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Situated between three continents, the region of Palestine has a tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. The region was among the earliest to see human habitation, agricultural communities and civilization. In the Bronze Age, the Canaanites established city-states influenced by surrounding civilizations, among them Egypt, which ruled the area in the Late Bronze Age. During the Iron Age, two related Israelite kingdoms, Israel and Judah, controlled much of Palestine, while the Philistines occupied its southern coast. The Assyriansconquered the region in the 8th century BCE, then the Babylonians in c. 601BCE, followed by the Persians who conquered the Babylonian Empire in 539BCE. Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire in the late 330s BCE, beginning Hellenization.
After the war, only two parts of Palestine remained in Arab control: the West Bank (and East-Jerusalem), annexed by Jordan, and the Gaza Stripoccupied by Egypt, which were conquered by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967. Despite international objections, Israel started to establish settlements in these occupied territories.[1] Meanwhile, the Palestinian national movement gained international recognition, thanks to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), under Yasser Arafat. In 1993, the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the PLO established the Palestinian Authority (PA), an interim body to run Gaza and the West Bank (but not East Jerusalem), pending a permanent solution. Further peace developments were not ratified and/or implemented, and relations between Israel and Palestinians has been marked by conflict, especially with Islamist Hamas, which rejects the PA. In 2007, Hamas won control of Gaza from the PA, now limited to the West Bank. In 2012, the State of Palestine (the name used by the PA) became a non-member observer state in the UN, allowing it to take part in General Assembly debates and improving its chances of joining other UN agencies.
Excavations in Skhul Cave revealed the first evidence of the late Epipalaeolithic Natufian culture, characterized by the presence of abundant microliths, human burials and ground stone tools. This also represents one area where Neanderthals – present in the region from 200,000 to 45,000 years ago – lived alongside modern humans dating to 100,000 years ago.[3] In the caves of Shuqba in Ramallah and Wadi Khareitun in Bethlehem, stone, wood and animal bone tools were found and attributed to the Natufian culture (c. 12,800–10,300BCE). Other remains from this era have been found at Tel Abu Hureura, Ein Mallaha, Beidha and Jericho.[4]
Between 10,000 and 5000BCE, agricultural communities were established. Evidence of such settlements were found at Tel es-Sultan in Jericho and consisted of a number of walls, a religious shrine, and a 23-foot (7.0m) tower with an internal staircase[5] Jericho is believed to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with evidence of settlement dating back to 9000BCE, providing important information about early human habitation in the Near East.[6] Along the Jericho–Dead Sea–Bir es-Saba–Gaza–Sinai route, a culture originating in Syria, marked by the use of copper and stone tools, brought new migrant groups to the region contributing to an increasingly urban fabric.[7][8][9]
Part of Tell es-Sakan, a Bronze Age site south of Gaza City.
In the Early Bronze Age (c. 3700–2500 BCE) period, the earliest formation of urban societies and cultures emerged in the region. The period is defined through archaeology, as it is absent from any historical record either from Palestine or contemporary Egyptian and Mesopotamian sources. It follows the demise of the Ghassulian village-culture of the late Chalcolithic period. It begins in a period of around 600 years of a stable rural society, economically based on a Mediterranean agriculture and with a slow growth in population. This period has been termed the Early Bronze Age I (c. 3700 – 3100 BCE), parallel to the Late Uruk period of Mesopotamia and the pre-dynastic Naqada culture of Egypt. The construction of several temple-like structures in that period attests to the accumulation of social power. Evidence of contact and immigration to Lower Egypt is found in the abundance of pottery vessels of southern–Levantine type, found in sites across the Nile, such as Abydos. During the last two hundred years of that period and following the Unification of Egypt and pharaoh Narmer, an Egyptian colony appeared in the southern Levantine coast, with its center at Tell es-Sakan (modern-day Gaza Strip). The overall nature of this colony as well as its relation with the hinterlands has been debated by archaeologists.[10]
Around 3100 BCE the country saw radical change, with the abandonment and destruction of many settlements, including the Egyptian colony. These were quickly replaced by new walled settlements in plains and coastal regions, surrounded by mud-brick fortifications and relied on nearby agricultural hamlets for their food.[7][i]
The Canaanite city-states held trade and diplomatic relations with Egypt and Syria. Parts of the Canaanite urban civilization were destroyed around 2500BCE, though there is no consensus as to why (for one theory, see 4.2-kiloyear event). Incursions by nomads from the east of the Jordan River who settled in the hills followed soon thereafter,[7][11] as well as cultural influence from the ancient Syrian city of Ebla.[12] That period known as the Intermediate Bronze Age (2500–2000 BCE), was defined recently out of the tail of the Early Bronze Age and the head of the preceding Middle Bronze Age. Others date the destruction to the end of Early Bronze Age III (c. 2350/2300 BCE) and attribute it to Syrian Amorites, Kurgans, southern nomads[13] or internal conflicts within Canaan.[14]
In the Middle Bronze Age (2000–1500 BCE), Canaan was influenced by the surrounding civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Minoan Crete, and Syria. Diverse commercial ties and an agriculturally based economy led to the development of new pottery forms, the cultivation of grapes, and the extensive use of bronze.[7][15] Burial customs from this time seemed to be influenced by a belief in the afterlife.[7][16] The Middle Kingdom EgyptianExecration Texts attest to Canaanite trade with Egypt during this period.[17][18] The Minoan influence is apparent at Tel Kabri.[19]
A DNA analysis published in May 2020[20] showed that migrants from the Caucasus mixed with the local population to produce the Canaanite culture that existed during the Bronze Age.[21][22]
Egyptian dominance
During 1550–1400 BCE, the Canaanite city-states became vassals to the New Kingdom of Egypt, which expanded into the Levant under Ahmose I and Thutmose I. Political, commercial and military events towards the end of this period (1450–1350 BCE) were recorded by ambassadors and Canaanite proxy rulers for Egypt in 379 cuneiform tablets known as the Amarna Letters.[23] These refer to local chieftains, such as Biridiya of Megiddo, Lib'ayu of Shechem and Abdi-Heba in Jerusalem. Abdi-Heba is a Hurrian name, and enough Hurrians lived in Canaan at that time to warrant contemporary Egyptian texts naming the locals as Ḫurru.[24]
In the first year of his reign, the pharaoh Seti I (c. 1294–1290 BCE) waged a campaign to resubordinate Canaan to Egyptian rule, thrusting north as far as Beit She'an, and installing local vassals to administer the area in his name. The Egyptian Stelae in the Levant, most notably the Beisan steles, and a burial site yielding a scarab bearing the name Seti found within a Canaanite coffin excavated in the Jezreel Valley, attests to Egypt's presence in the area.[25]
The Late Bronze Age collapse had greatly affected the Ancient Near East, including Canaan. The Egyptians withdrew from the area. Layers of destruction from the crisis period were found in several sites, including Hazor, Beit She'an, Megiddo, Lachish, Ekron, Ashdod and Ashkelon.[28] The layers of destruction in Lachish and Megiddo date back to about 1130BCE, More than a hundred years after the destruction of Hazor circa 1250BCE, and point to a prolonged period of decline in local civilization.[29]
Beginning in the late 13th century and continuing to the early 11th century, hundreds of smaller, unprotected village settlements were founded in Canaan, many in the mountainous regions. In some of them, the characteristics identified in a later period with the inhabitants of Israel and Judah, such as the four-room house, appear for the first time. The number of villages reduced in the 11th century, counterbalanced by other settlements reaching the status of fortified townships.[30][ii]
After the withdrawal of the Egyptians, Canaan became home to the Israelites and the Philistines. The Israelites settled the central highlands, a loosely defined highland region stretching from the Judean hills in the south to the Samarian hills in the north. Based on the archaeological evidence, they did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of the indigenous Canaanite peoples.[31][32][33] Sometime in the 12th centuryBCE, the Philistines, who had immigrated from the Aegean region, settled in the southern coast of Palestine.[34][35] Traces of Philistines appeared at about the same time as the Israelites.[36] The Philistines are credited with introducing iron weapons, chariots, and new ways of fermenting wine to the local population.[35][iii] Over time, the Philistines integrated with the local population and they, like other people in Palestine, were engulfed by first the Assyrian empire and later the Babylonian empire.[35][iv] In the 6th century, they disappeared from written history.[37][v]
Two related Israelite kingdoms, Israel and Judah, emerged during the 10th and 9th centuries BCE: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Israel was the more prosperous of the kingdoms and developed into a regional power.[38][vi] By the 8th century BCE, the Israelite population had grown to some 160,000 individuals over 500 settlements.[39][vii]
Israel and Judah continually clashed with the kingdoms of Ammon, Edom and Moab, located in modern-day Jordan,[40] and with the kingdom of Aram-Damascus, located in modern-day Syria. The northwestern region of the Transjordan, known then as Gilead, was also settled by the Israelites.[41]Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586BCE.[42]
The Omride dynasty greatly expanded the northern kingdom of Israel. In the mid-9th century, it stretched from the vicinity of Damascus in the north to the territory of Moab in the south, ruling over a large number of non-Israelites.[43][viii] In 853BCE, the Israelite king Ahab led a coalition of anti-Assyrian forces at the Battle of Qarqar that repelled an invasion by King Shalmaneser III of Assyria.[44][ix] Some years later, King Mesha of Moab, a vassal of Israel, rebelled against it, destroying the main Israelite settlements in the Transjordan.[45][x][46][xi]
In the 830s BCE, king Hazael of Aram Damascus conquered the fertile and strategically important northern parts of Israel which devastated the kingdom.[47][xii] He also destroyed the Philistine city of Gath.[48] During the late 9th century BCE, Israel under King Jehu became a vassal to Assyria and was forced to pay tribute.[49][xiii][50][xiv]
King Tiglath Pileser III of Assyria was discontent with the empire's system of vassal states and set to control them more directly or even turn then into Assyrian provinces.[51][xv] Tiglath Pileser and his successors conquered Palestine beginning in 734BCE to about 645BCE.[52][xvi] This policy had lasting consequences for Palestine as its strongest kingdoms were crushed, inflicting heavy damage, and parts of the kingdoms' populations were deported.[53][xvii] The Kingdom of Israel was eradicated in 720BCE as its capital, Samaria, fell to the Assyrians.[54][xviii] The records of Sargon II indicate that he deported 27,290 inhabitants of the kingdom to northern Mesopotamia.[55] Many Israelites migrated to the southern kingdom of Judah.[56] When Hezekiah rose to power in Judah in 715BCE, he forged an alliance with Egypt and Ashkelon, and revolted against the Assyrians by refusing to pay tribute.[57][58] In response, Sennacherib of Assyria attacked the fortified cities of Judah.[59] In 701BCE, Sennacherib laid siege to Jerusalem, though the city was never taken.[60] The Assyrian expansion continued southward, gradually conquering Egypt and taking Thebes in 664BCE.[61] The kingdom of Judah, along with a line of city-states on the coastal plain were allowed to remain independent; from an Assyrian standpoint, they were weak and nonthreatening.[62]
Struggles over succession following the death of King Ashurbanipal in 631BCE[xix] weakened the Assyrian empire. This allowed Babylon to revolt and to eventually conquer most of Assyria's territory.[63][xx] Meanwhile, Egypt reasserted its power and created a system of vassal states in the region that were obliged to pay taxes in exchange for military protection.[64][xxi]
In 616BCE, Egypt sent its armies north to intervene on behalf of the fading Assyrian empire against the Babylonian threat. The intervention was unsuccessful; Babylon took Assyria's Nineveh in 612BCE and two years later Harran.[65][xxii] In 609 the Egyptian pharaoh Necho II again marched north with his army. For some reason, he executed the Judahite king Josiah at the Egyptian base Megiddo and a few months later he installed Jehoiakim as the king of Judah.[66][xxiii] At the Battle of Carchemish in 605BCE, the Babylonians routed the Egyptian forces, causing them to flee back to the Nile.[67][xxiv] The next year, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Philistine cities Ashdod, Ekron, Ashkelon, and Gaza.[68][xxv] By 601BCE, all the former states in the Levant had become Babylonian colonies.[69]
The Babylonians continued the practices of their predecessors the Assyrians and deported populations that resisted its military might.[70] Many of them were settled in Babylon and were used to rebuild the country which had been devastated through the long years of conflict with the Assyrians.[71][xxvi]
Jehoiachin's Rations Tablets, an Akkadian inscription found in Babylon and describes the rations set aside for Jeconiah of Judah during captivity
In 601BCE Nebuchadnezzar launched a failed invasion of Egypt which forced him to withdraw to Babylon to rebuild his army. This failure was interpreted as a sign of weakness, causing some vassal states to defect, among them Judah, leading to the Judahite–Babylonian War.[72][xxvii] Nebuchadnezzar responded by laying siege to Jerusalem in 598 to end its revolt.[72][xxviii] In 597, the king Jeconiah of Judah, together with Jerusalem's aristocracy and priesthood, were deported to Babylon.[73]
In 587BCE Nebuchadnezzar besieged and destroyed Jerusalem, bringing an end to the kingdom of Judah.[74] A large number of Judahites were exiled to Babylon. Judah and the Philistine city-states of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron, were dissolved and incorporated into the Neo-Babylonian Empire as provinces.[75][xxix] Judah became the province of Yehud, a Jewish administrative division of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.[76][xxx]
In contrast to his predecessors, who controlled conquered populations using mass-deportations, Cyrus issued a proclamation granting subjugated nations religious freedom. The Persians resettled exiles in their homelands and let them rebuilt their temples. According to scholars, this policy helped them to present themselves as liberators, gaining them the goodwill of the people in the empire's provinces.[81][xxxii][82]
In 538BCE, the Persians allowed the return of exiled Judeans to Jerusalem.[83] The Judeans, who came to be known as Jews, settled in what became known as Yehud Medinata or Yehud, a self-governing Jewish province under Persian rule.[84][85] The First Temple in Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians, was rebuilt under the auspices of the returned Jewish population.[35]
Major religious transformations took place in Yehud Medinata. it was during that period that the Israelite religion became exclusively monotheistic – the existence of other Gods was now denied. Previously, Yahweh, Israel's national god, had been seen as one god among many.[86][xxxiii] Many customs and behavior that would come to characterize Judaism were adopted.[87][xxxiv]
The region of Samaria was inhabited by the Samaritans, an ethno-religious group who worship Yahweh, like the Jews, and who claim descent from the original Israelites.[88] The Samaritan temple cult, centered around Mount Gerizim, competed with the Jews' temple cult centered around Mount Moriah in Jerusalem and led to long-lasting animosity between the two groups.[89][xxxv] Remnants of their temple at Mount Gerizim near Shechem dates to the 5th century.[90][xxxvi]
Samaritan ruins on Mount Gerizim
Another people in Palestine was the Edomites. Originally, their kingdom occupied the southern area of modern-day Jordan but later they were pushed westward by nomadic tribes coming from the east, among them the Nabataeans, and therefore migrated into southern parts of Judea. This migration had already begun a generation or two before the Babylonian conquest of Judah, but as Judah was weakened the pace accelerated. Their territory became known as Idumea.[91]
Around the turn of the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, the Persians gave the Phoenician kings of Tyre and Sidon, based in modern-day Lebanon, control over the coastal plain all the way to Ashdod.[92] Perhaps to facilitate maritime trade[93] or as a repayment for their naval services.[94][xxxvii] At about the same time, the Upper Galilee was also granted to Tyre.[95][xxxviii] In the middle of the 4th century the Phoenicians occupied the entire coast as far as Ascalon in the southern coastal plain.[96][xxxix]
Nomadic Arabian tribes roamed the Negev desert. They were of paramount strategic and economic importance to the Persians due to their control of desert trade routes stretching from Gaza in the north, an important trading center,[97] to the Arabian peninsula in the south. Unlike the people in the provinces, the tribes were considered "friends" with the empire rather than subjects and they enjoyed some independence from Persia.[98] Until the middle of the 4th century, the Qedarites were the dominant tribe whose territory ran from the Hejaz in the south to the Negev in the north.[99][xl] Around 380BCE, the Qedarites joined a failed revolt against the Persians and as a consequence they lost their frankincense trade privileges. The trade privileges were taken over by the Nabataeans, an Arab tribe whose capital was in Petra in Transjordan. They established themselves in the Negev where they built a flourishing civilization.[100]
Despite the devastating Greco-Persian Wars, Greek cultural influences rose steadily.[101]Greek coins began to circulate in the late 6th and early 5th centuries.[102][xli] Greek traders established trading posts along the coast in the 6th century from which Greek ceramics, artworks, and other luxury items were imported.[103] These items were popular and no well-to-do household in Palestine would have lacked Greek pottery.[104] Local potters imitated the Greek merchandise, though the quality of their goods were inferior to the Greeks.[105][xlii] The first coins in Palestine were minted by the Phoenicians followed by Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ashdod.[106][xliii]Yehud began minting coins in the second quarter of the 4th century.[107][xliv]
The God on the Winged Wheel coin, known since 1814, originally from Gaza, likely during the Achaemenid Empire in the 4th century BCE. The coin shows a deity seated on a winged wheel, often interpreted as a depiction of Yahweh.
In 404BCE, Egypt threw off the Persian yoke and began extending its domain of influence and military might in Palestine and Phoenicia, leading to confrontations with Persia. The political pendulum swung back and forth as territory was conquered and reconquered.[108] For a brief period of time, Egypt controlled both coastal Palestine and Phoenicia.[109] Egypt was eventually reconquered by Persia in 343.[110]
By the 6th century, Aramaic became the common language in the north, in Galilee and Samaria, replacing Hebrew as the spoken language in Palestine,[111] and it became the region's lingua franca.[112][113] Hebrew remained in use in Judah; however the returning exiles brought back Aramaic influence, and Aramaic was used for communicating with other ethnic groups during the Persian period.[113] Hebrew remained as a language for the upper class and as a religious language.[111]
Sidonian burial caves in Maresha, dated to the third and second centuries BCE
Hellenistic Palestine[114][115][116] is the term for Palestine during the Hellenistic period,[117] when Achaemenid Syria was conquered by Alexander the Great in 333 BCE and subsumed into his growing Macedonian empire. The conquest was relatively uncomplicated as Persian control of the region had already waned.[118] After his death in 323 BCE, Alexander's empire was divided among his generals, the Diadochi, marking the beginning of Macedonian rule over various territories, including Coele-Syria.[119] The region came under Ptolemaic rule beginning when Ptolemy I Soter took control of Egypt in 322 BCE and Yehud Medinata in 320 BCE due to its strategic significance. This period saw conflicts as former generals vied for control, leading to ongoing power struggles and territorial exchanges.
Ptolemaic rule brought stability and economic prosperity to the region.[120][121] Ptolemy I and his successor, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, maintained control over Yehud Medinata, with the latter bringing the Ptolemaic dynasty to its zenith by winning the first and second Syrian Wars.[122] Despite these successes, ongoing conflicts with the Seleucids, particularly over the strategic region of Coele-Syria, led to more Syrian Wars.[122] The peace and stability enjoyed by the local population under Ptolemaic rule were disrupted by these wars, and the region's control fluctuated due to the military campaigns and political maneuvers.
