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PALESTINIAN SOCIETY - Fafo

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Chapter 1<br />

The Transformation<br />

of Palestinian Society:<br />

Fragmentation and Occupation<br />

Salim Tamari<br />

Introduction<br />

The present level of living conditions study is the first contemporary<br />

attempt to present a soeial and demographie profile of Palestinian<br />

society in order to iso late its dynamic variables for the purpose of<br />

analysis, comparison, and soeial planning. The society it describes is<br />

one that is dispersed over severaI soeial formations and communities,<br />

its fragmentation being the product of successive wars (most notably<br />

the war of 1948 and the June war of 1967) with the Israelis. The<br />

condition of exile, which has affected more than one half ofPalestinians,<br />

has stamped the collectiveconsciousness, cultural trends, as well<br />

as the political behaviour ofPalestinians throughout the Middle East<br />

and in the diaspora.<br />

The purpose of this chapter is to present the socio-historical<br />

context of the material diseussed in the survey. The focus is on those<br />

segments of Palestinian society which came under Israeli control in<br />

1967. Collectively those segments (with the Galilee) contain the<br />

largest global concentration of Palestinians today. Data for 1991<br />

indicate that a full 42% of all Palestinians live in the occupied<br />

territories and in Israel (18.6% in the West Bank and Jerusalem, 10.8%<br />

in Gaza, and 12.6% in Israe!).1 The bulk of the rest are distributed in<br />

Jordan (3 1 .6%), Lebanon (5.7%), Syria (5.2%), and the rest of the<br />

Arab world (7.7 % ).2 This pattem of dispersal is particularl y crucial for<br />

our analysis in this survey, not on ly because the future of the<br />

Palestinians is being determined on part of their historie land in the<br />

current peace negotiations, but also because these territories con stitute<br />

a historie continuity with Mandatory Palestine of the pre- 1948<br />

period.<br />

21

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