Annexation
Annexation refers to the assertion by one sovereign body of control over the territory of another sovereign body. Under international law, annexation is only considered legal if as a result of a peace treaty. Other forms of annexation that result from hostile processes of invasion and occupation are considered illegal (Wrange, Pål. Occupation/annexation of a territory: Respect for international humanitarian law and human rights and consistent EU policy, European Parliament, 2015, pg. 14).
Antisemitism
Contemporary understandings of antisemitism are contested and politicized. In response to this politicization, scholars from a range of disciplines came together in 2020 to develop a clarified definition of antisemitism as “discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish)” (Jerusalem Declaration). Readers are encouraged to explore the full Jerusalem Declaration to support a rich appreciation for the complexities surrounding the understanding of antisemitism as a cultural phenomenon.
Apartheid
As defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 2022, apartheid is the commitment of crimes against humanity “in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime." Apartheid itself is considered a crime against humanity in Article 7 of the Rome Statute. Apartheid means “apartness” in the white Afrikaner language, first used as a slogan of the National Party of South Africa in the 1948 South African election, and later defining the system of segregationist policies instituted by a white South African government until its dismantling in the early 1990s (“Apartheid,” Oxford English Dictionary, accessed 3/18/2024).
Arab
‘Arab’ is a broad term that has historically been used to refer to native inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula. In its modern usage, ‘Arab’ tends to refer to all those who speak Arabic across a wide area of Africa and the Middle East, thus exceeding simplistic alignment with any one race-based or culture-based population (“Arab,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 4/01/2024).
BDS (Boycott, Sanctions, & Divestment)
BDS is a Palestinian-led movement that utilizes the non-violent strategies of economic isolation to pressure Israel and its allies to recognize Palestinians’ rights and sovereignty. It was launched in 2005 by a wide range of organizations within Palestinian civil society, including unions, refugee networks, and women’s organizations (What is BDS?, Palestinian BDS National Committee, accessed 2/26/2024).
Blockade/Siege
A blockade or siege is a military option that prevents imports or exports to and from a particular location, by sea/air and land, respectively. International law stipulates that regardless of blockade or siege, states must ensure the passage of critical humanitarian relief to civilian populations (“Blockade,” The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law, Doctors without Borders, accessed 4/01/2024).
Ceasefire
The OED defines “ceasefire” as “a (temporary) suspension of hostilities; an agreement made to effect this; a truce (“Ceasefire, N., Sense 2,” accessed 3/04/2024).
Collective Punishment
Collective punishment is the penalizing of whole communities in response to the actions of one or more persons who may be members of that community or are otherwise associated. Article 33 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 explicitly forbids collective punishment: “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” This article's protections extend to prisoners of war as well as any other individuals (“Collective Punishment,” The Practical Guide to Humanitarian Law, Doctors without Borders, accessed 3/04/2024).
Colonialism
Colonialism refers to a diverse set of practices and social relations, but can be most concisely understood as “a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one people to another.” In our current era, colonialism tends to refer to “the project of European political domination that began in the early sixteenth century” (“Colonialism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring 2023 Edition).
Decolonization
As colonialism/colonization are broad terms, so too does decolonization encompass a range of concepts. However, decolonization may be concisely understood as the re-empowerment of those oppressed by colonial systems. The Movement for Black Lives defined decolonization as “the active resistance against colonial powers and a shifting of power towards acquisition of our own political, economic, educational, cultural, psychic independence and power” (“Glossary,” accessed 3/18/2024). Thus, decolonization does not happen only on the public stage, but must also be endeavored towards within our personal lives as well.
Ethnic Cleansing
In a 1994 letter addressing violations of the Geneva Conventions in former Yugoslavia, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali defined “ethnic cleansing” as “a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas” (S/1994/674).
Fatah
Fatah was a militant political organization which utilized guerilla tactics to attempt to regain control of Palestine from Israel. Fatah was led by Khalīl al-Wazīr and Yassir Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and later president of the Palestinian Authority. Following Arafat’s death in 2004, original Fatah member Mahmoud Abbas assumed leadership of both Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (“Fatah,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 4/01/2024).
Forced Displacement
Forced displacement refers to the undesired migration of people for various reasons, from social coercion to environmental disaster (Glossary of Migration, International Organization for Migration, 2019).
