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This study explores the setting up and development of the first Palestinian-led education system, from 1994 to 2005. Given the context of chronic crisis, and the immensity of the endeavour, the Palestinians have made substantial progress in a relatively short time. However, the Palestinian education story does not end here. The author looks at both the opportunities and challenges for education in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and draws lessons for those in other conflict-affected areas. Major achievements include the development of core mechanisms for educational planning, administration, budgeting and co-ordination, as well as a new Palestinian curriculum framework, which has been instrumental in bringing Palestinian identify, history and culture into the classroom. There is greater harmonization of the West Bank and Gaza Strip within the education system, and expansion of access and inclusion has been built into the system. The following are appended: (1) Organization Structure for the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education; (2) Overview of Five-Year Plan; and (3) Palestinian Child Law 2005. (Contains 6 tables and 11 boxes.)

War and violence are part of day-to-day life for many of the world's children. This book explores the lives of the children of Cambodia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and inner-city Chicago. Through research on the psychological and developmental effects of trauma in early life and interviews with children in war zones around the world, the book examines how children cope with war and violence. Noting that while most children can cope with horrible experiences and high levels of stress if they have a secure relationship with parents or effective substitutes, the book points out that they may face lifelong challenges to their mental health, to their physical well-being, and to their moral development. The book's chapters are: (1) "Children and War"; (2) "At What Cost?"; (3) "Cambodian Survivors: Hell Is a Time and Place"; (4) "Mozambique's Children: Dying Is the Easy Part"; (5) "Nicaragua in Conflict: The Politics of Suffering"; (6) "Palestinians in Revolt: Children of the 'Intifada'"; (7) "Chicago: The War Close to Home"; and (8) "Making a Place for Children Who Have No Place To Be a Child." Contains 109 references. (LPP)

Chapter 1 of the book "Countries in Crisis: Israel" is presented. It highlights Israel's conflict with the Palestinian Arabs who live in Gaza and the West Bank, two disputed territories that border Israel occupied by both Palestinians and Jewish settlers. It also describes the threat posed by Palestinian rockets to Israeli military and civilian establishments.

Chapter 2 of the book "Palestinian Refugees: Challenges of Repatriation and Development," by Rex Brynen and Roula El-Rifai is presented. The chapter focuses on statistical data on Palestinian refugees. The author provides an overview of the socio-economic characteristics of refugees in the West Bank and Gaza as well as opinion survey data on refugee attitudes towards a possible resolution of the refugee issue. The critical gaps in the existing statistical information on the refugees and their circumstances are also identified.

Yasser Arafat's keffiyeh, folded and fixed in place with symbolic and folkloric importance, became the moral and political guide to Palestine … Yet, surprises were brewing elsewhere. When venturing back from the heights of Hellenic hermeneutics, the symbolic being had to shed some of the burden of his epic stature. A country had to be built and administered and new means were needed to end the occupation. He was now exposed and vulnerable; he could be touched, whispered about, brought to account. It was also the hero's misfortune to have to conquer his enemies in uneven battles and, simultaneously, to safeguard his image in the public imagination from festering protuberances. Arafat's funeral in Cairo and Ramallah, on 12 November 2004, exemplified the distinction between two sorts of heroic commemorative narratives: the first, an official ceremony mourning a founding father and head of state, and the other, that of a liberationist-nationalist movement burying a “martyred” icon of armed resistance. The entire spectacle was inflected through the lens of Israeli military occupation, which had made itself “invisible” for three days but which had ultimately set the parameters of the ceremony and subsequent burial (Jerusalem Post, 16 November 2004). In Cairo, attendance at the funeral organized by President Husni Mubarak was limited to dignitaries and was strictly closed to the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a situation like that of the Palestinians and Israelis, hardly anyone can be expected to drop the quest for national identity and go straight to a history-transcending universal rationalism. Each of the two communities, misled though both may be, is interested in its origins, its history of suffering, its need to survive. To recognize these imperatives, as components of national identity, and to try to reconcile them, rather than dismiss them as so much non-factual ideology, strikes me as the task in hand. Discursive practices are not purely and simply ways of producing discourse. They are embodied in technical processes, in institutions, in patterns for general behaviour, in forms for transmission and diffusion, and in pedagogical forms which, at once, impose and maintain them. By now, we know the images that flicker across the television screens during CNN or BBC or al-Jazeera news broadcasts about Palestinians: mournful or angry funerals of martyrs; walls papered with images of young dead men and, now and again, women; poignant or proud commemorations of collective death spoken in the idiom of battles and massacres; pasts that seem to linger; exile that is not forgotten; histories of suffering that are declared and compared. We hear about a surfeit of memory. Some claim that this mnemonic abundance is the final bulwark against capitulation – or compromise, depending on where you stand politically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is an analysis of television news reports from five countries dealing with an incident that took place in the West Bank village of Nahalin in April 1989 during the Palestinian uprising. The analysis of both the verbal and visual texts attempts to explicate open and closed presentations of the incident by referring to three dimensions, namely, the rhetoric of balance, the rhetoric of facticity, and the rhetoric of neutrality. The analysis suggests that the stories by both Israel Television and CBS are relatively closed with the Israeli case being defensive while that of CBS being offensive.

