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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 Palestinians. Their numbers are relatively small-fewer than 8 million people worldwide-and they have never had an independent state of their own. Yet the Palestinians figure prominently in the strategic concerns of many of the world's most powerful countries, including the United States. The Palestinians are Arabs who currently live, or whose ancestors lived, in the eastern Mediterranean land called Palestine. The modern history of the Palestinians is inextricably linked to the history of another people with ancient ties to Palestine: the Jews. As Jewish immigrants began settling in the region in larger numbers, particularly after World War I, the Palestinians began to see themselves as a distinct national group. And, increasingly, they came to view large-scale Jewish immigration as a threat to their interests. Violence erupted. Efforts by the international community to create independent homelands in Palestine for both the Jews and the Palestinians led only to war in 1948.