1.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
2.
Districts of Mandatory Palestine
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The districts of Mandatory Palestine formed the first level of administrative division and existed through the whole era of Mandatory Palestine, namely from 1920 to 1948. The number and territorial extent of them varied over time, as did their subdivision into sub-districts, in Arabic, a district was known as a minṭaqah, while in Hebrew it was known as a mahoz. Each district had an administration headed by a District Governor, a role renamed as District Commissioner in 1925, until June 1920, Palestine was under a formal military regime called O. E. T. A. Initially the country was divided into 13 administrative districts, reduced to 10 in 1919, the division was revised after the adoption of a civilian administration in the middle of 1920. In September 1920, the districts were Jerusalem, Galilee, Phoenicia, Samaria, Jaffa, Gaza, in July 1922, administrations of the districts of Phoenicia and Galilee were combined, as were the districts of Jerusalem and Jaffa, and the districts of Gaza and Beersheba. Some reassignment of sub-districts also occurred, at the time of the October,1922, census of Palestine, there were four districts divided into 18 sub-districts. In 1938, the Beersheba and Gaza sub-districts were separated from the Southern District, then in 1939, the Administrative Division Proclamation reshaped the country into six districts. The name of the Galilee and Acre District was changed to Galilee District in December, although not published until June, it stated that the change shall be deemed to have come into force on the 1st January,1945
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Palestine grid
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The Palestine grid was the geographic coordinate system used in Mandatory Palestine. The system was chosen by the Survey Department of the Government of Palestine in 1922, the projection used was the Cassini-Soldner projection. The central meridian was chosen as that passing through a marker on the hill of Mar Elias Monastery south of Jerusalem, the false origin of the grid was placed 100 km to the south and west of the Ali el-Muntar hill that overlooks Gaza city. The unit length for the grid was the kilometre, the British units were not even considered, at the time the grid was established, there was no intention of mapping the lower reaches of the Negev Desert, but this did not remain true. The fact that those regions would have negative north-south coordinate then became a source of confusion. For some military purposes,1000 was added to the coordinates of all locations. During World War II, a Military Palestine Grid was used that was similar to the Palestine Grid, the difference between the two projections was only a few meters. It was replaced by the Israeli Transverse Mercator grid in 1994, the Palestine grid is still commonly used to specify locations in the historical and archaeological literature. The basic way of specifying a location on the Palestine grid is to write the east-west coordinate followed by the north-south coordinate using 3 digits each, for example, the Dome of the Rock is at 172132. This specifies the location within one kilometer, if more precision is required, extra digits can be added to each coordinate, for example,17241317 gives the Dome of the Rock to within 100 meters. Many authors separate the two coordinates with punctuation for readability purposes, for example 172-132 or 172/132
5.
Yishuv
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The Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv Ha-Ivri is the term referring to the body of Jewish residents in the land of Israel prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. The term is used in Hebrew even nowadays to denote the Pre-State Jewish residents in the Land of Israel. A distinction is drawn between the Old Yishuv and the New Yishuv, The Old Yishuv refers to all the Jews living there before the aliyah of 1882 by the Zionist movement. The Old Yishuv residents were religious Jews, living mainly in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias, smaller communities were in Jaffa, Haifa, Pekiin, Acre, Nablus, Shfaram and until 1779 also in Gaza. In the final centuries before modern Zionism, a part of the Old Yishuv spent their time studying the Torah and lived off Maamodot. The Old Yishuv were the Jewish communities of the southern Syrian provinces in the Ottoman period, up to the onset of Zionist aliyah and the consolidation of the New Yishuv by the end of World War I. The Old Yishuv developed after a period of decline in Jewish communities of the Southern Levant during the early Middle Ages. The oldest group consisted of the Ladino-speaking Sephardic Jewish communities in Galilee, a second group was composed of Ashkenazi and Hassidic Jews who had emigrated from Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries. A third wave was constituted by Yishuv members who arrived in the late 19th century. Apart from the Old Yishuv centres in the four cities of Judaism, namely Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias and Safed, smaller communities also existed in Jaffa, Haifa, Pekiin, Acre, Nablus. Petah Tikva, although established in 1878 by the Old Yishuv, Rishon LeZion, the first settlement founded by the Hovevei Zion in 1882, could be considered the true beginning of the New Yishuv. The Ottoman government was not supportive of the new settlers from the First and Second Aliyah, the Yishuv relied on money from abroad to support their settlements. In 1908 the Zionist Organization founded the Palestine Office, under Arthur Ruppin, for acquisition, agricultural settlement and training. The first Hebrew high schools were opened in Palestine as well as the Technion, hashomer, a Zionist self-defence group, was created to protect the Jewish settlements. Labor organizations were created along with health and cultural services, all coordinated by the Jewish National Council. By 1914, the old Yishuv was a minority and the new Yishuv began to express itself, the Zionist movement tried to find work for the new immigrants who arrived in the Second Aliyah. However, most were middle class and were not physically fit or knowledgeable in agricultural work, the Jewish plantation owners had previously hired Arab workers who accepted low wages and were very familiar with agriculture. The leaders of the Zionist movement insisted that plantation owners only hire Jewish workers, the conquest of labor was a major Zionist goal
6.
Nes Harim
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Nes Harim is a moshav in central Israel. Located in the Judean foothills near Beit Shemesh and eight kilometers west of Jerusalem, in 2015 it had a population of 1,286. It is situated 2,275 feet above sea level, derives from Isaiah, XVIII,3, When a mountain banner is raised, you will see it. The early farmers planted orchards and vineyards, taking advantage of the fertile soil, the ruins of a Byzantine monastery were discovered on a hill on the southwest side of the moshav. The Katlav winery is located in Nes Harim, in 1998 Yosi Yittach left his profession as an architect to seek a quiet life with his family. He went into wine making, first learning the trade from a Persian friend of the family who brought knowledge from “the old country and he then supplemented his education with courses. First production was in 2004, and by 2006 he was bottling better quality wines certainly worth sampling, Nes Harim is located in the center of the USA national park and is near very many beautiful hiking trails, overlooking and descending into Nahal Sorek. The Jewish National Fund has an information center near Nes Harim, nearby are a stalactite cave and many picnic areas. Nes Harim is home to two tzimers, three restaurants, one of them kosher, a pool and a riding ranch. Starting in 2017, Nes Harim is also home to Israels Jacob sheep, tourists and visitors can walk a sheep to pasture in an activity called sheep trekking for a fee. During excavations in November 2008, archaeologists found the narthex of a church decorated with multicolored mosaics, after the discovery, the mosaic was badly damaged by unidentified vandals. Mary and John who have offe in the 6th indiction, horbat Itab, a 130-dunam national park on the outskirts of Nes Harim, contains the ruins of a Crusader fortress that overlooked the road from Emek HaEla to Jerusalem and the village of Bayt Itab. The site was surveyed in 1989 by Denys Pringle, a researcher of the Crusader period, who documented the remains of the fortress, vaults, a wall and towers, tunnels, a columbarium and an olive press
7.
Palestinians
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Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one half of the worlds Palestinian population continues to reside in historic Palestine, the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. Of the Palestinian population who live abroad, known as the Palestinian diaspora, the history of a distinct Palestinian national identity is a disputed issue amongst scholars. Palestinian was used to refer to the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people by Palestinian Arabs in a limited way until World War I, Modern Palestinian identity now encompasses the heritage of all ages from biblical times up to the Ottoman period. Founded in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization is an organization for groups that represent the Palestinian people before the international community. Since 1978, the United Nations has observed an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, herodotus also employs the term as an ethnonym, as when he speaks of the Syrians of Palestine or Palestinian-Syrians, an ethnically amorphous group he distinguishes from the Phoenicians. Herodotus makes no distinction between the Jews and other inhabitants of Palestine, the Greek word reflects an ancient Eastern Mediterranean-Near Eastern word which was used either as a toponym or ethnonym. In Ancient Egyptian Peleset/Purusati has been conjectured to refer to the Sea Peoples, among Semitic languages, Akkadian Palaštu is used of Philistia and its 4 city states. Biblical Hebrews cognate word Plištim, is usually translated Philistines, the Arabic word Filastin has been used to refer to the region since the time of the earliest medieval Arab geographers. It appears to have used as an Arabic adjectival noun in the region since as early as the 7th century CE. The Arabic newspaper Falasteen, published in Jaffa by Issa and Yusef al-Issa, the first Zionist bank, the Jewish Colonial Trust, was founded at the Second Zionist Congress and incorporated in London in 1899. The JCT was intended to be the instrument of the Zionist Organization. On 27 February 1902, a subsidiary of this Trust called the Anglo-Palestine Company was established in London with the assistance of Zalman David Levontin and this Company was to become the future Bank Leumi. Following the 1948 establishment of Israel, the use and application of the terms Palestine and Palestinian by, for example, the English-language newspaper The Palestine Post, founded by Jews in 1932, changed its name in 1950 to The Jerusalem Post. Jews in Israel and the West Bank today generally identify as Israelis, Arab citizens of Israel identify themselves as Israeli and/or Palestinian and/or Arab. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father – whether in Palestine or outside it – is also a Palestinian. Thus, the Jews of Palestine were/are also included, although limited only to the Jews who had resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion. The Charter also states that Palestine with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is a territorial unit. The although the timing and causes behind the emergence of a distinctively Palestinian national consciousness among the Arabs of Palestine are matters of scholarly disagreement
8.