“From the river to the sea”
“From the river to the sea” is a slogan whose popularization is attributed to the Palestinian liberation movement of the 1960s, but historically its origins are unclear. In our current moment, there is debate as to whether this phrase is simply a call for Palestinian freedom on the historic Palestinian lands (located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea), or if it implies the dissolution of the State of Israel and, further, implies antisemitic sentiment. In discussing the phrase, Demitri Coryton notes, “As always with slogans, context is everything” (“From the river to the sea” – is this slogan anti-Semitic?,” Education Journal, No. 542, 11/22/2023). Further, he underlines both that most Palestinians and their supporters in the “West” understand the phrase to simply mean support for Palestinian sovereignty, and that the Israeli conservative Likud Party has indeed used the phrase themselves in the late 1970s to call for only Israeli sovereignty within the borders the phrase declares, arguing that this history demonstrates that the phrase itself cannot be deemed essentially antisemitic.
Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip, or simply Gaza, is a Palestinian territory bordering the Mediterranean Sea, northeast of the Sinai Peninsula. After 1948, Gaza became a locus for Palestinian refugees fleeing the Nakba. In 1967, Israel invaded the Gaza Strip following the Six-Day War and remained an occupying force until 2005, when Israel transferred control to the Palestinian Authority. In 2006, Hamas won parliamentary elections and control over the Gaza Strip, eventually prompting an Israeli blockade of power cuts, heavily restricted imports, and border closures that persist to the present day. With a population of over 2 million living in a total area of 141 sq. miles, the Gaza Strip has one of the world’s highest population densities (“Gaza Strip,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 3/18/2024).
Genocide
Genocide is the mass murder of a social group as such; the Holocaust was a genocide of European Jews perpetrated by Nazi Germany, while the Rwandan genocide of 1994 was a genocide of the Tutsi Rwandan minority by the Hutu Rwandan majority. In response to the Holocaust, the UN General Assembly wrote the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which elaborates: “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” (Article II).
Hamas
Founded in 1987, Hamas is a militant Palestinian nationalist and Islamist movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that is dedicated to the establishment of an independent Islamic state in historical Palestine (“Hamas,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 3/04/2024).
Intifada
An intifada is a term for rebellion or uprising, literally a “shaking off” in Arabic (“Gaza Strip,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 3/18/2024). Historically, Intifada signifies one of two popular uprisings of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation, the first lasting from 1987 to 1993, the second lasting from 2000 to 2005 (“Intifada,” accessed 3/18/2024).
Iron Dome
The Iron Dome is an Israeli short-range air defense system thats detects incoming missile fire, assesses its likely point of impact, and intercepts it before it lands (“Iron Dome,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 3/18/2024). As the BBC reports, the US contributed a total of $1.6 billion to the Iron Dome defense system between 2011 and 2021, compared to an overall aid package of $38 billion across the decade 2017-2028 (“Israel-Gaza: How much money does Israel get from the US?,” BBC, 5/24/2021).
Islam
Islam is a monotheistic religious tradition based in Muslim beliefs and the prophecy of Muhammad. However, like many other major religions, Islam has within it numerous traditions and practices (Curtis, Edward E. "Introduction". Across the Worlds of Islam: Muslim Identities, Beliefs, and Practices from Asia to America, Columbia University Press, 2023, pp. 1-14.)
Islamophobia
The OED defines “Islamophobia” as “intense dislike or fear of Islam, especially as a political force; hostility or prejudice towards Muslims” (“Islamophobia,” accessed 3/18/2024).
IDF (Israel Defense Forces)
The Israel Defense Forces are the national military of the State of Israel (“Our Mission,” Israel Defense Forces, accessed 4/01/2024).
Israeli
Israelis are the citizens of the State of Israel. 75% of the Israeli population are Jewish, 20% are Arab, and the remaining 5% are made up of various minorities (“People of Israel,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 4/01/2024).
Judaism
Judaism is the monotheistic religious tradition of the Jewish people. Like other major religions, Judaism has within it numerous diverse traditions and practices. It can be said that Judaism is unified by the belief in the Jewish people’s covenant with God. In the modern era, many Jewish people experience Judaism as not merely a religious faith but a cultural tradition, an ethnic identity, and a nation. (Borowitz, Eugene B. “Judaism: An Overview,” The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 8, MacMillan, 1987, pg. 127-149).