Seleucid rule began in 198 BCE[123] under Antiochus III the Great, who, like the Ptolemies, allowed the Jews to retain their customs and religion. However, financial strains due to obligations to Rome led to unpopular measures, such as temple robberies, which ultimately resulted in Antiochus III's death in 187 BCE. His successors faced similar challenges, with internal conflicts and external pressures leading to dissatisfaction among the local population.[124][125] The Maccabean Revolt, led by Judas Maccabeus,[xlv] highlighted the growing unrest and resistance against Seleucid authority,[124] eventually leading to significant shifts in power dynamics within the region.
The local Hasmonean dynasty emerged from the Maccabean Revolt, with Simon Thassi becoming high priest and ruler, establishing an independent Judea.[126][xlvi] His successors, notably John Hyrcanus, expanded the kingdom[129] and maintained relations with Rome and Egypt. However, internal strife and external pressures, particularly from the Seleucids and later the Romans, led to the decline of the Hasmonean dynasty.
Roman period
In 63BCE, a war of succession in the Hasmonean court provided the Roman general Pompey with the opportunity to make the Jewish kingdom a client of Rome,[130] starting a centuries-long period of Roman rule.[xlvii] After sacking Jerusalem, he installed Hyrcanus II, one of the Hasmonean pretenders, as High Priest but denied him the title of king.[131] Most of the territory the Hasmoneans had conquered were awarded to other kingdoms, and Judea now only included Judea proper, Samaria (except for the city of Samaria which was renamed Sebaste), southern Galilee, and eastern Idumaea.[132] In 57BCE, the Romans and Jewish loyalists stamped out an uprising organized by Hyrcanus' enemies. Hoping to quell further unrest, the Romans restructured the kingdom into five autonomous districts, each with its own religious council with centers in Jerusalem, Sepphoris, Jericho, Amathus, and Gadara.[133]
Poleis that had been occupied or even destroyed by the Hasmoneans were rebuilt and they regained their self-governing status.[134] This amounted to a rebirth for many of the Greek cities and made them Rome's trusty allies in an otherwise unruly region.[135] They expressed their gratitude by adopting new dating systems commemorating Rome's advent, renaming themselves after Roman officials, or minting coins with monograms and imprints of Roman officials.[136]
The turmoil in the Roman world brought by the Roman civil wars relaxed Rome's grip on Judea. In 40BCE, the Parthian Empire and their Jewish ally Antigonus the Hasmonean defeated a pro-Roman Jewish force led by high priest Hyrcanus II, Phasael and Herod I, the son of Hyrcanus' leading partisan Antipater. They managed to conquer Syria and Palestine.[137] Antigonus was made King of Judea. Herod fled to Rome, where he was elected "King of the Jews" by the Roman Senate and was given the task of retaking Judea.[138] In 37BCE, with Roman support, Herod reclaimed Judea, and the short-lived reemergence of the Hasmonean dynasty came to an end.
Herod I, or as became known, Herod the Great, ruled from 37 to 4BCE. He became known for his many building projects, for increasing the region's prosperity, but also for being a tyrant and involved in many political and familial intrigues.[139][xlviii]
Herod rebuilt Jerusalem from top to bottom, greatly increasing the city's prestige,[140] including the reconstruction of the Second Temple.[141] Herod also greatly expanded the port town of Caesarea Maritima,[142][143] making it by far the largest port in Roman Judea and one of the largest in the whole eastern Mediterranean.[144] The city was built using state-of-the-art Roman engineering complete with a market, aqueduct, government offices, baths, villas, a circus, and pagan temples.[143]
Throughout this period, the Jewish population gradually increased, and the region saw a massive wave of urbanization. More than 30 towns and cities of different sizes were founded, rebuilt, or enlarged in a relatively short period. The Jewish population of the land on the eve of the great revolt may have been as high as 2.2million.[145] Jerusalem itself reached a peak in size and population at the end of the Second Temple period, when the city covered two square kilometres (3⁄4 square mile) and had a population of 200,000.[146][147]
Following Herod's death in 4BCE, a wave of unrest shook the region. It was swiftly quashed by Herod's son Archelaus with the help of the Romans.[148][xlix] Herod's kingdom was divided and given to his three sons.[149] In 6CE Archelaus was banished for misrule and Judea came under direct Roman rule.[150][l]
Arch of Titus in Rome commemorates Titus' victory in the First Jewish-Roman War
Coinage of the Bar Kochba Revolt (c. 132–135 CE)
In 66CE, the First Jewish-Roman War, also known as the Great Jewish Revolt, erupted. The war lasted for four years and was crushed by the Roman emperors Vespasian and Titus. In 70CE, the Romans captured the city of Jerusalem and destroyed both the city and the Second Temple.[151][152] The events were described by the Jewish historian Josephus, who writes that 1,100,000 Jews perished during the revolt, while a further 97,000 were taken captive. The Fiscus Judaicus was imposed on Jews all across the Roman Empire as part of reparations.
In 132CE, a second uprising, the Bar Kokhba revolt erupted and took three years to put down. It incurred massive costs on both sides,[153] and saw a major shift in the population of Palestine. The sheer scale and scope of the overall destruction is described in a late epitome of Dio Cassius's Roman History, where he states that Roman war operations in the country had left some 580,000 Jews dead, with many more dying of hunger and disease, while 50 of their most important outposts and 985 of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. "Thus," writes Dio Cassius, "nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate."[154][155]
During or after the Bar Kohkba Revolt, Hadrian joined the province of Judea with Galilee and the Paralia to form the new province of Syria Palaestina.[li] Some scholars view these actions as an attempt to disconnect the Jewish people from their homeland,[158][lii] but this theory is debated.[159]
Jerusalem was re-established as the Aelia Capitolina, a greatly diminished military colony with perhaps no more than 4,000 residents.[160][liii] Jews were banned from the city[161] and from settling in its vicinity as punishment for the Bar Kokbha revolt,[162][liv] though the ban was not strictly enforced and a slow trickle of Jews settled in the city over the subsequent centuries.[163] In the late 2nd and early 3rd century, new cities were founded at Eleutheropolis, Diospolis, and Nicopolis.[164]
The tide turned in Christianity's favor in the 4th century. The century began with the most intense persecution of Christians the empire had seen,[167][lvi] but ended with Christianity becoming the Roman state church.[168][lvii] Perhaps more than half of the empire's population had then converted to Christianity.[169][lviii] Instrumental to this transformation was Rome's first Christian emperor Constantine the Great.[170] He had ascended the throne by defeating his competitors in a series of civil wars and he credited his victories to Christianity.[171] Constantine became a fervent supporter of Christianity and issued laws conveying upon the church and its clergy fiscal and legal privileges and immunities from civic burdens.[172][lix] He also sponsored ecumenical councils, such as the Council of Nicaea, to settle theological disputes between Christian factions.[173][lx]
Cross-section of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre showing the traditional site of Calvary and the Tomb of Jesus
The Byzantine era was a time of great prosperity and cultural flourishing in Palestine.[181] New areas were cultivated, urbanization increased, and many cities reached their peak populations.[182] Towns increasingly acquired new civic basilicas, porticoed streets with space for shops, and the erection of churches and other religious buildings invigorated their economies.[183][lxv] The total population of Palestine may have exceeded one and a half million, its highest ever until the twentieth century.[184]
Caesarea and Gaza became two of the most important centers of learning in the whole Mediterranean region, superseding and replacing those of Alexandria and Athens.[185][lxvi]Eusebius in his topographical work, Onomasticon: On the Place Names in Divine Scripture, attempted to correlate names and places from the biblical narratives with existing localities in Palestine.[186] These works conceptualized the western view of Palestine as a Christian Holy Land.[186][lxvii]
Provinces within Dioceses Orienties c. 400. Borders are approximate.
Starting in the late 3rd century, the Roman provincial administration underwent a series of reforms subdividing the provinces into smaller administrative units. The intent was to circumscribe the ability of provincial governors with strong garrisons to stage revolts against the emperor and to improve efficiency by reducing the area controlled by each governor.[187] Provinces were clustered into regional groups called dioceses.[188] Syria Palaestina became part of Dioceses Orienties, a diocese grouping the near eastern provinces. In the 4th century, Palestine and neighboring regions were reorganized into the provinces Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, and Palaestina Tertia or Palaestina Salutaris (First, Second, and Third Palestine).[189]Palaestina Prima with its capital in Caesarea encompassed the central parts of Palestine, including the coastal plain, Judea, and Samaria. Palaestina Secunda had its capital in Scythopolis and included northern Transjordan, the lower Jezreel Valley, the Galilee, and the Golan area. Palaestina Tertia with its capital in Petra included the Negev, southern Transjordan, and parts of the Sinai.[190] The three Palestines became part of the Eastern Roman Empire after the split of the Roman Empire in 395.
The Christian Ghassanid Arabs were the largest Arab group in Palestine.[191] Starting in the third century, they migrated from South Arabia and settled in Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Tertia, where they created two client kingdoms that served as the Byzantines' buffer zones.[192] The Ghassanids were a source for troops for the Byzantines and fought with them against the Persians and their allies, the Arab Lakhmids.[193][lxviii]
In 106, the Romans annexed the territory of the Nabataean client kingdom into the province of Arabia Petraea, apparently without bloodshed,[194] but the Nabataeans, who controlled many important trade routes, continued to prosper.[195][lxix] The incorporation of the Nabataean kingdom began a slow process of hellenization and after the fourth century Greek replaced Aramaic for formal purposes.[196][lxx] Most Nabataeans probably converted to Christianity.[197][lxxi]
In the late 5th and early 6th century, the Samaritans staged several revolts. The first occurred in 484 and required considerable force to put down.[198][lxxii] The Samaritans' synagogue on Mt. Gerizim was replaced with a church as punishment.[199] Another uprising took place in 529 when the Samaritans attacked Christians and Jews and burned estates and churches.[200] The revolt was crushed by the Byzantines aided by Christian Ghassanid Arabs, who took thousands of Samaritans as slaves.[201][lxxiii] A third revolt erupted in 556. This time, Jews and Samaritans joined forces against the Christians.[202] Little is known about these revolts, but the probable cause for them was the Byzantines' discrimination against non-Christians.[203] The rebellions and the authorities anti-Samaritan policies caused the Samaritians' numbers to dwindle and contributed to solidifying Christian dominance in Palestine.[204]
The Byzantine and the Persian Empire in 600
In 602, the final war between the Byzantine Empire and its eastern rival the Persian Empire (Sasanid Empire) broke out. In 613 the Persians invaded the Levant and the Jews revolted against the Byzantines, hoping to secure autonomy for Jerusalem.[205] The following year Persian-Jewish forces captured Caesarea and Jerusalem, destroying its churches, massacring its Christian population, and taking the True Cross and other relics as trophies.[206] The Roman emperor Heraclius made a successful counter-offensive and by 627/8 he was advancing into the Persian heartland. The Persians sued for peace and had to return the Roman provinces they had captured and the stolen relics. In March 629, Heraclius triumphantly returned the True Cross to Jerusalem.[207] Heraclius had promised the Jews pardon for their earlier treachery but the Christians had not forgotten the Jews' atrocities. At their insistence, Heraclius expelled the Jews from Jerusalem and had those involved in the uprising executed.[208]
Although the Romans had soundly defeated their nemesis, the continued warfare had taken its toll and paved the way for the Arabian conquest a decade later.[209]
Between 636 and 640, the Muslim armies of the second Islamic caliph Umar conquered Palestine.[178][lxxiv][lxxv] Under Islamic rule, Christians, Jews and Samaritans were protected as fellow Abrahamic monotheists or "peoples of the Book" and allowed to practice their religions in peace.[210] The Muslims also lifted the Romans' centuries-long ban on Jews in Jerusalem.[211]
The Muslims organized the territory of the Byzantine Dioceses Orientes (Syria) into five military districts, or provinces (jund, pl. ajnad).[212][lxxvi][lxxvii] The territory of Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Tertia became Jund Filastin and stretched from Aqaba in the south to the lower Galilee in the north and from Arish in the west to Jericho in the east.[213][lxxviii] The Tulunids later expanded the borders of the province eastwards and southwards to include regions in modern-day southern Jordan and north-western Saudi Arabia.[214][lxxix] The newly founded city Ramla became Jund Filastin's administrative capital and most important city.[215]Jund al-Urdunn corresponded with Palaestina Secunda, covering most of the Galilee, the western part of Peraea in Transjordan, and the coastal cities Acre and Sur (Tyre).[216]Tabariyyah (Tiberias) replaced Scythopolis as the province's capital.[217]
Throughout the period, Palestine was among the most prosperous and fertile provinces of the caliphate.[218] Palestine's wealth derived from its strategic location as a hub for international trade, the influx of pilgrims, its excellent agricultural produce, and from a number of local crafts.[219] Products manufactured or traded in Palestine included building materials from marble and white-stone quarries, spices, soaps, olive oil, sugar, indigo, Dead Sea salts, and silk.[220] Palestinian Jews were expert glassmakers whose wares became known as "Jewish glass" in Europe.[221] Palestine was also known for its book production and scribal work.[222]
The Muslims invested much effort in developing a fleet and in restoring seaports, creating shipyards, fortifying coastal cities, and in establishing naval bases in Palestine.[223] Acre became their chief naval base from which a fleet set out to conquer Cyprus in 647.[224] Jaffa came to replace Caesarea as Palestine's main port due to its proximity with Ramla.[225]
Though Palestine was now under Muslim control, the Christian world's affection for the Holy Land continued to grow. Christian kings made generous donations to Jerusalem's holy sites,[lxxx] and helped facilitate the ever increasing pilgrimage traffic.[227][lxxxi] Pilgrims ventured for the adventure, but also to expiate sin.[229][lxxxii] Many pilgrims were attacked by highwaymen which would later be cited by the Crusaders as a reason to "liberate" Jerusalem from the Muslims.[230]
In 656 the Rashidun caliph Uthman was assassinated leading to the caliphate's first civil war (fitna). The war ended in 661 with the Umayyads becoming the caliphate's ruling dynasty.[231][lxxxiii] The first Umayyad caliph, Mu'awiya I, held his accession ceremony in Jerusalem.[232] The Umayyads moved the caliphate's capital from Kufa to Damascus, where they enjoyed strong tribal support. The religious significance of nearby Jerusalem and the fact that in Syria, unlike in Iraq and Egypt, Arabs and non-Arabs lived together may also have played a role.[233]
The Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (r.685–705) and his son al-Walid I (r.705–715) built two important Islamic religious buildings on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem; the al-Jami'a al-Aqsa[234][lxxxiv] and the Dome of the Rock.[238] Contrary to common belief, the Dome is not a mosque and its original function and significance is uncertain.[239] The Dome remains the oldest extant Islamic monument in the world.[240] Abd al-Malik paid special attention to Palestine due to Jerusalem's religious centrality and its critical position as a transit zone between Syria and Egypt and built and repaired the roads connecting Damascus with Palestine and Jerusalem to its eastern and western hinterlands, as evidenced by seven milestones found throughout the region.[241][242][243][244][lxxxv] Al-Walid's successor, Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik (r.715–717), ruled from Palestine, where he had long been governor and founded the city of Ramla, which remained the region's administrative center until the Crusader conquest in 1099.[247]
The centuries-long feud between the Arab tribal confederations the Qays and the Yaman that began under the Umayyads came to color Palestine's history.[248][lxxxvi][lxxxvii] The early caliphs would seek support from one of these groups and would consequently be opposed by the other, often resulting in warfare. The pretender standing victorious in these wars would reward their confederation with governorships in the provinces and other privileges.[251][lxxxviii] The casualties inflicted during the wars would also have to be avenged, causing further bloodshed. Later caliphs tried to curb the feud, but it was almost impossible to stop; the best that they could do was to keep it under control by threats and themselves paying the blood-money demanded to prevent further retaliation.[252]
In 744, Palestinian tribes rebelled against the caliph.[253] The caliph appeased the tribes by promising them various offices and other benefits.[254] While it ended the rebellion, the tribes remained antagonistic towards the caliph.[254] Another uprising broke out in Syria in 745 after Marwan II had become the new caliph and was soon joined by the Palestinian tribes.[255][lxxxix] Marwan II quelled the uprising but another erupted which required considerable bloodshed to stamp out. Marwan II destroyed the city walls of Jerusalem, Damascus, and other cities as punishment.[256]
De facto independent emirates after the Abbasids lost their military dominance c. 950
With the overthrow of the Umayyads in a 750 revolution by the Abbasids, who had their power base in Persia, the caliphate's capital was moved to Baghdad in 762. This change meant that Palestine lost its central position and became a province in the caliphate's periphery whose problems weren't tended to very carefully.[257] Though it did not cause a decline in the region, it ended the Umayyads' extravagant investments in Palestine.[258][xc] The prestige of the tribes in Syria, including Palestine, many of whom had supported the Umayyads also diminished and they no longer influenced the caliphate's political affairs – only its rebellions.[259][xci][xcii]
Rebellions and other disturbances constantly troubled the Abbasids' rule.[257] In the 790s, the Qays-Yaman feud resulted in several wars in Palestine.[260] One of these, fought in 796 between Qaysi rebels on one side, and the Yamani and Abbasid regime on the other, required substantial force to quell.[261] Another uprising broke out in the 840s when the Yaman Al-Mubarqa roused peasants and tribesmen against the Abbasid regime.[262] These outburts of violence were very destructive and the rebels caused great havoc, looted monasteries, and devastated many cities.[263] At times, Palestine was a lawless land.[264]
Towards the end of the 9th century, the Abbasids began to lose control of their western provinces, following a period of internal instability.[178][xciii] In 873, the governor of Egypt, Ahmad Ibn Tulun, declared independence and founded the Tulunid dynasty. A few years later, he occupied Syria.[265] The Tulunids ended the persecution of Christians and prompted the renovation of churches in Jerusalem.[266] The port of Acre was also renovated.[266] The Tulunids' rule was short-lived, however, and by 906 the Abbasids had retaken Palestine.[267] Their control lasted until 939 when they granted Muhammad ibn Tughj al-Ikhshid, the governor of Egypt and Palestine, autonomous control over his domain.[268][xciv] He established the Ikshidid dynasty whose rule was marked by acts of persecution against Christians, sometimes aided by local Jews.[269] In 937, the Church of the Resurrection was torched and robbed and in 966 severe anti-Christian riots occurred in Jerusalem.[270] Anarchy reigned after the Ikhshidid regent died in 968.[271] Many welcomed the Fatimid Caliphate's conquest of the Ikhshid state the following year.[272][xcv]
The Fatimid Caliphate at its greatest extentA gold dinar minted in Palestine in 969–970
