigades were integrated into the Israel Defense Forces after the war of 1948. Some of the commanders of the Palmach became prominent military and political leaders of Israel; examples include Yigal Allon, Moshe Dayan, and Yitzhak Rabin.

The second-largest categorization size in the Israeli land registry. Approximately the size of an apartment building. A parcel is made up of sub-parcels. See also Block.

Jewish holiday that commemorates the Israelites’ liberation from slavery in Egypt, as described in the Torah. The holiday’s name comes from the biblical tradition related in the Book of Exodus, where God “passed over” the homes of the Israelites during a tenth plague, sparing their firstborn while striking down those of the Egyptians. Passover falls on the 15th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, typically in March or April. During Passover, observant Jews eat unleavened bread (matzah) only, recalling the rapid departure of the Israelites. They also commemorate the first two days of Passover with a seder or traditional feast. Passover lasts seven days in Israel, but many Jewish communities outside Israel celebrate it for eight days. 

A British commission of inquiry, formally known as the Palestine Royal Commission, chaired by British parliamentarian Lord William Peel. The commission was sent to Palestine in 1936 to investigate the causes of unrest across the country, which had escalated following a Palestinian general strike that started in April of that year. On July 7, 1936, the commission published a report of its findings, arguing that the Colonial British Mandate had become unworkable and recommending partition. Both Palestinians and Zionists rejected the partition plan, with the latter more amenable to discussing terms of partition if they were in favor of the proposed Jewish state.

The first outline plan (town planning scheme) for Jerusalem adopted by the Jerusalem Municipality in 1977, designating the built-up Palestinian neighborhood of al-Bustan in Silwan as an “open public area” where no residential construction is allowed, except with special permission. This scheme means that building is not allowed in this area and virtually no building permits have been approved there. Palestinians build anyway to accommodate their natural population growth. In 2005, the city began issuing demolition orders to the 1,500 Palestinian residents of this area, affecting 100 families. Although the residents worked on and presented their own plans to the city, the city rejected them and insisted this must remain an open area. Demolitions are in progress. 

A Zionist military strategy, created by the Haganah and operationalized in April and May 1948 with several precursors in the previous decade (Plans Aleph, Bet, and Gimmel, the latter also known as the “May Plan”). Plan Dalet (or Plan D) was designed to secure control of the areas allocated to the Jewish state under the United Nations Partition Plan (1947) as well as areas outside it that were occupied by Jews (such as Jerusalem, which at the time was designated by the UN as having a special international status that would not be part of either the Jewish or the Arab state). Plan Dalet laid out 13 military operations which, had they all succeeded, would have left the entire country under Zionist control, including Jerusalem and areas allocated to the Arab state by the UN partition plan. In the end, not all of the operations were successful and the country, including Jerusalem, was subsequently divided.

See The West Side Story.

The third strongest Palestinian political faction. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was formed in the aftermath of the Arab defeat by Israel in June 1967, which resulted in the entirety of historic Palestine falling under colonial rule. In December 1967, several military groups that had formed under the umbrella of the Arab National Movement united to become the PFLP. The PFLP is a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

In its December 11, 1967, founding statement, the PFLP characterized the June defeat as a new stage in the struggle, a turning point toward mass participation of the working class and wage laborers in the struggle against imperialism and Zionism, in which “revolutionary violence” would be unleashed to bring about national liberation. It drew inspiration from Communist leaders in China, Vietnam and Cuba. Its goal was the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state on all of historic Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital and it affirmed its commitment “to the popular armed struggle.”

Beginning in 1968, the PFLP conducted several hijackings of international commercial airlines to call attention to the question of Palestine; that tactic was abandoned in the early 1970s. As political settlement plans were floated, the PFLP joined with other groups to form the Palestinian Rejectionist Front against Surrender Solutions in 1974. By 1981, it had embraced the PLO’s “phasic approach”: the acceptance of statehood on any liberated Palestinian territory. After the PLO was expelled from Lebanon in 1982, the PFLP established its headquarters in Damascus. It prioritized work within the occupied Palestinian territories with women, student, and worker groups, and was part of the Intifada leadership. When the Oslo Accords were announced, the PFLP opposed the deal and the PLO’s strategy, albeit rejecting any alternative to the PLO. In its 2013 conference, it called for the establishment of a Palestinian state on all of historic Palestine and the “unity” of the Palestinian people, a reference to ongoing infighting between Hamas and Fatah, the two largest political factions.

George Habash, the PFLP’s founding leader, resigned in 2000. The PFLP elected Abu Ali Mustafa; Israel assassinated him in his home in al-Bireh in 2001. Ahmad Saadat succeeded Mustafa but was arrested in 2002 by the Palestinian Authority after the PFLP assassinated the Israeli tourism minister. In March 2006, Saadat’s Jericho prison was surrounded by Israeli forces and he and five prisoners were abducted after a deadly standoff. He is serving a 30-year term in an Israeli prison.

A centralized national database of personal identity information about all residents of Israel. According to Population Registry Law 5725–1965, all residents other than visitors must give specific particulars to the state within 30 days of entry; for minors, their parent or guardian must do so until they are entitled to acquire their own IDs at age 16. Births, deaths, adoptions, marriages, etc. must all be reported to the registry within 30 days. A parallel registry is maintained by the Palestinian Authority for Palestinians living in the occupied Territories, but its actual control and oversight lie with Israel.