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Palestinian people

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Palestinian schoolgirls

The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs (الفلسطينيون), are an Arabic-speaking people from Palestine. The total Palestinian population, including descendants, is estimated at approximately 10 million.

About half of the world's Palestinian people (51% as of 2009) continue to live in the region of historic Palestine.[1] This region includes Israel, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and Jordan. Some Palestinians living in this region are refugees.

The rest of the world's Palestinian population became part of the Palestinian diaspora, during which millions of Palestinians left their homelands. Most are stateless refugees with no citizenship in any country.[2] Over two and a half million live in neighboring Jordan;[3] one million in Syria and Lebanon combined; a quarter million in Saudi Arabia; and half a million in Chile. Chile has the highest concentration of Palestinians outside the Arab world.[4]

Religion

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Most Palestinians are Muslim, particularly of the Sunni branch of Islam. However, a significant minority of the world's Palestinians belong to various Christian denominations or smaller religious communities.

No matter what religion they follow, Palestinians share a common dialect of Arabic. Among those who are citizens of Israel (known as Arab Israelis), many are bilingual in Modern Hebrew.

Recent genetic research has showed that modern-day Palestinians and Bedouins in Palestine share genetics with the ancient Levantines.[5] It also shows that Palestinians descend from people who lived in Palestine beginning in prehistoric times. [6][7] The Arabian Muslim conquest caused Palestinians to acculturate and established Arabic as the area's official language. Arabic eventually became the primary language spoken by locals. Over time, most of these people converted to Islam from various prior faiths.

Name

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Palestinian refugees during Nakba

The name "Palestinian" was in use before World War I, referring to the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people who would include the local Arabic-speaking population of Palestine.[8] On 21 September 1921, the and the first demand for national independence was issued by the Syrian-Palestinian Congress issued the first demand for national independence.[9]

After the creation of Israel, the exodus of 1948, and the exodus of 1967, the definition of "Palestinian" came include a sense of shared past and future in the form of a Palestinian nation-state.[8]

National authorities

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The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) represents the Palestinian people before the international community.[10]

The Palestinian National Authority governs the Palestinian population centre in the West Bank, while the Gaza Strip is governed by Hamas.

Notable

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Some well known Palestinians are:

References

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  1. ↑ "Regrettable statistical error". Ynetnews.com. 2 February 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-24.
  2. ↑ Abbas Shiblak (2005). "Reflections on the Palestinian Diaspora in Europe" (PDF). The Palestinian Diaspora in Europe: Challenges of Dual Identity and Adaptation. Institute of Jerusalem. Studies. ISBN 9950315042. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-09-14. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
  3. ↑ From 1918-22 the region of modern-day Jordan, then called Transjordan, was one of two constituent territories that comprised the British Mandate of Palestine (so-named after the other constituent, Palestine) which was separated to form a new Arab monarchy. Unless otherwise specified, this article uses "British Mandate" and related terms to refer to historic Palestine, that is, the 20% of the post-1922 mandate west of the Jordan river.
  4. ↑ Villegas, Alexander (7 November 2023). "In Chile, a Palestinian diaspora makes its voice heard on Gaza". Reuters. Retrieved 28 February 2024.
  5. ↑ Das, R; Wexler, P; Pirooznia, M; Elhaik, E (2017). "The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish". Frontiers in Genetics. 8: 87. doi:10.3389/fgene.2017.00087. PMC 5478715. PMID 28680441.
  6. ↑ Gibbons, Ann (October 30, 2000). "Jews and Arabs Share Recent Ancestry". ScienceNOW. American Academy for the Advancement of Science.
  7. ↑ Hammer, et al. Figure 2: Plot of populations based on Y-chromosome haplotype data Archived 2008-04-05 at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Palestine". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-29.
  9. ↑ Porath, 1974, p. 117.
  10. ↑ "Who Represents the Palestinians Officially Before the World Community?". Institute for Middle East Understanding. 2006–2007. Archived from the original on 2007-09-28. Retrieved 2007-07-27.
  11. ↑ "Mahmoud Darwish". www.aljazeera.com.
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