Arabs
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Arabs are an ethnic group inhabiting the Arab world. They primarily live in the Arab states in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Arabs are first mentioned in the mid-ninth century BCE as a tribal people dwelling in the central Arabian Peninsula. The Arabs appear to have been under the vassalage of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, tradition holds that Arabs descend from Ishmael, the son of Abraham. The Arabian Desert is the birthplace of Arab, there are other Arab groups as well that spread in the land and existed for millennia. Before the expansion of the Caliphate, Arab referred to any of the largely nomadic Semitic people from the northern to the central Arabian Peninsula and Syrian Desert. Presently, Arab refers to a number of people whose native regions form the Arab world due to spread of Arabs throughout the region during the early Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. The Arabs forged the Rashidun, Umayyad and the Abbasid caliphates, whose borders reached southern France in the west, China in the east, Anatolia in the north, and this was one of the largest land empires in history. The Great Arab Revolt has had as big an impact on the modern Middle East as the World War I, the war signaled the end of the Ottoman Empire. They are modern states and became significant as distinct political entities after the fall and defeat, following adoption of the Alexandria Protocol in 1944, the Arab League was founded on 22 March 1945. The Charter of the Arab League endorsed the principle of an Arab homeland whilst respecting the sovereignty of its member states. Beyond the boundaries of the League of Arab States, Arabs can also be found in the global diaspora, the ties that bind Arabs are ethnic, linguistic, cultural, historical, identical, nationalist, geographical and political. The Arabs have their own customs, language, architecture, art, literature, music, dance, media, cuisine, dress, society, sports, the total number of Arabs are an estimated 450 million. This makes them the second largest ethnic group after the Han Chinese. Arabs are a group in terms of religious affiliations and practices. In the pre-Islamic era, most Arabs followed polytheistic religions, some tribes had adopted Christianity or Judaism, and a few individuals, the hanifs, apparently observed monotheism. Today, Arabs are mainly adherents of Islam, with sizable Christian minorities, Arab Muslims primarily belong to the Sunni, Shiite, Ibadi, Alawite, Druze and Ismaili denominations. Arab Christians generally follow one of the Eastern Christian Churches, such as the Maronite, Coptic Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, or Chaldean churches. Listed among the booty captured by the army of king Shalmaneser III of Assyria in the Battle of Qarqar are 1000 camels of Gi-in-di-buu the ar-ba-a-a or Gindibu belonging to the Arab
9.
Samson
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Samson is sometimes considered to be an Israelite version of the popular Middle Eastern Heracles figure. However, if Samsons long hair was cut, he would lose his strength, in some Jewish traditions, Samson is believed to have been buried in Tel Tzora in Israel overlooking the Sorek valley. There reside two large gravestones of Samson and his father Manoah and it is located between the cities of Zorah and Eshtaol. Samson is said to have lived during a time when the Hebrew Bible suggests God was disciplining the Israelites by giving them into the hand of the Philistines, Manoah was an Israelite from Zorah, from the family of the Danites, and his wife had been unable to conceive. The Angel of the Lord appeared to Manoahs wife and proclaimed that the couple would soon have a son, the Angel of the Lord stated that Manoahs wife was to abstain from all alcoholic beverages, and her promised child was not to shave or cut his hair. He was to be a Nazirite from birth, the wife believed the Angel of the Lord, her husband was not present, so he prayed and asked God to send the messenger once again to teach them how to raise the boy who was going to be born. After the Angel of the Lord returned, Manoah asked him his name, Manoah then prepared a sacrifice, but the Angel of the Lord would only allow it to be for God. He touched it with his staff, miraculously engulfing it in flames and this was such dramatic evidence of the nature of the Messenger that Manoah feared for his life, since it was said that no one could live after seeing God. However, his wife convinced him that, if God planned to slay them, in due time, their son Samson was born, and he was raised according to the provisions. When he was an adult, Samson left the hills of his people to see the cities of the Philistines. He fell in love with a Philistine woman from Timnah, whom he decided to marry, ignoring the objections of his parents, in the development of the narrative, the intended marriage was shown to be part of Gods plan to strike at the Philistines. According to the account, Samson was repeatedly seized by the Spirit of the Lord. The first instance of this is seen when Samson was on his way to ask for the Philistine womans hand in marriage and he simply grabbed it and ripped it apart, the spirit of God divinely empowering him. However, Samson kept it a secret, not even mentioning the miracle to his parents and he arrived at the Philistines house and became betrothed to her. He returned home, then back to Timnah some time later for the wedding. On his way, Samson saw that bees had nested in the carcass of the lion and he ate a handful of the honey and gave some to his parents. At the wedding feast, Samson told a riddle to his thirty groomsmen, if they could solve it, he would give them thirty pieces of fine linen and garments, but if they could not solve it, they would give him thirty pieces of fine linen and garments. The riddle was an account of two encounters with the lion, at which only he was present, The Philistines were infuriated by the riddle
10.
Sheikh
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Sheikh —also transliterated Sheik, Shaik, Shayk, Shaykh, Shaikh, Cheikh, Shekh and Shaikh— is an honorific title in the Arabic language. It commonly designates the ruler of a tribe, who inherited the title from his father, Sheikh is given to a royal male at birth, whereas the related title Sheikha is given to a royal female at birth. The word in Arabic stems from a triliteral root connected with age and aging, ش-ي-خ, the term literally means a man of vast power, and nobility, and it is used strictly for the royal families of the Middle East. While the title can be used religiously by Muslims to designate a learned person and it is notably used by Druze for their religious men, but also by Arab Christians for elder men of stature. Its usage and meaning is similar to the Latin senex meaning old, accordingly, the Arabic term for most legislative bodies termed Senate is majlis al-shuyūkh, literally meaning Council of Senators. One prominent example is Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani who initiated the Qadiriyya order which relies strongly upon adherence to the fundamentals of Islam, in the Arabian Peninsula, the title is used for royalty, such as kings, princes, and princesses. For example, it was the used in the West to refer to the leaders of Kuwaits ruling Al-Sabah dynasty. The same applies to all the Gulf countries, the term is used by almost every male and female member of all the Gulf royal houses. The term sheikh is known to have bestowed upon the families who battled with the Emir Fakhr al-Din in the historical Battle of Anjar. Note that the term is not used for the seven traditional Beiruti families, the other families that have this term did not rule any territory in previous ages. Instead, they were high-ranking employees or secretaries in the Ottoman Empire, or political allies of the rulers at that time, in the Maghreb, during the Almohad dynasty, the caliph was also counseled by a body of shaykhs. They represented all the different tribes under their rules, including Arabs, Andalusians, in the Muslim parts of the Horn of Africa, Sheikh is often used as a noble title. In Somali society, it is reserved as an honorific for senior Muslim leaders and clerics, in West Africa, sheikh is a common title for Muslim scholars and leaders. Among Islamic communities in Senegal, Niger and Gambia, among other areas, after the advent of Islam in South Asia, some high caste tribes also converted to Islam and adopted the title. The Muslims of the Middle East and Central Asia have historically traveled to South Asia as Sufis during the Islamic Sultanates and Mughal Empire, in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, Sheikhs are respected by local Muslims. Religious preachers or teachers in Indonesia are usually referred to as Ustad or Kyiayi Historically, notable shaykha include the 10th-century Shaykhah Fakhr-un-Nisa Shuhdah and 18th-century scholar Al-Shaykha Fatima al-Fudayliyya. A daughter or wife or mother of a sheikh is also called a shaykhah, currently, the term shaykhah is commonly used for women of ruling families, in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf with the exception of Oman. Kashmiri Shaikh Khawaja Shaikh Punjabi Shaikh Qallu Qanungoh Shaikh Quraishi Shaikhs in South Asia Sindhi Shaikh Allamah The dictionary definition of sheik at Wiktionary
11.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
12.
Palestinian refugee camps
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Palestinian refugee camps were established after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War to accommodate the Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled during the 1948 Palestinian exodus. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 grants Palestinians the right to return to their homeland if they wish to live at peace with their neighbors, conversely, many Palestinian refugees remain in Palestinian refugee camps, while others have been absorbed into Jordanian society or the Palestinian territories. UNRWA recognizes facilities in 59 designated refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and it also provided relief to displaced persons inside Israel following the 1948 conflict until the Israeli government took over responsibility for them in 1952. For a camp to be recognized by UNRWA, there must be an agreement between the host government and UNRWA governing use of the camp, UNRWA does not itself run any camps, has no police powers or administrative role, but simply provides services to the camp. UNRWA also provides facilities in areas where large numbers of registered Palestine refugees live outside of recognized camps. UNRWAs definition of a refugee also covers the descendants of refugee males, the number of registered Palestine refugees has subsequently grown from 750,000 in 1950 to around 5 million in 2013. This lists the current Palestine refugee camps with current population and year they were established, the Gaza Strip has 8 refugee camps and 1,221,110 registered refugees. Three of these camps are unofficial, a video report from the Balata and Aida camps in the West Bank
13.
