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“Family unification” (sometimes called lem shaml in Arabic) refers to the process that Palestinians who have legal status in Israel, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), or the Gaza Strip undergo to apply for legal status for immediate family members who do not have this status. Once obtained, that status then allows the spouse or child to live legally within the Israeli municipal borders of Jerusalem with the other family member or members who hold legal status.

“Family reunification” or “family reunion” are terms used by international bodies and organizations. These terms are defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as the “process of bringing together family members, particularly children, spouses and elderly dependents.” In the Israeli system, while family reunification was the original term used, this has more commonly come to be referred to as family unification today.

A Palestinian political faction formed in 1959 that, one decade later, became the most important faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the representative body of the Palestinian people. (The word “fatah,” which means to conquer, is the reverse acronym of harakat al-tahrir al-filastiniyya, Palestinian Liberation Movement.) Fatah was the first national group to be started by Palestinians after the Nakba in 1948, when many were made refugees. It grew out of a clandestine student organization that included Yasser Arafat and Khalil al-Wazir, among others, and advocated armed struggle to liberate all of Palestine, and independence from Arab governments. It claimed that the liberation of Palestine was the road to Arab unity. Initially, Fatah advocated a three-phase strategy that was inspired by the Algerian, Cuban, and other revolutionary models: small-scale guerrilla activity followed by all-out guerrilla warfare, and then a people’s war. In the early 1960s, it carried out paramilitary operations against Israel.

By 1969, under Arafat’s leadership, Fatah had taken control of the PLO. After the 1973 War, it shifted toward a phased approach, and by 1988, the Fatah leadership was instrumental in persuading the PLO’s parliament, the Palestinian National Council (PNC), to adopt a “peace initiative” based on a Declaration of Independence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, leading to US-led talks. The Fatah-led PLO found itself in a very weakened position after the first Gulf War in 1991; because it had not condemned Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait, it suffered profound political and financial consequences. In this weakened state, the PLO accepted US and Israeli conditions for the Madrid Conference and the Oslo Accords, the latter of which led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1994. Based now in the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT), the Fatah movement has lost ground, in part because voters associate Fatah with PA inefficiency and corruption. Hamas soundly defeated Fatah in the 2006 legislative elections. Since then, the two factions have been at loggerheads, unable to work together effectively. The result has been the establishment of separate authorities in the West Bank (headquartered in Ramallah and controlled by Fatah) and the Gaza Strip (controlled by Hamas).

Arabic word for peasants or agricultural laborers in an Arab country (singular: fellah)

The Palestinian uprising (intifada is Arabic for shaking off) against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that erupted in December 1987 and included many forms of civil disobedience, such as massive demonstrations, general strikes, barricades, refusal to pay taxes, boycotts of Israeli products, graffiti, and underground ‘‘freedom schools.’’ By the time the First Intifada ended (in September 1993, with the signing of the first Oslo Accord), about 1,500 Palestinians had been killed across the country by Israeli soldiers and civilians (including East Jerusalem), tens of thousands had been injured, and 175,000 imprisoned. During this period, Israel had the highest per capita prison population in the world.

A random, temporary, and unannounced makeshift roadblock thrown up without advance notice by the Israeli military. Typically in Palestinian areas and affecting Palestinian mobility.

An interministerial committee established in 1972 to examine the rate of development in Jerusalem. The committee was headed by the chief of the finance ministry’s budgets department, Arnon Gafni. It determined that Israeli authorities must maintain the existing demographic balance of 73.5 percent Jews and 26.5 percent Palestinians in order to keep hold of a Jewish majority in the city.

One of the English names for an eighth, ancient gate in the wall of the Old City of Jerusalem that has been closed since the 16th century. See also Bab al-Dhahabi, Bab al-Rahma, Golden Gate.

See The Gates of the Old City for more detailed information and other names for this gate. 