The Fatimids established a caliphate based in North Africa in the early 10th century. In 969, they conquered the Ikshidid's territory and established precarious control over Palestine. Their arrival marked the beginning of six decades of almost uninterrupted and highly destructive warfare in Palestine between them and their many enemies, the Byzantines, the Qarmatians, Bedouin tribes, and even infighting between Berber and Turkic factions within the Fatimid army.[273] Of note are the Bedouins, led by the Jarrahids, who in 977–981/2,[274] in 1011–13,[275] and in 1024–1029,[276] gained de facto independent rule over most of Palestine, either by rebelling or by acquiring the Caliph's reluctant consent. The Bedouins also enjoyed almost unlimited power in Palestine in 997–1010.[277][xcvi] The Bedouins' rule, plunder and many atrocities exacted a heavy toll on Palestine.[278][xcvii]
In 1009, in a spate of religious persecution, Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the demolition of all churches and synagogues in the empire, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.[279] News of the demolition shocked and enraged Christian Europe which blamed the Jews.[280] Al-Hakim also forced Christians and Jews to wear a distinctive dress.[281] His anti-Christian policies may have been intended to mollify critics of his father's liberal attitude towards dhimmi or to put pressure on the Byzantines.[282] His successor permitted the holy church to be rebuilt, but the repression against non-Muslims continued.[283]
In the 11th century, the Muslim Turkic Seljuk Empire invaded West Asia and both the Byzantines and the caliphates suffered territorial losses.[xcviii] Baghad fell in 1055,[284] and Palestine in 1071–1073.[285] Thus, the period of relative calm ended and Palestine again became the scene of anarchy, internal wars among the Turks themselves and between them and their enemies. The Turkic rule was one of slaughter, vandalism, and economic hardship.[286][xcix] In 1077, an uprising against the unpopular Seljuk rule spread in Palestine which was quashed with an iron fist. The Seljuks slaughtered the people of Jerusalem, despite having promised them pardon, and annihilated Gaza, Ramla, and Jaffa.[287] In 1098, the Fatimids recaptured Jerusalem from the Seljuks.[288]
In addition to the warring, three major earthquakes hit Palestine in the 11th century: in 1015,[289] in 1033,[290] and 1068.[291] The last one virtually demolished Ramla and killed some 15,000 inhabitants.[292]
Generally, the Crusades (1095–1291) refer to the European Christian campaigns in the Holy Land sponsored by the Papacy against Muslims in order to reconquer the region of Palestine.[293][294][295] While Palestine was a far away land, pilgrimage had nurtured a special bond between the region and the Europeans who considered it a holy land. Impediments to the pilgrimage traffic to Palestine, of which there were many in the late 11th century, were cause for serious concern. Meanwhile, a doctrine of holy war developed under which warfare to aid Christians or to defend Christianity was seen as virtuous. Additionally, relations between the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity – which had been chilly schisms – were improving. These factors meant that when the Byzantines called for help against the Muslims, the western Europeans obliged and launched the first of a number of military expeditions, known as "the Crusades".[296]
The First Crusade captured the entire eastern Mediterranean coast, from modern-day Turkey in the north to the Sinai in the south.[c]Crusader states were organized in the captured territory, one of which was the Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded in 1100, encompassing most of Palestine and modern-day Lebanon.[296] More crusades followed as the Latins and the Muslims battled for control over Palestine.[296]
In 1187, Palestine, including Jerusalem, was captured by the Egyptian-based Ayyubid dynasty.[297][ci] However, the Ayyubids failed to take Tyre and the crusader states in the north.[298] This allowed the crusaders to launch another crusade that by 1192 had occupied most of the Palestinian coast down to Jaffa, but, crucially, it failed to retake Jerusalem.[299] Negotiations between the Latins and the Ayyubids resulted in a treaty, securing unfettered access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem for Christian pilgrims, but the holy city would remain in Ayyubid hands and the True Cross would not be returned.[300]
This state of affairs, with the Kingdom of Jerusalem reduced to a sliver of coastal land, would remain for most of the 13th century. Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth, as well as a thin strip of land connecting the cities to the coast, was awarded the kingdom in 1229 following negotiations that concluded the Sixth Crusade.[301][cii] Ten years earlier, the Ayyubids had destroyed Jerusalem's city walls to prevent the Latins from capturing a fortified city.[302][ciii] In 1244, Jerusalem was captured by Khwarizmians who went on to burn churches and to massacre the Christian population.[303] The shock of the atrocities goaded the Latins into action. The Latin nobility pooled all the resources they had together into the largest field army amassed in the East since the late 12 century.[304][civ] Strengthened by troops from dissident Muslim rulers, they met the Ayyubid–Khwarizmian coalition at the Battle of La Forbie north-east of Gaza. There, they suffered a disastrous defeat, marking the end of Latin influence in southern and central Palestine.[305][cv] In 1291, the Mamluksdestroyed Acre, the Kingdom of Jerusalem's capital and last stronghold.[306][cvi]
The Europeans interest in crusading gradually waned over time. New ideas about what a "good Christian life" meant emerged and seeking redemption for sins through action became less central.[307] To boot, "heretical" beliefs within Europe became a major issue for Latin Christianity, taking focus away from Palestine.[308]
Military orders made up of pious knights, combining monastic discipline with martial skill, were organized in the crusader states. The duties of these were to defend strategic areas and to serve in the crusader armies. The most famous orders was the Knights Templar, named after their headquarter in the al-Aqsa mosque which they called the Temple of Solomon. The nearby Dome of the Rock was used as a church.[309] Another famous order were the Hospitallers, renowned for caring for the poor and sick. In Palestine, where crusades came and went, the orders provided stability otherwise impossible to maintain.[310]
Under the Crusader rule, fortifications, castles, towers and fortified villages were built, rebuilt and renovated across Palestine largely in rural areas.[311][312] A notable urban remnant of the Crusader architecture of this era is found in Acre's old city.[311]
During the period of Crusader control, it has been estimated that Palestine had only 1,000 poor Jewish families.[cvii] Jews fought alongside the Muslims against the Crusaders in Jerusalem in 1099 and Haifa in 1100.
The Mamluk Sultanate was indirectly created in Egypt as a result of the Seventh Crusade, which had been launched in reaction to the 1244 destruction of Jerusalem. The crusade failed after Louis IX of France was defeated and captured by the Ayyubid sultan al-Muazzam Turanshah at the Battle of Fariskur in 1250. Turanshah was killed by his Mamluks a month after the battle, and his stepmother Shajar al-Durr became sultana of Egypt; she married the Mamluk Aybak and he served as Atabeg. The Ayyubids relocated to Damascus, where they continued to control Palestine for a further decade.[citation needed]
In the late 13th century, Palestine and Syria became the primary front against the fast-expanding Mongol Empire, whose army reached Palestine for the first time in 1260, beginning with the Mongol raids into Palestine under Nestorian Christian general Kitbuqa. Mongol leader Hulegu Khan sent a message to Louis IX of France that Jerusalem had been remitted to the Christians under the Franco-Mongol alliance; however, shortly thereafter, he had to return to Mongolia following the death of Möngke Khan, leaving Kitbuqa and a reduced army. Kitbuqa then engaged with the Mamluks under Baybars in the pivotal Battle of Ain Jalut in the Jezreel Valley. The Mamluks' decisive victory in Palestine established a high-water mark for the Mongol conquests. The Mongols were, however, able to engage into some further brief raids in 1300 under Ghazan and Mulay, reaching as far as Gaza. Jerusalem was held by the Mongols for four months (see Ninth Crusade).[citation needed]
The Mamluks, continuing the policy of the Ayyubids, made the strategic decision to destroy the coastal area and to bring desolation to many of its cities, from Tyre in the north to Gaza in the south. Ports were destroyed and various materials were dumped to make them inoperable. The goal was to prevent attacks from the sea, given the fear of the return of the Crusaders. This had a long-term effect on those areas, which remained sparsely populated for centuries. The activity in that time concentrated more inland.[314]
Palestine formed a part of the Damascus wilayah (district) under the rule of the Mamluk Sultanate and was divided into three smaller sanjaks (subdivisions) with capitals in Jerusalem, Gaza, and Safed.[315] Due in part to the many conflicts, earthquakes and the Black Death that hit the region during this era, the population is estimated to have dwindled to around 200,000. The Mamluks constructed a "postal road" from Cairo to Damascus that included lodgings for travelers (khans) and bridges, some of which survive to this day (see Jisr Jindas, near Lod). The period also saw the construction of many schools and the renovation of mosques neglected or destroyed during the Crusader period.[316]
Palestine was celebrated by Arab and Muslim writers of the time as the "blessed land of the prophets and Islam's revered leaders".[315] Muslim sanctuaries were "rediscovered" and received many pilgrims.[316] In 1496, Mujir al-Din wrote his history of Palestine known as The Glorious History of Jerusalem and Hebron.[317]
The Ottomans maintained the administrative and political organisation that the Mamluks left in Palestine. Greater Syria became an eyalet (province) ruled from Damascus, while the Palestine region within it was divided into the five sanjaks (provincial districts, also called liwa′ in Arabic) of Safad, Nablus, Jerusalem, Lajjun and Gaza.[320][321] The sanjaks were further subdivided into subdistricts called nawahi (sing. nahiya).[319] For much of the 16th century, the Ottomans ruled Damascus Eyalet in a centralised way, with the Istanbul-based Sublime Porte (imperial government) playing a crucial role in maintaining public order and domestic security, collecting taxes, and regulating the economy, religious affairs and social welfare.[322] Most of Palestine's population, estimated to be around 200,000 in the early years of Ottoman rule, lived in villages. The largest cities were Gaza, Safad and Jerusalem, each with a population of around 5,000–6,000.[319]
Ottoman property administration consisted of a system of fiefs called timar and trusts called waqf. Timar lands were distributed by the sultan to various officers and officials, particularly from the elite sipahi units. A timar was a source of income for its holder, who was responsible for maintaining order and enforcing the law in the timar. Waqf land was owned by various individuals and its revenues were dedicated to religious functions and institutions, social welfare and individual beneficiaries. Over 60% of cultivated land in the Jerusalem Sanjak was waqf land. To a lesser extent, there was also privately owned land predominantly located within villages and their immediate vicinity.[319]
The name "Palestine" was no longer used as the official name of an administrative unit under the Ottomans because they typically named provinces after their capitals. Nonetheless, the old name remained popular and semi-official,[323] with many examples of its usage in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries surviving.[324][325][326] The 16th-century Jerusalem-based Islamic jurist Sayf al-Islam Abu'l Sa'ud Effendi defined the term as an alternative name for Arazi-i Muqaddas (Ottoman Turkish for "the Holy Land").[321] The 17th-century Ramla-based jurist Khayr al-Din al-Ramli often used the term "Filastin" in his fatawat (religious edicts) without defining the term, although some of his fatawat suggest that it more or less corresponded with the borders of Jund Filastin.[321] Thomas Salmon's 18th-century book, Modern history or, the present state of all nations, states that "Jerusalem is still reckoned the capital city of Palestine, though much fallen from its ancient grandeur."[327]
Decentralization process
Ridwan-Farrukh-Turabay period
By the end of the 16th century, direct Ottoman rule over Damascus Eyalet was weakened, partly due to the Jelali revolts and other Anatolian insurrections.[322] The timar system, which functioned to serve the fiscal and military needs of the Ottoman government, was also becoming less relevant during this period.[328] Consequently, a new governing elite emerged in Palestine consisting of the Ridwan, Farrukh and Turabay dynasties whose members provided the district governors of the Gaza, Nablus, Jerusalem and Lajjun sanjaks between the late 16th century and the late 17th century. The stability of their rule varied by sanjak, with Ridwan control of Gaza, Turabay control of Lajjun, and Farrukh control of Nablus largely continuous, and the Ridwan-Farrukh hold over Jerusalem frequently interrupted by governors appointed from Istanbul.[329]
Ties between the families were solidified through inter-marriage, business and political cooperation.[330] From the late 16th century until the early 18th century, the prestigious post of amir al-hajj (commander of the Hajj caravan) would often be assigned to the district governor of Nablus or Gaza. This tradition laid the foundation for a durable military alliance between the three families since the departing amir al-hajj from one of these families would entrust authority over his sanjak to the governor of the neighboring sanjak.[331] Gradually, the ties between the Ridwan, Farrukh and Turabay families led to the establishment of a single extended dynasty that held sway over much of Palestine.[332]
In 1622, the Druzeemir (prince) of Mount Lebanon, Fakhr-al-Din II gained control of Safad Sanjak and was appointed governor of Nablus and mutasallim (chief tax collector) of Gaza.[331] Alarmed at the looming threat to their rule, the Ridwan-Farrukh-Turabay alliance prepared for a confrontation with Fakhr ad-Din by pooling their financial resources to acquire arms and bribe Bedouin tribes to fight alongside them. They were also tacitly supported by the Sublime Porte, which was wary of Fakhr ad-Din's growing autonomy.[331] When Fakhr ad-Din's better-equipped army launched an offensive to gain control of Palestine's coastal plain and Jerusalem, the army of Hasan Arab Ridwan, Ahmad Turabay and Muhammad ibn Farrukh routed his forces at the Awja River near Jaffa.[331] In 1624, following the Battle of Anjar, Fakhr ad-Din was appointed the "Emir of Arabistan" by the Ottomans, which gave him official authority over the region between Aleppo and Jerusalem.[333] He was deposed and hanged a decade later by the Wali of Damascus.
Imperial attempts at centralization
Gaza's political influence in Palestine rose under the Ridwan dynasty, particularly during the governorship of Husayn Pasha, which began in the 1640s. It was considered the "capital of Palestine" by the French consul of Jerusalem, Chevalier d'Arvieux.[334][335] Husayn's closeness with France and his good relations with Palestine's Christian communities were a source of imperial consternation at his rule.[336] Concurrently, in the mid-17th century, the Ottoman government guided by the Köprülü viziers attempted to restore centralized authority over its outlier provinces.[337] One of the centralization measures introduced by Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha was the establishment of the Sidon Eyalet in 1660, which administratively separated Safad Sanjak from the rest of Palestine, which remained part of Damascus Eyalet. This reorganization was done to both weaken the ambitious governors of Damascus and to maintain stricter control over the rebellious emirs of Mount Lebanon.[338]
With the elimination of Fakhr ad-Din's threat to Ottoman control in the Levant, the Sublime Porte sought to bring an end to the Ridwan-Farrukh-Turabay dynasty. Beside concern over their increasing consolidation of power in Palestine, the Sublime Porte was frustrated by the substantially decreased revenues from the annual Hajj caravan, which a governor from one of the three families often commanded.[337] In 1657, the Ottoman authorities launched a military expedition in Palestine to reassert imperial control over the region because of its strategic importance in the funding and protection of the Hajj caravan and also because it was a crucial link to Egypt.[339] The Sublime Porte used Husayn Pasha's alleged incompetence leading the Hajj caravan in 1662–63 to imprison and execute him.[340] Husayn Pasha served as the foundation of the Ridwan-Farrukh-Turabay alliance and his death was followed by the Sublime Porte's gradual elimination of the rest of the extended dynasty by the late 1670s.[341] Ridwan rule persisted in Gaza until 1690.[342]
The elimination of the Ridwan-Farrukh-Turabay dynasty and their replacement by governors appointed by the Ottoman government "radically changed the state of affairs" in Palestine, according to historian Dror Ze'evi.[343] The appointed governors abandoned the relationships that the local dynasties maintained with the local elites and largely ignored the increasing exploitation of the populace by the Janissaries, subashis and timar holders. Official complaints to the Sublime Porte about the latter groups skyrocketed among Muslims, Christians and Jews alike.[343] Many peasants abandoned their villages to avoid exploitation, townspeople complained about the seizure of their property and the ulama (Muslim scholarly class) complained about the Janissaries' disregard for justice and the sanctity of Muslim places of worship, including the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif).[343] In reaction to this state of affairs, in 1703, an uprising, known as the Naqib al-Ashraf Revolt, by the people of Jerusalem took place, led by the chief of the ashraf families, Muhammad ibn Mustafa al-Husayni, and backed by the city's notables. The home of Jerusalem's qadi, a symbol of imperial authority, was ransacked and his translator killed by rebels. They proceeded to govern the city themselves until an Ottoman siege and internal strife forced al-Husayni and his rebels to withdraw from Jerusalem in October 1705.[343]
Meanwhile, the mostly Arab sipahi officers of the 1657 centralization expedition, chief among them members of the Nimr family, settled in Nablus and, contrary to the Sublime Porte's intention, began forming their own local power bases in the city's rural hinterland from the timars they were assigned.[344] Towards the end of the 17th century, they were soon followed by the Jarrar and Tuqan families, who like the Nimrs, came from other parts of Ottoman Syria.[344] The sheikhs (chiefs) of these families soon emerged as the new nobility of central Palestine. They developed increasingly close ties to the local population through selling or leasing their timars to rural notables, investing in local commerce, property and businesses such as soap factories, and intermarrying and partnering with local ashraf and mercantile families.[344] Politically, the Tuqans and Nimrs dominated the governorship of Nablus and at times controlled other districts and subdistricts[345] (in 1723 Salih Pasha Tuqan was governor of the Nablus, Lajjun and Gaza sanjaks).[346] The Jarrars were the dominant clan of the Nablus hinterland, although other clans, among them the Mamluk-era Jayyusis, continued to hold influence in their respective subdistricts. This state of affairs in Jabal Nablus persisted with minor interruptions until the mid-19th century.[345]
Rule of Acre and autonomy of Nablus
Zaydani period
Zahir al-Umar's autonomous sheikhdom in 1774
In the mid-17th century, the Zaydani family became a formidable force in northern Palestine. Initially, its sheikhs were appointed as multazems (tax collectors and local enforcers) of iltizam (tax farms) in parts of the Galilee by the Ma'ani, and, after 1697, the Shihabiemirs of Mount Lebanon.[347] In 1730, Zaydani sheikh Zahir al-Umar was directly appointed by the Wali of Sidon as the multazem of Tiberias, which he soon fortified,[348] along with other Zaydani strongholds such as Deir Hanna, Arraba and Nazareth. Between that time and 1750, Zahir had consolidated his control over the entire Galilee.[349] He transferred his headquarters to the port village of Acre, which he renovated and refortified.[349] Acre became the center of an expanding autonomous sheikhdom financed by a monopoly on cotton and other agricultural commodities from Palestine and southern Lebanon established by Zahir.[350] Zahir's control of cotton and olive oil prices drew great revenues from European merchants, and these funds enabled him to marshal military resources needed to fend off military assaults by the governors of Damascus.[350] Moreover, the monopolies ended the foreign merchants' manipulation of prices and financial exploitation of the local peasantry.[351] Together with significantly improved general security and social justice, Zahir's economic policies made him popular with the local inhabitants.[352] Zahir also encouraged immigration to Palestine and his rule attracted large numbers of Jews and Melkite and Greek Orthodox Christians from throughout Ottoman Syria, revitalizing the region's economy.[350] Zahir founded modern-day Haifa in 1769.
