History of the Southern Levant

The History of Palestine is the account of events in Palestine from ancient times to the present. For the history of the term "Palestine" and its application in the region, see Palestine (region)#Boundaries and Name.

Prehistoric times

The Mousterian Neanderthals were the earliest inhabitants of the area known to archaeologists, and have been dated to c. 200,000 BCE. The first anatomically modern humans to live in the area were the Kebarans (conventionally c. 18,000 - 10,500 BCE, but recent paleoanthropological evidence suggests that Kebarans may have arrived as early as 75,000 BCE and shared the region with the Neanderthals for millennia before the latter died out). They were followed by the Natufian culture (c. 10,500 BCE - 8500 BCE), the Yarmukians (c. 8500 - 4300 BCE) and the Ghassulians (carbon dated c. 4300 - 3300 BCE). (All of these cultures are named after archeological sites, in the absence of any indication of what they called themselves.)

The Semitic culture followed the Ghassulians. People became urbanized and lived in city-states, including Jericho. The area's location at the center of routes linking three continents made it the meeting place for religious and cultural influences from Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. It was also the natural battleground for the great powers of the region and subject to domination by adjacent empires, beginning with Egypt in the late 3rd millennium BCE.

Canaanite and Israelite Palestine

The earliest known people in Palestine were the Canaanites and Amorites. Some historians regard them as part of a wave of migration of Semitic-speaking peoples out of the Arabian Peninsula, while others suggest that they had been there ever since the original Semitic emigration from Africa. Later, the Israelites, possibly descendants of a Canaanite group, appeared. According to the Bible they returned there following the Exodus from ancient Egypt, conquering, exterminating, and absorbing the tribes they found there and reclaiming the land it says God promised them. Successive waves of migration brought other groups onto the scene. Around 1200 BCE the Hittite empire was conquered by allied tribes from the north. The northern, coastal Canaanites (called the Phoenicians by the Greeks) were temporarily displaced, but returned when the invading tribes showed no inclination to settle. The Egyptians called the horde that swept across Asia Minor and the Mediterranean the Sea Peoples. Philistines are presently considered to have been amongst them, giving name to the region in which they settled; Philistia. This name later ballooned into the name for the whole of the Levant as "Palestine", when Gentiles were looking to recolonise it during the Greco-Roman eras.

For further discussion on the very early ethnic history of the region, see:

• Canaan
• Israelites
• Philistines
• History of ancient Israel and Judah

Eventually, the Israelites established the Kingdom of Israel, which later split between a northern Kingdom of Israel and a southern Kingdom of Judah. In 722 BCE, the northern Kingdom of Ephraim (commonly referred to as Israel, sometimes as Samaria) was destroyed by the Assyrians, its inhabitants ("the Lost Tribes") believed to have been deported, and replaced by settlers from elsewhere in the Assyrian Empire. Many however fled to their southern Israelite sister kingdom, and many stayed behind; they (mixed with deportees from Mesopotamia) became the Samaritans. The Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar conquered the (southern) Kingdom of Judah in 597-586 BCE, and deported the middle and upper classes of the Jews to Babylonia in the Babylonian captivity, where they flourished. Decades later, Persia rose to world power and one of its kings, Cyrus allowed the Jews in Babylonia to return and rebuild the Second Temple in Jerusalem. However, a large proportion decided to stay in Babylonia for economic reasons. Most regard the collapse of the Israelite kingdoms as the beginning of the Jewish diaspora.

The exiled Jews who returned to their traditional home encountered the Jews that had remained, surrounded by non-Jews. One group of note (that exists up until this day) were the Samaritans, who adhered to most features of the Jewish rite and claimed to be descendants of the Assyrian Jews; they were not recognized as Jews by the returning exiles for various reasons (at least some of which seem to be political). The return of the exiles from Babylon reinforced the Jewish population, which gradually became more dominant and expanded significantly.

Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Palestine

The Roman province of Palestina

In 539 BCE the Babylonians were annexed by the Persian Empire, which held Palestine until the time of Alexander the Great, who conquered Gaza and the surrounding areas in the early 330s BCE. After Alexander's death in 323 BCE, his empire was partitioned, and the competing Ptolemaic and Seleucid Empires occupied various portions of the eastern Mediterranean, including different parts of Palestine. The Jews were divided between the Hellenists who supported the adoption of Greek culture, and those who believed in keeping to the traditions of the past, which resulted in the Maccabean revolt of the 2nd century BCE.

Following the Roman conquest in 63 BCE, the region that later became known as Palestine - first a client kingdom of the Roman Empire, after year 6 CE Roman province Iudaea (Roman province), after year 135 province Syria Palaestina - was in nearly constant revolt (see Jewish-Roman Wars). A number of events with far-reaching consequences took place, including religious schisms, such as Christianity branching of off Judaism.
The Great Jewish Revolt in 66-73 resulted in the destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem (70) and the sacking of the entire city in by the Roman army led by Titus Flavius and the estimated death toll of 600,000 to 1,300,000 Jews (see Josephus Flavius).

