Palestine

Type of Government

Palestine is the historical name for a disputed territory that roughly comprises the current state of Israel, which acquired much of the territory when it became a state in 1948. The term “Palestinian” refers to the Muslim and Christian Arabs who inhabited the region before 1948. There are two main governments associated with the Palestinian people, many of whom dispersed to other countries when Israel became a state. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is the body recognized internationally as the representative of all Palestinians, in and out of Israel. The Palestinian National Authority is a parliamentary democracy authorized by Israel to govern Palestinian communities living in Israel in parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Background

Egypt ruled the Canaanites in the region that is now Palestine from the sixteenth century BC to the twelfth century BC. The end of Egyptian rule coincided with the permanent settlement of Israelites, Hebrews, Philistines, and others, who warred with each other. The kingdom of Israel triumphed for a time until it fell to the Assyrians in the eighth century BC, at which point Israel ceased to exist. For the next seven centuries the region was controlled by Assyrians, Babylonians, the Persian Empire, Macedonia, the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, and then the Seleucid kingdom. In history’s first diaspora of Jews from their homeland, the Babylonians forced the Jews to leave the region, called Judaea, in 586 BC.

When the Roman Republic conquered the Seleucid kingdom, Pompey the Great (106 BC–48 BC) organized the government for the region that is now Palestine in 67 BC. The Roman Republic and then the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire ruled until about 636 AD. The life of Jesus Christ (c. 6 BC–c. 30 AD) gave the region great importance to Christians. In 136 AD, history’s second Jewish diaspora occurred when the Roman Empire exiled Jews from Jerusalem.

Palestine fell to Muslim invaders between 636 and 640 AD. Except for an interim when Christian crusaders invaded during the twelfth century, the region was ruled by a series of Muslim dynasties and empires, ending with the Ottoman Empire from 1516 to 1918.

During World War I, British and Allied forces captured Palestine from the Ottomans. At a peace conference in 1920, the Allies awarded Palestine to Great Britain, which governed until 1948. The first half of the twentieth century brought a Jewish movement for reestablishment of an independent Israeli state in their ancient homeland, now Palestine. Jews worked hard to immigrate to Palestine while Palestinian Muslims sought to maintain their dominance through population and land ownership. The Nazi persecution of Jews in Europe quickened their immigration. This led to an Arab revolt in Palestine from 1936 to 1939.

Nazi genocide of Jews during World War II generated international support for creating a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine. On August 31, 1947, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine recommended that Palestine be partitioned into an Arab state and a Jewish state. Palestinian Jews generally supported the proposal, but Palestinian Arabs generally opposed it, and fighting erupted in Palestine. Unwilling to enforce a disputed plan, Great Britain simply set May 15, 1948, as the date for the end of its control of the region. Israel became an independent state on May 14, 1948. The following day, armies from Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Transjordan (now Jordan) attacked Israel, which won the war with a peace agreement by the summer of 1949. Transjordan retained the region of Palestine called the West Bank, and Egypt retained the Gaza Strip (though Israel would capture both regions in 1967).

Before Israel became a state, approximately 1.4 million Arabs lived in Palestine. About 150,000 remained in Israel after it became a state. The remainder lived in or fled to the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and other Middle Eastern countries. Hundreds of thousands lived in refugee camps created by the United Nations. In time, dispersed Palestinians formed groups to fight for the destruction of Israel and the return of Palestine to the Arabs.

In 1945 seven states had formed the League of Arab States to coordinate their political and economic activity. At a meeting in Cairo, Egypt, in 1964 the Arab League decided to unite the various Palestinian groups into the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO’s original charter declared its mission to destroy Israel and to support the rights of Palestinians to return to their homelands.

After decades of fighting, Israel and the PLO met secretly in Oslo, Norway, in January 1993. The Oslo Accords paved the way for them to sign a Declaration of Principles in Washington, D.C., in September 1993. By these agreements, Israel promised to transfer governmental responsibility in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian National Authority over a period of five years. During that time Israel and the PLO were to negotiate the ultimate political status of those regions. As of 2007, however, they remained under Israeli control.

Government Structure

The are two main governments associated with the Palestinians. The first is the Palestine Liberation Organization. It is the internationally recognized representative of all Palestinians, in and out of Israel. The PLO’s members are various Palestinian communities and organizations that formed after the creation of Israel in 1948. While the groups have different ideological foundations, their common goal and that of the PLO is the creation of an independent state of Palestine.