Defence of the East Bank By 8 June 1967 most elements of the Jordanian army stationed on the West Bank had retreated across the bridges of the River Jordan. Shattered and having suffered a stunning defeat at the hands of their enemy, their war was over. For their commanders at GHQs, including Riad, the next urgent task was to deal with the threat that the Israeli army would continue its offensive to Amman. The remaining forces under Riad's command were redeployed on the East Bank. On 7 June the only forces left to defend Jordan were the Eastern Command troops (the Al-Hussein and Yarmouk brigades), the Royal Guard brigade, the Iraqi forces (the 8th mechanized brigade and the 1st infantry brigade) and a Syrian mechanized infantry brigade which had arrived at 2.00 p.m. that day. These forces were concentrated in the areas of Naur and As-Salt, west of Amman, with the purpose of preventing an advance of Israeli troops to the capital. By 12 June the situation had improved. All the Iraqi forces promised to Jordan had arrived. These Iraqi troops (the Salahudin Forces) were composed of Iraq's 1st infantry, 8th mechanized, 6th armoured and 27th infantry brigades. Three Jordanian brigades which had been stationed on the West Bank had also regrouped on the East Bank. Two of these brigades, the Qadisiyeh (stationed in the Jordan Valley) and Hittin (stationed in the areas of Hebron), had escaped heavy fighting and suffered limited losses. They had withdrawn to the East Bank ready to occupy new defensive positions. What was left of the 60th armoured brigade had also succeeded in crossing the River Jordan and elements of it were still functional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of military operations in Jordan The universal feeling amongst the Jordanian and military leaders who were either observers or actively involved in the 1967 war was that their major mistake was to rely on the help and leadership of other Arab nations. Although they do not believe that Israel could have been prevented from seizing the West Bank they do feel that they would have put up a harder fight on their own. King Hussein later commented: In my view our first error was the fact that we did not organize our military operations on the basis of our own plans and according to our own capabilities. For so many years they talked to us about the Arab Command, the Commander-in-Chief of all the Arab armies and the assistance we could expect from our brethren … We relied on that which was natural. We should not have done so. For if we had not depended on the potential of outside support … war with Israel would undoubtedly have taken a totally different course. When one expects the air cover that I expected it was imperative that one acted the way I did. If our men had known from the beginning that they could not expect support from either Egypt, Syria or Iraq our strategy would have been different and Jerusalem would have been ours today. For during the first few days of this rapid war we placed Arab interest above our own. This is how I understood solidarity. Unfortunately no one else adhered to the same principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The war record On 3 June King Hussein received the Turkish Ambassador who informed him that Israel would start its offensive on 5 or 6 June with an air strike on Egypt's air bases. According to Juma'a this information was confirmed by the Iraqi Ambassador who visited him on 4 June and told him that according to their information Israel would open hostilities the following morning, that is, on 5 June. Juma'a and the Iraqi Ambassador then visited King Hussein to inform him of this development. King Hussein immediately told Khammash who informed Riad of the news. At King Hussein's request it was conveyed at once to the Egyptian High Command in Cairo. The Egyptians replied that they were expecting such an attack and were prepared for it. This was the third time that Jordan had warned Egypt that Israel was likely to commence hostilities in this way. The previous occasions had been at the meeting with Nasser on 30 May and 3 June when King Hussein had told Nasser that all the information coming into Jordan pointed to a surprise attack by Israel on Egyptian airfields on 5 or 6 June. At 7 a.m. the next day the Jordanian radar station at Ajloun showed intense aerial activity over Israel. This information was conveyed to Riad who immediately passed it on to the Egyptian High Command. However, the Egyptian High Command did not receive this message and consequently no alert was issued to its air force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The signing of the Egyptian–Jordanian Mutual Defence Treaty On the morning of 30 May 1967 King Hussein flew to Cairo to meet Nasser. He was accompanied by his Prime Minister, Saad Juma'a, his Foreign Minister, Ahmed Toukan, his Chief of Staff, Lt General Amer Khammash, the commander of the Royal Jordanian air force, Brigadier Saleh Al-Kurdi and an air force captain as aide de camp. At Cairo airport the Jordanians were met by Nasser and his four vice-Presidents. They went immediately to the Kubbeh Palace for talks. The Egyptian delegation included Nasser, the foreign minister, Mahmoud Riad, the Secretary-General of the Egyptian President's Office, Abdul Majid Farid, and the four vice-Presidents of the UAR, including Field Marshall Amer. Later they were joined by General Abdul Munim Riad, the Chief of Staff of the UAC, and Ahmed Shukairy, the leader of the PLO. The