The executing agreement of Oslo I, signed in May 1994 by Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and also called the Cairo Agreement. As part of the implementation of the 1993 Oslo Accords between the PLO and Israel, the Israeli military withdrew from Gaza and Jericho, while PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and other officials returned from exile in Tunisia and formed the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Paris Protocol was part of the Cairo Agreement, establishing the basis for economic relations between the PA and Israel. The protocol remains in force today and essentially subordinates the Palestinian economy to Israel’s, preventing Palestinians from collecting VAT and import taxes or creating their own currency. The Gaza-Jericho Agreement was superseded in September 1995 by the Oslo II Agreement.

The Israeli state body that is responsible for managing or overseeing assets that allegedly belonged to Jews prior to 1948, until they are “reclaimed” (i.e., given over to Jewish ownership).  Established in 1948; part of the Justice Ministry.

One of the English names for an eighth, ancient gate in the wall of the Old City of Jerusalem that has been closed since the 16th century. See also Bab al-Dhahabi, Bab al-Rahma, Gate of Mercy.

See The Gates of the Old City for more detailed information and other names for this gate. 

A decision adopted by the Israeli government in May 2018 under the formal title Decision 3790 for the Reduction of Socio-economic Gaps and Economic Development in East Jerusalem; allocates a budget of NIS 2.2 billion (approx. USD630 million) over a five-year period to six main areas: education and higher education; economy and employment; transportation; improving civil services and quality of life (leisure, water and sewage infrastructure); health; and land registration. While this is the first time since 1967 that the government took steps to address critical needs in East Jerusalem, it remains to be seen which population will actually benefit from these efforts.

A 440 sq km region encompassing Jerusalem and its suburbs that Israel seeks to annex onto the municipal borders already annexed in 1980. Most of this land—75 percent—is part of the occupied West Bank. It includes, in addition to Israeli municipal Jerusalem, three major settlement blocs to the east, south, and north of the city, respectively, each with its own regional and local self-government: Ma‘ale Adumim, Gush Etzion, and Giv’at Ze’ev. These settlements, constructed on confiscated Palestinian public and private lands, have been expanded, developed, and connected to one another and to Jerusalem’s urban core through bypass roads—most of which are inaccessible to Palestinians with Palestinian Authority (PA) identity cards. The Knesset has considered plans to officially annex the region several times, only to delay the move due to international pressure. Completion of this vision will create an Israeli geographic center in the West Bank that is inaccessible to most Palestinians, and ultimately divide the West Bank into two separate parts without East Jerusalem, the stated Palestinian capital.

See Israel’s Vision of a Greater [Jewish] Jerusalem.

The first popular Palestinian uprising in modern Palestinian history. Also known as the Arab Revolt or the Great Revolt, the uprising lasted more than three years and was sparked by mass Palestinian protests against British Mandate policies. Specifically, Palestinians protested the ongoing influx of Jewish immigrants to Palestine and Britain’s sale of Arab lands to these Jewish settlers, which came at the expense of the Palestinian fellahin (farmers). As a result of these policies, which had been worsening the plight of Palestinians since Britain occupied Palestine in 1917, Palestinian workers went on a general strike across Palestine starting on April 19, 1936. During the strike, which lasted until October 1936, British Mandate forces violently repressed Palestinians. In turn, this caused a new wave of Palestinian resistance—led by Palestinian farmers—that lasted until the summer of 1939.

British Mandate forces ultimately suppressed the revolt, killing 3,832 Palestinians and injuring over 14,000. As a result of the revolt, the Palestinian nationalist movement was crushed, with several of its leaders, including Amin al-Hussaini, sent into exile. The revolt also led to Britain lending further support to Zionist militias like the Haganah, and to the weakening of Palestinian military power, including as a result of Britain’s seizure of much of their weapons. Indeed, the revolt was so traumatic for Palestinians, it directly impacted their ability to confront Zionist militias throughout the 1948 War.

The Green Line refers to line that was drawn on a map in green ink in 1949 as part of a set of armistice agreements following the 1948 War between Israel and the Arab countries that fought against it: Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. While the line according to the agreements was supposed to be considered temporary and unofficial, it is commonly treated as the de facto border of Israel and the basis upon which agreements are negotiated and reached with neighboring rival Arab states. It served as the basis of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242. In the country as a whole, the line separates pre-1967 Israel from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and the Arab states around it. In the specific Jerusalem context, this line (and the no-man’s-land Seam zone around it) divided between West Jerusalem, which became part of the state when it was established in 1948, and East Jerusalem, which was annexed to Jordan until 1967. 