The PLO has a fifteen-member Executive Committee that manages the PLO’s activities. The Executive Committee is headed by a chairman, who is the leader of the PLO. The Executive Committee and its chairman are elected by the Palestine National Council, the PLO’s quasi-legislative body.

The Palestine National Council is composed of civilian representatives from the various Palestinian groups that are part of the PLO. The first Council had 422 representatives, but the number has increased over time. The Council normally meets once every two years, leaving daily operation of the PLO to the Executive Committee.

The second government associated with the Palestinians is the Palestinian National Authority, or Palestinian Authority. It is a parliamentary democracy that represents Palestinians living in the Israeli-controlled regions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority was created in 1994 with Israel’s approval. The Basic Law that contains its structure of government was approved by Palestinian President Yasir Arafat (1929–2004) in 2002.

The Basic Law creates a parliamentary democracy with executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The executive branch is led by a president, who is elected by Palestinians in Israel who are at least eighteen years old. The president appoints a prime minister, who in turn forms a cabinet for the executive branch. The president commands the armed forces and proposes and vetoes laws. He cannot be impeached.

The legislative branch of the Palestinian Authority is the Palestinian Legislative Council. It comprises 132 members elected from sixteen constituent Palestinian areas of Israel. Most council members are Muslim, but a small percentage of seats have been reserved for Christian and Samaritan Palestinians. Council members serve five-year terms.

The Basic Law creates a judiciary administered by a High Judicial Council. The judiciary has a Supreme Court and a system of lower courts. The Supreme Court has three components. The High Constitutional Court reviews legislation to ensure it is constitutional. The Court of Cassation decides civil and criminal matters. The High Court of Justice hears cases under administrative law.

Political Parties and Factions

After the creation of Israel in 1948, dozens of Palestinian organizations formed to work for the recovery of Palestine. The PLO gathered many under its leadership in 1964. The most influential has been the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, a center-left organization known as Fatah, which is a reverse acronym of its Arabic name. Fatah is a nationalist organization that embraces ideals of social democracy. The next two most powerful organizations have been the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, both communist organizations.

The groups that have been most influential in the PLO have also been most prominent in the Palestinian Authority. Fatah, of which Arafat was a member, dominated the Palestinian Legislative Council until 2006. That year the Islamic Resistance Movement, called Hamas for its Arabic acronym, won a majority of seats on the Council.

Major Events

Israel and various Arab states have fought repeatedly since Israel became a state in 1948. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel captured the Gaza Strip from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan. This placed large populations of Palestinians under Israeli control.

In autumn 1974 the UN General Assembly officially recognized the PLO as the representative body for Palestinians and gave it observer status in the United Nations. On November 13, PLO chairman Arafat spoke before the General Assembly to make the case for the rights of the Palestinians. Some countries, including the United States and Israel, continued to refuse to negotiate with the PLO while it supported the destruction of Israel. In March 1977, however, U.S. President Jimmy Carter (1924–) acknowledged the need for Palestinians to have a homeland and to participate in peace talks in the Middle East.

In 1987 a Palestinian uprising known as the intifada erupted in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and continued for five years. In December 1988 Arafat announced that the PLO recognized Israel as a state and rejected terrorism. This enabled the U.S. government to negotiate with the PLO. Israel and the PLO officially recognized each other in letters between Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin (1922–1995) in 1993.

That year Israel and the PLO held secret meetings in Oslo, Norway, that led to creation of the Palestinian Authority in 1994. Israel agreed to transfer government of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority between 1994 and 1999, during which time the parties would negotiate the final status of those areas. Israel reserved the right to have military patrols in both regions during the transitional period. The transitional period did not go as planned. Terrorist groups on both sides took steps to derail the peace process, including the assassination of Rabin by an Israeli in 1995. Transfer of control to the Palestinian Authority and withdrawal of Israeli military forces went slower than agreed, and 1999 passed without final resolution.

Twenty-First Century

In July 2000 the United States hosted negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, which failed. Soon another intifada erupted in the occupied territories, and in 2002 Israel resumed control there.

In 2005 Israel withdrew from parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006, the group Hamas won a majority of seats. Fatah, which had controlled the Council previously, formed a coalition government with Hamas. Israel and other countries, however, rejected Hamas as a terrorist organization, and in 2007 fighting erupted between Hamas and Fatah forces in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, leaving the region’s future uncertain.

Bickerton, Ian J. and Carla L. Klausner. A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.

Sabbagh, Karl. Palestine: A Personal History. New York: Grove Press, 2007.

United Nations Development Programme-Programme on Governance in the Arab Region. “Democratic Governance, Arab Countries Profiles, Palestine.” (accessed August 22, 2007).