| Absentee Property Law | The Absentee Property Law (‘Qanoon Elhader/Gayeb in Arabic) was passed in 1950 authorizing expropriation of of all lands belonging to Palestinians who were citizens or residents on 29 November, 1947 but had left his place of residence, even to take refuge within Palestine. The internally displaced became "present absentees" and lost their land. Absentee property was vested in the Custodian of Absentee Property who then ‘sold’ it to the Development Authority. | ||||||||||||||
| Alon Plan | As early as the end of 1967, Yigal Alon - who served at the time as the head of the Ministerial Committee on Settlements - began to prepare a strategic plan for the establishment of settlements in certain parts of the West Bank. This plan was reformulated several times over the coming years. Although never formally approved by the Israeli government, the plan provided the basis for the layout of the settlements established in the West Bank on the initiative of the governments led by the Ma'arach (the precursor of the modern Labor Party) through 1977, and as the foundation for the "territorial compromise" advocated by the Ma'arach in its platform through the 1988 elections. The initial objective of the Alon Plan was to redraw the borders of the State of Israel to include the Jordan Valley and the Judean Desert within the territory of the state, which the plan's proponents argued was necessary to ensure state security. Within these areas, the plan advocated the establishment of a string of Israeli settlements ensuring a "Jewish presence" and constituting a preliminary step leading to formal annexation. The Alon Plan also recommended that, as far as possible, the annexation of areas densely populated by Palestinians should be avoided. | ||||||||||||||
| Al-Quds | The Arabic name for Jerusalem, meaning "The Holy." | ||||||||||||||
| Aliyah | Aliyah is a Hebrew word meaning ascent and refers to those Jews who ascend or go up to the land of Israel. | ||||||||||||||
| Anglo French Declaration | To allay Husayn's fear from Balfour Declaration and Sykes-Picot Agreement, in November, 1918 a more specific declaration was issued: "The object aimed by France and Great Britain ... is the complete and definite emancipation of the [Arab] peoples and the establishment of national governments and administrations deriving their authority from the initiative and free choice of the indigenous populations." | ||||||||||||||
| Arab League | The Arab League, established in March 1945, aims to improve relations among Arab nations. Headquarters are located in Cairo, Egypt. Members include: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. | ||||||||||||||
| Arona | Municipal tax. | ||||||||||||||
| Balfour Declaration | Statement issued by the British government in 1917, which supported the creation of a Jewish homeland. It said, in part, "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." This was the first recognition of Zionism by a major world power. | ||||||||||||||
| Bantustan | Bantustan is the disparaging term that refers to the tribal homelands of South African native black Africans which were "given" to blacks by the white Apartheid rulers of the Republic of South Africa and were designated to become independent states under a grand plan called "Separate Development" which would have granted independence to blacks in these newly created tribal states. There were to be about ten Bantustan-Homelands. These small, quasi-sovereign nations were established under the 1951 Bantu Authorities Act. Bantustan is now a more general disparaging term for any notionally independent country with discontinuous borders. | ||||||||||||||
| Biltmore Programme | In May 1942 the Zionist movement maked its clearest call for statehood in ‘the Biltmore Programme’, decided upon in an emergency Zionist Conference in New York; pressed for mass immigration and the setting up of a sovereign Jewish commonwealth in all parts of Palestine. | ||||||||||||||
| British High Commissioner for Palestine | The governor of Palestine during the mandate period, 1920-1948.