In the early 1770s, Zahir allied himself with the Russian Empire and Ali Bey of Egypt. Together with Ali Bey's deputy commanders Ismail Bey and Abu al-Dhahab, and backed by the Russian Navy, Zahir and his Lebanese Shia allies invaded Damascus and Sidon. Ali Bey's commanders abruptly withdrew from Damascus after briefly capturing it in June 1771,[353] compelling Zahir to withdraw from Sidon shortly thereafter.[354]Uthman Pasha al-Kurji, the Wali of Damascus, renewed his campaign to eliminate Zahir, but his forces were routed at Lake Hula in September 1771.[355] Zahir followed up this decisive victory with another major victory against Emir Yusuf Shihab's Druze forces at Nabatieh.[356] By 1774, Zahir's rule extended from Gaza to Beirut and included most of Palestine.[357] The year after, however, a coalition of Ottoman forces besieged and killed him at his Acre headquarters.[358] The Ottoman commander Jazzar Pasha subsequently waged a campaign that destroyed Deir Hanna's fort and ended Zaydani rule in the Galilee in 1776.[359]
Although Acre and the Galilee were part of Sidon Eyalet while the rest of Palestine administratively belonged to Damascus, it was the rulers of Acre, beginning with Zahir, that dominated Palestine and the southern Syrian districts.[360] Damascus governors typically held office for short periods of time and were often occupied with protecting and leading the Hajj caravan[360] (the office of amir al-hajj had become the responsibility of the Wali of Damascus in 1708),[361] preventing them from asserting their authority over semi-autonomous areas such as the Nablus region.[360] In contrast, Zahir established Acre as a virtually autonomous entity, a process seen in other parts of the Ottoman Empire including Egypt, Mount Lebanon and Mosul.[362] Moreover, Acre became the de facto capital of Sidon Eyalet during and after Zahir's reign, and like Zahir, his successors ruled Acre until their deaths.[362] There were several military confrontations between Zahir and the Jarrar clan starting in 1735 when the former occupied the latter's territory of Nazareth and the Jezreel Valley, which served as trade and transportation hubs.[363] Meanwhile, in 1766, the Tuqan family had ousted the Jayyusis from the Bani Sa'b subdistrict, which was then occupied by Zahir in 1771, stripping Nablus of its sea access.[364] The conflict between Zahir and the Tuqans culminated with the former's unsuccessful siege of Nablus later that year.[365]
Jazzar Pasha was appointed Wali of Sidon by the Sublime Porte for his role in uprooting the Zaydani sheikhdom.[366] Unlike the Galilee-born Zahir, Jazzar was a product of the Ottoman state and a force for Ottoman centralization,[367] yet he also pursued his own agenda, extending his influence throughout the southern half of Ottoman Syria.[368] Jazzar assumed control over Zahir's cotton monopoly and further strengthened the fortifications of Acre, where he was based.[369] He financed his rule through income generated from the cotton trade, as well as taxes, tolls and extortion.[368] Tensions between Jazzar and the French cotton merchants of Acre ended with the latter being expelled in the late 1780s,[368][370] at a time when prices for Palestine's cotton were declining due to alternative sources elsewhere.[368][369] Like Zahir, Jazzar was able to maintain domestic security by suppressing the Bedouin tribes.[368] However, the local peasantry did not fare well under his stringent taxation policies, which resulted in many leaving the Galilee for neighboring areas.[368] To protect his rule, he raised a personal army of mamluks (slave soldiers) and mercenaries consisting of troops from different parts of the Islamic world.[368] Jazzar established close ties with the Tuqan family, who were traditionally aligned with the Ottoman authorities.[365] However, the Tuqans' chief rival,[364] the Jarrar family, resisted his attempts at centralization and Jazzar besieged them at their Sanur fortress in 1790 and 1795, both times ending in defeat.[365]
In February 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte entered Palestine after conquering Egypt as part of his campaign against the Ottomans, who were allied with his enemy, the British Empire. He occupied Gaza and moved north along Palestine's coastal plain,[371]capturing Jaffa, where his forces massacred some 3,000 Ottoman troops who had surrendered and many civilians.[372] His forces then captured Haifa and used it as a staging ground for their siege of Acre.[373] Napoleon called for Jewish support to capture Jerusalem. This was done to gain favor with Haim Farhi, Jazzar's Jewish vizier.[374] The invasion rallied the sheikhs of Jabal Nablus, with the multazem of Jenin, Sheikh Yusuf al-Jarrar, beckoning them to combat the French.[375] In contrast to the sheikhs of the Hebron Hills and Jerusalem who provided conscripts to the Ottoman Army, the sheikhs of Jabal Nablus fought independently, to the chagrin of the Sublime Porte.[376] Their men were defeated by the French in the Galilee.[377] Napoleon failed to conquer Acre and his defeat by Jazzar's forces, backed by the British, compelled him to withdraw from Palestine with heavy losses in May.[378] Jazzar's victory significantly boosted his prestige.[367] The Ottomans pursued the French in Egypt in 1800, using Gaza as their launch point.[371]
Jazzar died in 1804 and was succeeded as Wali of Sidon by his trusted mamlukSulayman Pasha al-Adil. Sulayman, under Farhi's guidance, undertook a policy of loosening his predecessors' monopolies on the cotton, olive oil and grain trades.[379] However, he also established Acre as the only Levantine port city allowed to export these cash crops.[380] He also made significant cuts to Acre's military and adopted a decentralization policy of non-interference with his deputy governors, such as Muhammad Abu-Nabbut of Jaffa, and diplomacy with various autonomous sheikhs, such as Musa Bey Tuqan of Nablus. This marked a departure from the violent approach of Jazzar.[379] By 1810, Sulayman was appointed to Damascus Eyalet, giving him control over most of Ottoman Syria. Before he was dismissed from the latter in 1812, he managed to have the sanjaks of Latakia, Tripoli and Gaza annexed to Sidon Eyalet.[381][382] Towards the end of his rule, in 1817, a civil war broke out in Jabal Nablus between the Tuqans and a coalition of the Nimr, Jarrar, Qasim and Abd al-Hadi families over Musa Bey's attempt to monopolize power in Nablus by ousting the Nimrs. Sulayman mediated between the families and secured a temporary peace in 1818.[383]
Town of Bethlehem, from Views in the Ottoman Dominions, in Europe, in Asia, and some of the Mediterranean islands (1810) illustrated by Luigi Mayer.
Abdullah Pasha, groomed by Farhi for leadership,[384] succeeded Sulayman in 1820 nine months after the latter's death in 1819. Ottoman hesitation to appoint Abdullah was mitigated after persistent lobbying and bribery of Ottoman imperial officials by Farhi. Unlike Jazzar's mamluks who sought the governorship, Farhi did not view his protégé Abdullah to be a threat to his influence.[385] Nonetheless, Abdullah had Farhi executed less than a year into his rule as the result of a power struggle.[386] Abdullah more or less continued his predecessor's alliance with Emir Bashir Shihab II of Mount Lebanon and together they confronted the Wali of Damascus.[387] The Ottoman authorities, instigated by Farhi's relatives,[387][388] attempted to oust Abdullah in a siege against Acre, but Muhammad Ali, Wali of Egypt, persuaded the Ottomans to keep Abdullah as governor. In 1830, the Sidon Eyalet was assigned the sanjaks of Nablus, Jerusalem and Hebron, thereby bringing all of Palestine under a single province.[389] That year, the Jarrars led a revolt against Abdullah, who thereafter besieged and destroyed Sanur's fortress, which had successfully resisted sieges by his predecessors.[389] Abdullah's rule was marked by declining revenues from the cotton trade, efforts to reassert Acre's monopolies and poverty in Palestine. Nonetheless, Acre under Abdullah remained the principal force in Ottoman Syria due to instability in Damascus and the Ottomans' preoccupation with the war in Greece.[390]
Aqil Agha period
Starting in the 1830s, Aqil Agha, a Palestinian bedouin who was a defector from Ibrahim Pasha's army,[391] began assembling a militant group which had him becoming an influential man in Northern Palestine.[392] His rise and meddling in Palestine angered the Ottoman appointed kaimakam of Acre, Muhammad Kubrisi, which ultimately resulted in Aqil leaving to east of Jordan river into modern day Jordan in search of allies.[393] There, Aqil would meet Emir Fendi Al-Fayez of the Bani Sakher, the most powerful tribe in Jordan[394] and one which frequently contested with the Ottomans, Emir Fendi had both the army of 4500 men and funds to support Aqil against Kubrisi.[395] Aqil would meet Al-Fayez in several secretive meetings, and an alliance was struck between them,[396] where Aqil became a vassal of the Al-Fayez as their Emirate has vassalized the local Arabs such as Al-Karak with the Majali and Al-Tafilah with Al-Huara and the Bani Hamidah earlier.[397] In 1847, Aqil's raids with the support of the Bani Sakher had Kubrisi inviting him back to the Galilee and had him pardoned.[393] His influence over the Galilee would only grow where his rule resembled Zahir al-Umar's[398] until the Tanzimat of 1962. After the Tanzimat, his role became less autonomous of the Ottomans, ending the last local obstacle to Ottoman centralization in Palestine.[399]
"Independent" Vilayet of Jerusalem shown within Ottoman administrative divisions in the Eastern Mediterranean coast after the reorganisation of 1887–88
Egyptian period
In October 1831, Muhammad Ali of Egypt dispatched his modernized army commanded by his son Ibrahim Pasha in a campaign to annex Ottoman Syria, including Palestine. Ibrahim Pasha's forces had previously defeated the Ottomans and gained control of Sudan and the western Arabian Peninsula. Their entry into Palestine was not resisted by the local inhabitants,[382] nor by the rural sheikhs of the central highlands.[400] However, Abdullah Pasha resisted the conquest from Acre, which was besieged and ultimately surrendered in May 1832.[401]
Egyptian rule brought on major political and administrative reforms to Palestine and Ottoman Syria in general, and represented a radical change from the semi-autonomous rule that existed in the region prior to Muhammad Ali's conquest.[402] Among the significant measures established by Ibrahim Pasha to bring all of Syria under a single administration was the introduction of the advisory councils whose purpose was to standardize the diverse political configurations of Syria.[402] The councils, based in the major cities, were composed of religious leaders, wealthy merchants and urban leaders, and functioned as administrative centers. In effect, they solidified urban control and economic domination of the hinterland, according to historian Beshara Doumani.[403] Ibrahim Pasha also instituted the disarmament and conscription of the peasantry, a policy carried out by Muhammad Ali in Egypt to establish centralized rule and a modern army.[402]
Conscription and disarmament were highly unpopular among the peasantry and their leaders, who refused to implement the orders. New taxation policies also threatened the role of urban notables and rural sheikhs as mutasallims, while Egypt's effective law enforcement measures threatened the livelihood of Bedouin tribes who derived their income from extorting merchants and travelers. The diverse array of social and political groups hostile to Egyptian reforms throughout Palestine developed into a coalition.[404] Consequently, this coalition launched what became known as the Peasants' Revolt in 1834. The core of the rebels were based in Jabal Nablus and led by subdistrict chief Qasim al-Ahmad,[403] who had previously contributed peasant irregulars to Ibrahim Pasha's forces during the conquest of Syria.[405] The revolt represented a major threat to the flow of arms and conscripts between Egypt and Syria and to Muhammad Ali's program of modernizing Egypt.[406] Rebel forces captured most of Palestine, including Jerusalem, by June.[407] However, Muhammad Ali arrived in Palestine, opened negotiations with various rebel leaders and sympathizers, and secured a truce in July.[408] He also managed to secure the defection of the powerful Abu Ghosh clan of Jerusalem's hinterland from the rebel forces.[407]
During the truce period, numerous religious and political leaders from Jerusalem and other cities were either arrested, exiled or executed. Afterward, Qasim recommenced the rebellion, viewing the truce as a ruse.[408] Egyptian forces launched a campaign to defeat the rebels in Jabal Nablus, destroying 16 villages before capturing Nablus itself on 15 July.[409] Qasim was pursued to Hebron, which was leveled in August,[409] and was later captured and executed with most of the rebel leadership. In the wake of Egypt's victory, the virtual autonomy of Jabal Nablus was significantly weakened,[403] the conscription orders were carried out with 10,000 peasant conscripts sent to Egypt, and the population was largely disarmed.[409] The latter measure effectively introduced a monopoly of violence in Palestine, as part of Egypt's centralization policies.[409] Egyptian rule and the defeat of the powerful rural sheikhs of Jabal Nablus led to the political elevation of the Abd al-Hadi family of Arraba. Its sheikh, Husayn Abd al-Hadi, supported Ibrahim Pasha during the revolt and was promoted as the Wali of Sidon, which included all of Palestine.[403] His relatives and allies were appointed the mutasallims of Jerusalem, Nablus and Jaffa.[410]
Britain sent the navy to shell Beirut and an Anglo-Ottoman expeditionary force landed, causing local uprisings against the Egyptian occupiers. A British naval squadron anchored off Alexandria. The Egyptian army retreated to Egypt. Muhammad Ali signed the Treaty of 1841. Britain returned control of the Levant to the Ottomans, and as a result was able to increase the extraterritorial rights that various European nations had enjoyed throughout previous centuries under the terms of the Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire. One American diplomat wrote that "Extraordinary privileges and immunities had become so embodied in successive treaties between the great Christian Powers and the Sublime Porte that for most intents and purposes many nationalities in the Ottoman Empire formed a state within the state."[411]
Restoration of Ottoman control
In common usage from 1840 onward, "Palestine" was used either to describe the consular jurisdictions of the Western powers[412] or for a region that extended in the north–south direction typically from Rafah (south-east of Gaza) to the Litani River (now in Lebanon). The western boundary was the sea, and the eastern boundary was the poorly defined place where the Syrian desert began. In various European sources, the eastern boundary was placed anywhere from the Jordan River to slightly east of Amman. The Negev Desert was not included.[413] The Consuls were originally magistrates who tried cases involving their own citizens in foreign territories. While the jurisdictions in the secular states of Europe had become territorial, the Ottomans perpetuated the legal system they inherited from the Byzantine Empire. The law in many matters was personal, not territorial, and the individual citizen carried his nation's law with him wherever he went.[414] Capitulatory law applied to foreigners in Palestine. Only Consular Courts of the State of the foreigners concerned were competent to try them. That was true, not only in cases involving personal status, but also in criminal and commercial matters.[415] According to American Ambassador Morgenthau, Turkey had never been an independent sovereignty.[416] The Western Powers had their own courts, marshals, colonies, schools, postal systems, religious institutions, and prisons. The Consuls also extended protections to large communities of Jewish protégés who had settled in Palestine.[417]
Map of "Palestine" in 1851, showing the Kaza subdivisions. At the time, the region shown was split between the Sidon Eyalet and the Damascus Eyalet
The Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities of Palestine were allowed to exercise jurisdiction over their own members according to charters granted to them. For centuries the Jews and Christians had enjoyed a large degree of communal autonomy in matters of worship, jurisdiction over personal status, taxes, and in managing their schools and charitable institutions. In the 19th century those rights were formally recognized as part of the Tanzimat reforms and when the communities were placed under the protection of European public law.[418][419][420]
In the 1860s, the Ottoman military was able to restore order east of Jordan by halting tribal conflicts and Bedouin raids. This invited migration to the east, notably the Salt area, from various populations in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine to take advantage of new lands. This influx amounted to some 12,000 over the period from 1880 to just before the First World War, while the Bedouin population east of Jordan increased to 56,000.[421] However, with the creation of the Transjordanian emirate in 1921–22, the hamlet of Amman, which had been recently resettled by Circassians, attracted most of the new immigrants from Palestine, and many of those that had previously moved to Salt.[422]
In the reorganisation of 1873, which established the administrative boundaries that remained in place until 1914, Palestine was split between three major administrative units. The northern part, above a line connecting Jaffa to north Jericho and the Jordan, was assigned to the vilayet of Beirut, subdivided into the sanjaks (districts) of Acre, Beirut and Nablus.[423] The southern part, from Jaffa downwards, was part of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, a special district under the direct authority of Istanbul.[424] Its southern boundaries were unclear but petered out in the eastern Sinai Peninsula and northern Negev Desert. Most of the central and southern Negev was assigned to the vilayet of Hejaz, which also included the Sinai Peninsula and the western part of Arabia.[423]
The Ottomans regarded "Filistin" as an abstract term referring to the "Holy Land", and not one consistently applied to a clearly defined area.[425] Among the educated Arab public, Filastin was a common concept, referring either to the whole of Palestine or to the Jerusalem sanjak alone[426] or just to the area around Ramle.[cviii] The publication of the daily paper Falastin (Palestine) from 1911 was one example of the increasing currency of this concept.[427]
Tel Aviv was founded on land purchased from Bedouins north of Jaffa. This is the 1909 drawing of lots for the distribution of construction plots.
The rise of Zionism, the national movement of the Jewish people started in Europe in the 19th century seeking to recreate a Jewish state in Palestine, and return the original homeland of the Jewish people. The end of the 19th century saw the beginning of Zionist immigration.[citation needed] The "First Aliyah" was the first modern widespread wave of aliyah. Jews who migrated to Palestine in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. This wave of aliyah began in 1881–82 and lasted until 1903,[428] bringing an estimated 25,000[429] Jews to Land of Israel.[citation needed] In 1891, a group of Jerusalem notables sent a petition to the central Ottoman government in Istanbul calling for the cessation of Jewish immigration, and land sales to Jews.[430][431] The "Second Aliyah" took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 35,000 Jews immigrated, mostly from Russia and Poland.[432]
Under the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916, it was envisioned that most of Palestine, when conquered from the Ottoman Empire, would become an international zone not under direct French or British colonial control. Shortly thereafter, British foreign minister Arthur Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration, which promised to establish a "Jewish national home" in Palestine,[433] but appeared to contradict the 1915–16 Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, which contained an undertaking to form a united Arab state in exchange for the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. McMahon's promises could have been seen by Arab nationalists as a pledge of immediate Arab independence, an undertaking violated by the region's subsequent partition into British and French League of Nations mandates under the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 1916, which became the real cornerstone of the geopolitics structuring the entire region. The Balfour Declaration, likewise, was seen by Jewish nationalists as the cornerstone of a future Jewish homeland.
The British Egyptian Expeditionary Force, commanded by Edmund Allenby, captured Jerusalem on 9 December 1917 and occupied the whole of the Levant following the defeat of Turkish forces in Palestine at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918 and the capitulation of Turkey on 31 October.[434][cix]
Zones of French and British influence and control proposed in the Sykes-Picot AgreementSouthern Palestine in 1924The new era in Palestine. The arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel, H.B.M. High Commissioner with Col. Lawrence, Emir Abdullah, Air Marshal Salmond and Sir Wyndham Deedes, 1920.