West Bank
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The West Bank shares boundaries to the west, north, and south with Israel, and to the east, across the Jordan River, with Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km2 plus a water area of 220 km2, consisting of the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea. As of July 2015 it has an population of 2,785,366 Palestinians, and approximately 371,000 Israeli settlers. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law and this annexation was recognized only by Britain, Iraq and Pakistan. The term was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the east bank of this river, the neo-Latin name Cisjordan or Cis-Jordan is the usual name for the territory in the Romance languages and Hungarian. The name West Bank, however, has become the standard usage for this entity in English. The analogous Transjordan has historically used to designate the region now roughly comprising the state of Jordan. From 1517 through 1917, the now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the provinces of Syria. At the 1920 San Remo conference, the victorious Allied powers allocated the area to the British Mandate of Palestine, the San Remo Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations were the basic documents upon which the British Mandate for Palestine was constructed. Faced with the determination of Emir Abdullah to unify Arab lands under the Hashemite banner, the West Bank area, was conquered by Jordan during the 1948 war with the new state of Israel. In 1947, it was designated as part of a proposed Arab state by the United Nations partition plan for Palestine. 1949 Armistice Agreements defined the boundary between Israel and Jordan. In 1950, Transjordan annexed the area west of the Jordan River, naming it West Bank or Cisjordan, Jordan ruled over the West Bank from 1948 until 1967. Jordans annexation was never recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United Kingdom. King Abdullah of Jordan had been crowned King of Jerusalem by the Coptic Bishop on 15 November 1948. and granted Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, in June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were captured by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War. With the exception of East Jerusalem and the former Israeli-Jordanian no mans land, the Israeli settlements were, on the other hand, administered subsequently as Judea and Samaria Area directly by Israel. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority officially controls a geographically non-contiguous territory comprising approx, 11% of the West Bank which remains subject to Israeli incursions
14.
Moshav
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Moshav is a type of Israeli town or settlement, in particular a type of cooperative agricultural community of individual farms pioneered by the Labour Zionists during the second wave of aliyah. A resident or a member of a moshav can be called a moshavnik, the moshavim are similar to kibbutzim with an emphasis on community labour. Workers produced crops and goods on their properties through individual and/or pooled labour and resources and used profit, moshavim are governed by an elected council. Community projects and facilities were financed by a special tax, there are several variants, of which the most common are, Moshav ovdim, a workers cooperative settlement. This is the more numerous type and relies on cooperative purchasing of supplies and marketing of produce, the family or household is, however, Moshav shitufi, a collective smallholders settlement that combines the economic features of a kibbutz with the social features of a moshav. Farming is done collectively and profits are shared equally and this form is closer to the collectivity of the kibbutz, although consumption is family- or household-based, production and marketing are collective. Unlike the moshav ovdim, land is not allotted to households or individuals, the first moshav, Nahalal, was established in the Jezreel Valley on September 11,1921. By 1986 about 156,700 Israelis lived and worked on 448 moshavim, for this reason, the moshav became largely a Mizrahi institution, whereas the kibbutz movement remained basically an Ashkenazi institution. Since the Six-Day War in 1967, both moshavim and kibbutzim have relied increasingly on outside—particularly Palestinian—labour, financial instabilities in the early 1980s hit many moshavim hard, as did their high birth rate and the problem of absorbing all the children who might wish to remain in the community. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress
15.
Crusades
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The First Crusade arose after a call to arms in a 1095 sermon by Pope Urban II. Urban urged military support for the Byzantine Empire and its Emperor, Alexios I, the response to Urbans preaching by people of many different classes across Western Europe established the precedent for later Crusades. Volunteers became Crusaders by taking a vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the church. Some were hoping for apotheosis at Jerusalem, or forgiveness from God for all their sins, others participated to satisfy feudal obligations, gain glory and honour, or find opportunities for economic and political gain. Many modern Historians have polarised opinions of the Crusaders behaviour under Papal sanction, to some it was incongruous with the stated aims and implied moral authority of the papacy and the Crusades, to the extent that on occasions that the Pope excommunicated Crusaders. Crusaders often pillaged as they travelled, while their leaders retained control of captured territory rather than returning it to the Byzantines. During the Peoples Crusade thousands of Jews were murdered in what is now called the Rhineland massacres, Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth Crusade rendering the reunification of Christendom impossible. These tales consequently galvanised medieval romance, philosophy and literature, but the Crusades also reinforced the connection between Western Christendom, feudalism, and militarism. Crusade is not a term, instead the terms iter for journey or peregrinatio for pilgrimage were used. Not until the word crucesignatus for one who was signed with the cross was adopted at the close of the century was specific terminology developed. The Middle English equivalents were derived from old French, croiserie in the 13th–15th centuries, croisade appeared in English c1575, and continued to be the leading form till c1760. By convention historians adopt the term for the Christian holy wars from 1095, the Crusades in the Holy Land are traditionally counted as nine distinct campaigns, numbered from the First Crusade of 1095–99 to the Ninth Crusade of 1271/2. Usage of the term Crusade may differ depending on the author, pluralists use the term Crusade of any campaign explicitly sanctioned by the reigning Pope. This reflects the view of the Roman Catholic Church that every military campaign given Papal sanction is equally valid as a Crusade, regardless of its cause, justification, generalists see Crusades as any and all holy wars connected with the Latin Church and fought in defence of their faith. Popularists limit the Crusades to only those that were characterised by popular groundswells of religious fervour – that is, only the First Crusade, Medieval Muslim historiographers such as Ali ibn al-Athir refer to the Crusades as the Frankish Wars. The term used in modern Arabic, ḥamalāt ṣalībiyya حملات صليبية, campaigns of the cross, is a loan translation of the term Crusade as used in Western historiography. The Islamic prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, the resulting unified polity in the seventh and eighth centuries led to a rapid expansion of Arab power. This influence stretched from the northwest Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, tolerance, trade, and political relationships between the Arabs and the Christian states of Europe waxed and waned
16.
Eusebius
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Eusebius of Caesarea, also known as Eusebius Pamphili, was a Greek historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist. He became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima about 314 AD, together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the Biblical canon and is regarded as an extremely well learned Christian of his time. He wrote Demonstrations of the Gospel, Preparations for the Gospel, as Father of Church History he produced the Ecclesiastical History, On the Life of Pamphilus, the Chronicle and On the Martyrs. Little is known about the life of Eusebius and his successor at the See of Caesarea, Acacius, wrote a Life of Eusebius, a work that has since been lost. Eusebius own surviving works probably only represent a portion of his total output. Beyond notices in his extant writings, the sources are the 5th-century ecclesiastical historians Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret. There are assorted notices of his activities in the writings of his contemporaries Athanasius, Arius, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Eusebius pupil, Eusebius of Emesa, provides some incidental information. In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius writes of Dionysius of Alexandria as his contemporary, if this is true, Eusebius birth must have been before Dionysius death in autumn 264, most modern scholars date the birth to some point in the five years between 260 and 265. He was presumably born in the town in which he lived for most of his adult life and he was baptized and instructed in the city, and lived in Palestine in 296, when Diocletians army passed through the region. Eusebius was made presbyter by Agapius of Caesarea, S. Wallace-Hadrill, deem the phrase too ambiguous to support the contention. By the 3rd century, Caesarea had a population of about 100,000 and it had been a pagan city since Pompey had given control of the city to the gentiles during his command of the eastern provinces in the 60s BC. The gentiles retained control of the city for the three centuries to follow, despite Jewish petitions for joint governorship, gentile government was strengthened by the citys refoundation under Herod the Great, when it had taken on the name of Augustus Caesar. In addition to the settlers, Caesarea had large Jewish. Eusebius was probably born into the Christian contingent of the city.46 states that Zacchaeus was the first bishop, through the activities of the theologian Origen and the school of his follower Pamphilus, Caesarea became a center of Christian learning. Origen was largely responsible for the collection of information, or which churches were using which gospels. On his deathbed, Origen had made a bequest of his library to the Christian community in the city. Together with the books of his patron Ambrosius, Origens library formed the core of the collection that Pamphilus established, Pamphilus also managed a school that was similar to that of Origen. Pamphilus was compared to Demetrius of Phalerum and Pisistratus, for he had gathered Bibles from all parts of the world, like his model Origen, Pamphilus maintained close contact with his students
17.
Franks
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Some Franks raided Roman territory, while other Frankish tribes joined the Roman troops of Gaul. In later times, Franks became the rulers of the northern part of Roman Gaul. The Salian Franks lived on Roman-held soil between the Rhine, Scheldt, Meuse, and Somme rivers in what is now Northern France, Belgium, the kingdom was acknowledged by the Romans after 357 CE. Following the collapse of Rome in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians, who succeeded in conquering most of Gaul in the 6th century, which greatly increased their power. The Merovingian dynasty, descendants of the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies that would absorb large parts of the Western Roman Empire, the Frankish state consolidated its hold over the majority of western Europe by the end of the 8th century, developing into the Carolingian Empire. This empire would gradually evolve into the state of France and the Holy Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages, the term Frank was used in the east as a synonym for western European, as the Franks were then rulers of most of Western Europe. The Franks in the east kept their Germanic language and became part of the Germans, Dutch, Flemings, the Franconian languages, which are called Frankisch in Dutch or Fränkisch in German, originated at least partly in the Old Frankish language of the Franks. Nowadays, the German and Dutch names for France are Frankreich and Frankrijk, respectively, the name Franci was originally socio-political. To the Romans, Celts, and Suebi, the Franks must have seemed alike, they looked the same and spoke the same language, so that Franci became the name by which the people were known. Within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the tribes, though the older names have survived in some place-names, such as Hesse. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English and it has been suggested that the meaning of free was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation. It is traditionally assumed that Frank comes from the Germanic word for javelin, there is also another theory that suggests that Frank comes from the Latin word francisca meaning. Words in other Germanic languages meaning fierce, bold or insolent, eumenius addressed the Franks in the matter of the execution of Frankish prisoners in the circus at Trier by Constantine I in 306 and certain other measures, Ubi nunc est illa ferocia. Feroces was used often to describe the Franks, contemporary definitions of Frankish ethnicity vary both by period and point of view. According to their law and their custom, writing in 2009, Professor Christopher Wickham pointed out that the word Frankish quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. North of the River Loire everyone seems to have considered a Frank by the mid-7th century at the latest. Two early sources describe the origin of the Franks are a 7th-century work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar. Neither of these works are accepted by historians as trustworthy, compared with Gregory of Tourss Historia Francorum, the chronicle describes Priam as a Frankish king whose people migrated to Macedonia after the fall of Troy
18.
