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.
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
6.
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