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| Bypass Road | This designation came with the advent of the Oslo Accords and refers to those roads that link settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with each other and with Israel. In the agreements they are called "Lateral Roads" but people usually call them "bypass" roads because they are meant to circumvent Palestinian built up areas. These roads are under Israeli control and may only be used by Israelis. | ||||||||||||||
| Cairo Accord | See: Gaza-Jericho Agreement. | ||||||||||||||
| Cambon Declaration | The 1917 Cambon Declaration was a letter of support for Zionist aims sent to Nahum Sokolow, a prominent Polish Zionist then living in London, from Jules Cambon, Secretary General of the French Foreign Ministry. In an attempt to undermine the Sykes-Picot agreement, Sokolow was sent to Paris to meet with Cambon. This was the first recognition of Zionism by a major world power. The critical sentences are: "... it would be a deed of justice and reparation to assist, by the protection of the Allied Powers, in the renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago. The French Government, which entered this present war to defend a people wrongly attacked, and which continues the struggle to assure victory of right over might, cannot but feel sympathy for your cause, the triumph of which is bound up with that of the Allies. I am happy to give you herewith such assurance." | ||||||||||||||
| Camp David Accords | Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt, and Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, met with Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, at Camp David from September 5 to September 17, 1978, and agreed on a framework for peace in the Middle East. Camp David (a U.S. Presidential retreat in Maryland) was also the site of the Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David in July, 2000. | ||||||||||||||
| Canton | A small administrative division of a country. | ||||||||||||||
| Community Settlements | Unlike cooperative settlements, community settlements began as a form of settlement unique to the Occupied Territories, and as an initiative of Gush Emunim and its settlement wing (Amanah). The legal framework is a cooperative association registered with the Registrar of Associations, managed by its general meeting and usually comprising some 100-200 families. Like the kibbutz and the cooperative moshav, the community settlement absorbs new members by a clearly defined process at the end of which the general meeting decides whether to accept the candidates. Most of the members of the community settlements are middle-class settlers employed in white-collar positions in nearby cities within Israel. Sixty-six settlements throughout the West Bank, particularly in the "mountain strip" and the Jerusalem metropolis, are defined as community settlements. (Source: B'Tselem: Land Grab (2002)) | ||||||||||||||
| Cooperative Settlements | Cooperative settlements are subdivided into three clear models - kibbutz, moshav and cooperative moshav - that vary in terms of the level of equality and extent of cooperation in ownership of property, in general, and of means of production, in particular. However, these distinctions have become blurred since the 1990s, due to the economic crisis affecting the kibbutz and moshav movements and due to changes in the prevailing values of Israeli society. These forms of settlement are the classic models cherished by the Labor Zionist movement, and accordingly most of the kibbutzim and moshavim in the West Bank were founded during the 1970s under the Ma'arach governments and situated in areas within the Alon Plan. The common feature of all three types of settlement, at least during the early phases, is their agricultural character, although since the 1980s many of these settlements have branched out into industry and tourism, while some of their members have begun to work as salaried employees in the adjacent urban centers. There are currently nine kibbutzim, thirteen moshavim and nine cooperative moshavim in the West Bank. (Source: B'Tselem: Land Grab (2002)) | ||||||||||||||
| Dayan-Weizmann Plan | Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Defense Minister Ezer Weizmann submitted a "catonment" plan as an alternative to the more radical plans for the West Bank being proposed by Gush Emunim and the WZO. Along the Jordan Valley they proposed a string of 21 settlements. The Western part of the West Bank would be divided into six cantons (Efrat, Mayaleh Aduum, Givon Nebi Saleh, Ariel, Korel Shomron and Reihan), each consisting of a military base and a civilian settlement. The cantons would be connected by an infrastructure (i.e., roads.) Dayan argued that these concentrated, urban settlements would be more attractive for the secular Israelis and that they would be easier to defend than many small, scattered settlements. Also, they suggested, the international community would be more accepting of these cities rather than many smaller settlements in the midst of the Palestinian area. See MAP | ||||||||||||||
| Declaration of Principles | The "Declaration of Principles On Interim Self-Government Arrangements," the official name of the Oslo Accords, was signed at a Washington ceremony hosted by US President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1993, during which Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands, ending decades as sworn enemies. Annex II of the 400-page pact states, "It is understood that, subsequent to the Israeli withdrawal, Israel will continue to be responsible for external security, and for internal security and public order of settlements and Israelis." The trade-offs made became known as "land for peace." Sometimes referred to a DOP. | ||||||||||||||