Following the First World War and the occupation of the region by the British, the principal Allied and associated powers drafted the mandate, which was formally approved by the League of Nations in 1922. Great Britain administered Palestine on behalf of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1948, a period referred to as the "British Mandate". The preamble of the mandate declared:
Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.[435]
Not all were satisfied with the mandate. The League of Nations' objective with the mandate system was to administer the parts of the former Ottoman Empire, which the Middle East had controlled since the 16th century, "until such time as they are able to stand alone".[436][437] Some of the Arabs felt that Britain was violating the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence and the understanding of the Arab Revolt. Some wanted unification with Syria: in February 1919, several Muslim and Christian groups from Jaffa and Jerusalem met and adopted a platform endorsing unity with Syria and opposition to Zionism (this is sometimes called the First Palestinian National Congress). A letter was sent to Damascus authorizing Faisal to represent the Arabs of Palestine at the Paris Peace Conference. In May 1919 a Syrian National Congress was held in Damascus, and a Palestinian delegation attended its sessions.[438]
In April 1920, violent Arab disturbances against the Jews in Jerusalem occurred, which came to be known as the 1920 Palestine riots. The riots followed rising tensions in Arab-Jewish relations over the implications of Zionist immigration. The British military administration's erratic response failed to contain the rioting, which continued for four days. As a result of the events, trust among the British, Jews, and Arabs eroded. One consequence was that the Jewish community increased moves towards an autonomous infrastructure and security apparatus parallel to that of the British administration.[citation needed]
In April 1920, the Allied Supreme Council (the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan) met at Sanremo and formal decisions were taken on the allocation of mandate territories. The United Kingdom obtained a mandate for Palestine and France obtained a mandate for Syria. The boundaries of the mandates and the conditions under which they were to be held were not decided. The Zionist Organization's representative at Sanremo, Chaim Weizmann, subsequently reported to his colleagues in London:
There are still important details outstanding, such as the actual terms of the mandate and the question of the boundaries in Palestine. There is the delimitation of the boundary between French Syria and Palestine, which will constitute the northern frontier and the eastern line of demarcation, adjoining Arab Syria. The latter is not likely to be fixed until the Emir Feisal attends the Peace Conference, probably in Paris.[439]
Churchill and Abdullah (with Herbert Samuel) during their negotiations in Jerusalem, March 1921
In July 1920, the French drove Faisal bin Husayn from Damascus, ending his already negligible control over the region of Transjordan, where local chiefs traditionally resisted any central authority. The sheikhs, who had earlier pledged their loyalty to the Sharif of Mecca, asked the British to undertake the region's administration. Herbert Samuel asked for the extension of the Palestine government's authority to Transjordan, but at meetings in Cairo and Jerusalem between Winston Churchill and Emir Abdullah in March 1921 it was agreed that Abdullah would administer the territory (initially for six months only) on behalf of the Palestine administration. In the summer of 1921 Transjordan was included within the Mandate, but excluded from the provisions for a Jewish National Home.[440] On 24 July 1922, the League of Nations approved the terms of the British Mandate over Palestine and Transjordan. On 16 September the League formally approved a memorandum from Lord Balfour confirming the exemption of Transjordan from the clauses of the mandate concerning the creation of a Jewish national home and Jewish settlement.[441] With Transjordan coming under the administration of the British Mandate, the mandate's collective territory became constituted of 23% Palestine and 77% Transjordan. The mandate for Palestine, while specifying actions in support of Jewish immigration and political status, stated, in Article 25, that in the territory to the east of the Jordan River, Britain could 'postpone or withhold' those articles of the Mandate concerning a Jewish National Home. Transjordan was a very sparsely populated region (especially in comparison with Palestine proper) due to its relatively limited resources and largely desert environment.[442][443]
Palestine and Transjordan were incorporated (under different legal and administrative arrangements) into the "Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan Memorandum" issued by the League of Nations to Great Britain on 29 September 1923
In 1923, an agreement between the United Kingdom and France confirmed the border between the British Mandate of Palestine and the French Mandate of Syria. The British handed over the southern Golan Heights to the French in return for the northern Jordan Valley. The border was re-drawn so that both sides of the Jordan River and the whole of the Sea of Galilee, including a 10-metre-wide strip along the northeastern shore, were made a part of Palestine,[444] with the provisions that Syria have fishing and navigation rights in the lake.[445]
Rachel's Tomb on a 1927 British Mandate stamp. "Palestine" is shown in English, Arabic (فلسطين), and Hebrew, the latter includes the acronym א״י for Eretz Yisrael
The first reference to the Palestinians, without qualifying them as Arabs, is to be found in a document of the Permanent Executive Committee, composed of Muslims and Christians, presenting a series of formal complaints to the British authorities on 26 July 1928.[446]
Governance
The most important Palestinian leader in Mandatory Palestine was Haj Amin al-Husayni. He was appointed "Grand Mufti of Palestine" by the British and used his position to lead the Palestinians' unsuccessful struggle for independence. He fled Palestine in 1937 to avoid being arrested for leading the Great Revolt but would still lead the Palestinians in his exile.[447]
In 1921, the British created the institution the Muslim Higher Council to provide religious leadership. They proceeded to recognize it as representing the Arabs of Palestine, in spite of the existing nationalist Executive Arab Committee that already sought that role.[448] The council's duties included administration of religious endowments and appointment of religious judges and local muftis. Haj Amin was chosen to head the institution and members of his family were given precedence on the council.[449] The rival family, the Nashashibis, were directed towards municipal positions.[449] This was in line with the British strategy to nurture rivalries among the Palestinian elite.[448] They succeeded and the schism created would hamper the growth of modern forms of national organization for decades to come.[449]
Al-Istiqlal, the Arab Independence Party, was established officially in 1932 but existed unofficially as early as 1930.[449] The Arab Higher Committee (al-Lajna al-'Arabiyya al-'Ulya), consisting of members of the Husaynis and Nashashibis, was established shortly after the outbreak of the Great Revolt in 1936.[450]
Demographics and Jewish immigration
The British facilitated Zionist settlement of Palestine by at least initially upholding their commitment under the Mandate to facilitate Jewish mass immigration. The latter was a factor in alarming the Arabs. In the census conducted in 1922 the population of Palestine was 763,550 of which 89 percent were Arabs and 11 percent Jews.[451]
In 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany, and the Haavara agreement between the Zionist Federation and the Third Reich was to facilitate the emigration of German Jews. Jewish immigration dramatically increased during the mid-1930s.[citation needed] In 1935, 62,000 Jews entered Palestine, the highest number since the mandate began in 1920.[452]
Between 1922 and 1947, the annual growth rate of the Jewish sector of the economy was 13.2%, mainly due to immigration and foreign capital, while that of the Arab was 6.5%. Per capita, these figures were 4.8% and 3.6% respectively. By 1936, the Jewish sector had eclipsed the Arab one, and Jewish individuals earned 2.6 times as much as Arabs. In terms of human capital, there was a huge difference. For instance, the literacy rates in 1932 were 86% for the Jews against 22% for the Arabs, although Arab literacy was steadily increasing.[453] Palestine continued to develop economically during World War II, with increased industrial and agricultural outputs and the period was considered an "economic Boom". In terms of Arab-Jewish relations, these were relatively quiet times.[454]
Starting in 1939 and throughout World War II, Britain reduced the number of Jewish immigrants allowed into Palestine, following the publication of the White Paper of 1939. Once the 15,000 annual quota was exceeded, Jews fleeing Nazi persecution were placed in detention camps or deported to places such as Mauritius.[455] The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry's findings published in 1946 divested the White Paper and caused Britain to ease restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine.[456]
British soldiers frisk a Palestinian man in Jerusalem in the late 1930s, photo by Khalil Raad.
The revolt of 1936–1939, also known as the Great Palestinian Revolt, is one of the formative events of Palestinian nationalism.[457] Driven by resentment with British rule and with the Zionist settlement of Palestine,[citation needed] the revolt began as a general strike but evolved into an armed insurrection.[457] The British response to the revolt was harsh and it expanded its military force in Palestine, deploying over 100,000 troops.[458] Imprisonment without charges or trial, curfews,[citation needed] whip lashings,[459] house demolitions,[460] and collective punishment against villages and families were some of the practices it employed to quell the revolt.[citation needed] An estimated 10 percent of the adult Palestinian male population were killed, wounded, deported, or imprisoned[458]
The revolt was a disaster for the Palestinians[461] and it failed to achieve its two goals; the uprooting of the Zionist settlement and the termination of the British Mandate.[462] Due to the British crackdown, the Palestinians were left without a local leadership, as most of their leaders either fled the country or were deported by the authorities.[463][464] Infighting between rival families deepened rifts in Palestinian society causing irreparable damage,[463] all while the Zionists mobilized and British-Zionist cooperation increased.[461]
General strike
In November 1935 the guerilla leader SheikhIzz ad-Din al-Qassam was killed in a shootout with British police in the hills near Jenin.[465] Thousands attended his funeral which turned into demonstrations. His death became a rallying call for others.[466]
Al-Istiqlal called a general strike in April 1936 and the Palestinian leadership gave its blessing.[467] The strike ended after a few months when Arab leaders instructed the Palestinians to desist in exchange for negotiations with the British on the future of Palestine.[450] Meanwhile, volunteers led by Fawzi al-Qawuqji entered the country and engaged in unsuccessful guerilla warfare. The British destroyed much of al-Qawiqji's forces and by mid-October it left the country.[450]
Peel Commission
In 1937, the Peel Commission recommended dividing Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.[468] The Jews would receive Tel Aviv, the coastal plain, the northern valleys, and parts of the Galilee, while the Arabs would receive the West Bank of the river Jordan, central Palestine and the southern desert. Britain would retain Jerusalem and a narrow corridor linking it to the sea.[469] Importantly, the commission envisaged a population exchange similar to the exchanges between Turkey and Greece in the 1920s; thousands of Arabs who had their homes within the territory of the Jewish state would be forcibly removed.[470]
The Zionist leadership supported partition in principle, but expressed reservations about the commission's findings and some opponents thought that the territory allotted to the Jewish state was too small.[471] Ben-Gurion saw it as the first step in a plan to gradually claim the entire country on both sides of Jordan.[472] He was especially pleased with the commission's recommendation of forced population transfer; a "really Jewish" state is about to become reality, he wrote in his diary.[473]
The Palestinians led by the mufti opposed dividing Palestine, but a minority, led by the Nashashibis, supported it.[474][468] This led to animosity between Husayni's and Nashashibi's supporters as the former accused the latter of treason.[475]
Escalation and disintegration
The revolt escalated in the latter half of 1937 and numerous rebel bands emerged.[476] The rebels not only attacked British and Jewish targets, but also Palestinians who were accused of collaborating with the enemy.[477] At the same time, the British enacted oppressive emergency regulations causing strife for the civilians.[478] Popular support for the rebels declined.[478]
The revolt waned in the fall 1938 as the British organized the rebels' opponents in armed groups called "peace bands," headed by Fakhri al-Nashashibi and Fakhri 'Abd al-Hadi, previously Qawiqji's deputy.[478] Aided by these, the British effectively exposed the rebels' hiding places and by late 1939 all rebel activity had ceased.[479]
Zionist mobilization
The Haganah (Hebrew for "defense"), a Jewish paramilitary organization, actively supported British efforts to quell the revolt. Although the British administration did not officially recognize the Haganah, the British security forces cooperated with it by forming the Jewish Settlement Police and Special Night Squads.[480] A splinter group of the Haganah, called the Irgun (or Etzel)[481] adopted a policy of violent retaliation against Arabs for attacks on Jews;[482] the Hagana has adopted a policy of restraint. In a meeting in Alexandria in July 1937 between Irgun founder Ze'ev Jabotinsky, commander Col. Robert Bitker and chief-of-staff Moshe Rosenberg, the need for indiscriminate retaliation due to the difficulty of limiting operations to only the "guilty" was explained. The Irgun launched attacks against public gathering places such as markets and cafes.[cx]
When the Second World War broke out, the Jewish population sided with Britain. David Ben-Gurion, head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, defined the policy with what became a famous motto: "We will fight the war as if there were no White Paper, and we will fight the White Paper as if there were no war." While this represented the Jewish population as a whole, there were exceptions (see below).[citation needed]
As in most of the Arab world, there was no unanimity among the Palestinian Arabs as to their position regarding the combatants in World War II. A number of leaders and public figures saw an Axis victory as the likely outcome and a way of securing Palestine back from the Zionists and the British. Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, spent the rest of the war in Nazi Germany and the occupied areas. About 6,000 Palestinian Arabs and 30,000 Palestinian Jews joined the British forces.[citation needed]
In 1942, there was a period of anxiety for the Yishuv, when the forces of German General Erwin Rommel advanced east in North Africa towards the Suez Canal and there was fear that they would conquer Palestine. This event was the direct cause for the founding, with British support, of the Palmach[484] – a highly trained regular unit belonging to Haganah (which was mostly made up of reserve troops).
On 3 July 1944, the British government consented to the establishment of a Jewish Brigade with hand-picked Jewish and also non-Jewish senior officers. The brigade fought in Europe, most notably against the Germans in Italy from March 1945 until the end of the war in May 1945. Members of the Brigade played a key role in the Berihah's efforts to help Jews escape Europe for Palestine. Later, veterans of the Jewish Brigade became key participants of the new State of Israel's Israel Defense Forces.[citation needed]
In 1944 Menachem Begin assumed the Irgun's leadership, determined to force the British government to remove its troops entirely from Palestine. Citing that the British had reneged on their original promise of the Balfour Declaration, and that the White Paper of 1939 restricting Jewish immigration was an escalation of their pro-Arab policy, he decided to break with the Haganah. Soon after he assumed command, a formal 'Declaration of Revolt' was publicized, and armed attacks against British forces were initiated. Lehi, another splinter group, opposed cessation of operations against the British authorities all along. The Jewish Agency for Israel, which opposed those actions and the challenge to its role as government in preparation responded with "The Hunting Season" – severe actions against supporters of the Irgun and Lehi, including turning them over to the British.[citation needed]
Map showing Jewish-owned land as of 31 December 1944, including land owned in full, shared in undivided land and State Lands under concession. This constituted 6% of the total land area, of which more than half was held by the JNF and PICAArab autobus after an attack by Irgun, 29 December 1947
In the years following World War II, Britain's control over Palestine became increasingly tenuous. This was caused by a combination of factors, including:
The costs of maintaining an army of over 100,000 men in Palestine weighed heavily on a British economy suffering from post-war depression, and was another cause for British public opinion to demand an end to the Mandate.[486]
Rapid deterioration due to the actions of the Jewish paramilitary organizations (Hagana, Irgun and Lehi), involving attacks on strategic installations (by all three) as well as on British forces and officials (by the Irgun and Lehi). This caused severe damage to British morale and prestige, as well as increasing opposition to the mandate in Britain itself, public opinion demanding to "bring the boys home".[citation needed]
The U.S. Congress was delaying a loan necessary to prevent British bankruptcy. The delays were in response to the British refusal to fulfill a promise given to Truman that 100,000 Holocaust survivors would be allowed to emigrate to Palestine.[citation needed]
In early 1947 the British Government announced their desire to terminate the Mandate, and asked the United Nations General Assembly to make recommendations regarding the future of the country.[487] The British Administration declined to accept the responsibility for implementing any solution that wasn't acceptable to both the Jewish and the Arab communities, or to allow other authorities to take over responsibility for public security prior to the termination of its mandate on 15 May 1948.[488]
On 29 November 1947, the United NationsGeneral Assembly, voting 33 to 13 in favour with 10 abstentions, adopted Resolution 181 (II) (though not legally binding)[489] recommending a partition with the Economic Union of Mandatory Palestine to follow the termination of the British Mandate. The plan was to partition Palestine into an "Independent Arab state alongside a Jewish States, and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem".[490] Jerusalem was to encompass Bethlehem. Zionist leaders (including the Jewish Agency for Israel), accepted the plan, while Palestinian Arab leaders rejected it and all independent Muslim and Arab states voted against it.[491][492][cxi] Almost immediately, sectarian violence erupted and spread, killing hundreds of Arabs, Jews and British over the ensuing months.[citation needed]
The UN resolution was the catalyst for a full scale civil war. For four months, under continuous Arab provocation and attack, the Yishuv was usually on the defensive while occasionally retaliating.[493] Arab volunteers of the Arab Liberation Army entered Palestine to fight alongside the Palestinians, but the April–May offensive of Yishuv forces defeated the Arab forces and Arab Palestinian society collapsed. By the time the armistice was signed, some 700,000 Palestinians caught up in the turmoil fled or were driven from their homes.[citation needed] This event is now known as the Nakba.[494]
On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish People's Councildeclaredthe establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel (The Land of Israel), to be known as the State of Israel.[495] The neighbouring Arab states intervened to prevent the partition and support the Palestinian Arab population. While Transjordan and Egypt took control of territory designated for the future Arab State, Syrian and Iraqi expeditionary forces attacked Israel without success. The most intensive battles were waged between the Jordanian and Israeli forces over the control of Jerusalem.[citation needed]
On 11 June, a truce was accepted by all parties. Israel used the lull to undertake a large-scale reinforcement of its army. In a series of military operations, during the war it conquered the whole of the Galilee region, both the Lydda and Ramle areas, and the Negev. It also managed to secure, in the Battles of Latrun, a road linking Jerusalem to Israel. However, the neighboring Arab countries signed the 1949 Armistice Agreements that ended the war, and have recognized de facto the new borders of Israel. In this phase, 350,000 more Arab Palestinians fled or were expelled from the conquered areas.[citation needed]
The Arabs rejected the Partition Plan while the Jews ostensibly accepted it.[496][497][498] Following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the area allocated to the Palestinian Arabs and the international zone of Jerusalem were occupied by Israel and the neighboring Arab states in accordance with the terms of the 1949 Armistice Agreements. In addition to the UN-partitioned area allotted to the Jewish state, Israel captured and incorporated a further 26% of the British Mandate territory.[citation needed] Jordan retained possession of about 21% of the former Mandate territory. Jerusalem was divided, with Jordan taking the eastern parts, including the Old City, and Israel taking the western parts. In addition, Syria held on to small slivers of the former Mandate territory to the south and east of the Sea of Galilee, which had been allocated in the UN partition plan to the Jewish state.[citation needed] For a description of the massive population movements, Arab and Jewish, at the time of the 1948 war and over the following decades, see Palestinian exodus and Jewish exodus from Arab lands.[citation needed]
Palestinian governorship in Egyptian-controlled Gaza
On the same day that the State of Israel was announced, the Arab League announced that it would set up a single Arab civil administration throughout Palestine.[499][500]
The All-Palestine Government is regarded by some as the first attempt to establish an independent Palestinian state. It was under official Egyptian protection,[501] but, on the other hand, it had no executive role, but rather mostly political and symbolic.[501] Its importance gradually declined, especially due to relocation of seat of government from Gaza to Cairo following Israeli incursions in late 1948. Though Gaza Strip returned under Egyptian control later on through the war, the All-Palestine Government remained in-exile in Cairo, managing Gazan affairs from outside.
In 1959, the All-Palestine Government was officially merged into the United Arab Republic, coming under formal Egyptian military administration, with the appointment of Egyptian military administrators in Gaza. Egypt, however, both formally and informally denounced any and all territorial claims to Palestinian territory, in contrast to the government of Transjordan, which declared its annexation of the Palestinian West Bank. The All-Palestine Government's credentials as a bona fide sovereign state were questioned by many, particularly due to the effective reliance upon not only Egyptian military support, but Egyptian political and economic power.