Vault (architecture)
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Vault is an architectural term for an arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof. The parts of a vault exert lateral thrust that requires a counter resistance, when vaults are built underground, the ground gives all the resistance required. However, when the vault is built above ground, various replacements are employed to supply the needed resistance, an example is the thicker walls used in the case of barrel or continuous vaults. Buttresses are used to supply resistance when intersecting vaults are employed, the simplest kind of vault is the barrel vault, which is generally semicircular in shape. The barrel vault is an arch, the length being greater than its diameter. As in building an arch, a support is needed while rings of voussoirs are constructed. Until the topmost voussoir, the keystone, is positioned, the vault is not self-supporting, with a barrel vault, the centering can then be shifted on to support the next rings. Amongst the earliest known examples of any form of vaulting is to be found in the village of Khirokitia on Cyprus. Dating from ca.6000 BCE, the circular buildings supported beehive shaped corbel domed vaults of unfired mud-bricks, similar Beehive tombs, called tholoi, exist in Crete and Northern Iraq. Their construction differs from that at Khirokitia in that most appear partially buried, the inclusion of domes, however, represents a wider sense of the word vault. The distinction between the two is that a vault is essentially an arch which is extruded into the third dimension, whereas a dome is an arch revolved around its vertical axis. Pitched-brick vaults are named for their construction, the bricks are installed vertically and are leaning at an angle, examples have been found in archaeological excavations in Mesopotamia dating to the 2nd and 3rd millennium BC which were set in gypsum mortar. A barrel vault is the simplest form of a vault and resembles a barrel or tunnel cut lengthwise in half, the effect is that of a structure composed of continuous semicircular or pointed sections. The earliest known examples of barrel vaults were built by the Sumerians, possibly under the ziggurat at Nippur in Babylonia, which was built of fired bricks cemented with clay mortar. The earliest barrel vaults in ancient Egypt are thought to be those in the built by the 19th dynasty Pharaoh Ramesses II. The vault being over 800 feet long,10 feet in span, the enormous Eyvan-e Khosro at Ctesiphon was built over 1,500 years ago during the Persian Sasanian period as a throne room. The arch is about 37 metres high,26 metres across and 50 metres long, built entirely without centering, the rings relieved the centering from the weight imposed, and the two layers of bricks carried the concrete till it had set. As the walls carrying these vaults were built in concrete with occasional bond courses of brick
19.
Machicolation
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The word derives from the Old French word machecol, mentioned in Medieval Latin as machecollum, probably from Old French machier crush, wound and col neck. Machicolate is only recorded in the 18th century in English, but a verb machicollāre is attested in Anglo-Latin, the Spanish word denoting this structure, matacán, is similarly composed from matar canes meaning roughly killing dogs, the latter being a reference to infidels. The design of a machicoulis, commonly known as drop box, in Arab fortifications they are usually found on defensive walls. The original Arab design was small, and similar to the domestic wooden balcony known as Mashrabiya. However, different from the balcony, for defense purposes it prominently features a wide opening at the bottom. The opening allows the dropping of hot water or oil and other material intended to harm to the enemy below. The feature of a closed balcony also allows to cover while making use. A hoarding is a structure made of wood, usually temporarily constructed in the event of a siege. Advantages of machicolations over wooden hoardings include the strength and fire resistance of stone. Machicolations were more common in French castles than English, where they were restricted to the gateway. One of the first examples of machicolation that still exists in northern France is Château de Farcheville built in 1291 outside Paris, similar to a machicolation is a smaller version which opens as a balcony, generally from a tower rather than a larger structure. Machicolations were a feature in many towers and rural buildings in Malta until the 18th century. Buildings with machicolations include Cavalier Tower, Gauci Tower, the Captains Tower, machicolation was later used for decorative effect with spaces between the corbels but without the openings, and subsequently became a characteristic of many non-military buildings. Bretèche Arrow slit Hoarding Murder hole Media related to Machicolations at Wikimedia Commons Glossary of Medieval Art and Architecture, machicolation
20.
Fief
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The fees were often lands or revenue-producing real property held in feudal land tenure, these are typically known as fiefs or fiefdoms. However, not only land but anything of value could be held in fee, including office, rights of exploitation such as hunting or fishing, monopolies in trade. In ancient Rome a benefice was a gift of land for life as a reward for services rendered, originally, in medieval Latin European documents, a land grant in exchange for service continued to be called a beneficium. Later, the term feudum, or feodum, began to replace beneficium in the documents, the first attested instance of this is from 984, although more primitive forms were seen up to one hundred years earlier. The origin of the feudum and why it replaced beneficium has not been well established, but there are multiple theories, described below. The most widely held theory is put forth by Marc Bloch that it is related to the Frankish term *fehu-ôd, in which means cattle and -ôd means goods. When land replaced currency as the store of value, the Germanic word *fehu-ôd replaced the Latin word beneficium. This Germanic origin theory was also shared by William Stubbs in the nineteenth century, a theory put forward by Archibald R. Lewis that the origin of fief is not feudum, but rather foderum, the earliest attested use being in Astronomuss Vita Hludovici. In that text is a passage about Louis the Pious which says annona militaris quas vulgo foderum vocant, a theory by Alauddin Samarrai suggests an Arabic origin, from fuyū. Samarrais theory is that early forms of fief include feo, feu, feuz, feuum and others, Samarrai, however, also advises medieval and early modern Muslim scribes often used etymologically fanciful roots in order to claim the most outlandish things to be of Arabian or Muslim origin. It lacked a precise meaning until the middle of the 12th century, in English usage, the word fee is first attested around 1250–1300, the word fief from around 1605–15. In French, the fief is found from the middle of the 13th century. In French, one also finds seigneurie, which rise to the expression seigneurial system to describe feudalism. Originally, vassalage did not imply the giving or receiving of landholdings, by the middle of the 10th century, fee had largely become hereditary. The eldest son of a deceased vassal would inherit, but first he had to do homage and fealty to the lord, historically, the fees of the 11th and the 12th century derived from two separate sources. The first was land carved out of the estates of the upper nobility, the second source was allodial land transformed into dependent tenures. The process occurred later in Germany, and was going on in the 13th century. In England, Henry II transformed them into important sources of royal income, the discontent of barons with royal claims to arbitrarily assessed reliefs and other feudal payments under Henrys son King John resulted in Magna Carta of 1215
21.
Church of the Holy Sepulchre
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The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, a few steps away from the Muristan. The tomb is enclosed by the 18th-century shrine, called the Aedicule, within the church proper are the last four Stations of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of Jesus Passion. The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Roman Catholic, and to a lesser degree the Egyptian Copts, Syriacs and Ethiopians. According to Eusebius of Caesarea, the Roman emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD built a dedicated to the goddess Venus in order to bury the cave in which Jesus had been buried. The first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great, ordered in about 325/326 that the temple be replaced by a church, during the building of the Church, Constantines mother, Helena, is believed to have rediscovered the tomb. Socrates Scholasticus, in his Ecclesiastical History, gives a description of the discovery. The remains are enveloped by a marble sheath placed some 500 years before to protect the ledge from Ottoman attacks. However, there are several thick window wells extending through the marble sheath and they appear to reveal an underlying limestone rock, which may be part of the original living rock of the tomb. The church was starting in 325/326, and was consecrated on 13 September 335. From pilgrim reports it seems that the housing the tomb of Jesus was freestanding at first. Each year, the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates the anniversary of the consecration of the Church of the Resurrection on 13 September and this building was damaged by fire in May of 614 when the Sassanid Empire, under Khosrau II, invaded Jerusalem and captured the True Cross. In 630, the Emperor Heraclius restored it and rebuilt the church after recapturing the city, after Jerusalem came under Arab rule, it remained a Christian church, with the early Muslim rulers protecting the citys Christian sites. A story reports that the Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab visited the church and stopped to pray on the balcony and he feared that future generations would misinterpret this gesture, taking it as a pretext to turn the church into a mosque. Eutychius added that Umar wrote a decree prohibiting Muslims from praying at this location, the building suffered severe damage due to an earthquake in 746. Early in the century, another earthquake damaged the dome of the Anastasis. The damage was repaired in 810 by Patriarch Thomas, in the year 841, the church suffered a fire. In 935, the Orthodox Christians prevented the construction of a Muslim mosque adjacent the Church, in 938, a new fire damaged the inside of the basilica and came close to the rotunda. In 966, due to a defeat of Muslim armies in the region of Syria, the doors and roof were burnt, and the Patriarch John VII was murdered
22.
