Reference

Glossary

Words carry the argument. Precise, sourced definitions of the terms that shape the conversation — with the Arabic where the Arabic is the original.

32 terms · 21 with the Arabic · 5 fields

A

Absentees' Property Law (1950)Legal: An Israeli law that vested the homes, land, and assets of Palestinians who fled or were expelled during the 1948 war in a state Custodian, becoming the main legal instrument by which Israel took possession of Palestinian refugee property.In full — Absentees' Property Law (1950)
Administrative DetentionLegal: Imprisonment without charge or trial, ordered by military commanders on the basis of secret evidence and renewable in six-month increments without limit; Israel uses it extensively against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.In full — Administrative Detention
ApartheidLegal: Apartheid is a crime against humanity defined in the 1973 Apartheid Convention and the 1998 Rome Statute as inhumane acts committed within an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another. Since 2021, leading Israeli and international human rights organizations have concluded that Israel's rule over Palestinians meets this definition.In full — Apartheid
Area A, Area B, and Area CLegal: The three zones into which the 1995 Oslo II Interim Agreement divided the occupied West Bank: Area A under Palestinian civil and security control, Area B under Palestinian civil and Israeli security control, and Area C — about 60 percent of the territory — under full Israeli control.In full — Area A, Area B, and Area C

B

Ban on Family UnificationLegal: Israel's 2003 Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order), which bars Palestinians from the occupied territory who marry Israeli citizens or residents from obtaining legal status in Israel, forcing thousands of families to live apart or abroad.In full — Ban on Family Unification

C

CheckpointGeography: Fixed or mobile Israeli military barriers where soldiers inspect Palestinian identity cards and permits, controlling movement between West Bank cities, into Israel and East Jerusalem, and along the separation barrier.In full — Checkpoint
Custodian of Absentee Propertyالقيّم على أملاك الغائبينLegal: The Israeli office in which the property of Palestinian refugees vests under the Absentees' Property Law — an administrator rather than a decree, empowered to certify a person absent, to hold everything they owned, and to sell it on to a state Development Authority.In full — Custodian of Absentee Property

D

DunumدونمGeography: The standard unit of land measurement in Palestine: one thousand square metres, or a tenth of a hectare. Roughly a quarter of an acre. Nearly every figure in the history of Palestinian land — ownership, cultivation, expropriation — is stated in dunums.In full — Dunum

E

East Jerusalemالقدس الشرقيةGeography: The eastern part of Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites, occupied by Israel in 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1980 — an annexation not recognized internationally, with the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice treating it as occupied Palestinian territory.In full — East Jerusalem

F

FellahinفلاحينSociety: The peasant cultivators who made up the large majority of Palestine's population before 1948 — the class whose villages were destroyed in the Nakba, and whose dress, food, songs and calendar became, in exile, the national culture.In full — Fellahin

G

Gaza Blockadeحصار غزةLegal: The Gaza blockade is the closure regime imposed by Israel — with Egypt controlling the Rafah crossing — on the Gaza Strip since June 2007, severely restricting the movement of people and goods by land, air, and sea for a population of more than two million.In full — Gaza Blockade
Green Lineالخط الأخضرGeography: The Green Line is the armistice demarcation line fixed by the 1949 agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors, named for the green ink used to draw it on the map; it served as Israel's de facto boundary until June 1967 and remains the internationally recognized reference for the occupied Palestinian territory.In full — Green Line

H

HafradaLegal: Hebrew for 'separation' — the word used in Israeli political discourse for the policy of physically and legally separating Israelis from Palestinians in the occupied territory, and taken up in human-rights analyses of the barrier, the permit regime, segregated road networks and the closure system.In full — Hafrada
HamulaحمولةSociety: The patrilineal clan — the extended kin group descended from a common male ancestor — that was the basic unit of Palestinian village society: the frame within which land was held, quarters were built, marriages were arranged and disputes were settled.In full — Hamula

I

Identity Cards and the Permit RegimeSociety: The system of Israeli-controlled Palestinian identity cards and movement permits that determines where Palestinians may live, work, and travel, distinguishing West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem residents from one another and from citizens of Israel.In full — Identity Cards and the Permit Regime
IntifadaانتفاضةHistory: Intifada — from an Arabic root meaning 'to shake off' — denotes a popular uprising, and is used above all for the two Palestinian mass uprisings against Israeli occupation: the First Intifada (1987–1993) and the Second Intifada (2000–2005).In full — Intifada