Likud
Likud is the main right-wing Israeli party, established by Ariel Sharon and Menachem Begin in 1973 (A History of Modern Israel, Cambridge University Press, 2013, pg. XV).
Nakba
The Nakba, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war (“About the Nakba,” United Nations, accessed 3/04/2024).
Occupation
Article 42 of the 1907 Hague Regulations states: “territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.”
Open Air Prison
Some refer to the Gaza Strip as an “open air prison” because of the Israeli blockade on the territory, which has been ongoing since 2006 and the election of Hamas to power. This blockade heavily restricts imports and exports, leading to intense poverty, and impedes the movement of people in and out of the territory (Simon, Scott and Al-Shalchi, Hadeel. “Gaza is called an open-air prison. How did it get to this?” NPR, 11/04/2023).
Oslo Accords
The Oslo Accords were a set of agreements reached between the State of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in Oslo in 1993. Though they represented an agreement for mutual recognition between the parties, the Accords merely outlined a transitional process towards Palestinian statehood. The material conditions of the agreement remained unsettled (Nathan J. Brown, “The Palestinian Authority,” Politics and Society in the Contemporary Middle East, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010, pg. 367-386).
Palestinian
Palestinians are a diasporic population of Arab peoples originating in historic Palestine. They include millions who still live in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as millions living all around the world (“Who are the Palestinians?” Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, retrieved 4/01/2024).
Palestinian Authority
As a result of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian National Authority (more commonly known as the Palestinian Authority, or PA) was founded in 1994 to administer Palestinian towns and cities. The PA governed both the West Bank and Gaza until 2007 when, through democratic elections, Hamas rose to power in Gaza and subsequently asserted complete control of it (Nathan J. Brown, “The Palestinian Authority,” Politics and Society in the Contemporary Middle East, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010, pg. 367-386).
Palestine Liberation Organization
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is an international coalition group representing Palestinians. From 1967, the PLO led the resistance movement seeking sovereignty for Palestinians in their historic homeland, leading up to the Oslo Accords, when Israel agreed to recognize the PLO as a state and cede transitional control to a new body, the Palestinian National Authority (Nathan J. Brown, “The Palestinian Authority,” Politics and Society in the Contemporary Middle East, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010, pg. 367-386).
Settlement
The OED defines “settlement” as “the action of taking up residence in or settling in a place; a group of people who have settled; a place thus occupied” (“Settlement, N., Sense I.1.a.,” accessed 3/19/2024). In the context of Israeli-Palestinian relations, Israeli settlements in territories occupied by Israel following the Six-Day War of 1967 have included settlements in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula, most but not all supported by the Israeli government. Generally, these settlements are not internationally recognized as areas to which Israel has a legitimate claim (“Israeli settlement,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 3/19/2024).
State of Palestine
While the Palestinian people have long called for their independence and sovereignty, international recognition of the State of Palestine is a relatively recent development that is by no means uncomplicated. Major milestones toward the international recognition of the State of Palestine have primarily been taken through the United Nations: in 1988, following the proclamation of the State of Palestine, the UN moved to refer to the body known as the “Palestine Liberation Organization” as simply “Palestine” (A/RES/43/177); in 2012, the UN moved to include Palestine as a “non-member observer state,” and to subsequently refer to Palestine as the “State of Palestine,” implicitly granting it an internationally recognized statehood (A/RES/67/19). Still, many major countries do not recognize Palestine as a state, including the U.S., on the grounds that the development of a Palestinian state are contingent on negotiations between Israel and Palestine alone.
Two-state solution
A two-state solution refers to the broad concept that in order to end the conflict between Palestinians and the State of Israel, states must be created for both parties. Some form of this idea has existed since before the development of an Israeli state; however, the sovereign bodies of each party have never reached a mutual vision of what this would materially mean (“Israel-Palestinian conflict: what is the two-state solution and what are the obstacles?” Reuters, 1/26/2024).
West Bank
The West Bank is a Palestinian territory bordering the west bank of the Jordan River. Primarily controlled by the Palestinian National Authority, the West Bank has nevertheless been subject to Israeli occupation since the Six-Day War in 1967, including several illegal Israeli settlements (“West Bank,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 3/19/2024).
Zionism
Though Zionism as a term can point to several movements—religious, social, political—modern Zionism is most concisely understood as referring to the Jewish nationalist movement to create a Jewish national state in historic Palestine (“Zionism,” Encyclopedia Britannica, accessed 3/19/2024).