Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Husain Haqqani, Pakistan: Between 

Mosque and Military (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie 

Endowment for International Peace, 2005); Moham-

mad Asghar Khan, ed., Islam, Politics, and the State: The 

Pakistan Experience (London: Zed Books, 1985); Soofia 

Mumtaz, Jean-Luc Racine, and Imran Anwar Ali, eds., 

Pakistan: The Contours of State and Society (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 2002).

Palestine

Since Roman times, the term Palestine has referred 

to a region in the eastern Mediterranean rich 

in spiritual and historical significance. It is his-

torically diverse in religions and ethnicities, a 

characteristic that has contributed to the modern 

Palestinian experience as one of conflict, struggle, 

and controversy. Palestine is claimed as sacred 

space by Jews, Christians, and Muslims and is 

often referred to as the “Holy Land.” As the focus 

of both spiritual longing and political contest for 

many centuries it has drawn world attention far 

beyond its borders, particularly in the past 100 

years following the emergence of modern nation-

alism in Palestine.

K  542  

Palestine

---

Arabs constituted a majority in Palestine from 

the seventh century 

c

.

e

., and, with the excep-

tion of the Crusader era (11th–13th centuries), 

the people of Palestine, known as Palestinians, 

were ruled by leaders who confessed Islam until 

1917. Under the Ottoman Empire Palestine was 

governed as a part of the Greater Syria province, 

which included the current nations of s

yria

, J

or

-

dan

,  l

ebanon

,  i

srael

, and the Occupied Territo-

ries (Gaza and the West Bank).

Like their European neighbors and Middle 

Eastern contemporaries, the people of Palestine 

began to engage with serious issues of modern 

nationalism in the 19th century, a process that 

developed rapidly with the emergence of Zion-

ism in the 20th century. As in nations such as 

Iraq and Egypt, Palestinians were proud of their 

Arab heritage, and many embraced ideas of pan-

Arabism. However, their specific residence in 

Palestine marked them as distinct from Arabs in 

other countries, and the trauma of wide-scale dis-

placement in the wake of the creation of the state 

of Israel in 1948 gave Palestinians a particularly 

heightened need for a clearly articulated national 

identity.

In the 20th century Palestinians have endured 

tremendous upheavals and conflicts. Under the 

British who occupied Palestine under a League 

of Nations mandate (1917–48), Palestinian Arabs 

formed a strong national identity in response to 

the growing Zionist movement, but found them-

selves increasingly cast out of the nascent state 

apparatus of the proposed Jewish state. When that 

goal was realized with the creation of Israel, hun-

dreds of Palestinian villages were destroyed, and 

Palestinians were faced with a massive diaspora 

of 

reFUgees

 counting in the millions. The Israeli-

Arab war of 1967 resulted in Israel’s occupation of 

the West Bank and Gaza, expanding the popula-

tion of displaced Palestinians and strengthening 

the nationalism of Palestinians demanding a state 

of their own.

Although the creation of a Palestinian nation-

state has yet to be achieved, Palestinians constitute 

a nation with a specific national identity. This iden-

tity has been heightened by the loss of Palestine to 

an Israeli state, which asserts nationalism opposed 

to an Arab presence in its borders. Two intifadas,

or uprisings, against Israeli occupation have been 

mounted (1987–93, 2000–present), but Palestin-

ians still struggle for national recognition. Although 

Palestinians have expressed their national identity 

in terms of secular politics by agencies such as the 

p

alestine

 l

iberation

 o

rganization

 (PLO), as well 

as by the religiously grounded ideologies of the 

Islamic Resistance Movement (h

amas

), an unques-

tionable tenant of both has been the belief in a 

unique Palestinian nationalism distinct from larger 

pan-Arabist ideologies.

In the absence of an official census, it is esti-

mated there are about 10.5 million Palestinians 

in the world today (2006 estimate), about half 

of whom live in neighboring Middle Eastern 

countries, the Americas, and elsewhere—many 

as refugees. About 3.6 million reside in the occu-

pied West Bank and Gaza territories and another 

1.3 million are Israeli citizens (2004 estimate). 

The Palestinian territories are governed by the 

Palestinian National Authority, a branch of the 

PLO established after the o

slo

 a

ccords

 in 1994. 

Its first head of state was y

asir

 a

raFat

 (d. 2004), 

and it is now led by Mahmoud Abbas (b. 1935). 

Its legislative branch is the Palestinian Legislative 

Council, an elective body with 132 seats.

See also  a

rab

-i

sraeli

 

conFlicts

; 

colonialism

; 

d

ome

 

oF

 

the

  r

ock

;  h

Usayni

,  a

min

; J

erUsalem

; 

o

ttoman

 

dynasty

.

Nancy Stockdale