Order of the Holy Sepulchre
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The pope is sovereign of the order. Founded as Milites Sancti Sepulcri attached to the Augustinian Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, recognised in 1113 by Papal bull of Pope Paschal II and of Pope Calistus II in 1122. Besides the Canons Regular, early members included secular canons, Milites Sancti Sepulcri, armed knights of valour and dedication chosen from the crusader troops. Together they vowed to obey the Augustinian Rule of poverty and obedience, and undertook specifically to defend the Holy Sepulchre, still today, the order bestows Canons as well as Knights, with the primary mission to support the Christian presence in the Holy Land. In 1496, Pope Alexander VI vested the Grand Magistry in the Papacy, in 1847, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem was restored by Pope Pius IX and the chivalric order was reorganised based on legal and spiritual ties to the Holy See. From 1949, Grand Masters have been Cardinals and it is the only order of chivalry, together with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, that is recognised and protected by the Holy See. The order today is estimated to have some 23,000 members in 52 Lieutenancies around the world, including monarchs, heads of state, the current Cardinal Grand Master is Edwin Frederick OBrien since 2011, and the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is Grand Prior. Its headquarters are situated at Palazzo Della Rovere and its church in SantOnofrio al Gianicolo. The name of the Knights and Order varied over the centuries, including the Milites Sancti Sepulcri, the current name was determined on 27 July 1931 as the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem by decree of the Sacred Congregation of Ceremonies of the Holy See. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land were a common, if hazardous, numerous detailed commentaries have survived as evidence of this early Christian devotion. While there were places the pious visited during their travels. During the era of the Islamic expansion, Emperor Charlemagne sent two embassies to the Caliph of Baghdad, asking Frankish protectorate over the Holy Land, an epic chanson de geste recounts his legendary adventures in the Mediterranean and pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Tradition maintains that long before the Crusades, a form of knighthood was bestowed upon worthy men at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In any case, during the 11th century, prior to the Crusades, milites sancti Petri were established to protect Christians, persecution of Christians in the Holy Land intensified. Relations with the worlds Christian rulers was further strained when Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009. The crusades coincided with a concern in Europe for the holy places. After the capture of Jerusalem at the end of the First Crusade in 1099, the men in charge of securing its defense and its community of canons were called Milites Sancti Sepulcri. Together, the canons and the formed part of the structure of which evolved into the modern Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem
23.
Edward Robinson (scholar)
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Edward Robinson was an American biblical scholar. He studied in the United States and Germany, a center of biblical scholarship and he translated scriptural works from classical languages, as well as German translations. His Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament became an authority in the United States. Robinson was born in Southington, Connecticut, and raised on a farm and his father was a minister in the Congregational Church of the town for four decades. The younger Robinson taught at schools in East Haven and Farmington in 1810-11 to earn money for college and he attended Hamilton College, in Clinton, New York, where his maternal uncle, Seth Norton, was a professor. In 1821 he went to Andover, Massachusetts, where he published his translation of books i-ix, xviii, there he aided Moses Stuart in the preparation of the second edition of the latters Hebrew Grammar. He translated into English Wahls Clavis Philologica Novi Testamenti, Robinson went to Europe to study ancient languages, largely in Halle and Berlin. While in Halle, in 1828 he married the German writer Therese Albertine Luise, after the couple returned to the United States, Robinson was appointed professor extraordinary of sacred literature at Andover Theological Seminary. Robinson founded the Biblical Repository, which he edited for four years and he also established the Bibliotheca Sacra, into which was merged the Biblical Repository. He spent three years in Boston working on a lexicon of scriptural Greek, illness caused him to move to New York City. He was appointed as professor of literature at Union Theological Seminary. In 1836 Robinson published both a translation of Wilhelm Gesenius Hebrew Lexicon and a Greek New Testament Lexicon, Robinson traveled to Palestine in 1838 in the company of Rev. He published Biblical Researches in Palestine in 1841, for which he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1842 and he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1847. Robinson, together with Smith, made scores of identifications of ancient places referred to the Bible and his work established his enduring reputation as a Founder of Biblical archeology, and influenced much of future archaeological field work. Examples of his finds in Jerusalem include the Siloam tunnel and Robinsons Arch in the Old City, the two men returned to Ottoman Palestine in 1852 for further investigations. In 1856 the enlarged edition of Biblical Researches was published simultaneously in English and this work superseded his translation of Wahls work, becoming a standard authority in the United States. It was several times reprinted in Great Britain, physical Geography of the Holy Land. This is a supplement to his Biblical Researches, and was edited by Mrs. Robinson after his death, revised editions of the Greek and English Harmonies, edited by Matthew B
24.
Ficus
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Ficus is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The common fig is a species native to southwest Asia and the Mediterranean region. The fruit of most other species are edible though they are usually of only local economic importance or eaten as bushfood. However, they are important food resources for wildlife. Figs are also of cultural importance throughout the tropics, both as objects of worship and for their many practical uses. Fig species are characterized by their unique inflorescence and distinctive pollination syndrome, the specific identification of many of the species can be difficult, but figs as a group are relatively easy to recognize. Many have aerial roots and a shape or habit. The fig fruit is an inflorescence, sometimes referred to as a syconium. Finally, there are three traits that together are unique to figs. There are no unambiguous older fossils of Ficus, however, current molecular clock estimates indicate that Ficus is a relatively ancient genus being at least 60 million years old, and possibly as old as 80 million years. The main radiation of extant species, however, may have taken more recently. Moreover, figs with different plant habits have undergone radiation in different biogeographic regions. In the tropics, it is common to find that Ficus is the most species-rich plant genus in a particular forest. In Asia as many as 70 or more species can co-exist, Ficus species richness declines with an increase in latitude in both hemispheres. Figs are keystone species in many rainforest ecosystems and their fruit are a key resource for some frugivores including fruit bats, capuchin monkeys, langurs and mangabeys. They are even more important for some birds, asian barbets, pigeons, hornbills, fig-parrots and bulbuls are examples of taxa that may almost entirely subsist on figs when these are in plenty. The citrus long-horned beetle, for example, has larvae that feed on wood, including that of fig trees, similarly, the sweet potato whitefly is frequently found as a pest on figs grown as potted plants and is spread through the export of these plants to other localities
25.
Abu Ghosh
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Abu Ghosh is a local council in Israel, located 10 kilometers west of Jerusalem on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway. It is situated 610–720 meters above sea level and it takes its current name from the dominant clan inhabiting the town, while the older Arabic name used to be Qaryat al-Inab. The village has also associated with Anathoth, the birthplace of the prophet Jeremiah. Abu Ghosh is located in one of the earliest areas of habitation in Israel. Archaeological excavations have revealed three Neolithic settlement phases, the phase is dated to the 7th millennium BCE. Legio X Fretensis of the Roman army had a house in Abu Ghosh until the end of the 3rd century CE. The Crusaders, who called the village Fontenoid, thought for a while that this was the site of Emmaus mentioned in the Gospel of Luke, for the church they built here see here or further down under Benedictine monastery. There are several versions on the origins of the Abu Gosh clan, According to one version, According to the Abu Gosh family tradition, they were of Circassian descent, and their founder fought with Selim I. In the 18th century they lived in a village near Bayt Nuba, some, however, assert that the Abu Gosh are indeed of North Caucasian traditional descent is correct, but the family is of Ingush origin and that Abu Gosh is in fact a corruption of Abu Ingush. The Abu Gosh family controlled the route from Jaffa to Jerusalem. They were given this privilege during the sultanate of Suleiman the Magnificent, the churches in Jerusalem also paid a tax to the Abu Ghosh clan. As a result, Abu Ghosh was attacked by Egyptian military forces and it was attacked again in 1853 during a civil war between feudal families under Ahmad Abu Ghosh who ordered his nephew Mustafa to go to battle. A third attack on Abu Ghosh, carried out by the Ottoman military forces, helped and executed by British forces, the Abu Ghoshes were among the well-known feudal families in Palestine. The sheikh of Abu Ghosh lived in a house described by pilgrims. In the 19th century, the village was referred to as Kuryet el Enab. Kiryat Anavim, the first kibbutz in the Judean Hills, was founded near Abu Ghosh in 1914, in 1947-1948, the road to Jerusalem was blocked, as passage through the hills surrounding Jerusalem was crucial for getting supplies to the Jewish parts of the besieged city. Of the 36 Arab Muslim villages in these hills, Abu Ghosh was the only Muslim one that remained neutral, from here it is possible to open and close the gates to Jerusalem, said former President Yitzhak Navon. Many in Abu Ghosh helped Israel with supplies, during Operation Nachshon the Haganah reconsidered an attack on Abu Ghosh due to opposition of the Stern Gang, whose local commanders were on good terms with the mukhtar
26.
Suba, Jerusalem
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Suba was a Palestinian Arab village west of Jerusalem that was depopulated and destroyed in 1948. The site of the lies on the summit of a conical hill called Tel Tzova, or Jabal Suba, rising 769 metres above sea level. Belmont castle was excavated by archaeologists in 1986-9, middle Bronze Age cairn-tombs have been excavated in the neighborhood of the ruined Arab village, though the site itself has not yielded artifacts from before the late Iron Age. The place can perhaps be identified with Σωρης mentioned in the Greek version of Josh, there has also been a tentative identification with the Tzova in 1 Samuel 14,47 and 2 Samuel 23,36. In the later Roman period, the site was mentioned in sources as Seboim. Until the mid-19th century, Christian pilgrims mistakenly identified the site with Modiin, excavations on a plastered cave on the grounds of Kibbutz Tzova identified as the Cave of John the Baptist began in March 2000. It has been suggested that Suba was Subahiet, one of 21 villages given by King Godfrey as a fief to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in 1114, the gift was re-confirmed by Baldwin I of Jerusalem. A Brother William of Belmont was mentioned in Crusader sources in the years 1157 and 1162, sometime before 1169, the Crusaders built a castle there called Belmont, run by the Hospitallers. In 1170 an unnamed castellan was mentioned, today, parts of the northern and western Crusader wall remain, as well as ruins of a tower and other structures. These include large underground cisterns, some pre-dating the Crusader period, Belmont Castle was taken by Saladin in 1187. According to the chronicles it was destroyed by him in 1191, settlement at the site continued, and it was mentioned as Suba, a village of Jerusalem, about 1225 by Yakut. Suba, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, the village economy relied on wheat, barley, olives and grapes. In the mid-nineteenth century, the village was controlled by the Abu Ghosh family, the Crusader walls and the fortifications they built in the village were destroyed by Ibrahim Pasha in 1834. The French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village on 30 April 1863, an Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that Suba had 33 houses and a population of 112, though the population count included only men. In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Suba had a population 307, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 434 Muslims, in 110 houses. In 1945 the population of Suba was 620, all Muslims,1,435 dunams were plantations and irrigable land,712 for cereals, while 16 dunams were built-up land. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the village saw fierce fighting, the village was attacked several times by the Haganah, and finally conquered by the Palmach during the night of July 12–13 as part of Operation Danny. Most of the inhabitants had fled during the fighting, and those who remained were expelled, in October 1948, the Ameilim group of Palmach veterans established a kibbutz called Misgav Palmach on village lands 1 km to the south
27.