result of these talks was the Egyptian–Jordanian Mutual Defence Treaty. The signing ceremony of the Treaty was broadcast live over Cairo Radio and was followed by a press conference attended by the two heads of state and Ahmed Shukairy. According to the Treaty, ‘the two contracting powers consider any armed attack on either state or its forces an attack on both. Consequently … they commit themselves to hasten each to the assistance of the attacked state and immediately take all measures … including the use of the armed forces to repulse the attack’ (Article 1). In the event of military operations the Jordanian Armed Forces were to be placed under the command of the Chief of Staff of the United Arab Republic (Article 7), the Egyptian General Muhammad Fawzi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prelude to war An aerial dogfight between Syria and Israel in early April further divided the Arab world as well as increasing Arab–Israeli tension. It began with Israel's attempts to cultivate land in the Demilitarized Zone bordering Syria. The Syrians responded by firing on an Israeli tractor. This was answered by fire from the Israeli forces. Soon artillery, tanks and aircraft joined in. Six Syrian aircraft were shot down by Israeli fighter-planes, one of which went on to sweep over Damascus, triumphantly driving home Israel's victory over the Syrians. The ease with which the Israelis had defeated the Syrians aroused grave concern in Jordan. It revealed the extent of Syria's military weakness and emphasized how hollow was its claim to be ready to fight a war of liberation on behalf of the Palestinian people. At the same time, the Jordanians realized that the incident provided them with valuable ammunition against Egypt. They immediately grasped the opportunity to highlight what they saw as the hypocrisy of Egypt in failing to come to the aid of its ally, Syria. Radio Jordan condemned Nasser and pointed out that his boasts about the strength of his forces and his readiness to defend his Arab brethren were meaningless. The fight between the Syrians and the Israelis had lasted several hours yet Nasser had done nothing to help his ally. Even the Syrians accused him of failing to come to their aid. The Jordanians argued that for all his ranting Nasser was doing very little against his enemy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The road to Samu In 1967 Glubb wrote that ‘ever since her repulse by the Jordan army in 1948 Israel had longed for an opportunity to overrun the remaining Arab part of Palestine, but as long as Jordan was the friend of Britain and the United States and offered her no pretext, Israel could not move’. This view of Israel was shared by Jordan's decision-makers who were convinced that Israel's leaders had never given up hope that one day the whole of historical Palestine would belong to the Jews. They recalled the fact that at the time of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 the Zionists had claimed the whole of mandatory Palestine, including present-day Jordan, as the territory on which the Jewish national home was to be established. According to Abu Odeh, ‘Jordan's exclusion from the Balfour Declaration was decided in spite of Zionist opposition to this. Hence Jordan was always conscious of Zionist strategic ambitions over its territory. Accordingly it was constantly aware of the dangers posed by Zionist progress … This historical point always remains alive in the Jordanian mind when treating the subject’. King Hussein had no doubts about Israel's desire to expand into the West Bank. In a speech made on 25 January 1967 King Hussein declared that ‘the enemy's present objective is the West Bank; after that it will be the East Bank and after that they will expand throughout the Arab homeland to achieve their aims and ambitions’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jordan and the Arabs Despite strong ties of culture, religion and language the period after the Second World War saw the Arab world deeply divided. Different ethnic groupings, different religious sects, a variety of political parties, disputes over national boundaries, competition between political leaders and the issue of Palestine, led to friction between the nations that made up the area of the Middle East. These divisions, which existed within nations as well as between nations, can be divided into two main blocs: revolutionaries and conservatives. Syria and Egypt belonged to the revolutionary bloc, while Jordan and Saudi Arabia were regarded as conservatives. Following the 1958 revolution Iraq was generally regarded as revolutionary although the rival faction of the Ba'ath Party that ruled Ba'athist Syria denied this. One of the key issues which divided the conservative and revolutionary states was their attitude towards the West. The revolutionary Arab states condemned association with the West on the grounds that in the past Western countries had exploited the Arab world and continued to do so. The more radical Arab states regarded the destruction of imperialism in all its forms as one of the key objectives of the Arab revolution. This attitude to the West was in contrast with Jordan's and Saudi Arabia's who maintained friendly relations with Western countries, particularly America and Britain, whom they regarded as allies. They did not feel that there was any contradiction between association with Western nations and the advancement of the Arab world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