| Declaration to the Seven | In 1918 several Arab organizations worried about the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot Agreement elected a committee of seven to negotiate with Britain which issued a Declaration containing two assurances: (1) that Britain will continue to work for the liberation of those countries still under Turkish rule and (2) that no regime will be set up in any of them that was not acceptable to their populations. | ||||||||||||||
| Diaspora | The (usually forced) movement, migration or scattering of people from their original homelands. | ||||||||||||||
| Drobless Plan | In 1977 Matitiyahou Drobless, head of the World Zionist Organization Settlement Division, prepared his first comprehensive plan for the establishment of colonies throughout the West Bank. Most of the colonies that were established as part of the Drobless plan were constructed on the central mountain ridge around Palestinian population centers. Drobless proposed new high volume traffic arteries to connect Israel to the West Bank and beyond. For their security, new settlements would be placed on the hilltops along the route, on the summits surrounding the large Palestinian cities, and around the roads connecting them to each other. Describing the intent of this plan, then economics editor of the Jerusalem Post Meir Merhav told Time magazine in March 1980 that the West Bank "is to be carved up by a grid of roads, settlements and strongholds into a score of little bantustans so that [the Palestinians] shall never coalesce again into a contiguous area that can support autonomous, let alone independent, existence." See MAP | ||||||||||||||
| Dunam | A unit of land measurement. One dunam = 247105381 acres, about a quarter of an acre. | ||||||||||||||
| East Jerusalem | According to the 1947 UN Partition Plan Jerusalem was supposed to be internationalized as a Corpus Seperatum, a political entity under the UN's trusteeship and separate from both the proposed Arab and Jewish states. However, as a consequence of the 1948 war, West Jerusalem came under the control of Israel and East Jerusalem ended up part of Jordan. After the Six Day War, On 28 June 1967, Israel unilaterally expanded the borders of East Jerusalem from 6.5 km² (the boundaries as designated by Jordan) to 70.5 km² to include lands from many West Bank villages although avoiding populated Palestinian areas. Today when people talk of East Jerusalem they sometimes mean that part of the city that was under Jordanian jurisdiction (6.5 km²) and at other times they mean that part of the expanded Jerusalem that lies inside the occupied West Bank (70.5 km²). | ||||||||||||||
| Elon Moreh | A 1979 court case that had a significant impact on the way that Palestinian land could be appropriated. Israel’s Ministerial Settlement Committee decided to find land to settle the Elon Moreh nucleus of Israeli citizens. It tried to find land in the West Bank that was not privately owned, but was not successful. The Committee found privately owned land and sought to appropriate it through the military under the guise of military security. Mustafa Duweikat and the others appealed to the Israeli High Court challenging the military necessity of the seizure. The Elon Moreh Jewish settlers did not rely on the militaristic justification for taking land, instead claiming a right to the land based on ideological and religious grounds. Israeli Justice Landau decided that the land was being taken for reasons stemming from the Zionist worldview, not military security. The court ruled that international law prohibits the taking of private property but impliedthat if the property seized was not private property, then it would hold differently. In order to take land after the Elon Moreh case, military authorities had to find property that was not private property, and create a tribunal to settle disputes over the ownership of land. Before the Elon Moreh case, land ownership was conclusively determined and settled in the land registry through a court. By 1967, only about one-third of the titles had been settled and registered, leaving two-thirds of the land in the West Bank officially in dispute. Under Military Order No. 291, individuals who wanted to prove title had to do so by oral testimony, purchase agreements, tax receipts and other forms of inconclusive evidence. If the Arab landowner could not meet this high burden, he would lose his land. (from: Palestinian Private Property Rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories) | ||||||||||||||
| Eretz Israel | (Heb., “land of Israel”). In Jewish thought, the special term for the area believed to have been promised to the Jewish people by God. This is sometimes viewed as all of Palestine West of the Jordan river, sometimes including all the land of the original Palestine Mandate, including Transjordan, and sometimes including all of Israel as promised by God and never fulfilled - from Homs in Syria in the North and from the Euphrates River in Iraq to the Mediterranean. Also: Eretz Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael Hashleimah. | ||||||||||||||
| Ethnic Cleansing | The systematic removal of a group of people identified by ethnicity from a certain area through genocide (killing) or forced migration. | ||||||||||||||
| Faysal-Weizmann Agreement | The January, 1919 Faysal-Weizmann Agreement: "...to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale" on the condition that "the Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights" (Article IV). In a postscript, Faysal [also: Faisal] made his consent to sign the Agreement conditional on the fulfillment of the pledges made to the Arabs: "Provided that the Arabs obtain their independence as demanded ... I shall concur in the above articles. But if the slightest modification or departure were to be made I shall not be bound by a single word of the present Agreement." | ||||||||||||||