Bayt Nattif
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In Roman times the town was known as Bethletepha or Pella, and commonly known by its Greek equivalent, Bethletephon. The original Arabic version of the name was Bayt Lettif, the village lay nestled on a hilltop, surrounded by olive groves and almonds, with woodlands of oak and carobs overlooking Wadi es-Sunt to its south. During the British Mandate it was part of the Hebron Subdistrict, Bayt Nattif was depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War on October 21,1948 under Operation Ha-Har. In 1945 Bayt Nattif had a population of 2,150 Muslims and it contained several shrines, including a notable one dedicated to al-Shaykh Ibrahim. Roughly a dozen khirbas lay in the vicinity, Bayt Nattif stood on the much-traveled ancient road connecting Eleutheropolis with Jerusalem, about midway between the two towns. The city had been assigned the status of toparchy, one of eleven toparchies or prefectures in Judaea given certain administrative responsibilities, according to Josephus, the city was sacked under Vespasian and Titus, during the first Jewish uprising against Rome. This region was called Idumea by the Romans on account of it being inhabited largely by the descendants of Esau who became proselytes to Judaism during the time of John Hyrcanus. Based upon archaeological finds that were discovered in Bayt Nattif, the city was still an important site in the Late Roman period. The place was now inhabited by Roman citizens and veterans, who settled the region as part of the Romanization process that took place in the areas of Judaea after the Bar Kokhba revolt. The Beit Nattif lamp is a type of oil lamp that was recovered during the archaeological excavation of two cisterns at the site. Some of them were decorated with a depiction of the Temple Menorah, during a 2014 dig at Khirbet Shumeila,1 km north of Beit Nattif, stone molds for 3rd-4th century Beit Nattif lamps were found within the remains of a large villa. During that year, Bayt Nattif was inhabited by one-hundred and four Muslim households, the Ottoman authority levied a 33. 3% taxation on agricultural products produced by the villagers, besides a marriage tax and supplement tax on goats and beehives. Total revenues accruing from the village of Bayt Nattif for that year amounted to 12,000 akçe, in 1838 Edward Robinson visited, and remarks that their party was very well received by the villagers. He further noted that the villagers belonged to the Keis faction, meron Benvenisti, writing of this period, says that Sheikh Utham al-Lahham waged a bloody war against Sheikh Mustafa Abu Ghosh, whose capital and fortified seat was in the village of Suba. In 1855, Mohammad Atallah in Bayt Nattif, a cousin of Utham al-Lahham, in order to win support from Abu Ghosh, Mohammad Atallah gave his allegiance to the Yaman faction. This is said to have enraged Utham al-Lahham and he raised a fighting force and fell on Bayt Nattif on 3 January 1855. According to a description by the horrified British consul, James Finn. In 1863 Victor Guérin visited twice, the first time he visited he estimated that the village contained about one thousand inhabitants
28.
James Finn
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James Finn was a British Consul in Jerusalem, in the then Ottoman Empire. He arrived in 1845 with his wife Elizabeth Anne Finn, Finn was a devout Christian, who belonged to the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, but who did not engage in missionary work during his years in Jerusalem. Finn was a writer and philanthropist and he was a great believer in productivity, an ideology that was very much in vogue at the time, and in 1853 purchased for £250 Karm al-Khalil a barren piece of land outside the walls of the Old City. Kerem Avraham was established as a farm for Jews in agriculture. Finn employed Jewish labourers to build the first house there in 1855, cisterns for water storage were built and a soap factory was established which produced high quality soap sold to tourists. He helped establish the experimental farm at the village of Artas outside Bethlehem, James Finn,1868, Byeways in Palestine, London 482pp. James Finn, Byeways in Palestine, Adamant Media, Boston,2002 reprint of the London 1868 original, ISBN 1-4021-9272-X James Finn, The Orphan Colony of Jews in China. Containing a letter received from themselves, with the latest information concerning them, Finn, James, Stirring Times, Or Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856. Edited by Elizabeth Anne Finn. vol, the full text, archive. org, Original, Harvard. Can download PDF. alternative, Stirring Times, Or Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856, edited by Elizabeth Anne Finn. vol. The full text, archive. org, Original, University of Michigan, Finn, James, Stirring Times, Or Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856. Edited by Elizabeth Anne Finn. vol, the full text, archive. org, Original, Harvard. Can download PDF. alternative, Stirring Times, Or Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856, edited by Elizabeth Anne Finn. vol. The full text, archive. org, Original, University of Michigan, the Jews in China London, Wertheim. -University of Hong Kong Libraries, Digital Initiatives, China Through Western Eyes Finn, the orphan colony of Jews in China London, Nisbet. -University of Hong Kong Libraries, Digital Initiatives, China Through Western Eyes Elizabeth Anne McCaul Finn, a tale illustrating customs and incidents in modern Jerusalem. Adamant Media, Boston,2002 reprint of the London 1866 original, ISBN 978-1-4021-1768-8 Elizabeth Anne McCaul Finn, A Third Year in Jerusalem. A tale illustrating customs and incidents of modern Jerusalem, or, Adamant Media, Boston,2002 reprint of the London 1869 original
29.
Cyprus
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Cyprus, officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean and the third largest and third most populous island in the Mediterranean. It is located south of Turkey, west of Syria and Lebanon, northwest of Israel and Palestine, north of Egypt, the earliest known human activity on the island dates to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia. Cyprus was settled by Mycenaean Greeks in two waves in the 2nd millennium BC, Cyprus was placed under British administration based on Cyprus Convention in 1878 and formally annexed by Britain in 1914. While Turkish Cypriots made up 18% of the population, the partition of Cyprus and creation of a Turkish state in the north became a policy of Turkish Cypriot leaders, following nationalist violence in the 1950s, Cyprus was granted independence in 1960. On 15 July 1974, a coup détat was staged by Greek Cypriot nationalists and elements of the Greek military junta in an attempt at enosis and these events and the resulting political situation are matters of a continuing dispute. The Cyprus Republic has de jure sovereignty over the island of Cyprus, as well as its territorial sea and exclusive economic area, another nearly 4% of the islands area is covered by the UN buffer zone. The international community considers the part of the island as territory of the Republic of Cyprus occupied by Turkish forces. The occupation is viewed as illegal under law, amounting to illegal occupation of EU territory since Cyprus became a member of the European Union. Cyprus is a major tourist destination in the Mediterranean, on 1 January 2008, the Republic of Cyprus joined the eurozone. The earliest attested reference to Cyprus is the 15th century BC Mycenaean Greek
30.
Ramla
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Ramla is a city in central Israel. The city is predominantly Jewish with a significant Arab minority, Ramla was founded circa 705–715 CE by the Umayyad governor and future caliph Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik. Ramla lies along the route of the Via Maris, connecting old Cairo with Damascus, at its intersection with the road connecting the port of Jaffa with Jerusalem. It was conquered many times in the course of its history, by the Abbasids, the Ikhshidids, the Fatimids, the Seljuqs, the Crusaders, the Mameluks, the Turks, the British, and the Israelis. After an outbreak of the Black Death in 1347, which reduced the population. Under Arab and Ottoman rule the city became an important trade center, napoleons French Army occupied it in 1799 on its way to Acre. The town had an Arab majority before most of its Arab inhabitants were expelled or fled during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the town was subsequently repopulated by Jewish immigrants. In 2001, 80% of the population were Jewish and 20% Arab, in recent years, attempts have been made to develop and beautify the city, which has been plagued by neglect, financial problems and a negative public image. New shopping malls and public parks have been built, and a museum opened in 2001. A2013 Israeli police report documented that the Central District ranks fourth among Israels seven districts in terms of drug-related arrests, today, five prisons are located in Ramla, including the maximum-security Ayalon Prison. Its name was derived from the Arabic word raml, meaning sand, the early residents came from nearby Ludd. Ramla flourished as the capital of Jund Filastin, which was one of the five districts of the Syrian province of the Ummayad, Ramla was the principal city and district capital almost until the arrival of the Crusaders in the 11th century. In the 8th century, the Ummayads built the White Mosque, the remains of this mosque, flanked by a minaret added at a later date, can still be seen today. In the courtyard are underground water cisterns from this period, Ramla was sometimes referred to as Filastin, in keeping with the common practice of referring to districts by the name of their main city. The 10th-century geographer al-Muqaddasi describes Ramla at the peak of its prosperity, It is a fine city and it combines manifold advantages, situated as it is in the midst of beautiful villages and lordly towns, near to holy places and pleasant hamlets. Commerce here is prosperous, and the markets excellent. The bread is of the best, the lands are well favoured above all others, and the fruits are the most luscious. This capital stands among fields, walled towns and serviceable hospices. Ramlas economic importance, shared with the city of Lydda, was based on its strategic location
31.
