Palestinian National Authority

The Palestinian National Authority (PA or PNA; Arabic: السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية‎ as-Sulṭa al-Waṭanīya al-Filasṭīnīya) is the interim self-government body established to govern the Gaza Strip and Areas A and B of the West Bank, as a consequence of the 1993 Oslo Accords. Following elections in 2006 and the subsequent Gaza conflict between the Fatah and Hamas parties, its authority had extended only in areas A and B of the West Bank. Since January 2013, the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority uses the name "State of Palestine" on official documents.

The Palestinian Authority was formed in 1994, pursuant to the Oslo Accords between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the government of Israel, as a five-year interim body. Further negotiations were then meant to take place between the two parties regarding its final status. According to the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority was designated to have exclusive control over both security-related and civilian issues in Palestinian urban areas (referred to as "Area A") and only civilian control over Palestinian rural areas ("Area B"). The remainder of the territories, including Israeli settlements, the Jordan Valley region and bypass roads between Palestinian communities, were to remain under Israeli control ("Area C"). East Jerusalem was excluded from the Accords. Negotiations with several Israeli governments had resulted in the Authority gaining further control of some areas, but control was then lost in some areas when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) retook several strategic positions during the Second ("Al-Aqsa") Intifada. In 2005, after the Second Intifada, Israel withdrew unilaterally from its settlements in the Gaza Strip, thereby expanding Palestinian Authority control to the entire strip.

West Bank

The West Bank (Arabic: الضفة الغربية‎ aḍ-Ḍiffah l-Ġarbiyyah; Hebrew: הגדה המערבית‎, HaGadah HaMa'aravit) or Cisjordan is a landlocked territory near the Mediterranean coast of Western Asia, forming the bulk of the Palestinian territories and the State of Palestine. The West Bank shares boundaries (demarcated by the Jordanian-Israeli armistice of 1949) to the west, north, and south with the state of Israel, and to the east, across the Jordan River, with Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore.

The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km² plus a water area of 220 km², consisting of the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea. It has an estimated population of 2,676,740 (July 2013). More than 80%, about 2,800,000, are Palestinian Arabs, and approximately 500,000 are Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank, including about 192,000 in East Jerusalem, in Israeli settlements, built on the 43% of the West Bank which Israel has allocated to local settler councils. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. The International Court of Justice advisory ruling (2004) concluded that events that came after the 1967 occupation of the West Bank by Israel, including the Jerusalem Law, Israel's peace treaty with Jordan and the Oslo Accords, did not change the status of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) as occupied territory with Israel as the occupying power.

Palestinian

Palestinian is typically referring to a person belonging to the Palestinian people, an Arab nationalist group defined in the Palestinian National Charter of 1968, also referred to as Palestinians (Arabic: الفلسطينيون‎, al-Filasṭīniyyūn).

It may also refer to:

The Palestinian

The Palestinian is a 66 minute TV documentary from 1977. It was produced by and starred Vanessa Redgrave.

Bombing and Oscar row

The film was to be shown at The Doheny Plaza theatre, Los Angeles. The morning before a showing, on June 15, 1978 at 4.26 a.m., a bomb exploded in front of the theatre.

That same year, Vanessa Redgrave was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscar ceremony for her role in Julia. She won the Oscar, and in her acceptance speech she made sharp comments on "Zionist hoodlums".

References

Authority

The word authority (derived from the Latin word auctoritas) can be used to mean the right to exercise power given by the State (in the form of government, judges, police officers, etc.), or by academic knowledge of an area (someone can be an authority on a subject).

When the word Authority is used in the name of an organization, this name usually refers to the governing body upon which such authority is vested; for example, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority or the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. It is also the right to do something.

In various settings

Government

In government, the term authority is often used interchangeably with power. However, their meanings differ: while power is defined as "the ability to influence somebody to do something that he/she would not have done", authority refers to a claim of legitimacy, the justification and right to exercise that power. For example, while a mob has the power to punish a criminal, for example by lynching, people who believe in the rule of law consider that only a court of law has the authority to punish a criminal legally as the law says.