J

JudaizationتهويدHistory: The official Israeli policy — pursued explicitly and by that name in the Galilee and the Naqab, and in practice in Jerusalem — of increasing the Jewish population and landholding of a region while reducing the Palestinian share of both.In full — Judaization

M

Military Order 101Legal: An August 1967 Israeli military order that bans political gatherings, processions, and publications — including the display of flags and political symbols — in the occupied West Bank without prior permission from the military commander.In full — Military Order 101
MukhtarمختارSociety: The head of a Palestinian village or of one of its clans — literally 'the chosen one' — who represented the community to the government, certified births, deaths, marriages and land transactions, mediated disputes and received guests on the village's behalf.In full — Mukhtar
Musha'مشاعGeography: The system of collective village land tenure in which arable land was held in common by the village and its strips periodically redistributed among households — the dominant form of landholding in much of Palestine until the twentieth century, and the one that registration destroyed.In full — Musha'

N

NakbaالنكبةHistory: The Nakba — Arabic for 'catastrophe' — is the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel, when more than 700,000 Palestinians, over half of Palestine's Arab population, fled or were expelled from their homes and were never permitted to return.In full — Nakba
NaksaالنكسةHistory: The Naksa — Arabic for 'setback' — is the term used across the Arab world for the defeat of June 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and Syria's Golan Heights, and several hundred thousand Palestinians were newly displaced.In full — Naksa

O

Oslo Accordsاتفاقية أوسلوHistory: The Oslo Accords are the interim agreements negotiated secretly in Norway and signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993 and 1995, establishing mutual recognition, creating the Palestinian Authority, and setting a five-year framework for a final settlement that was never concluded.In full — Oslo Accords
Other Registered Persons (UNRWA)Legal: The second of UNRWA's two registration categories: people the agency serves who do not meet all of its Palestine Refugee criteria and are therefore not counted in the official registered refugee figure — a bookkeeping line that is routinely misread as a statement about who is or is not a refugee.In full — Other Registered Persons (UNRWA)

P

Palestine Refugeeلاجئ فلسطينيSociety: A Palestine refugee, in UNRWA's working definition, is a person whose normal place of residence was Palestine between 1 June 1946 and 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 war. Descendants are also eligible for registration; today some 5.9 million Palestine refugees are registered with the agency.In full — Palestine Refugee
Present Absenteeحاضر غائبLegal: Israeli administrative usage — nifkadim nokhahim — for a Palestinian who never left the country and holds Israeli citizenship, but whose land and home were classified as 'absentee property' and taken anyway: present in the state, legally absent from their own field.In full — Present Absentee
Punitive DemolitionLegal: The Israeli practice of demolishing the family home of a Palestinian accused of an attack — a penalty imposed on relatives who are not suspected of any offence, carried out under a British Mandate emergency regulation and applied only to Palestinians.In full — Punitive Demolition

R

Right of Returnحق العودةLegal: The right of return is the principle that Palestinians displaced in 1948, and their descendants, are entitled to return to their homes — affirmed for the 1948 refugees by UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948 and reaffirmed by the Assembly nearly every year since.In full — Right of Return

S

SettlementمستوطنةLegal: Settlements are the residential communities Israel has built for its citizens in the territories occupied in 1967. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into occupied territory, and the UN Security Council has affirmed that the settlements have 'no legal validity.'In full — Settlement
SumudصمودCulture: Sumud — Arabic for 'steadfastness' or 'steadfast perseverance' — is the Palestinian ethos of remaining on one's land and sustaining identity, community, and ordinary life in the face of dispossession and occupation.In full — Sumud

T

TatreezتطريزCulture: Tatreez is traditional Palestinian embroidery, practiced above all by women, whose cross-stitched motifs and colors on the long dress called the thob signal a wearer's village, region, and social standing. In 2021 UNESCO inscribed the art of embroidery in Palestine on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.In full — Tatreez

U

Unrecognised Villagesالقرى غير المعترف بهاGeography: Bedouin communities of Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Naqab (Negev) that the state declines to recognise as legal localities — appearing on no official map, receiving no water, electricity, roads, schools or clinics, and subject to demolition as unlawful construction.In full — Unrecognised Villages

No terms in this field yet.