| Gaza-Jericho Agreement | In May 1994 Israel and the PLO agreed on the initial implementation of the Oslo Accords in the Gaza-Jericho Agreement. As a result of the Oslo peace process, the Gaza-Jericho Agreement -- also known as the Cairo Accords -- included an Israeli military withdrawal from about 60 percent of the Gaza Strip (Jewish settlements and their environs excluded) and the West Bank town of Jericho. The agreement envisaged further withdrawals from yet-to-be-agreed-on areas of the Occupied Territories. A five-year period began in which a permanent resolution was to be negotiated on Jerusalem, settlements, Palestinian refugees, and sovereignty. | ||||||||||||||
| Geneva Initiative | The "Geneva Initiative", a new, unofficial Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, was signed in December 2003. Created by Yasser Abed Rabbo, former Minister of Information of the Palestinian Authority, and by Yossi Beilin, former Minister of Justice in the Ehud Barak government, and head of the far-left Meretz party, neither the Israelis nor Palestinians who drafted it have a mandate from their respective peoples or governments to make a deal or to compromise on any issues. While the maps used are based on pre-June 5, 1967 ceasefire lines, the actual borders laid out in the plan differ significantly from those lines. Numerous changes have been made to the borders, exchanging areas from the Israeli side of the ceasefire line for reciprocal modifications on a 1:1 basis. | ||||||||||||||
| Genocide | The systematic and planned killing of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group. | ||||||||||||||
| Ghetto | Originally, the section of a European city to which Jews were restricted. Today, commonly defined as a section of a city occupied by members of a minority group who live there because of restrictions on their residential choice. | ||||||||||||||
| Green Line | After the cessation of hostilities between the Arab countries and Israel in 1948, an Armistice agreement was signed in 1949. The agreement delineated the borders of each party and designated the "No Man's" land between them according to the location of their respective armies. This line demarcated the borders between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip as recognized by the international community. Although the line is commonly known as the "Green line", its official name is the "1949 Armistice Line". | ||||||||||||||
| Gush Emunim | Among certain religious right-wing circles, Israel's victory in the 1967 war was interpreted in theological terms, constituting the "beginning of Redemption" and offering an opportunity "to realize the vision of the Whole Land of Israel." In 1974, these circles formed the basis for the establishment of Gush Emunim [Bloc of the Faithful], under the spiritual leadership of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook. The immediate goal of the movement was to force the Ma'arach government to establish as many settlements as possible throughout the "Land of Israel." | ||||||||||||||
| halachah | Jewish religious law. Adjective is halachic. | ||||||||||||||
| Haycraft Commission of Inquiry | The 1921 British Haycraft Commission of Inquiry attributes disturbances in Jaffa, 46 Jews killed and 146 wounded, to fears of Zionist mass immigration. | ||||||||||||||
| Hebron Protocol | The Hebron Protocol of March 1997 divided the West Bank city of Hebron into Israeli and Palestinian areas. | ||||||||||||||
| Histadrut | Hahistadrut Haklalit Shel Ha-Ovdim Ha-Ivriyyim Be-Eretz Israel, the General Federation of Jewish Workers in the Land of Israel (Histadrut) was founded in 1920. George Mansur, a Palestinian labor leader, described its policies in 1937: "The Histadrut's fundamental aim is 'the conquest of labor' ...No matter how many Arab workers are unemployed, they have no right to take any job which a possible immigrant might occupy. No Arab has the right to work in Jewish undertakings." Arab workers were admitted into Histadrut starting in 1953. | ||||||||||||||
| Hundred Thousand Plan | At the beginning of 1983, the Ministry of Agriculture and the World Zionist Organization published a "master plan" for settlements in the West Bank through the year 2010, including an operative development plan for the period 1983-1986. This plan was also known as The Hundred Thousand Plan, due to its aspiration to attract 80,000 new Israeli citizens by 1986, so that the Jewish population (excluding East Jerusalem) would number 100,000. According to the plan, twenty-three new communal and rural communities were to be established, as well as twenty NAHAL army settlement sites. In addition, 300-450 kilometers of new roads were to be paved. While the original emphasis of the plan called for settlements in the central mountain ridge and on the western slopes of the ridge, the establishment of the national-unity government in 1984 meant that a considerable part of the resources was actually diverted to promote settlements in the Jordan Valley, constituting a compromise between supporters of the Drobless-Sharon approach and exponents of the Alon Plan. During the period of the plan, the government achieved the objective in terms of the number of new settlements, but failed to meet the population forecast; the actual population by the end of 1986 was just 51,000. | ||||||||||||||
| Hussein-McMahon Correspondence | Britain gains the support of Arabs in World War I after promising independence for Arab states. While the Ottoman Empire entered the war on Germany's side, the Arabs (led by Sherif Hussein of Mecca, (also known as Sharif Husayn ibn ‘Ali) agreed to side with the Allies (Britain, France, and Russia.) They did so because of an agreement known as the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence in which Britain promised independence to what is now Syria, Palestine (Israel), Jordan, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula should the Allies win the war. See MAP | ||||||||||||||