Sar'a
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Sara, was a Palestinian Arab village located 25 km west of Jerusalem, depopulated in the 1948 war. The Canaanites referred to Sara by the name of Sura or Zorah, mentioned in the Amarna letters, subsequently it was a Danite place, Sara had two shrines, one of which is still standing. The first belongs to al-Nabi Samat, and the other for an unknown individual, the village also has several khirbas including Khirbat al-Tahuna, where the ruins of a building constructed of ashlars and the foundations of other buildings. Incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517 with the rest of Palestine, the villagers paid taxes on a number of crops, including wheat, barley, olives, goats and beehives. In 1838 Edward Robinson reported that the village belonged to the Keis faction, together with Laham Sheiks, in 1863 Victor Guérin found it to be a village with some three hundred inhabitants. An Ottoman village list of about 1870 indicated 21 houses and a population of 59, in 1883, the Palestine Exploration Funds Survey of Western Palestine described it as a moderate sized village, standing on a low hill. A domed maqam, Neby Samat, stood to the south and this tomb is close to the Mukam of Neby Samit—a domed chamber, with an outer chamber to the west, and a door to the north, on which side is a courtyard, with a palm tree. The chamber has a mihrab, and by it are green rags, in the court are two Arab graves. To the west are several kokim tombs full of bones and skulls, other caves, cisterns, and a wine-press, north of the Mukam, were observed. Sheikh Samit, or Samat, was said to have been the brother of Shemshun el Jabar, whose Neby was at Ishwa. You enter the yard through a door in this wall, up two or three steps, but beyond the bare walls, and a solitary palm-tree, twice the height of the wall. In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Saraa had a population 205, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 271, still all Muslims, in 65 houses. In 1945 the population of Saris was 340, all Muslims, of the land,194 dunams were plantations and irrigable land and 2,979 were for cereals, while 16 dunams were built-up land. Sara was captured by Israels Harel Brigade on July 13–14,1948, many of the inhabitants had already fled, as the village had been on the front lines since April. Those who had remained fled when the mortar barrages from the approaching Harel columns began, the villages inhabitants fled the village towards various West Bank refugee camps, including Qalandiya. The Israeli locality of Tarum was established on the part of village land in 1950, while Tzora was established about 2 km southwest of the site. According to the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, the remaining structures on the village land were in 1992, Stone rubble. A flat stone, surrounded by debris and inscribed with Arabic verses from the Quran, on the western edge of the site stands a shrine containing the tombs of two local religious teachers
32.
Muslim
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A Muslim is someone who follows or practices Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Muslims consider the Quran, their book, to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Islamic prophet. They also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad as recorded in traditional accounts, Muslim is an Arabic word meaning one who submits. Most Muslims will accept anyone who has publicly pronounced Shahadah as a Muslim, the shahadah states, There is no god but the God and Muhammad is the last messenger of the God. The testimony authorized by God in the Quran that can found in Surah 3,18 states, There is no god except God, which in Arabic, is the exact testimony which God Himself utters, as well as the angels and those who possess knowledge utter. The word muslim is the active participle of the verb of which islām is a verbal noun, based on the triliteral S-L-M to be whole. A female adherent is a muslima, the plural form in Arabic is muslimūn or muslimīn, and its feminine equivalent is muslimāt. The Arabic form muslimun is the stem IV participle of the triliteral S-L-M, the ordinary word in English is Muslim. It is sometimes transliterated as Moslem, which is an older spelling, the word Mosalman is a common equivalent for Muslim used in Central Asia. Until at least the mid-1960s, many English-language writers used the term Mohammedans or Mahometans, although such terms were not necessarily intended to be pejorative, Muslims argue that the terms are offensive because they allegedly imply that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God. Other obsolete terms include Muslimite and Muslimist, musulmán/Mosalmán is a synonym for Muslim and is modified from Arabic. In English it was sometimes spelled Mussulman and has become archaic in usage, the Muslim philosopher Ibn Arabi said, A Muslim is a person who has dedicated his worship exclusively to God. Islam means making ones religion and faith Gods alone. The Quran states that men were Muslims because they submitted to God, preached His message and upheld His values. Thus, in Surah 3,52 of the Quran, Jesus disciples tell him, We believe in God, and you be our witness that we are Muslims. In Muslim belief, before the Quran, God had given the Tawrat to Moses, the Zabur to David and the Injil to Jesus, who are all considered important Muslim prophets. The most populous Muslim-majority country is Indonesia, home to 12. 7% of the worlds Muslims, followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Egypt. About 20% of the worlds Muslims lives in the Middle East and North Africa, Sizable minorities are found in India, China, Russia, Ethiopia. The country with the highest proportion of self-described Muslims as a proportion of its population is Morocco
33.
Mandatory Palestine
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Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity under British administration, carved out of Ottoman Southern Syria after World War I. British civil administration in Palestine operated from 1920 until 1948, further confusing the issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, promising British support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. At the wars end the British and French set up a joint Occupied Enemy Territory Administration in what had been Ottoman Syria, the British achieved legitimacy for their continued control by obtaining a mandate from the League of Nations in June 1922. The civil Mandate administration was formalized with the League of Nations consent in 1923 under the British Mandate for Palestine, the land west of the Jordan River, known as Palestine, was under direct British administration until 1948. The land east of the Jordan, a region known as Transjordan, under the rule of the Hashemite family from the Hijaz. The divergent tendencies regarding the nature and purpose of the mandate are visible already in the discussions concerning the name for this new entity. As a set-off to this, certain of the Arab politicians suggested that the country should be called Southern Syria in order to emphasise its close relation with another Arab State. During the British Mandate period the area experienced the ascent of two major nationalist movements, one among the Jews and the other among the Arabs, following its occupation by British troops in 1917–1918, Palestine was governed by the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration. In July 1920, the administration was replaced by a civilian administration headed by a High Commissioner. The first High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel, a Zionist recent cabinet minister, arrived in Palestine on 20 June 1920, following the arrival of the British, Muslim-Christian Associations were established in all the major towns. In 1919 they joined to hold the first Palestine Arab Congress in Jerusalem and its main platforms were a call for representative government and opposition to the Balfour Declaration. The Zionist Commission was formed in March 1918 and was active in promoting Zionist objectives in Palestine, on 19 April 1920, elections were held for the Assembly of Representatives of the Palestinian Jewish community. The Zionist Commission received official recognition in 1922 as representative of the Palestinian Jewish community, Rutenberg soon established an electric company whose shareholders were Zionist organizations, investors, and philanthropists. Palestinian-Arabs saw it as proof that the British intended to favor Zionism, when Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Kamil al-Husayni died in March 1921, High Commissioner Samuel appointed his half-brother Mohammad Amin al-Husseini to the position. Amin al-Husseini, a member of the clan of Jerusalem, was an Arab nationalist. As Grand Mufti, as well as the influential positions that he held during this period. In 1922, al-Husseini was elected President of the Supreme Muslim Council which had created by Samuel in December 1921. The Council controlled the Waqf funds, worth annually tens of thousands of pounds, in addition, he controlled the Islamic courts in Palestine
34.
Village Statistics, 1945
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The data were calculated as of April 1,1945, and was later published and also served the UNSCOP committee that operated in 1947. Scan of the document at the National Library of Israel. Village Statistics of 1945, A Classification of Land and Area ownership in Palestine
35.
Cereal
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A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain, composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. Edible grains from plant families, such as buckwheat, quinoa. In their natural form, cereals are a source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils. When refined by the removal of the bran and germ, the endosperm is mostly carbohydrate. In some developing nations, grain in the form of rice, wheat, millet, in developed nations, cereal consumption is moderate and varied but still substantial. The word cereal is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of harvest, agriculture allowed for the support of an increased population, leading to larger societies and eventually the development of cities. It also created the need for organization of political power, as decisions had to be made regarding labor and harvest allocation and access rights to water. Agriculture bred immobility, as populations settled down for long periods of time, early Neolithic villages show evidence of the development of processing grain. The Levant is the ancient home of the ancestors of wheat, barley and peas, there is evidence of the cultivation of figs in the Jordan Valley as long as 11,300 years ago, and cereal production in Syria approximately 9,000 years ago. During the same period, farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using man-made floods, fiber crops were domesticated as early as food crops, with China domesticating hemp, cotton being developed independently in Africa and South America, and Western Asia domesticating flax. The first cereal grains were domesticated by early primitive humans, about 8,000 years ago, they were domesticated by ancient farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region. Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley were three of the so-called Neolithic founder crops in the development of agriculture, around the same time, millets and rices were starting to become domesticated in East Asia. Sorghum and millets were also being domesticated in sub-Saharan West Africa, while each individual species has its own peculiarities, the cultivation of all cereal crops is similar. Most are annual plants, consequently one planting yields one harvest, wheat, rye, triticale, oats, barley, and spelt are the cool-season cereals. These are hardy plants grow well in moderate weather and cease to grow in hot weather. The warm-season cereals are tender and prefer hot weather, barley and rye are the hardiest cereals, able to overwinter in the subarctic and Siberia. Many cool-season cereals are grown in the tropics, however, some are only grown in cooler highlands, where it may be possible to grow multiple crops per year
36.
