Glossary • 489Partition Plan for Palestine: Proposed division of the Palestine mandate into Jew¬
ish and Arab states, approved by the UN General Assembly in 1947
Passfield White Paper: British officiai report blaming both Jews and Arabs for the
1929 Wailing Wall riots in Palestine
Peel Commission: British committee that visited Palestine in 1937 and first rec¬
ommended partition into Jewish and Arab states
People's Assembly: Popularly-elected chamber of Egypt's parliament since 1971
People's Democratic Republic of Yemen: Name used (1969-1990) for what used
to be called Aden and the Aden Protectorate, then South Arabian Federation,
then South Yemen
Peres, Shim'on (PER-es, shim-OAN): Israel's prime minister (1984-1986), Labor
Party leader (1977-1992), foreign minister (1992-1996), and acting prime min¬
ister (1995-1996)
Permanent Mandates Commission: League of Nations body supervising man¬
dates' administration
Persia: Name used for Iran to 1935
Persian Gulf: a body of water separating Iran from the Arabian Peninsula and
connecting the Shatt al-Arab to the Arabian Sea
Persian Gulf War: See Gulf War
petrodollars: Dollars earned by oil-exporting countries
Phalanges (fa-LAHNZH): Paramilitary organization dedicated to preserving Ma¬
ronite Christian dominance in Lebanon
Pinsker, Leo: Russian Zionist, author of Auto-Emancipation (1882)
PKK: see Kurdish Workers Party
pogrom (puh-GRAWM): Organized massacre of Jews
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine: Marxist Palestinian group, noted
for its airplane hijackings and led by George Habash
Port Said (sa-EED): Egyptian city at which the Suez Canal meets the Mediterranean
positive neutralism: Nasir's policy of not siding with either the communist coun¬
tries or the West but seeking to reconcile the two blocs
predestination: The belief that God has determined what will happen to every liv¬
ing person; the opposite of free will
Prester John: Mythic Christian ruler in East Asia or Ethiopia, thought by some
medieval Western Christians to be a potential ally against the Muslims
Punjab (poon-JAWB): A region of northwestern India, now partly in Pakistan
al-Qadhafi, Mu'ammar (el-gad-DOF-fee, moo-AHM-mer): Libya's president
(1969-)
qadi (KAW-dee): Muslim judge
Qadisiya (kaw-de-SEE-ya): Central Iraqi region and site of 637 battle in which
the Arabs defeated the Sasanid Persians
al-Qa'ida (el-KAW-e-da): Network of militant Islamist organizations, led by
Osama bin Laden