| IDF | Israeli Defense Forces. Usually refers to the army, but in Israel there is unified command of military, naval and air forces. In Hebrew, Tzahal - "Tzva Hagana Leyisrael". | ||||||||||||||
| Intifada | In Arabic, literally, "shaking off." | ||||||||||||||
| Jewish National Fund (JNF) | (in Hebrew: Keren Kayemet LeYisrael) is an organization that was founded in 1901 at the Fifth Zionist Congress in Basle. Its purpose was to buy and develop land in Palestine for the purpose of Jewish settlement. | ||||||||||||||
| Jezreel Valley | Marj Ibn Amer is called by the Israelis the Jezreel Valley, Plain of Akko or Plain of Megiddo. | ||||||||||||||
| Jordanian Option | See: The Jordanian Option, By Professor Dr. Ahmad Tell | ||||||||||||||
| Judea and Samaria | Israelis sometimes refer to the West Bank by the names of Judea and Samaria. This is almost always an indication that the writers have territorial aspirations based on Biblical justifications. | ||||||||||||||
| Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael | See: Jewish National Fund (JNF) | ||||||||||||||
| Kibbutz | Plural: kibbutzim. A (usually) rural community in Israel based on communal property, in which members have no private property but share the work and the profits of some collective enterprise, typically agricultural but sometimes also industrial. | ||||||||||||||
| Knesset | Israeli parliament. | ||||||||||||||
| Land Day | In what has become an annual event, the first "Land Day" (‘Youm al-Ard’ in Arabic) consisted of protests by Palestinian citizens of Israel erupt to oppose Government confiscations of 5,500 acres of Palestinian land in the Galilee, which was classified as "closed military zones." It commemorates the Israeli army's March 30, 1976 killing of six Palestinians and the injuring of 96 during protests. Now ceebrated as an annual event. | ||||||||||||||
| Land Ordinance of 1943 | First codified by the British Mandatory government, and later adopted by Israel, the Land Ordinance of 1943 sanctioned the confiscation of private lands for "public purposes." | ||||||||||||||
| Law of Return | Passed in July, 1950, the Law of Return, permits any Jew to take Israeli nationality. | ||||||||||||||
| Lehi | See: Stern Gang. | ||||||||||||||
| Madrid | In October 1991 the United States and the Soviet Union convened the Madrid Peace Conference, which brought Israel into the first-ever simultaneous face-to-face talks with Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinians. | ||||||||||||||
| Makhlul | A type of land under Ottoman Land Law. See Miri. | ||||||||||||||
| Mandate | Authorization to govern a conquered territory. Palestine was a British Mandate from 1918 (the end of World War II) until 1945 when Israel declared its independence. | ||||||||||||||
| Matrula | Under Ottoman Land Law, Matruka land is land intended for public use, where "public" may mean the residents of a particular village, as in the case of grazing land or cemeteries, or all the residents of the state, as in the case of roads. | ||||||||||||||
| Mawat | Under Ottoman Land Law, Mawat ("dead") land is land that is half an hour walking distance from a place of settlement, or land where "the loudest noise made by a person in the closest place of settlement will not be heard." According to the legal definition, this land should be empty and not used by any person. In this case, the sovereign is responsible for ensuring that no unlawful activities take place in such areas. | ||||||||||||||
| McDonald White Paper | In 1939 Britain published the MacDonald White Paper, effectively ending its commitment to a Jewish state. The White Paper, named for the British colonial secretary, marked the end of Britain's commitment to the Jews and a Jewish state under the Balfour Declaration. The White Paper calls for the establishment of a Palestinian (Arab) state within 10 years. It limits the number of Jews to be admitted to Palestine over the next five years to 75,000 and places severe restrictions on land purchases by Jews. The White Paper receives a mixed Arab reception, and the Jewish Agency rejects it emphatically, calling it a total repudiation of Balfour and mandate obligations. David Ben-Gurion, then chairman of the Jewish Agency, declares, "We shall fight the war against Hitler as if there were no White Paper, and we shall fight the White Paper as if there were no war." | ||||||||||||||
| Military Order No. 58 | Military Order No. 58 governed what was to be done with absentee property in the Occupied Territories. This order defined an “absentee” as anyone who left the area of the West Bank before, on, or after June 7, 1967. The Order called for the appointment of a Custodian who was to hold the property in trust for the absentee until his return. The Custodian’s approval was needed to transfer immovable property. Military Order No. 58 differs from its predecessor, the Israeli Absentee Property Law of 1951, in its broader definition of “absentee.” The previous definition included persons that on certain dates were in an Arab country with which Israel was at war. Military Order No. 58, however, only considered whether the person had left the country, without considering where the absentee was, or that person’s status within the country which they lived. Under this definition of “absentee,” a person leaving the West Bank even temporarily had the potential of becoming an “absentee.” Israeli Military law regarding absentees essentially allowed the Custodian to use absentee property with a freedom equivalent to absolute ownership. The law allowed the custodian to transfer the land to the “Development Authority.” The property could not be sold or transferred, so it was instead utilized through long-term leases. When some owners returned to claim their land, legally ceasing to be absentees, they were offered only nominal compensation for land that had already been disposed of. (from: Palestinian Private Property Rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories) | ||||||||||||||