Israel Defense Forces
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The Israel Defense Forces, commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal, are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the forces, air force, and navy. It is the military wing of the Israeli security forces. The IDF is headed by its Chief of General Staff, the Ramatkal, subordinate to the Defense Minister of Israel, Lieutenant general Gadi Eizenkot has served as Chief of Staff since 2015. The number of wars and border conflicts in which the IDF has been involved in its history makes it one of the most battle-trained armed forces in the world. The Israel Defense Forces differs from most armed forces in the world in many ways, differences include the mandatory conscription of women and its structure, which emphasizes close relations between the army, navy, and air force. Since its founding, the IDF has been designed to match Israels unique security situation. The IDF is one of Israeli societys most prominent institutions, influencing the economy, culture. In 1965, the Israel Defense Forces was awarded the Israel Prize for its contribution to education, the Uzi submachine gun was invented in Israel and used by the IDF until December 2003, ending a service that began in 1954. The Israeli cabinet ratified the name Israel Defense Forces, Tzva HaHagana LeYisrael, literally army for the defense of Israel, the other main contender was Tzva Yisrael. The name was chosen because it conveyed the idea that the role was defense, and because it incorporated the name Haganah. Among the primary opponents of the name were Minister Haim-Moshe Shapira, the IDF traces its roots to Jewish paramilitary organizations in the New Yishuv, starting with the Second Aliyah. The first such organization was Bar-Giora, founded in September 1907 and it was converted to Hashomer in April 1909, which operated until the British Mandate of Palestine came into being in 1920. Hashomer was an elitist organization with narrow scope, and was created to protect against criminal gangs seeking to steal property. During World War I, the forerunners of the Haganah/IDF were the Zion Mule Corps, after the Arab riots against Jews in April 1920, the Yishuvs leadership saw the need to create a nationwide underground defense organization, and the Haganah was founded in June of the same year. The Haganah became a defense force after the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine with an organized structure. During World War II the successor to the Jewish Legion of World War I was the Jewish Brigade, the IDF was founded following the establishment of the State of Israel, after Defense Minister and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion issued an order on 26 May 1948. The order called for the establishment of the Israel Defense Forces, although Ben-Gurion had no legal authority to issue such an order, the order was made legal by the cabinet on 31 May
37.
Operation Ha-Har
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Operation Ha-Har, or Operation El Ha-Har, was an Israeli Defence Forces campaign against villages southwest of Jerusalem launched at the end of October 1948. The Operation lasted from 18 to 24 October and was carried out by troops from the Harel, the villages were defended by units from the Egyptian army. By the end of the campaign over a dozen villages had been captured and it coincided with Operation Yoav which attacked Egyptian positions further south. These schemes will be eradicated on the battlefield, up until that time, the Brigade had been active in capturing infiltrators who sought to carry-out attacks against Jews and their property, as also in securing the public transportation to Jerusalem. The Regimental Operations Department initiated patrols south of the Jerusalem Corridor and they assumed that when fighting resumed, the task of the Brigade would be to expand the corridor southward. In a written dispatch, Raanana had informed Palmach-Harel headquarters responsible for the front, In all these last few days. There has been an exchange of unrelenting gun-fire, the strategic location itself is not easy to hold-on to, since it is much lower than the other positions. Raanana waited impatiently for an answer, but his request to occupy other positions was denied him. Hostilities began on 15 October 1948, when Israeli troops assigned to Operation Yoav took the offensive to the south, if that were to happen, the Brigade would have lost its opportunity to expand the Jerusalem Corridor by ridding it of hostile elements. The Jordanian Arab Legion had decided to concentrate its forces in Bethlehem and in Hebron in order to save that district for its Arab inhabitants, and to prevent territorial gains for Israel. Egyptian forces that were operating in the region, while simultaneously making an effort not to inadvertently draw the Arab Legion into armed conflict with Israeli forces. Egyptian forces lay to the east, while Israeli forces to the west, the attack was spearheaded by a company of men conscripted from abroad, accompanied with artillery fire and Davidka mortars. The sudden onslaught and bombardment caused a retreat of all Egyptian forces from the Arab village, during this battle, Israeli forces suffered only one casualty, the commander of operations belonging to the Fifth Battalion. This was done with the intent of making it a springboard for military operations while advancing toward the mountains overlooking al-Khader, Bethlehem. The plan was to cross-over the railroad line that connected Jerusalem with Hartuv, scouts succeeded in crossing over the railway without being detected, and reached a position southwest of Dayr al-Hawa. When a second detail was sent out to ascertain whether or not the route could be traversed, they were ambushed by gunfire, a third detail sent out was also fired upon, which actions taken together gave the Brigade a correct assessment of the enemys preparedness for battle. Given these circumstances, plans were drawn-up for the attack on Dayr al-Hawa, in addition to the massive firepower from their personal weapons, they were also aided by a 120 mm. mortar battery. When they had come within 200 meters of the village, the firing of weapons used to assist them in the initial onslaught was brought to a halt
38.
Operation Yoav
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Operation Yoav was an Israeli military operation carried out from 15–22 October 1948 in the Negev Desert, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Its goal was to drive a wedge between the Egyptian forces along the coast and the Beersheba–Hebron–Jerusalem road and ultimately to conquer the whole Negev, Operation Yoav was headed by the Southern Front commander Yigal Allon. The operation was named after Yitzhak Dubno, codenamed Yoav by his commanders in the Palmach, Dubno, a senior Palmach officer, was charged with planning and leading the defense of the kibbutzim Negba and Yad Mordechai. Dubno was killed in an air raid on Kibbutz Negba shortly after Egyptian forces began their offensive on Israels southern front, in the central and northern parts of Palestine, the Israelis had managed to make substantial territorial gains before the second truce of the war went into effect. But the southern Negev Desert, allocated to a Jewish state in the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, was still under Egyptian control, despite the second truce, the Egyptians denied Jewish convoys passage through to the Negev, and captured positions beyond the truce demarcation lines. Operation Ten Plagues was made and approved at a Cabinet Session 6 October 1948, the operation came after at 14 October 1948 when a convoy consisting of 16 trucks was fired on as it passed through Egyptian positions. The Operation coincided with Operation ha-Har, 18-24 October, in which the Harel, on October 18 the Oded Brigade also joined in the operation. In the evening of October 15 the Israeli Air Force bombed Gaza, al-Majdal, Beersheba, some targets were bombed again during the following two nights. A battalion of the Yiftach Brigade mined the railroad between El-Arish and Rafah and various roads in the Gaza area, also driving a wedge into the road, two battalions of the Givati Brigade drove south east of Iraq al-Manshiyya, thus cutting the road between al-Faluja and Beit Jibrin. Beit Jibrin was captured by the 52 Battalion of Givati and the 8th Brigade on October 23, in the early morning hours of October 21, following two nights of air raids, the Negev Brigade and 8th Armored Brigade attacked Beersheba from the west. Another force joined them from the north, the Egyptian army garrison consisted of 500 soldiers with some light artillery. They put up resistance for five hours before surrendering. The conquest of Beersheba was named Operation Moshe, after Moshe Albert, while a truce was ordered for 15,00 hours on 22 October, action in the days immediately following the operation, and associated with it, continued. After the Egyptians retreated southward from Ashdod and al-Majdal to Gaza, on 9 November, the Iraq Suwaydan fortress was captured and renamed the Yoav Fortress in honor of the operation. On 29 October soldiers from the 8th Brigade carried out a massacre at al-Dawayima, towards the end of the operation General Allon sought permission to launch an attack on the Hebron hills and into the Jericho valley. David Ben-Gurion refused, mainly due to an agreement with King Abdullah on the division of the West Bank. The United Nations Refugee Relief Project reported that the Gaza Strips refugee population had jumped from 100,000 to 230,000 as a result of Operation Yoav and this figure does not include those who fled to the Hebron Hills
39.
Palestinian refugees
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The number of original refugees who meet UNRWAs Palestine Refugee criteria was 711,000 in 1950 of which approximately 30, 000–50,000 were still alive in 2012. Only 10% said they would live in Israel if given the option, a Palestine refugee camp is a plot of land placed at the disposal of UNRWA by the host government to accommodate Palestine refugees and to set up facilities to cater to their needs. Only around 1.4 million of registered Palestine refugees, approximately one-third, live in the 58 UNRWA-recognised refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, the UNRWA definition does not cover final status. Registered descendants of UNRWA Palestine refugees, like Nansen passport and Certificate of Eligibility holders or like UNHCR refugees, the patrilineal descendants of the original Palestine refugees are also eligible for registration. In many cases UNHCR provides support for the children of Palestine refugees too, Palestinians make several distinctions relating to Palestinian refugees. The 1948 refugees and their descendants are broadly defined as refugees and those who left since 1967, and their descendants, are called nazihun or displaced persons, though many may also descend from the 1948 group. Most Palestinian refugees have retained their status and continue to reside in refugee camps, including within the State of Palestine in the West Bank. Their descendants form a portion of the Palestinian diaspora. During the 1948 Palestine War,711,000 out of around 900,000 Palestine Arabs fled or were expelled from the territories became the State of Israel. Instead, they chose to leave, either because they were unwilling to live with the Jews and they thought they could leave temporarily and return at their leisure. Later, a claim was put forth, namely that the Palestinians were ordered to leave. According to Benny Morris, between December 1947 and March 1948, around 100,000 Palestine Arabs fled. Among them were many from the higher and middle classes from the cities, expulsions took place in many towns and villages, particularly along the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem road and in Eastern Galilee. About 50, 000-70,000 inhabitants of Lydda and Ramle were expelled towards Ramallah by the Israel Defense Forces during Operation Danny, during Operation Dekel, the Arabs of Nazareth and South Galilee were allowed to remain in their homes. Today they form the core of the Arab Israeli population and these events generated an exodus of 200,000 to 220,000 Palestinian Arabs. Here, Arabs fled fearing atrocities or were expelled if they had not fled, after the war, from 1948 to 1950, the IDF resettled around 30,000 to 40,000 Arabs from the borderlands of the new Israeli state. The Palestinian exodus from Kuwait took place during and after the Gulf War, after the Gulf War, Kuwaiti authorities forcibly pressured nearly 200,000 Palestinians to leave Kuwait in 1991. Prior to the Gulf War, Palestinians numbered 400,0000 of Kuwaits population of 2.2 million, the Palestinians who fled Kuwait were Jordanian citizens
