Who are the Palestinian people?ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:•Who are the Palestinian people?•How did the Palestinians become a people without a state?

Maya Chavez Akin, MAT Candidate 2014, HI1978, Brown University

Essential Terms & Dates

•Sykes-Picot Agreement •Balfour Declaration•British Mandate•May 14, 1948•al-Nakba

Who are the Palestinians?

• Indigenous Arab people of Palestine

• Population of 9 million (2005)• Since 1948, 3 broad segments:

• Palestinians in Israel,• Palestinians in the West Bank &

Gaza • Palestinians in exile.

Arab Context

• Geographical & social bridge between Mashreq (Arab East) and Maghreb (Arab West)

• Palestine = sacred to Arab Muslims, and Arab Christians

How did the Palestinians become a people without a state?

Under Ottoman Empire, Palestine = geographic region, not distinct district.

1916, Sykes-Picot Agreement made in secret. Divided Ottoman territory btw. Britain and France

1917 – 1948, Palestine ruled under British Mandate

Palestine under British Mandate

• 1917 Balfour Declaration: Britain promises to make a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

• British policy encourages Jewish immigration to the region.

al-Nakba (The Catastrophe)

How did the Palestinians become a people without a state?

End of the Palestinian Mandate

July, 1946: •Jewish revolt against the British mandate in Palestine. •Blow up King David Hotel – HQ of British in Jerusalem.

November, 1947: UN partitions Palestine into an Arab-Jewish state

Israeli forces defeat Palestinians; support from other Arab states arrives too late

May 14, 1948: Zionists declare state of Israel

May 14, 1948

(Left) Ben-Gurion, first Prime Minister of Israel, declares the state’s independence

1948: al-Nakba (The Catastrophe)

Beginning of 1948 •Arabs = majority in Palestine•Arabs owned roughly 90% of land

March – October 1948 •Israelis force more than ½ Arab population (over 750,000 to flee)•Roughly 150,000 Palestinians remained

Palestinians in Israel• After 1948, Palestinians not

allowed right of return• Population that remained in

Israel increased• Not given citizenship• Continued to be displaced

from land• Movement within country

restricted

REVIEW OF KEY INFORMATION

•Sykes-Picot Agreement •Balfour Declaration•British Mandate•May 14, 1948•al-Nakba

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

What does it mean not to be an Israeli citizen?

(Above) Palestinians stand in line at an Israeli checkpoint.

Sources:

Farsoun & Aruri. Palestine and the Palestinians.

Khalidi. The Iron Cage.

Robinson. Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the Birth of Israel’s Liberal Settler State.