Annexation of the West Bank of Jordan
Shortly after the proclamation of All-Palestine Government in Gaza, the Jericho Conference named King Abdullah I of Transjordan, "King of Arab Palestine".[503] The Congress called for the union of Arab Palestine and Transjordan and Abdullah announced his intention to annex the West Bank. The other Arab League member states opposed Abdullah's plan.
The New Historians, like Avi Shlaim, hold that there was an unwritten secret agreement between King Abdullah of Transjordan and Israeli authorities to partition the territory between themselves, and that this translated into each side limiting their objectives and exercising mutual restraint during the 1948 war.[504]
The presence of a large number of immigrants and refugees from the now dissolved Mandate of Palestine fueled the regional ambitions of King Abdullah I, who sought control over what had been the British Jerusalem and Samaria districts on the West Bank of the Jordan River. Towards this goal the king granted Jordanian citizenship to all Arab holders of the Palestinian Mandate identity documents in February 1949, and outlawed the terms "Palestinian" and "Transjordanian" from official usage, changing the country's name from the Emirate of Trans-Jordan to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.[505] The area east of the river became known as al-Ḍiffah al-Sharqiyya, or "The East Bank". In April 1950, with the formal annexation of the positions held by the Jordanian Army since 1948, the area became known as al-Ḍiffah al-Gharbiyya or "The Western Bank".[506] With the formal union of the East and West Banks in 1950, the number of Palestinians in the kingdom rose by another 720,000, of whom 440,000 were West Bank residents and 280,000 were refugees from other areas of the former Mandate then living on the West Bank. Palestinians became the majority in Jordan although most believed their return to what was now the state of Israel was imminent.[505]
In the course of the Six-Day War in June 1967, Israel captured the rest of the area that had been part of the British Mandate of Palestine, taking the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Following military threats by Egypt and Syria, including Egyptian president Nasser's demand of the UN to remove its peace-keeping troops from the Egyptian-Israeli border, in June 1967 Israeli forces went to action against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. As a result of that war, the Israel Defense Forces conquered the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula bringing them under military rule. Israel also pushed Arab forces back from East Jerusalem, which Jews had not been permitted to visit during the prior Jordanian rule. East Jerusalem was allegedly[507] annexed by Israel as part of its capital, though this action has not been recognized internationally.[citation needed] Israel also started building settlements on the occupied land.[508]
The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 242, promoting the "land for peace" formula, which called for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967, in return for the end of all states of belligerency by the aforementioned Arab League nations. Palestinians continued longstanding demands for the destruction of Israel or made a new demand for self-determination in a separate independent Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip similar to but smaller than the original Partition area that Palestinians and the Arab League had rejected for statehood in 1947.[citation needed]
In the course of 1973 Yom Kippur War, military forces of Egypt crossed the Suez canal and Syria to regain the Golan heights. The attacking military forces of Syria were pushed back. After a cease fire, Egyptian President Sadat Anwar Sadat started peace talks with the U.S. and Israel. Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt as part of the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel.
First Intifada, Oslo Accords and the State of Palestine
After a few years of on-and-off negotiations, the Palestinians began an uprising against Israel. This was known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The events were highlighted in world media by Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel that killed many civilians, and by Israeli Security Forces full-fledged invasions into civilian areas[510] along with some targeted killings of Palestinian militant leaders and organizers. Israel began building a complex security barrier to block suicide bombers crossing into Israel from the West Bank in 2002.[citation needed]
Following Israel's unilateral disengagement plan of 2004, it withdrew all settlers and most of the military presence from the Gaza strip, but maintained control of the air space and coast. Israel also dismantled four settlements in northern West Bank in September 2005.
Gaza-West Bank split
Gaza Strip with Israeli-controlled borders and limited fishing zone, as of December 2012Map of the West Bank, May 2021, showing Palestinian and Israeli control.
On 25 January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections were held in order to elect the second Palestinian Legislative Council, the legislature of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Hamas won the election, securing 74 of the 132 seats while its rival Fatah only won 45 seats. The outcome of the election shocked the world and meant that Hamas would take over most of PA's institutions.[511] Hamas tried to form a unity government with Fatah, but the offer was rebuffed. Meanwhile, Israel and the US imposed sanctions on the PA in order to destabilize the Palestinian government so that it would fail and new elections would be called. Those efforts were ultimately unsuccessful but lead to a rift between Hamas and Fatah.
In June 2006, Palestinian militants affiliated with Hamas carried out a cross-border raid from Gaza into Israel through a tunnel dug for the purpose of attacking Israel. An Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, was captured and taken to Gaza by the militants.[512] He would be held for five years until he was released in 2011 in exchange for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners imprisoned by Israel.[513] The raid caused Israel to make several large-scale invasions of Gaza in the summer and autumn of 2006 attempting to rescue their captured soldier. Over 500 Palestinians and 11 Israelis were killed during the hostilities but ultimately they were unsuccessful in retrieving Shalit.[512]
Relations between Hamas and Fatah deteriorated further as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attempted to dismiss the Hamas-led coalition government in June 2007. Hamas objected to this move being illegal and street battles between Hamas and Fatah members broke out in what came to be known as the 2007 Battle of Gaza. Hamas emerged victorious and took control of the Gaza Strip.[510][514]
From that point on, governance of the Palestinian territories were split between Hamas and Fatah. Hamas, branded an Islamist terror organization by the EU and several Western countries, in control of Gaza and Fatah in control of the West Bank.
As of July 2009, approximately 305,000 Israelis lived in 121 settlements in the West Bank.[515] The 2.4million[citation needed] West Bank Palestinians (according to Palestinian evaluations) live primarily in four blocs centered in Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, and Jericho.
On 23 September 2011, President Mahmoud Abbas on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organisation submitted an application for membership of Palestine in the United Nations. The campaign, dubbed "Palestine 194",[516] was formally backed by the Arab League in May,[517] and was officially confirmed by the PLO on 26 June.[518] The decision was labelled by the Israeli government as a unilateral step, while the Palestinian government countered that it is essential to overcoming the current impasse. Several other countries, such as Germany and Canada, have also denounced the decision and called for a prompt return to negotiations. Many others, however, such as Norway and Russia, have endorsed the plan, as has Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon, who stated, "UN members are entitled whether to vote for or against the Palestinian statehood recognition at the UN."[519]
In July 2012, it was reported that Hamas Government in Gaza was considering declaring the independence of the Gaza Strip with the help of Egypt.[520] In August 2012, Foreign Minister of the PNA Riyad al-Malki told reporters in Ramallah that PNA would renew effort to upgrade the Palestinian (PLO) status to "full member state" at the U.N. General Assembly on 27 September 2012.[521] By September 2012, with their application for full membership stalled due to the inability of Security Council members to "make a unanimous recommendation", Palestine had decided to pursue an upgrade in status from "observer entity" to 'non-member observer state'. On 27 November, it was announced that the appeal had been officially made, and would be put to a vote in the General Assembly on 29 November, where their status upgrade was expected to be supported by a majority of states. In addition to granting Palestine "non-member observer state status", the draft resolution "expresses the hope that the Security Council will consider favourably the application submitted on 23 September 2011 by the State of Palestine for admission to full membership in the United Nations, endorses the two state solution based on the pre-1967 borders, and stresses the need for an immediate resumption of negotiations between the two parties".
Countries that have recognised the State of Palestine
Countries that have not recognised the State of Palestine
On 29 November 2012, in a 138–9 vote (with 41 abstaining), General Assembly resolution 67/19 passed, upgrading Palestine to "non-member observer state" status in the United Nations.[522] The new status equates Palestine's with that of the Holy See. The change in status was described by The Independent as "de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine".[523]
The UN has permitted Palestine to title its representative office to the UN as "The Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations",[524] and Palestine has started to re-title its name accordingly on postal stamps, official documents and passports,[522][525] whilst it has instructed its diplomats to officially represent "The State of Palestine", as opposed to the "Palestine National Authority".[522] Additionally, on 17 December 2012, UN Chief of Protocol Yeocheol Yoon decided that "the designation of "State of Palestine" shall be used by the Secretariat in all official United Nations documents",[526] thus recognising the PLO-proclaimed State of Palestine as being sovereign over the territories Palestine and its citizens under international law.
By February 2013, 131 (67.9%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations had recognised the State of Palestine. Many of the countries that do not recognise the State of Palestine nevertheless recognise the PLO as the "representative of the Palestinian people".
Graphical overview of Palestine's historical sovereign powers
↑ The independent Canaanite city-states of the early Bronze age (3000–2200 BCE) were situated mostly in plains or coastal regions, surrounded by defensive walls built of mud brick and guarded by watchtowers. Most of the cities were surrounded by agricultural hamlets, which supplied their food needs (Shahin 2005, p.4).
↑ The late 13th, the 12th and the early 11th centuries BCE. were witnessing the foundations of scores if not hundreds of insignificant and unprotected village settlements, not least in the mountains of Palestine. Life must have become pretty safe. From at least the 11th century BCE, a certain reduction of the number of villages took place. This demographic change was counterbalanced by the rise of certain settlements to the status of sometimes heavily fortified townships (Lemche 2001, 9.3).
↑ The commerce-minded Philistines introduced new ways to ferment wine, as well as tools and weapons and chariots made with iron (Shahin 2005, p.6).
↑ by the time the Assyrians ruled Palestine in 722BCE, the Philistine had become part and parcel of the local population and the "kingdom of Israel" had been destroyed (Shahin 2005, p.6).
↑ The Philistines disappear from written history during the 6th century BCE (Jarus 2016).
↑ Put simply, while Judah was still economically marginal and backward, Israel was booming. ... In the next chapter we will see how the northern kingdom suddenly appeared on the ancient Near Eastern stage as a major regional power (Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, pp.146–147)
↑ By the high point of this settlement wave in the eighth century BCE, after the establishment of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, it encompassed over five hundred sites, with a population of about 160,000 (Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, p.106).
↑ The kingdom of Israel under the Omrides stretched from the vicinity of Damascus throughout the central highlands and valleys of Israel, all the way to the southern territory of Moab, ruling over considerable populations of non-Israelites (Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, pp.162–163).
↑ In the year 853BCE, Shalmaneser led a major Assyrian invasion force westward to intimidate and possibly conquer the smaller states of Syria, Phoenicia, and Israel. His advancing armies were confronted by an anti-Assyrian coalition near Qarqar ... Ahab was the strongest member of the anti-Assyrian coalition. ... Shalmaneser quickly returned to Assyria, and at least for a while the Assyrian march to the west was blocked (Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, p.163).
↑ The events recorded in the inscription took place in the ninth century BCE ... The inscription goes on to relate how Mesha gradually expanded his territory in rebellion against Israel, destroying the main settlements of the Israelites east of the Jordan, while fortifying and embellishing his own capital (Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, p.162).
↑ Mesha was really the king of Moab and Moab was, before Mesha's revolt, a vassal of Israel (Lemche 2001, 3.5).
↑ Hazael's incursion into the territory formerly controlled by Israel was clearly devastating and did much to weaken the power of the northern kingdom. ... Hazael's prime target was control of the fertile and strategic borderland between the two kingdoms, and he apparently not only conquered the Aramean lands formerly taken by the Omrides but also devastated some of Israel's most fertile agricultural region (Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, pp.182–183)
↑ Jehu – who bought this security to the throne by becoming an Assyrian vassal (Schneider 2011, pp.9–10)
↑ And while Jehu, ..., the famous "black obelisk" of Shalmaneser shows him bowing low to the ground at the feet of the great Assyrian king. Shalmaneser also notes: "The tribute of Jehu, son of Omri; ..." (Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, pp.187–188)
↑ This new king, Tiglathpileser III ..., began ... a thorough revamping of the Assyrian empire – primarily in its relations to its former vassals, which would now be much more directly controlled. ... In the era of Assyrian imperialism that Tiglath pileser had inaugurated, vassaldom would soon give way to conquest and annexation (Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, p.194)
↑ The conquest of Palestine began in 734BCE. with Tiglath-pileser III and lasted to about 645 (Bagg 2013, p.122).
↑ Tiglath-pileser conquered the strongest and largest kingdoms in the region, inflicting heavy damage. He deported large parts of the populations, replacing them with exiles from remote regions, and annexed their territory to Assyria, turning them into Assyrian provinces (Lipschits 2006, p.19).
↑ After the fall of Samaria, the capital of the Israelite kingdom, in 720BCE, the Assyrian expansion under Sargon II and Sennacherib was reoriented southward, (Schipper 2011, p.270)
↑ There is some debate on whether Ashurbanipal died in 631 or 627, see Lipschits 2005, p.13 for details.
↑ When Assurbanipal died in 627BCE, ... struggles over succession led to a weakening of centralized power. ... Babylon revolted and went on the offensive against Assyria. ... All of the nations of Syria-Israel had become colonies of the Neo-Babylonian Empire by 601BCE (Perdue & Carter 2015, p.69).
↑ During this period – by 612BCE at the latest – Psammetichus I created a system of vassal states in the Southern Levant in which local chiefs were required to pay taxes to the Egyptians in exchange for military protection, according to the Ekron letter (Schipper 2011, p.279).
↑ Egypt decided to intervene on the side of the Assyrians, and in 616 its army marched to the north. But this move did not stop the Assyrian collapse. The great Assyrian capital of Nineveh fell in 612, ..., in 610, ... the Babylonians took Haran (Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, p.259).
↑ ..., Josiah, the Judean Egyptian vassal, went to meet the new pharaoh on the latter's first march to Syria-Palestine in 609. Necho II met Josiah at the traditional Egyptian base of Meggido, killed him for unknown reasons, ... Necho II deposed him and instead enthroned the older son of Josiah, Eliakim, and gave him the name Jehoiakim (Schipper 2011, p.282).
↑ In 605BCE, the Babylonian crown prince later known as Nebuchadnezzar crushed the Egyptian army at Carchemish in Syria (an event recorded in Jeremiah 46:2), causing the Egyptian forces to flee (Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, pp.260–261)
↑ In the year 604BCE, the Philistines cities of Ashdod, Ekron, Ashkelon and Gaza were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar (Ben-Shlomo 2010, p.17)
↑ it seems that Nebuchadrezzar used the destruction of the region as a lever for rebuilding the parts of Babylonia that had been damaged during the long years of war, devastation, and deportation inflicted by the Assyrians. Large groups of exiles from the ruling, economic, and religious elite of the local kingdoms were sent to Babylon and settled in the devastated areas to develop them (Lipschits 2005, p.24).
↑ On the last occasion (601/600), Nebuchadnezzar clashed with an Egyptian army, with heavy losses; this reverse was followed by the defection of certain vassal states, Judah among them. This brought an intermission in the series of annual campaigns in 600/599, while Nebuchadnezzar remained in Babylonia repairing his losses of chariots (Saggs 2010).
↑ He attacked Judah a year later and captured Jerusalem on 16 March 597 (Saggs 2010)
↑ The semi-independent kingdoms in southern Palestine (Judah and the Philistine kingdoms of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Ekron) ... were dissolved during Nebuchadnezzar's reign and they too were incorporated into the Chaldaean provinces (Ephal 2000, p.142)
↑ a province with its capital at Mizpah, just north of Jerusalem. ... Throughout this era, the province was called Yehud (Noll 2013, p.338)
↑ in October 539, the Persian king took Babylon and captured its king Nabonidus. ...The Babylonian Empire had been large, and Cyrus now became ruler of Syria and Palestine as well (Lendering: Cyrus the Great).
↑ Cyrus' Edict ... indicate that Cyrus and his successors maintained a policy of repatriation for some 80 years (Ephal 2000, p.151).
↑ One developing consensus of the past couple of decades is that ancient Israel was basically a polytheistic society, though Yhwh functioned in some way as a national/ethnic god (much as Chemosh did for the Moabites and Qaus/Qos for the Edomites) for both Israel and Judah (Grabbe 2006).
↑ Norms of behaviour, as well as social patterns, that were to characterize the Jewish people for many generations to come began to crystallize during the Persian period (Ephal 1998, p.119).
↑ Furthermore, the temple rested on foundations ... from a temple built no later than the mid-fifth century BCE (Hjelm 2010, p.26).
↑ which he had received from the king of Persia ("the lord of Kings") as a reward for "the important deeds which I did" (Ephal 2000, p.144)
↑ We may also accept the Idea that in the early fifth century BCE. the Achaemenids granted Upper Galilee and the area east of Tyre to the Tyrians (Lipschits 2006, p.27).
↑ around the middle of the fourth century, Phoenicians were occupying the entire coast ... as far as Ascalon in southern Palestine (Ephal 2000, p.150)
↑ All that can be said with certainty is that the Nabataeans are known in the sources since the fourth century B.C. Up to that time the Qedarites, the dominant Arab tribe of the Persian period, controlled the south from the Hejaz and all of the Negev (Wenning 2007, p.26)
↑ The earliest coins found in Palestine are of Greek origin: archaic and early classicial coinage of the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE (Hübner 2014, p.161)
↑ it did not take long for local potters to imitate those fine wares, though they could not duplicate the high quality of manufacture for which the Greeks were known (Meyers & Chancey 2012, pp.3–4)
↑ The so-called Philisto-Arabian coins are among the oldest in Palestine. The mints were located in Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ashdod (Hübner 2014, p.162).
↑ Since the second quarter of the fourth century, coins were also minted in the province of Judah (Hübner 2014, p.165)
↑ Judea's level of independence under the Hasmoneans has been discussed at length. Schwartz writes that "the period of truly independent rule by the Hasmonean dynasty was very brief and, even then, the Jewish rulers never fully ceased being vassals of their stronger neighbors".[127] Schäfer writes that by 111BCE, due to internal struggles for the Seleucid throne "Judaea was effectively an independent state and John Hyrcanus a sovereign ruler."[128]
↑ Herod ... who built many ... public buildings and generally raised the prosperity of his land but who was the centre of political and family intrigues in his later years (Perowne 1999).
↑ As soon as Herod the Great died in 4BCE, a wave of unrest surged through Palestine. Herod's son Archelaus quickly put down the demonstrations, with the aid of Roman troops as well as Herod's army (Grabbe 2010, p.71).
↑ It is not known whether Judea was a Roman province in the full sense of its meaning or only a part of the province of Syria with separate administration. Current knowledge of so-called "equestrian administration" points towards the second possibility (Haensch 2010, p.2).
↑ The reason for the reorganization and renaming is not known. Many historians have asserted that the renaming was an attempt by emperor Hadrian to disassociate Jews from Judea.[156] Other historians dispute that theory.[157]
↑ "It seems clear that by choosing a seemingly neutral name – one juxtaposing that of a neighboring province with the revived name of an ancient geographical entity (Palestine), already known from the writings of Herodotus – Hadrian was intending to suppress any connection between the Jewish people and that land." Lewin 2005, p.33
↑ Even Geva's minimalist estimate of a population of 4,000 or fewer for Aelia Capitolina may be high (Seligman 2017, p.116)
↑ Christian and Rabbinic sources claim that Roman law now forbade Jews to resettle the area around Jerusalem – an area that covered almost the entire historic district of Judaea (Schwartz 2016, p.248).