| Miri | Under Ottoman Land Law, Miri lands are those situated close to places of settlement and suitable for agricultural use. A person may secure ownership of such land by holding and working the land for ten consecutive years. If a landowner of this type fails completely to farm the land for three consecutive years for reasons other than those recognized by the law (e.g., the landowner is drafted into the army, or the land lays fallow for agricultural reasons), the land is then known as makhlul. In such a circumstance, the sovereign may take possession of the land or transfer the rights therein to another person. The rationale behind this provision in the Land Law was to create an incentive ensuring that as much land as possible was farmed, yielding agricultural produce which could then be taxed. | ||||||||||||||
| Mitchell Report | In May, 2001, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell headed a committee to investigate the cause of violence that began in mid-2000. The Mitchell Report called for an immediate ceasefire, to be followed by confidence building measures and ultimately by renewed peace negotiations. Mitchell also called for a freeze on expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. | ||||||||||||||
| Moshav | Plural: moshavim. A cooperative Israeli village or settlement comprised of small farms in which each family owns its own land. | ||||||||||||||
| Mulk | Under Ottoman Land Law, Mulk refers to completely privately owned land. The proportion of land in the West Bank defined as mulk is negligible, and found mainly within the built-up area of towns. | ||||||||||||||
| Musha'a | A method of land ownership that exists alongside the Ottoman Land Law in many parts of the West Bank. According to this method, land is owned collectively by the residents of each village. Each family is responsible for farming a particular section of land during a fixed period, at the end of which the plots of land are rotated. Although this method was not recognized in the Land Law, or in the British and Jordanian legislation that absorbed the law, it continued to exist as a reflection of local tradition. | ||||||||||||||
| NAHAL | NAHAL is the Hebrew acronym for "Noar Halutzi Lohem"- Fighting Pioneer Youth. It is a framework which combines military service in a combat unit with civilian service in a newly founded kibbutz, moshav or settlement. | ||||||||||||||
| Naqba | Also Nakba and Al-Naqba. The annual "day of catastrophe" marked by Palestinians on the anniversary of Israel's declaration of independence on May 14, 1948. | ||||||||||||||
| National Water Carrier Program | In 1959 Israel begins work on the National Water Carrier Project, a program to divert the waters of the River Jordan from Lake Tiberias (also known as Sea of Galilee, Arabic: Buhayrat Tabariya) to the Negev. This heightened Arab opposition to Israel. | ||||||||||||||
| No Man's Land | Following the 1967 war, Israel annexed to its territory a strip of land parallel to the Green Line along a few kilometers north and south of the Latrun area. This strip of land had been known as "no man's land," because in 1948-1967 it was not subject to the control of either the Israeli or the Jordanian side. Over the years, Israel established four communities in this area (Shilat, Lapid, Kfar Ruth and Maccabim). Under international law this area is not considered occupied territory. | ||||||||||||||
| Non-Aligned Movement | The Non-Aligned Movement is a Movement of 115 members representing the interests and priorities of developing countries. The Movement has its origin in the Asia-Africa Conference held in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955. | ||||||||||||||
| OPT | Abbreviation for Occupied Palestinian Territories. | ||||||||||||||
| Oslo Accord | See: Declaration of Principles. | ||||||||||||||
| Ottoman | The Turkish dynasty that ruled the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century to its dissolution after World War I | ||||||||||||||
| Ottoman Land Law | The Ottoman land law defines five types of possession or ownership of land: Mulk, Waqf, Miri, Mawat and Matruka. | ||||||||||||||
| Oslo Agreement | September 1993 peace agreement between the PLO and Israel. It got its name from secret peace negotiations that took place outside of Oslo, Norway. The agreement involved autonomy for parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It was signed in Washington and sealed with the famous handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat. | ||||||||||||||
| Palin Commission of Inquiry | In 1920 the British appointed Palin Commission of Inquiry; its report attributes troubles to non-fulfillment of promises of Arab independence and fear of political and economic consequences of Zionism. | ||||||||||||||
| Partition | Britain, which had ruled Palestine since 1920, handed over responsibility for solving the Zionist-Arab problem to the UN in 1947. The UN set up a special committee which recommended partition, splitting the territory into separate Jewish and Palestinian states. | ||||||||||||||
| Peel Commission | The 1937 Peel Commission, a royal commission headed by Lord Peel, was appointed to examine the Palestine problem. In response to the Arab Revolt against British rule in Palestine, the Peel Commission heard testimony from more than 130 Jews, Zionists, Palestinian Arabs, and other Arab nationalists before issuing its report. The commission's report, published in July 1937, called for the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a British-controlled corridor from Jerusalem to the coast at Jaffa. It also recommended relocating people to deal with the delicate population balance between Jews and Arabs in the proposed Jewish state. The partition plan was accepted as a pragmatically valid principle for settling the Arab-Jewish dispute by the majority of the offical leadership of the Zionist movement who urged further examination of the Bristish proposals. The Arab side rejected the compromise, with the exception of Abdullah of Transjordan. | ||||||||||||||
