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Palestine....
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Palestine (Filasteen فلسطين) has been the
Arabic name of the region
since the earliest medieval Arab geographers (adopted from then
the-current Greek term Παλαιστινη (in Latinised form: Palaestina), first
used by Herodotus, itself derived ultimately from the name of the
Philistines), and "Palestinian" (Filasteeni فلسطسيني) was always a common
nisba adopted by natives of the region, starting as early as the first
century after the Hijra.
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The earliest known people in Palestine were the
Canaanites and Amorites. Some historians regard them as part of a wave of
migration of Semitic-speaking peoples out of the Arabian Peninsula, while
others suggest that they had been there ever since the original Semitic
emigration from Africa. Later, the Israelites, possibly descendants of a
Canaanite group, appeared. According to the
Bible they returned there
following the Exodus from ancient Egypt, conquering, exterminating, and
absorbing the tribes they found there and reclaiming the land it says God
promised them. Successive waves of migration brought other groups onto the
scene. Around 1200 BC the Hittite empire was conquered by allied tribes from
the north. |
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The northern, coastal Canaanites (called the
Phoenicians
by the Greeks) were temporarily displaced, but returned when the invading
tribes showed no inclination to settle. The Egyptians called the horde that
swept across Asia Minor and the Mediterranean the Sea Peoples. The early
Philistines are thought to have been amongst them. The region in which they
settled is known as Philistia. |
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The State of Palestine (Arabic: دولة فلسطين) was
proclaimed on November 15, 1988 by the Palestinian National Council, the
legislative body of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), in
Algiers, by a vote of 253-46, with 10 abstentions. The declaration invoked
the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) and UN General Assembly Resolution 181 in
support of its claim to a "State of Palestine on our Palestinian territory
with its capital Jerusalem. It became the most diplomatically successful
of a number of efforts to create a Palestinian state, despite the fact
that, because the State of Palestine did not have control over any
territory at the time, it did not fulfill a typical requirement of an
autonomous state — possession of sovereign territory. Currently, the
Palestinian National Authority, along with the United States, the European
Union, and the Arab League, envision the establishment of a State of
Palestine to include all or part of the West Bank,
the Gaza Strip, and
East Jerusalem, living in peace with Israel under a democratically elected
and transparent government. |
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