↑ At Antioch and at Emesa he scored a decisive victory against the Palmyrene army and in 272 he forced Palmyra to surrender (Dignas & Winter 2007, p.161).
↑ In late February of 303, the emperor Diocletian and his imperial colleagues issued an edict ordering churches to be destroyed, scriptures to be burned, and Christians to be dismissed from government service and stripped of civil rights. ... This marked the formal opening of the Great Persecution, the last and most brutal assault on Christians by the pagan Roman state (Gaddis 1999, p.29).
↑ Theodosius's great contribution to the empire came when he made Roman Christianity the official state religion in 380 (Middleton 2015, p.937).
↑ in the fourth century, when it seems likely that more than half the inhabitants of the Roman world converted to Christianity (Mitchell 2014, p.242)
↑ In a sense Constantine becomes the embodiment of the righteous king. ... The bishops now have basically federal funding to have sponsored committee meetings so they can try to iron out creeds and get everybody to sign up (Cohen 2015).
↑ no fewer than 140 Byzantine monasteries flourished within the relatively small area of Palestine (McGuckin 2008, p.614)
↑ It also became a great centre of the eremitic life (idiorrhythmic monasticism); men flocked from all quarters to become hermits in the Judaean wilderness, which was soon dotted with monasteries (Britannica: Palestine – Roman Palestine).
↑ Membership in the exclusive club of Pentarchy provided the Church of All Palestine with an added international prestige and further clout at home (Masalha 2018, p.111).
↑ towns increasingly acquired new civic basilicas and porticoed streets with spaces for shops. ... a vigorous boost from the erection of many churches and other religious buildings (Lewin 2005, p.41).
↑ in effect, Caesarea-Palaestina and Gaza superseded and replaced both Athens and Alexandria as the premier centres of learning for the whole Mediterranean region (Masalha 2018, pp.40–41).
↑ Jerome and Eusebius, rather than Herodotus' actual history of Palestine which formed the basis of Western religio‑social toponymic memory and the reimagining of Palestine as a Christian Holy Land (Masalha 2018, p.49)
↑ After settling in Palaestina Tertia and Palaestina Secunda, the Ghassanids created client (buffer) states ... and fought alongside the Byzantines against the Persian Sassanids and Arab Lakhmid tribes of southern Iraq. ... the Ghassanid Arabs, who acted as a buffer zone and a source of troops for the Byzantine army and controlled (Masalha 2018, pp.137–140)
↑ Although Emperor Trajan defeated the Nabataeans ... the culture did not diminish until changing political ties and economic disruptions moved trade routes away from Petra (Lawler 2011, p.220).
↑ Greek eventually replaced Aramaic as an official idiom for bureaucracy after the fourth century C.E (Gzella 2015, p.242).
↑ And for the many Nabataeans (probably most) who became Christians, the language of their liturgy was neither Arabic nor Aramaic but the less familiar Greek (Taylor 2002, p.213).
↑ Little is known about this uprising. Reinhard Pummer characterizes the events as two riots – one in Neapolis and one in Caesarea – rather than an uprising, but acknowledges that the majority of sources speak of it as a revolt (Pummer 2016, p.139).
↑ It will be remembered that in the suppression of the dangerous Samaritan revolt that broke out in Palestine in 529, it was the Arab Ghassanid phylarch Arethas, Abu Karib, or both that finally crushed the revolt mercilessly and, captured, according to the chronographer, twenty thousand Samaritans, who were sold as slaves (Shahid 2002, p.364)
↑ The decisive battle that delivered Palestine to the Muslims took place on 20 August 636. Only Jerusalem and Caesarea held out, the former until 638, when it surrendered to the Muslims, and the latter until October 640. Palestine, and indeed all of Syria, was then in Muslim hands (Britannica: Palestine – Roman Palestine).
↑ At first there were four districts, but a fifth, Jund Qinnasrin in the north was added in about 680 (Hawting 2000, p.38).
↑ Later, about 680, a fifth district was added, Qinnasrin in the north (Hawting 2000, p.38)
↑ For several centuries Aylah, the present‑day Jordanian port city of al-'Aqabah on the Red Sea, was part of the Islamic administrative province of Jund Filastin (Masalha 2018, pp.158–160)
↑ It was expanded further by the Tulunids, ... The province of Filastin was enlarged ... eastwards and southwards, at the expense of Jund Dimashq, to include Bilad al‑Sharat, ... in modern‑day southern Jordan and north‑western Saudi Arabia (Salibi 1993: 18‒20; le Strange 1890: 28) (Masalha 2018, p.169).
↑ For example, around the turn of the 9th century, the Frankish king Charlemagne founded a hostel, a library, and a church for pilgrims coming to Jerusalem.[226]
↑ For example, in the Great German Pilgrimage of 1064–65 between seven and twelve thousand German pilgrims descended upon the Holy Land, by far the most important pilgrimage of its day.[228]
↑ the Cluniac Reforms popularized pilgrimage to the Holy Sites as a means to expiate sin (Tejirian & Spector Simon 2012, p.26)
↑ Mu'awiya became caliph and founder of the Umayyad dynasty as a result of the events of a period of about five years, between 656 and 661, during which the Arabs were divided into several camps each hostile to the others. ... Muslim tradition knows this period as the Fitna ("time of trial") (Hawting 2002, p.24)
↑ According to an account from later centuries, the Caliph Umar was led to the Temple Mount reluctantly by the Christian patriarch Sophronius.[235] Umar found it covered with rubbish, but the sacred Rock was found with the help of a converted Jew, Ka'b al-Ahbar.[236] Al-Ahbar advised Umar to build a mosque to the north of the rock, so that worshippers would face both the rock and Mecca, but instead Umar chose to build it to the south of the rock.[236] The first known eyewitness testimony of the mosque the pilgrim Arculf's from about 670, recorded by Adomnán as follows: "A square prayer house which they [the Muslims] built in a crude form, placing wooden boards and broad beams on some ruins. It is said that the building can contain three thousand persons."[237]
↑ The milestones, all containing inscriptions crediting Abd al-Malik for the road works, were found, from north to south, in or near Fiq, Samakh, St. George's Monastery of Wadi Qelt, Khan al-Hathrura, Bab al-Wad and Abu Ghosh. The milestone found in Samakh dates to 692, the two milestones at Fiq both date to 704 and the remaining milestones are undated.[245] The fragment of an eighth milestone, likely produced soon after Abd al-Malik's death, was found at Ein Hemed, immediately west of Abu Ghosh.[246]
↑ As yet the feud between the Qays and Yaman which was to plague Syria for so many centuries was not a major problem (Kennedy 2004, p.86).
↑ One of the prominent tribes in Yaman were the Quda'a.[249] The Qays were commonly known as Mudar.[250]
↑ the conflict was between two factions, based on tribal loyalties, which sought to control access to military power and the privileges that went with it. The prizes were the favour of the ruling caliph and the lucrative governorships in the provinces (Kennedy 2004, p.105).
↑ Although this shift of focus away from Palestine did not cause an immediate decline in the region, it did put an end to the extravagant investments that characterized Umayyad rule (Burke & Peilstocker 2011, p.114).
↑ The most drastic and basic change effected by this revolution throughout the caliphate-the decline of the Arab tribes' glory-was strongly felt in Palestine. From that time onwards, after the initial shocks were over, one hears no longer of the tribes participating in its political affairs, but only of their rebellions (Gil 1997, p.279)
↑ There is some debate on how the Abbasids rule affected Syria. Paul M. Cobb writes: "However unhappy some Syrians may have been, the large-scale political breakdown and socio-economic collapse of 'Abbasid Syria that modern scholarship has posited for so long has no historical basis. Indeed, in certain cases, contention – especially interelite competition like that of Syria's ashraf – can be seen as a kind of backhanded compliment to the success of the 'Abbasid state-building and an affirmation of its legitimacy. Political life in 'Abbasid Syria was certainly different from that under the Umayyads, but, all things considered, it showed little change for the worse." (Cobb 2001, p.128)
↑ During the second half of the 9th century, however, signs of internal decay began to appear in the 'Abbāsid empire. Petty states, and some indeed not so petty, emerged in different parts of the realm (Britannica: Palestine – Roman Palestine).
↑ In 327/939, Muhammad ibn Tughj obtained from the Caliph al-Radi confirmation of his appointment as military and fiscal governor, receiving the laqab of al-Ikhshid or "servant," a princely title from Farghana. After three decades of costly disorders in an Egypt administered by appointed governors, the caliphate had reached the conclusion that only an autonomous prince who, along with his descendants, ..., would be capable of defending it effectively against the Fatimids (Bianquis 1998, p.112).
↑ Finally, in 969, under the caliph al-Muʿizz, the first stage in the advance to the East was completed. Fāṭimid troops conquered the Nile Valley and advanced across Sinai into Palestine and southern Syria (Britannica: Fatimid Dynasty).
↑ For a period of some fourteen years (997–1010), the Banu Jarrah enjoyed almost unlimited power in Palestine, evidently with the consent of Caliph al-Hakim (Gil 1997, p.370).
↑ The 1020s were particularly harrowing. The outrages perpetrated by the Bedouins "were unlike anything experienced in the countries of Islam since its inception" (Geniza letter, in Mann, Jews in Egypt, ii, 181, l. 22). The details reported in the Geniza letters are revolting ... the population must have considerably shrunk, possibly an outcome of the catastrophic tribulations by the Bedouins in the 1020 (Goitein & Grabar 2007, pp.232–234)
↑ By and large, however, the Turcoman period, which lasted less than thirty years, was one of slaughter and vandalism, of economic hardship and the uprooting of populations (Gil 1997, p.420).
↑ In return for a ten-year truce between the kingdom of Jerusalem and the Muslims, al-Kamil would give to Frederick Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth, as well as a thin strip of land connecting the holy sites to the coast (Madden 2014, pp.150–151).
↑ Certain that the crusaders would accept the proposal, al-Mu'azzam ordered the destruction of the walls of Jerusalem in March 1219 (Madden 2014, p.141).
↑ Pooling the resources of the Frankish nobility and the Military Orders, the Christians managed to muster around two thousand knights and perhaps a further 10,000 infantrymen. This host–the largest field army amassed in the East since the Third Crusade–represented the Latin kingdom's full fighting manpower (Asbridge 2010, p.474).
↑ On 18 October 1244 they launched an attack and battle was joined on the sandy plains near the village of La Forbie (north-east of Gaza). For the Franks and their allies, the mêlée that followed was an unmitigated disaster (Asbridge 2010, pp.474–475).
↑ Overall the Latin Kingdom lasted in Palestine nearly 200 years, from 1099 until 1291, when the last stronghold and capital, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks (Masalha 2018, p.167).
↑ Frank Heynick, commenting on Maimonides's decision not to settle there a century later (Heynick 2002, p.103).
↑ Haim Gerber (1998) referring to fatwas by two Hanafite Syrian jurists.
↑ See for example the incident on 14 March 1937 when Arieh Yitzhaki and Benjamin Zeroni tossed a bomb into the Azur coffee house outside Tel Aviv, as reported in Bell 1996, pp.35–36.
↑ 6 Arab states, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen: 4 Moslem states, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey: Greece, Cuba and India also voted against (Cattan 1988, p.36).
↑ Saggs 2010: deporting King Jehoiachin to Babylon. Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, p.261: The Jerusalem aristocracy and priesthood ... were taken off into exile,
↑ Saggs 2010: The siege of Jerusalem ended in its capture in 587/586; Finkelstein & Silberman 2002, p.262: In 587 BCE Nebuchadnezzar arrived with his formidable army and laid siege to Jerusalem. It was the beginning of the end. With the Babylonian forces rampaging through the countryside, the outlying cities of Judah fell one by one.
↑ Ephal 1998, pp.114–115: One or two generations before the destruction of the kingdom of Judah in 586 BCE, Edomites began to infiltrate into southern Palestine. ... Idumaea, south and west of the province of Judah; Magness 2012, p.75: After 586 BCE, Edomites settled in the southern part of the former kingdom of Judah (the northern Negev). Their descendants were known as Idumaeans, and the area was called Idumaea.
↑ Shahin 2005, p.6: the Nabataenas (400 BCE–160 CE), with their capital in Petra (Jordan), made inroads into southern Palestine and built a separate and flourishing civilization in the Negev. Wenning 2007, p.26: Beside the establishment of Idumaea, which meant the loss of a large territory, the Qedarites obviously lost of their privileges of the frankincense trade. It can be assumed that they were replaced by the Nabataeans. Masalha 2018, p.153
↑ Meyers & Chancey 2012, p.3: despite ... the devastating wars between Greece and Persia in the fifth century, Greek cultural influence rose steadily; Ephal 1998, p.118
↑ Schäfer 2003, p.1; Hengel 1984, pp.35–36: For a long time the western districts of the empire, especially Phoenicia, had been oriented in economic, cultural and military affairs towards Greece and the Aegean. ... No well-to-do household in Palestine would have lacked Greek pottery, terracottas and other luxury items; Greek coins and their local imitations had long been an important medium of exchange. Schwartz 2009, p.24: By the fifth century, Greek goods predominated over all other imports in the cities of the Syro-Palestinian coast. ... the trickle of Greek imports now turned into a flood
↑ Ephal 2000, p.145: it would appear that the Egyptians seized control of the entire coastal strip of Palestine and Phoenicia for a time. Stern 1984, p.75: They seized the northern part of the coastal plain of Palestine and for a brief period also held Tyre and Sidon. Meyers & Chancey 2012, p.7: the Egyptians rebelled ... taking control of the northern part of the coastal plain and for a short time part of the Phoenician coast including Akko and Sidon as well.
With the exception of the fourth Syrian war (219–217) it was for most of the land a time of peace; Meyers & Chancey 2012, p.16: Despite the high tension between the rival factions for control of Palestine, the third century may be viewed as a time of relative prosperity and quiet.
↑ Grabbe 2010, p.18; Schäfer 2003, p.58: The Maccabees had achieved their main political objective and freed Judaea de facto (though not de jure) from the Seleucid confederation.
↑ Schwartz 2009, p.43: He then named Hyrcanus high priest (but not king; Sartre 2005, p.41: Hyrcanos II was confirmed as high priest but denied a royal title
↑ Sartre 2005, p.41; Gabba 2008, p.97: The re-establishment of the traditional aristocratic-religious government was a consequence of the reduction in territory of the Jewish state, which was now deprived of (a) the whole coastal zone, ..., together with the Hellenized cities ..., (b) western Idumaea with Marisa, (c) the city of Samaria, (d) the town of Gaba and the royal possessions in the plain of Esdraelon, (e) the Samaritan toparchies ..., (f) the five non-Jewish cities in the northern Transjordanian region,
↑ Schwartz 2009, p.43: He ... removed the Greek cities conquered by Alexander Yannai from Jewish rule, and restored their Greek constitutions. Sartre 2005, p.42: Pompey restored damaged and destroyed cities everywhere. Above all, he guaranteed the independence of cities formerly occupied by the Hasmoneans; Butcher 2003, p.112: Many of the cities further south had fallen under the influence of the Hasmoneans ... Pompey and his successors restored the "freedom" of the subject cities; Gabba 2008, p.97: Pompey, and Gabinius after him, restored many of the liberated cities which the Hasmonaean kings had destroyed
↑ Butcher 2003, p.113: To commemorate their restoration they sometimes adopted the names of those governors who had honoured them; Sartre 2005, p.43: a new era known as "Pompeian," an indication that the city-states considered Pompey's achievements, ..., as amounting to a rebirth. Chancey 2004, pp.109–110: It did not take long after Rome's arrival ... for cities to acknowledge their new rulers on their coins. For some cities, this acknowledgment took the form of adopting a new dating system commemorating Rome's advent. ... a few cities renamed themselves after Roman officials.
↑ Schwartz 2009, p.46: The other twin star of Herod's construction was Jerusalem, which was re-built from top to bottom.
↑ Schwartz 2009, p.46; Perowne 1999: His most grandiose creation was the Temple, which he wholly rebuilt. ... The great outer court, 35 acres (14ha) (14 hectares) in extent, is still visible as Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf. Grabbe 2010, p.23: Yet the end product was for practical purposes a new temple, a magnificent structure which paled by comparison the previous temples.
↑ Schwartz 2009, p.46: the city ... became ... the main point of entry for the burgeoning Jewish pilgrim traffic
↑ Grabbe 2010, p.25; Gabba 2008, p.130: His ethnarchy was transformed into a Roman province of the equestrian rank; Shahin 2005, p.7; Haensch 2010, p.2: It was only after the expulsion of Archelaus in 6 CE that direct Roman rule was established in Judaea and Samaria.
↑ Lewin 2005, p.33: It seems clear that by choosing a seemingly neutral name ... of an ancient geographical entity (Palestine), ... Hadrian was intending to suppress any connection between the Jewish people and that land. Safrai 1976, p.334: In an effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land
↑ Jacobson 2001, pp.44–45: commonly viewed as a move intended to sever the connection of the Jews to their historical homeland. ... Hadrian's choice of Syria Palaestina may be more correctly seen as a rationalization of the name of the new province, in accordance with its area being far larger than geographical Judea. Foster 2017, pp.95–110: the name change had little to do with Jew hatred ... he called the place what it was called. ... The decision to change the name to Palestine may have been a banal bureaucratic choice. ... If the administrative reorganization was indeed banal, then we might have expected both names to have persisted after the change, which is exactly what happened.
↑ Britannica: Palestine – Roman Palestine: Although this ban was officially still in force as late as the 4th century CE, there is some evidence that from the Severan period onward (after 193) Jews visited the city more frequently, especially at certain festival times, and even that there may have been some Jews in residence. Seligman 2017, p.114: there seems to have been a slow trickle into the city over subsequent centuries, although the actual numbers probably remained rather insignificant. Towards the beginning of the 4th c., sources identify a synagogue in Jerusalem
↑ Shahin 2005, p.8; Britannica: Palestine – Roman Palestine: The emperor ... built a ... church on the site of the Holy Sepulchre, the most sacred of Christian holy places; his mother, Saint Helena, built two others – at the place of the Nativity at Bethlehem and of the Ascension in Jerusalem – and his mother-in-law, Eutropia, built a church at Mamre.
↑ Shahin 2005, p.8: Thus Palestine became the world's greatest pilgrimage site. It became the center for ascetic life for men and women from all over the world, who came to the Palestinian wilderness to become hermits. Soon it was dotted with monasteries, many of which can still be visited today. They include St. George Monastery in Wadi al-Qilt, Deir Quruntul and Deir Hijle next to Jericho, and Deir Mar Saba and Deir Theodosius east of Bethlehem, as well as the remains of many others in the Negev and Gaza. Masalha 2018, p.99
↑ Masalha 2018, p.110: This decree of elevating the Palestine Church led to the Church of Aelia Capitolina not only becoming an independent Patriarchate, but also to becoming ... one of the five Patriarchates of Christendom, ... the five major Patriarchs of the empire: Constantinople, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and Aelia Capitolina. Horn & Phenix 2008, p.lxxxviii: Council of Chalcedon ..., at which Jerusalem was granted the status of patriarchate; Britannica: Palestine – Roman Palestine: Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem from 421 to 458 ... was recognized by the Council of Chalcedon (451) as patriarch of the three provinces of Palestine.