| People's Voice Initiative | Admiral (retired) Ami Ayalon and Professor Sari Nusseibeh launched "The People's Voice Initiative," a grassroots peace campaign. As of March 31, 2004, 172,500 Israelis and 135,000 Palestinians have joined the campaign by signing the statement of principles. | ||||||||||||||
| PICA | Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA) founded by Baron Rothschild in 1912 to promote and support settlement activity, particularly in northern Palestine. | ||||||||||||||
| Political Parties - Israel | Arab Parties
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| Regular Urban or Rural Settlements | The remaining settlements are regular urban or rural settlements managed by local committees or councils elected by the residents. These settlements do not carry out any special procedures for membership or any cooperative financial frameworks. However, the smaller the settlement the greater the homogeneity among its members (in terms of religious/secular identity, economic status, origin, etc.) The exceptions to this rule are the ultra-Orthodox settlements of Betar Illit (15,800 residents) and Modi'in Illit (16,400 residents); though among the largest of all the settlements, these are almost completely homogenous in demographic terms. The Central Bureau of Statistics defines a settlement as "urban" if its population is 2,000 or more, while rural settlements are those with fewer than 2,000 inhabitants. There are currently twelve settlements defined as rural and thirteen defined as urban; to the latter figure, one should add twelve settlements established in East Jerusalem that operate under the auspices of the Municipality of Jerusalem. (Source: B'Tselem: Land Grab (2002)) | ||||||||||||||
| Roadmap to Peace | Roadmap to Peace, a performance-based and goal-driven roadmap, with clear phases, timelines, target dates, and benchmarks aiming at progress through reciprocal steps by the two parties in the political, security, economic, humanitarian, and institution-building fields, under the auspices of the Quartet [the United States, European Union, United Nations, and Russia] was released in April 2003. Phase I specifies that the Government of Israel immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001 and, consistent with the Mitchell Report, freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements). | ||||||||||||||
| San Remo Conference | At the post-World War I San Remo Conference in Italy (April, 1920), former Ottoman-controlled territories were allotted as "mandates" among the victorious Allies. | ||||||||||||||
| Settlement | A Jewish-only colony located in the Occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip or East Jerusalem. Residents of the settlements may refer to them as "communities" or "neighborhoods." | ||||||||||||||
| Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement | In September 1999 the Israelis and Palestinians signed a revised deal aimed at reviving the Middle East peace process. At Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed an agreement restating the commitment of both sides to full implementation of all agreements reached since the first Oslo Agreement of September 1993. They pledged to resolve the outstanding issues of the interim status, in particular those set out in the 1998 Wye River Memorandum, in order to accelerate completion of the interim period toward initiation of negotiations on permanent status. | ||||||||||||||
| Sharon Plan | Called "A vision of Israel at Century's End," in 1977 Minister of Agriculture Ariel Sharon (1977-1981) modified and expanded the Drobless Plan and Gush Emunim by intensifying colonization along the Green Line in order to secure the borders between the West Bank and Israel. Sharon’s plan also called for the increased colonization along the central mountain ridge. According the Sharon Plan only a small number of high density Palestinian communities were not to be under Israeli sovereignty in the future. The Sharon Plan relied on removal and transfer of the Palestinian population out of the Occupied Territories. The ultimate aim of Sharon’s plan was the annexation of the West Bank, excluding several densely populated Palestinian enclaves. | ||||||||||||||
| Stern Gang | Lehi (Hebrew acronym for Lohamei Herut Israel, "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel") was a Jewish paramilitary nationalist group, widely considered to be terrorist and radical. It was active during the British Mandate of Palestine prior to the founding of the State of Israel and during the first part of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The British authorities dubbed it the Stern gang, after its founder, Avraham Stern. | ||||||||||||||
| Stockade and Watchtower |  The Arab revolt of 1936-39 inspired the "Stockade and Watchtower" method of establishing new settlements. Convoys of hundreds of Zionist volunteers, prefabricated huts and fortifications would arrive at the designated site at daybreak. By nightfall the settlement was complete, surrounded by a protective fence and dominated by a watchtower from which to scan the surrounding area for signs of hostility. Between 1936 and 1947, more than one hundred settlements were established in this manner. | ||||||||||||||
| Sykes-Picot Agreement | In 1916 British and French negotiated the Sykes-Picot Agreement. A secret understanding negotiated during World War I between Great Britain and France (with Russian consent), the Sykes-Picot agreement outlines the division of Ottoman-controlled lands into various French- and British-administered areas. The agreement is named after its negotiators, Sir Mark Sykes of Britain and Georges Picot of France. It contradicts the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence the year before. See MAP | ||||||||||||||