King Hussein's values and images and their relationship with Jordan's foreign policy aims In view of the central role played by King Hussein in the formulation of Jordan's foreign policy throughout the period leading up to the 1967 war it is useful to examine the values and images which influence him. These are: his Hashemite heritage; his commitment to Arabism; his commitment to Arab solidarity and co-operation; his commitment to the cause of Palestine; his commitment to the West and antagonism to communism. A further point examines Jordan's foreign policy aim of survival, which at times overrides all others because without the survival of the state all the other values are meaningless. King Hussein's Hashemite heritage In a sense all King Hussein's values can be seen to be rooted in his Hashemite heritage. The Hashemites have stood for, inter alia, Arab unity and co-operation, commitment to the needs of the Palestinian people and commitment to the West. All of these have been central elements of Jordan's foreign policy aims from the time of King Hussein's accession to the throne until the present day. King Hussein's image of himself as a Hashemite and great-grandson of the man who instigated and led the Great Arab Revolt is therefore one of the keys to understanding the objectives behind Jordan's attitude to other Arab countries. King Hussein was strongly influenced by his grandfather King Abdullah and was ‘brought up to believe in the manifest destiny of the Hashemite family’. Prime Minister Zaid Rifai and Nussaibah confirm that the King is acutely aware that his heritage has imposed on him a total commitment to the ideals for which his family has struggled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Towards the end of the 1970s, as the opening up (infitah) toward the west and the liberalization of the economy were sharply criticized as “betrayal” of the 1952 revolution's goals, as return of the exploitative bourgeoisie, and as abandonment of the Palestinian cause, certain observers, Egyptian and foreign, began to lay out a new “model” for the reading of contemporary Egyptian history. This model attempted to view Egypt's various “experiments,” before and after the revolution, from a common perspective; it also made it possible to explain the “cycles” through which Egypt has ultimately failed to “modernize” and regain the place among nations that its millenia of history allows it to demand. Muhammad ‘Ali and Nasir, breaking with a past of national humiliation, both incarnated Egypt's “will to power” by basing restoration of its regional and international role on a state economy heavily reliant on industry and the construction of a national armed force: the failure of both projects was brought about by conjunction of the “perverse” consequences of their own options and methods, and by the hostility from coalitions of external interests, alarmed by the regional role to which Egypt aspired. The successors of Muhammad ‘Ali and Nasir, Isma'il and Sadat, both betrayed or distorted their predecessors’ “developmentalist” aims and sacrificed the public good and Egypt's independence to the mercantile interests of a class of speculators and unscrupulous businessmen that served as a wedge for foreign penetration. The crucial point here is the repetition itself and the way these successive “cycles” may be articulated: Nasir “repeats” Muhammad ‘Ali, precisely because, under Isma'il, the work of his grandfather had been swayed from its objectives; in the same way, if Sadat “repeats” Isma'il, it is because the conditions that had led to Muhammad ‘Ali's failure were still in force, producing the same effects, and enabling the articulation of something that may appear as a “law” pertaining to the specific history of Egypt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information regarding the mental health care system in West Bank and Gaza Strip. In Gaza Strip, there is a high rate of conduct disorder, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among the children. Meanwhile in West Bank, it has found that exposure to violence and war were related to behavioral problems. Furthermore, the mental health policy was formulated in 2004 with the assistance of World Health Organization (WHO).