↑ Schwartz 2009, p.214: In sum, it is not unlikely that late antiquity was a period of unprecedented prosperity in Palestine, as in Syria. Masalha 2018, p.99: The Christian era of Byzantine Palestine ..., was an extraordinary time of cultural flourishing and of great expansion and prosperity in Late Antiquity. Lewin 2005, p.41: Palaestina reached a peak of prosperity in the late fifth and early sixth century
↑ Masalha 2018, p.99: New areas were brought under cultivation, urban development increased
↑ Masalha 2018, p.40: the diverse population of the "Three Palestines" may have reached as many as one and a half million. Goodblatt 2008, p.406: the country reached its highest population density ever (until the twentieth century) precisely in the Byzantine period.
↑ Hughes 2020, p.15; Harries 2012, p.50: Diocletian sought to head off potential threats to his personal security but he also saw the potential for improving efficiency by operating through smaller provincial units. Larger provinces were therefore divided, on an ad hoc basis, into smaller entities, each with its own provincial governor, usually called a praeses – but in Italy a corrector, later a consularis – and administrative capital.
↑ Lewis 2011, p.155; Britannica: Palestine – Roman Palestine: At the end of the 4th century, an enlarged Palestine was divided into three provinces: Prima, with its capital at Caesarea; Secunda, with its capital at Scythopolis (Bet Sheʾan); and Salutaris, with its capital at Petra or possibly for a time at Elusa. Shahin 2005, p.8
↑ Masalha 2018, p.136: The Ghassanid Arabs ... were the biggest Arab group in Palestine.
↑ Masalha 2018, p.136: in the early 3rd century from the Arabian Peninsula to Palestine and the southern Levant region
↑ Chancey 2005, p.62: In 106, the Romans annexed the Nabatean territory, apparently without bloodshed. They reorganized it as the province of Arabia; Butcher 2003, p.84
↑ Pummer 2016, p.139; Sivan 2008, p.119: Zeno punished those responsible for the bishop's mutilation and banished all Samaritans from Mount Gerizim, ... He ordered the erection of a church honouring Mary on top of the mountain.
↑ Pummer 2016, p.141: The result of the oppressive legislation by the Byzantine authorities and the rebellions ... was that at the end of the Byzantine period the Samaritans were left diminshed in numbers; Masalha 2018, p.146: However, the Samaritan revolts during the 5th and 6th centuries in Palaestina Prima were marked by great ... and their brutal suppression at the hands of the Byzantines and their Ghassanid Arab allies ... contributed to ... making the Christians the dominant group in the province of Palaestina Prima for many decades.
↑ Schäfer 2003, p.195: the Jews appear to have risked an open revolt ... and to have allied themselves with the Persians. Jewish requests for (above all) the return of Jerusalem met with a positive response from the Persians; Magness 2012, p.322: The Sasanids were aided by the local Jewish population, who had suffered under Byzantine Christian rule and hoped for permission to rebuild the Jerusalem temple.
↑ Mitchell 2014, p.452: Caesarea Maritima, ..., and, ..., Jerusalem, fell to the Persians in 614. ... huge numbers of Jerusalem's Christian population were slaughtered ..., and the relic of the Cross itself was removed as a trophy; Haldon 2002, p.2: in 614 Jerusalem fell – the church of the Holy Sepulchre was destroyed and the relic of the Cross taken; Reinik 2002, pp.81–82: the bloody sack and destruction of Jerusalem in 614, including the loss of the relic of the True Cross; Schäfer 2003, p.195: The Persians conquered Jerusalem ... and ... they destroyed a large number of churches, ransacked the city and caused carnage amongst the Christian population.
↑ Schäfer 2003, p.198; Balfour 2012, p.112: In March 629, the "True Cross" was carried in splendid procession into Jerusalem by the Emperor Heraclius.
↑ Schäfer 2003, p.198: He had promised the Jews ... amnesty ..., but was unable to hold to this. At the insistence of the leaders of the Christians, who had not forgotten the period of Jewish rule from 614 to 617, he once more expelled the Jews from Jerusalem and had to allow large numbers of them to be executed. Balfour 2012, p.112: The patriarch of Jerusalem executed those who were known to have taken part in the killings.
↑ Dignas & Winter 2007, p.49: Although the Romans celebrated a triumphant success ..., the continuous struggle with Persia had taken its toll. Soon after the Romans had re-conquered Syria, Palestine and Egypt, these territories were lost once more, this time to the Arabs. Lendering: Arabia Deserta: Both empires were exhausted and an easy target for the great Arab conquests that started in the second quarter of the seventh century.
↑ Shahin 2005, p.10: Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem after a 500-year ban stipulated by the Romans and maintained by the Christian rulers. Gil 1997, pp.68–69: The Jews felt that the injunction against their entry into Jerusalem, not to speak of their settling there-...-had come to an end. Slavik 2001, p.33: Jews were even allowed back into the city to live.
↑ Masalha 2018, p.180; Lev 2006, p.590: Ramla, the capital of Jund Filastin, was founded ... in 715; Gil 1997, p.106: It became the capital of jund Filastin and actually the most important city in Palestine. Hawting 2002, p.38
↑ Gil 1997, p.145: Palestine was, during the entire period we are dealing with, a sort of gold mine for the central government, whether headquartered in Damascus, Baghdad or Cairo. Shahin 2005, p.10: historians of the period noted that Palestine was among the most prosperous and fertile regions of the Muslim empire at this juncture.
↑ Masalha 2018, p.173: The economy of Palestine was boosted by the country's strategic location and its international trade; Gil 1997: Palestine's wealth came from its natural resources, especially its excellent crop of fruits and ... from the various types of craftsmanship that developed there, from its network of ports and not a little, from its influx of pilgrims.
↑ Shahin 2005, p.11: Spices, silks, soap, olive oil, glassware, and sugar were traded for European products. Gil 1997, pp.230–239
↑ Gil 1997, p.107: The Umayyads invested great efforts in developing a Muslim fleet and in renovating seaports in Palestine and Syria. Restoration and fortification works were carried out in Tyre, Acre, Caesarea, Jaffa and Ascalon. Arab army units were garrisoned at these ports. Masalha 2018, p.166: new Arab naval bases and shipyards were established in Palestine; Shahin 2005, p.11
↑ Burke & Peilstocker 2011, p.113: Jaffa acted as the port of Ramla and thus became the principal port of Palestine.
↑ Kennedy 2004, p.146: Charlemagne was interested in the Holy Places in Jerusalem, where he founded a hostel and library for pilgrims; Gil 1997, p.245: The monk Bernard, who visited Jerusalem shortly after the middle of the ninth century, mentions the hostel which Charlemagne built there, where any western pilgrim ('the Latins') is welcomed; the Church of St Mary, with its library established with Charlemagne's help
↑ Gil 1997, p.87; Hawting 2002, p.98: First, in the summer of 745, a revolt which seems to have begun among the Kalb in the south ... spread to engulf most of Syria
↑ Gil 1997, p.87: This rebellion, drowned in rivers of blood, once again included the tribes of Palestine, and during its course, as Theophanes tells us, Marwan destroyed the walls of Jerusalem, as he did in Hims, Damascus and other cities. Hawting 2002, p.99: Marwan's anger ... led him to raze the walls not only of Hims but also of other important Syrian towns including Damascus and, reportedly, Jerusalem. As Wellhausen expressed it, "in the summer of 128 (746) he had finished with Syria; it lay in fragments at his feet".
↑ Gil 1997, p.295: a widespread rebellion broke out in Palestine; ... the rebellion of Abu Harb, .... Arab tribes and farmers from the south of Palestine took part in this uprising and their leader was said to be a "Yamahi"; Britannica: Palestine – Roman Palestine: In 840/841 Abū Ḥarb, a Yemenite, ... succeeded in recruiting ... peasant followers, mainly among the Palestinian population, who regarded him as the saviour whose appearance was to save the land from the hated 'Abbāsids. Though the insurrection was put down, unrest persisted.
↑ Levy-Rubin & Kedar 2001, p.65; Gil 1997, p.283: considerable destruction in Palestine as a result of the civil war in 788, in the days of the patriarch Elias (II), telling of the utter devastation of Bet Guvrin (Eleutheropolis), Ascalon, Gaza and Sariphaea. The St Chariton monastery was robbed and the Mar Saba monastery was attacked.
↑ Britannica: Palestine – Roman Palestine: The Fāṭimids seized Egypt from the Ikhshīdids in 969 and in less than a decade were able to establish a precarious control over Palestine, where they faced Qarmaṭian, Seljuq, Byzantine, and periodic Bedouin opposition. Palestine was thus often reduced to a battlefield. Gil 1997, p.336: it was an almost unceasing war which destroyed Palestine
↑ Saunders 2002, pp.137–138; Gil 1997, p.376: The Christians had to wear a cross the length of a cubit and weighing five ratfs around their necks; the Jews were obliged to wear a block of wood of similar weight.
↑ Goitein & Grabar 2007, p.233: The local population rose against the barbarian conquerors and Atsiz had to take Jerusalem a second time, putting the inhabitants to the sword, even those who had fled into the Aqsa mosque. Gil 1997, p.412
↑ Britannica: Crusades: By September 1187 he and his lieutenants had occupied most of the major strongholds in the kingdom and all the ports south of Tripoli Jubayl and Botron (Al-Batrūn) in the county of Tripoli and Tyre in the kingdom. Shahin 2005, p.12
↑ Madden 2014, pp.156–157: When the Khorezmians poured into the region in 1244, they easily captured it, massacred the Christians, and burned their churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Asbridge 2010, p.474: On 11 July 1244 Berke Khan's men broke into Jerusalem and went on the rampage. ... it was said that "they committed far more acts of shame, filth and destruction against Jesus Christ and the Holy Places and Christendom than all the unbelievers who had been in the land had ever done in peace or war".
↑ Boas 2001, p.91: The Dome of the Rock became a church and, ..., the al-Aqsa Mosque was first ... used as a royal palace and ... became the headquarters of the Order of the Knights of the Temple. Britannica: Dome of the Rock
↑ Little, Donald P. (April–June 1995). "Mujīr al-Dīn al-'Ulaymī's Vision of Jerusalem in the Ninth/Fifteenth Century". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 115 (2). American Oriental Society: 238. doi:10.2307/604667. JSTOR604667.
↑ Rabbi Silver's request regarding the formation of a Jewish militia and the dissolution of the mandate in S/PV.262, Minutes 262nd Meeting of the UN Security Council, 5 March 1948
Ein-Gil, Ehud (4 December 2015). "Revisiting the UN Partition Plan: Is It Still Relevant?". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 16 May 2020. Retrieved 18 May 2020. The leadership of the Yishuv – the Zionist settlement enterprise in Palestine – and the Jewish Agency – the executive body of the World Zionist Organization – seemingly accepted the partition plan, but did not come to terms with the international status that was to be bestowed on Jerusalem, an inseparable part of the plan, nor accept the proposed borders of the partitioned states.
Jarus, Owen (16 July 2016). "Who Were the Philistines?". livescience.com. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
Kimmerling, Baruch (n.d.). "Benny Morris's Shocking Interview". History News Network. Archived from the original on 30 March 2019. Retrieved 18 May 2020. they officially accepted the partition plan, but invested all their efforts towards improving its terms and maximally expanding their boundaries while reducing the number of Arabs in them.
"The Second Aliyah (1904–1914)". Gov.il. Ministry of Aliyah and Integration. 2 December 2020. Archived from the original on 13 June 2022. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
These sources cover more than one of the periods listed below
Ben Yosef, Avraham (1981). מבוא לתולדות הלשון העברית[Introduction to the History of the Hebrew Language] (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv. p.38.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Ben-Sasson, H.H. (1976). A History of the Jewish People. Harvard University Press. ISBN0-674-39731-2. In an effort to wipe out all memory of the bond between the Jews and the land, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Iudaea to Syria-Palestina, a name that became common in non-Jewish literature.
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Wenning, Robert (2007). "The Nabataeans in History (Before AD 106)". In Politis, Konstantinos D. (ed.). The World of the Nabataeans. Vol.2 of the International Conference, The World of the Herods and the Nabataeans, Held at the British Museum, 17–19 April 2001. Franz Steiner Verlag. ISBN978-3-515-08816-9. Archived from the original on 19 December 2023. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
Crotty, Robert Brian (2017). The Christian Survivor: How Roman Christianity Defeated Its Early Competitors. Springer. p.25 f.n. 4. ISBN978-981-10-3214-1. Archived from the original on 19 December 2023. Retrieved 15 February 2022. The Babylonians translated the Hebrew name [Judah] into Aramaic as Yehud Medinata ('the province of Judah') or simply 'Yehud' and made it a new Babylonian province. This was inherited by the Persians. Under the Greeks, Yehud was translated as Judaea and this was taken over by the Romans. After the Jewish rebellion of 135 CE, the Romans renamed the area Syria Palaestina or simply Palestine. The area described by these land titles differed to some extent in the different periods.
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The history of Israel covers an area of the Southern Levant also known as Canaan, Palestine or the Holy Land, which is the geographical location of the modern states of Israel and Palestine. From a prehistory as part of the critical Levantine corridor, which witnessed waves of early humans out of Africa, to the emergence of Natufian culture c. 10th millennium BCE, the region entered the Bronze Age c. 2,000 BCE with the development of Canaanite civilization, before being vassalized by Egypt in the Late Bronze Age. In the Iron Age, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were established, entities that were central to the origins of the Jewish and Samaritan peoples as well as the Abrahamic faith tradition. This has given rise to Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, Druzism, Baha'ism, and a variety of other religious movements. Throughout the course of human history, the Land of Israel has seen many conflicts and come under the sway or control of various polities and, as a result, it has historically hosted a wide variety of ethnic groups.
Palestinians are an Arab ethnonational group native to the region of Palestine.
Palestinian Christians are a religious community of the Palestinian people consisting of those who identify as Christians, including those who are cultural Christians in addition to those who actively adhere to Christianity. They are a religious minority within the State of Palestine and within Israel, as well as within the Palestinian diaspora. Applying the broader definition, which groups together individuals with full or partial Palestinian Christian ancestry, the term was applied to an estimated 500,000 people globally in the year 2000. As most Palestinians are Arabs, the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Christians also identify as Arab Christians.
The history of the State of Palestine describes the creation and evolution of the State of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. During the British mandate period, numerous plans of partition of Palestine were proposed but without the agreement of all parties. In 1947, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was voted for. The leaders of the Jewish Agency for Palestine accepted parts of the plan, while Arab leaders refused it. This triggered the 1947–1949 Palestine war and led, in 1948, to the establishment of the state of Israel on a part of Mandate Palestine as the Mandate came to an end.
Ashkelon or Ashqelon is a coastal city in the Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, 50 kilometres (30 mi) south of Tel Aviv, and 13 kilometres (8 mi) north of the border with the Gaza Strip.
Gaza, also called Gaza City, is a city in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. As of 2022, it was the largest city in the State of Palestine, with 590,481 inhabitants in 2017. The city is spread across an area of 45 square kilometres (17 sq mi). Gaza is one of the principal coastal cities in the country, home to Palestine's only port. Located some 76.6 kilometres (47.6 mi) southwest of the country's proclaimed capital East Jerusalem, the city is located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Prior to the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, it was the most populous city in the State of Palestine, when massive displacement happened during the war.
This is a timeline of major events in the history of Jerusalem; a city that had been fought over sixteen times in its history. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.
Jerusalem is one of the world's oldest cities, with a history spanning over 5,000 years. Its origins trace back to around 3000 BCE, with the first settlement near the Gihon Spring. The city is first mentioned in Egyptian execration texts around 2000 BCE as "Rusalimum." By the 17th century BCE, Jerusalem had developed into a fortified city under Canaanite rule, with massive walls protecting its water system. During the Late Bronze Age, Jerusalem became a vassal of Ancient Egypt, as documented in the Amarna letters.
The history of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict traces back to the late 19th century when Zionists sought to establish a homeland for the Jewish people in Ottoman-controlled Palestine, a region roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, issued by the British government, endorsed the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, which led to an influx of Jewish immigrants to the region. Following World War II and the Holocaust, international pressure mounted for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, leading to the creation of Israel in 1948.
The population of the region of Palestine, which approximately corresponds to modern Israel and the Palestinian territories, has varied in both size and ethnic composition throughout the history of Palestine.
The region of Palestine, also known as historic Palestine, is a geographical area in West Asia. It includes modern-day Israel and the State of Palestine, as well as parts of northwestern Jordan in some definitions. Other names for the region include Canaan, the Promised Land, the Land of Israel, or the Holy Land.
Palestinian Jews or Jewish Palestinians were the Jews who inhabited Palestine prior to the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948.
The history of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel begins in the 2nd millennium BCE, when Israelites emerged as an outgrowth of southern Canaanites. During biblical times, a postulated United Kingdom of Israel existed but then split into two Israelite kingdoms occupying the highland zone: the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and the Kingdom of Judah by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Initially exiled to Babylon, upon the defeat of the Neo-Babylonian Empire by the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great, many of the Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem, building the Second Temple.
The Arab–Israeli conflict is the phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between various Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century. The roots of the Arab–Israeli conflict have been attributed to the support by Arab League member countries for the Palestinians, a fellow League member, in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict; this in turn has been attributed to the simultaneous rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism towards the end of the 19th century, though the two national movements had not clashed until the 1920s.
Sunni Islam is a major religion in Palestine, being the religion of the majority of the Palestinian population. Muslims comprise 85% of the population of the West Bank, when including Israeli settlers, and 99% of the population of the Gaza Strip. The largest denomination among Palestinian Muslims are Sunnis, comprising 85% of the total Muslim population.
The known history of Gaza spans 4,000 years. Gaza was ruled, destroyed and repopulated by various dynasties, empires, and peoples.
The timeline of the Palestine region is a timeline of major events in the history of Palestine. For more details on the history of Palestine see History of Palestine. In cases where the year or month is uncertain, it is marked with a slash, for example 636/7 and January/February.
Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the region of Palestine under the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
Palestinian nationalism is the national movement of the Palestinian people that espouses self-determination and sovereignty over the region of Palestine. Originally formed in the early 20th century in opposition to Zionism, Palestinian nationalism later internationalized and attached itself to other ideologies; it has thus rejected the occupation of the Palestinian territories by the government of Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. Palestinian nationalists often draw upon broader political traditions in their ideology, such as Arab socialism and ethnic nationalism in the context of Muslim religious nationalism. Related beliefs have shaped the government of Palestine and continue to do so.
The Nakba is the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society and the suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations. The term is used to describe the events of the 1948 Palestine war in Mandatory Palestine as well as the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel. As a whole, it covers the fracturing of Palestinian society and the long-running rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
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