| Taba Agreement | Also caled Oslo II. PLO chairman Arafat and Israel's prime minister Rabin signed the Taba Agreement in September, 1995, in Washington, D.C.. It expanded Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza and allowed Palestinian elections. | ||||||||||||||
| Transfer | The expulsion of Palestinians from their lands, by force, terror or economic pressure, typically to neighboring Arab lands. | ||||||||||||||
| Transjordan | The territory east of the Jordan River and west of the Arabian desert. In 1921 Transjordan was included in the British Mandate of Palestine. In 1922, at British request, it was excluded from the clauses of the Mandate which prescribed aJewish homeland. In 1946 the British granted Transjordan independence. It changed its name to "The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan," commonly called Jordan, in 1948. | ||||||||||||||
| Treaty of Sèvres | In August, 1920 the government of the Ottoman sultan signed the Treaty of Sèvres, renouncing all claims to non-Turkish territory. Syria became a mandate of France; Mesopotamia and Palestine became British mandates. The Treaty of Sèvres was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. | ||||||||||||||
| UNSCOP | United Nations Special Committee On Palestine. An 11-member special committee formed in 1947. The Arab members boycotted the testimony as they felt that including the issue of Jewish displaced persons in the discussion of the future of Palestine prejudiced the outcome. | ||||||||||||||
| Usufruct | From ancient Roman law (and now a part of many civil law systems), a legal right to use and derive profit from property belonging to someone else provided that the property itself is not injured in any way. A treaty right to hunt, fish, and/or gather on national forest lands is an example of a usufructuary right. | ||||||||||||||
| Venice Declaration | In June 1980 the European Economic Community (EEC) adopted the Venice Declaration: recognises Palestinian self-determination, calls for multilateral negotiations and criticises Israeli occupation & settlement policies. | ||||||||||||||
| Village Leagues | In November 1981, Menachem Milson, appointed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as civilian administrator of the West Bank, established village leagues consisting of pro-Jordanian Palestinians to counter the PLO's growing strength there and to quell the growing nationalist movement. | ||||||||||||||
| Waqf | Under Ottoman Land Law, Waqf lands include two sub-types: land intended for religious or cultural activities and land used for all other purposes, which are protected against confiscation according to the laws of Islam. In general, Israel has refrained from taking control of both these types of land. | ||||||||||||||
| West Bank | The region which is to the west of the Jordan River that was occupied by Israel in 1967, not including the Gaza Strip. It includes West Bank, Latrun Salient, and the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea, but excludes Mt. Scopus; East Jerusalem and Jerusalem. 5,860 sq. km. The most densely populated part of the region is a mountainous spine, running north-south, where the cities of Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Hebron are located. Jenin, in the extreme north of the West Bank is on the southern edge of the Jezreel Valley, Qalqilya and Tulkarm are in the low foothills adjacent to the Israeli coastal plain, and Jericho is situated near the Jordan River, just north of the Dead Sea. Israelis refer to the region either as a unit —"The West Bank" (Hebrew: "ha-Gada ha-Ma'aravit") — or as two units — Judea (Hebrew: "Yehuda") and Samaria (Hebrew: "Shomron", after the two biblical kingdoms, (the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern Kingdom of Israel -- the capital of which was, for a time, in the town of Samaria). The border between Judea and Samaria is a belt of territory immediately north of Jerusalem) sometimes called the "land of Benjamin". The Arab world and especially the Palestinians strongly object to the terms Judea and Samaria, the use of which they deem to reflect Israeli expansionist aims. Instead, they refer to the area as "the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River", emphasizing that the area is under Israeli military control and jurisdiction. | ||||||||||||||
| Woodhead Commission | The Woodhead Commission, created in 1938 to examine the recommendation of the Peel Commission that Palestine be partitioned, issues its report. After Palestinian Arabs reject the 1937 Peel Commission's partition plan (dividing Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state), the British government assembles a team to devise a new plan. The written report includes a statement of policy rejecting partition as impracticable, but suggests that Arab-Jewish agreement might still be possible. | ||||||||||||||
| Wye River Memorandum | In October 1988 Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority chairman Arafat signed the Wye River Memorandum, outlining further Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. After a peace summit held by U.S. president Bill Clinton, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat signed the agreement calling for, among other things, the Israeli military to pull back from portions of the West Bank and the Palestinian Authority to combat terrorist organizations more effectively. | ||||||||||||||
| WZO | See: World Zionist Organization. | ||||||||||||||
| YESHA | Hebrew acronym for Judea,(YEjuda) Samaria(SHomron) and Gaza (Azah) - the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Yesha Council was founded in the late 70's as the successor to Gush Emunim. The Council represents all of the settlements in in the West Bank and gaza Strip. | ||||||||||||||
| Zionism | Movement of Jewish national revival calling for the return of the Jewish people to Palestine and the establishment of a nation-state there. |