The chapter describes the urban communities and cities in Palestine. Historical Palestine contained a number of urban communities where the Palestinians lived for centuries. At the end of the Ottoman era, there were ancient cities that were once walled fortresses, like Jerusalem, Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, and Tiberias. The city of Hebrons about 22 miles south of Jerusalem; the Palestinian Authority estimates that the city and its surrounding communities have a population of about 280,000, making it the largest urban area in the proposed state of Palestine. With an estimated population of more than 185,000, Gaza City is the largest city in the Gaza Strip. Nablus is on the site of another ancient city founded by the Canaanites. Today Nablus has about 160,000 inhabitants, making it the third-largest city in the proposed state of Palestine. Ramallah, located north of Jerusalem near the geographic center of the West Bank, serves as the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority. With an estimated 2000 population of about 100,000, it is the fourth-largest city in the proposed state of Palestine.

The chapter describes the groups of people in Palestine. Modern Palestinians can be divided into four main groups: those who remained in Israel after 1948 and their descendants; those who live in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in their own homes and on their own land; refugees from the 1948-49 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars, living primarily in camps in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria; and those who have settled in other countries, mostly in the Arab world but some as far away as the United States. This last group is called the Palestinian diaspora. Precise numbers are hard to come by, but of the roughly 7.5 million Palestinians in the world, about half still reside in historical Palestine-in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel proper.

The chapter describes the economy, politics and religion in Palestine. By early 2003, with the Al-Aqsa intifada in its third year, economic conditions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were, in a word, bleak. After several years of economic growth, the Palestinian economy shrank dramatically in the wake of the renewed Palestinian-Israeli violence-by an estimated 35 percent in 2001 alone. Unemployment in the West Bank was estimated at more than 40 percent by 2003. Numerous obstacles stand in the way of economic development in the West Bank and Gaza. This includes the lack of natural resources, public infrastructure and the ongoing conflict with Israel. In 1993 the Oslo accords and Declaration of Principles led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. The first vote for a Palestinian government took place in 1996, when Palestinian residents of the autonomous zones and regions occupied by the Israeli army, as well as East Jerusalem, went to the polls. More than 90 percent of Arab Palestinians are Muslims. The vast majority belongs to the Sunni branch of the faith, which is also the dominant branch worldwide. Among the non-Muslim religions of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, Christianity claims the most adherents. About 10 percent of Palestinians are Christians.

The chapter describes the geographical zones in Palestine. Roman Palestine was a region that included the territory of modern-day Israel, eastern Jordan, and southern Lebanon, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip. After World War I, when Great Britain was given a mandate to govern Palestine by the United Nations, the territory basically embraced all of modern Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, and Gaza. The Gaza Strip is located along the Mediterranean coast north of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, The Gaza Strip is a small, rectangular piece of land some 18 miles long and 5 miles wide. The West Bank is about the size of Delaware in total area. The West Bank is 16 times larger than the Gaza Strip, from which it is separated by more than 20 miles at the closest point. In addition to the coastal region of the Gaza Strip, the proposed Palestinian home land may be divided into four geographical zones in the West Bank: the Jordan River valley, the eastern slopes region, the central highlands region, and the semi-coastal region.