Who are the Palestinians?

So, I was getting ready to make my next post (about my trip to the United State Holocaust Memorial Museum yesterday), and I realized that I need to set the stage a little bit more before I can jump to the relationship of the Holocaust to the history of the region. It's difficult to know how to piece this all together, but I know that I need to add a little bit more in terms of geography and demographics.

Once again, let's look at a map of Palestine/Israel. Even just calling it Palestine/Israel suggests that we are dealing with something very complicated, so let's get into it.

If you look at the map, or the maps from the last post, you should notice something strange. Within the political borders of the state of Israel, there are two places that aren't quite part of Israel but are inside of it. What are those places? How did that happen?

First, those two places are called the West Bank (of the Jordan River) and the Gaza Strip. You've already been directed to Gaza, now I'll circle both it and the West Bank.

These two sites are the current homeland of Palestinian Arabs. The population of Palestinian Arabs in the world is roughly 9-10 million, according to Wikipedia. The following chart is pretty helpful in terms of understanding where this population lives.

Palestinians

Regions with significant populations
Palestinian territories 3,761,000 [1] – West Bank 2,345,000 [1] – Gaza Strip 1,416,000 [1] Jordan 2,700,000 [2] Israel 1,318,000 Syria 573,000 [3] Chile 500,000 [4] Lebanon 405,425 Saudi Arabia 250,245 Egypt 70,245 USA 67,842 [5] Honduras 54,000 [6] Kuwait 50,000 Brazil 50,000 [7] Iraq 34,000 [8] Yemen 25,000 [6] Canada 23,975 [9] Australia 15,000 Colombia 12,000 [6] Guatemala 1,400 [6]

As you can see, roughly half of the population of Palestinian people in the world do not live in Palestinian territory. This should also give us a clue that something strange has happened.

There is a lot that you could read about who Palestinians are (as always, Wikipedia is a good place to start, and it will help you find other sources), but I'll try to add a few points here to provide some context.

• Of the roughly half of Palestinians that are living outside of Gaza and the West Bank, most are "stateless refugees," which means that they don't have legal citizenship in the places that they are living.
• People who today consider themselves Palestinian identify both with the indigenous groups of people who have lived there as far back as prehistoric times and the Arab conquerors who came in the 7th Century
  
• The timing of when people began to identify as "Palestinian" is up for debate, but the factors that that have helped to forge a Palestinian national identity include: a response to the conditions of Arab people living in the region under the control of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and early 20th Centuries and a response to Zionism (which I'll take up later) and British control after World War I.
  
• Palestinians are considered Arab ethnically, and the major language group spoken by most is Arabic.
• While the majority of Palestinians are Muslim, there is a significant Christian population (Jerusalem, of course, being the birthplace of Christianity) with some indigenous Druze and Samaritan folks in the mix. Most Palestinian Jews identify as Israelis.
• Like all people in the world, Palestinians have their own culture, complete with unique foods, art, music, stories, dances, architecture, and clothes, including the keffiyah, which has cultural significance for Palestinians long before it became the Hip-Hop/hipster-chic thing to have in the U.S. in the last few years

That's one set of folks that live there. The other is Israelis, and I'll take them up next time.

Where in the world is...

First and foremost, shout out to my old school Carmen Sandiego heads. If you don't know, you better ask somebody.

If I'm going to help you follow me on my trip, I am going to need to let you know where it is that I am going. Every play has a set, every movie has a location--it's the critical backdrop that puts everything else in context. So if I tell you that I'm going to Gaza, I should probably show you where Gaza is. Here goes...

Here is the world, with the so-called Middle East circled.

Now, here is a map of the Middle East with Israel circled.

Now, let's look a little closer. The following two maps will show Israel, with the Gaza Strip circled and...


























Gaza itself

Please note (this is of GREAT import) that Gaza is surrounded on all sides by the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt, and Israel. This will become important as the story develops.

Coming soon...Who lives in this place?

This little light of mine...

One of the main reasons that I am going on this trip is to take the little bitty flashlight that I have access to and shine a bit of it on the situation that Palestinians are in. There are a lot of people that I interact with on a daily basis that know nothing about Palestine or Israel, and even less about the impact that the situation there has on the world.

Let me be clear, this is not a criticism.

I went to, and teach in, the same public school system that most of these folks went to. I watch the same TV, read the same newspapers and magazines, and listen to the same radio that most of them do. Most of these media, and most public schools, are set up to keep us in the dark about most of what happens in the world. So if you don't know much, it ain't your fault (sorry, I couldn't resist). I didn't know much until the last bit of my life either.

But...

Once you do know something, it is your responsibility to do something with it. That's why I teach. That's why I organize. That's why I'm going to Palestine. And that's why I'm writing this blog. Over the next month, I'm going to be writing posts in short installments that are going to hopefully help anyone who reads this understand a little better the situation that J and I are walking into.

Please feel free to respond, and please feel free to send it around.

Stay tuned for the next post: Where in the world (is Gaza)?

I'm going to Gaza

My friend Tema often asks me to "start with what I know" when I talk about something.

The something that I'm talking about here is pretty huge, so I'll start with a list of things that I know...

• I know I'm going to Cairo, Egypt with my friend J
• I know that I am leaving for Egypt on December 26 and returning on January 4
• I know that I am going with a group of people from around the world, that we are hoping to be able to cross from Egypt into Gaza to meet Palestinians and understand better the conditions that they are living in under the Israeli siege, participate in a march with Palestinians (and hopefully Israelis), and that I will be doing a lot of thinking and talking about this trip before I go and long after I get back
• I know that you can get more logistical information about what I'm doing at this website
• I know that I'm going to use this blog to keep a record of my thoughts and reactions to this life-changing trip, and that I'd be honored if you kept up with me through it
• I know that I need support. This support could look like a lot of things over the next several months (and trust me, I'll let you know), but first and foremost, I'd love it if you'd support what I'm doing in the form of $$$

To do that, click here

Stay tuned for much more to come.