The autumn of the patriarch is finally over. These are difficult times for the Palestinians, and Yasser Arafat's death presents them with a daunting challenge. The first of their difficulties is the long-standing fragmentation of the Palestinian people. Nearly five million still live in some part of what was once Mandate Palestine, and can be divided into four distinct groups. More than a million have been citizens of Israel since 1948. Over 3.5 million, in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, are in their 38th year of military occupation, hermetically sealed off from one another. Each of the four groups - those with Israeli citizenship, 250,000 Arab Jerusalemites, more than two million West Bankers and 1.3 million Gazans - is subject to different laws; the last two face stringent restrictions on their movements.

LRB 3 February 2005 | PDF Download