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A Style Sheet on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
Knesset. Israeli parliament and the building in which it meets. The Knesset, a unicameral legislature, functions in a modified parliamentary system, with a separate national election for the Prime Minister who is both head of government and a member of the Knesset. The President, also elected separately, serves as the mostly ceremonial head of state. The two major parties are the relatively liberal Labor Party and the more conservative Likud Party. When, as at present, no party has a majority in the 120-member Knesset, some of the numerous small, special interest parties — excluding the Arab ones — are invited to form a coalition government, thus giving these parties a disproportionate influence. [www.Knessetgov.il/main/eng]. Koran. See: Qur’an. Law of Return, Right of Return. In 1950, the Israeli Knesset adopted the Law of Return giving any Jew in the world the right to move to and settle in Israel. The Right of Return is the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 13, 15, and 17) adopted on December 10, 1948, and Resolution 194 adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on December 11, 1948. The state of Israel opposes the return of Palestinian refugees, fearing that their presence would change its character and demographics as a Jewish State. [www.untreaty.un.org/] See: Aliyah; Refugees; Jewish State. MK. Member of the Knesset. An elected representative in the Israeli parliament, which is known as the Knesset. [www.info.gov.il] See: Knesset. Madrasa. Arabic word for a school that is often, but not necessarily, involved in the teaching of religion. Martyr (in Arabic, Shadid). In religious terms, a witness to one’s faith, including one who witnesses with his or her death (martyrdom). In political terms, one who dies in the struggle for freedom and is honored as a hero. See: Suicide Bomber. Middle East. Land area of Southwest Asia and Northeast Africa, often from Turkey to Yemen and Iran to Egypt; sometimes includes North Africa to Morocco. Formerly known as the Near East, a term used by the British whose empire once reached to the Far East (East Asia). Some geographers prefer Southwest Asia. Mosque. Muslim place of worship, commonly including a minaret from which the call to prayer is announced or broadcast. Generally dominated by a room facing Mecca, so marked by a qibla or niche toward which Muslims face during prayers. In the United States there are about 2,000 mosques, Islamic schools and Islamic centers. In Jerusalem the mosque most sacred to Muslims is Al Aqsa Mosque located on the compound known as Al Haram al Sherif or Noble Sanctuary, and known to Muslims as the “Farthest Mosque.” Properly speaking, the Dome of the Rock, also located on the Haram, is not a mosque although sometimes it is incorrectly referred to as the Mosque of Omar. The Caliph Omar, who conquered Jerusalem in 638 C.E., was offered an opportunity to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre but rejected the invitation knowing that his followers would designate the Church as a mosque. Instead, Omar prayed just outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where the Mosque of Omar was later built. [www.islam.org] See: Islam. Muslim. Follower of the religion of Islam. Muslim (plural, Muslims in English, Muslimun in Arabic) is the preferred spelling (do not use Moslem) as a more accurate transliteration of the Arab word. Do not use Mohammedan; Muslims do not consider themselves disciples of Muhammad in the sense that Christians consider themselves disciples of Jesus, and Muhammad is not part of the deity. There are 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide, of whom an estimated 6 million live in the United States. About 20 percent of all Muslims live in Arabic-speaking countries; Indonesia is the nation with the largest Muslim population. Demographers estimate that in 2025 one-fourth of all people in the world will be Muslims. (Note: Do not use Arab as a synonym for Muslim; some Arabs are Christian and the majority of Muslims are non-Arabs.) [www.cair-net.org] See also: Islam. Nakba (also Naqbaa or Nakbah) “The Catastrophe.” Al Nakba is the term used by Palestinians for the impact on them and their national aspirations of what Israelis call their War of Independence, 1947-48. 700,000 Palestinians became refugees and 419 villages were destroyed. The Nakba is marked by ceremonies each year on May 15. The Israeli analyst Meron Benvenisti has used words like “ethnic cleansing” to describe the actions of Israeli troops in more than 30 documented massacres. Near East. Term no longer in general use in the U.S. Once used, especially by the British, to designate area now known as the Middle East. Sometimes used by academics, especially archaeologists. See: Middle East.
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