An Orthodox Jewish, messianic, right-wing settler movement, formally established in 1974 by Israeli soldiers who fought in the 1973 War. Its purpose was to promote the Jewish settlement of the territories occupied in 1967 based on biblical claims to the land, and with the intent of creating “facts on the ground”—regardless of government policy. The movement dwindled once the 1977 Likud government made West Bank settlement part of its official platform. Today’s Yesha Council succeeded Gush Emunim as the formal umbrella organization of the settler movement in the 1980s. Other Gush Emunim members joined Ataret Cohanim, Torat Kohanim, and the Young Israel Movement, which envisioned settling the Old City and its surroundings, and replacing the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque with a Jewish temple.

A Zionist paramilitary organization, set up by a Labor Zionist party in 1920, that actively established Jewish settlements in and supported illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine. (In Hebrew, Haganah means “defense.”) Its purpose was to fight Arab resistance to Jewish settlement in Palestine. It was outlawed by the British Mandate but remained active. Until the end of World War II, its activities could be described as moderate when compared to the activities of the Stern Gang and Irgun, which it regarded as terrorist. After the war, however, the British refused to allow immigration to Palestine, and the Haganah turned to terrorism. It bombed bridges, railroads, and ships used to deport illegal Jewish immigrants. After the UN voted to partition Palestine in 1947, the Haganah acted as the army of the Zionist movement and fought both Mandate forces and Palestinian militias. By the time the State of Israel was declared, the Haganah controlled not only the areas allocated to the Jewish state by the Partition Plan, but also Jaffa and Acre. On May 31, 1948, it was dissolved by order of the provisional government of Israel, its members becoming the core of the state army. Its name is incorporated into the official name of the Israeli army, Tzva Haganah le-Yisra’el (translated as Israel Defense Forces). Haganah commanders who had careers in Israeli politics include Yigal Allon, Moshe Dayan, and Yisrael Galili.

Hamas—the Arabic acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya (Movement of Islamic Resistance)—is a Palestinian political party and Islamist national movement, founded in 1987 in the Gaza Strip after the outbreak of the First Intifada. Ideologically and organizationally, it is modeled after the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.

The third holiest site in Islam, located in the southeastern corner of the Old City of Jerusalem, and referred to in English as the Temple Mount. The term “al-Haram al-Sharif" (Arabic for “The Noble Sanctuary”) is used interchangeably with the terms “al-Aqsa Mosque compound” or, simply, “al-Aqsa.” The elevated compound, which includes al-Aqsa Mosque and Qubbat al-Sakhra (Dome of the Rock), was built between 685 and 809 CE.

Muslims revere al-Haram al-Sharif as the site where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. The site is so important to Islam that it is one of the only two mosques mentioned in the Quran (the other being the al-Haram Mosque in Mecca). The Quran also considers al-Aqsa Mosque to be the first qibla, or point of direction for praying, and the Prophet and Muslims prayed toward it before it was changed to Mecca; as such, al-Aqsa is also known as the Qibla Mosque.

Al-Haram al-Sharif (Har ha-Bayit in Hebrew) is also one of the holiest sites in Judaism, believed to be where Abraham attempted to sacrifice his son Isaac. Jews also consider the Western Wall (al-Buraq Wall, for Muslims) of al-Haram al-Sharif to be the last remnant of King Herod’s Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Al-Haram al-Sharif is thus a highly significant and contested site for Muslims and Jews, and the site of violent confrontations between the two communities, including in the 1929 al-Buraq Uprising, the 2000 Second Intifada, and the 2021 Unity Intifada. To this day Israeli occupation forces carry out assaults on Palestinian worshippers in al-Aqsa.

Also referred to as Haram al-Sharif.

See al-Haram al-Sharif.