Abstract
Driven from their homes in Palestine by the Israelis in 1948, a total of 11.6 million Palestinians live today in marginalized conditions worldwide, with 4.5 million of these living in stateless insecurity the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip—discontinuous and ever shrinking geographic sectors known collectively as the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Palestinians under occupation have been subject to relentless ongoing political, military, social, and ideological assault by the state of Israel, which remains in total control of its economy, borders, natural resources, and human movement. Essentially a “middle” country by overall human development standards, Palestine’s current economic, educational, human rights, and public health indicators suggest disturbing downward trends in every domain toward increasing impoverishment, dysfunction, and social fragmentation. Policy recommendations must begin with an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. To this end, the authors propose a global initiative in solidarity with Palestine, projects supportive of the internal cohesion of Palestinian institutions, and continued direct humanitarian relief.
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Acknowledgement
The authors express our deep gratitude to the historian Dr. Thomas W. Hill for his kind review, factual corrections, and helpful suggestions regarding our summary of events since 1948.
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Jabr, S., Berger, E. (2016). The Survival and Well-Being of the Palestinian People Under Occupation. In: Tiliouine, H., Estes, R. (eds) The State of Social Progress of Islamic Societies. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24774-8_24
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