In 135, the crush of the Bar Kokhba's revolt by Hadrian resulted in 580,000 Jews killed (according to Cassius Dio) and the reestablishment of Jerusalem as the pagan polis Aelia Capitolina, where Jews were forbidden to set a foot. Hundreds of thousands were taken as slaves throughout the Empire. The province was renamed Syria Palaestina.

Over several centuries, the Diaspora grew even further. In addition to the large Jewish community in Babylon, large numbers of Jews settled in Egypt, and in other parts of the Hellenistic world and in the Roman Empire. This migration was primarily driven by economic opportunities, though the situation in Israel also contributed. Israel experienced a large amount of conflict, principally over Hellenistic and then Roman rule.

The frequent conflict contributed to Jewish emigration, both as refugees, through deportation, and by reducing economic opportunities in the region compared to elsewhere. It also led to many deaths among the Jewish population of Palestine, both deaths in battles with the Romans and others, deaths due to massacres, and deaths due to the famine and disease that so often accompany armed conflict. However, the Jewish population in the north of Palestine remained large for several centuries.

Palestine from the Byzantines to the Ottomans

A map of Palestine as described by the medieval Arab geographers, with the junds of Jordan and Filistin highlighted in grey

Palestine became part of the Byzantine Empire after the division of the Roman Empire into east and west (a fitful process that was not finalized until 395). Under Byzantine rule, the region became a center of Christianity, while retaining significant Jewish and Samaritan communities (although the Samaritans were greatly reduced following Julianus ben Sabar's revolt.) During a protracted conflict with the Byzantine Empire, the Sassanian Empire under Khosrau II briefly wrested control of the region from the Byzantines. An invasion of Mesopotamia by Byzantine Emperor Heraclius forced the Sassanians to withdraw.

After 634, Palestine, under the Arabic name Filastin, became part of the newly established Islamic Caliphate, ruled by the "Rightly Guided" caliphs, then the Umayyads until they were overthrown by the Abbasids in 750. Over the following centuries it acquired a Muslim, Arabic-speaking majority, through conversion, language shift from Aramaic, and immigration.

In the 900s, the Fatimids, a self-proclaimed Shia caliphate, took control. In the next century, Seljuk Turks invaded large portions of West Asia, including Asia Minor and Palestine, which was the proximate cause of the Crusades following 1095 by the Christian European powers. Jerusalem and the surrounding lands, being holy places to Christianity, were the object of these military expeditions. The Christian forces established the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which lasted from 1099 until Saladin reconquered the city in 1187. The Ayyubid Sultanate, founded by Saladin, controlled the region until 1250, when the Mamluks invaded. The Mamluk Sultanate ultimately became a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, in the wake of campaigns waged by Selim I in the 16th century.

In 1516 the Ottoman Turks occupied Palestine. The country became part of the Ottoman Empire. Constantinople appointed local governors. Public works, including the city walls, were rebuilt in Jerusalem by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1537. Napoleon of France briefly waged war against the Ottoman Empire (allied then with Great Britain). His forces conquered and occupied cities in Palestine, but they were finally defeated and driven out by 1801. Turkish rule lasted until World War I.

Jewish immigration to Palestine, particularly to the "four sacred cities" (Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron) which already had significant Jewish communities, increased particularly towards the end of Ottoman rule; Jews of European origin lived mostly off donations from off-country, while many Sephardic Jews found themselves a trade. The rise of Zionism, a political movement seeking to have Jews return to their ancient homeland in Palestine, in Europe and Russia in the 19th century increased the trend. By 1920, the Jewish population of Palestine had reached 11% of the population.

The British Mandate period

main article: British Mandate of Palestine

In World War I, Turkey sided with Germany. As a result, it was embroiled in a conflict with Great Britain, leading to the British capture of Palestine in a series of battles led by General Allenby. (See Third Battle of Gaza and Battle of Beersheba). Allenby famously dismounted from his horse when he entered captured Jerusalem as a mark of respect for the Holy City. He was greeted by the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic leaders of the city with great honor.

At the subsequent 1919 Paris Peace Conference and Treaty of Versailles, Turkey's loss of its Middle East empire was formalized. The British had in the interim made two agreements. In the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence there was an undertaking to form an Arab state in exchange for the Great Arab Revolt and in the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to "favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". McMahon's promises are 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. Prior to the conference Emir Faisal, British ally and son of the king of the Hijaz, had agreed in the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement to support the immigration of Jews into Palestine as part of a larger Arab state. When the conference did not produce that Arab state, Faisal called instead for Palestine to become part of his new Arab Syrian kingdom.

In 1920 the new League of Nations established the British Mandate of Palestine, which identified two territories of different administration, one to the west of the Jordan River, the other to the east. Article 25 specified that the eastern area did not have to be subject to all parts of the Mandate, notably the provisions regarding a Jewish homeland. This was used by the British as one rationale to establish an Arab state, which it saw as at least partially fulfilling the undertakings in the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence. On 11 April 1921 the British passed administration of the eastern region to the Hashemite Arab dynasty from the Hejaz what later became part of Saudi Arabia as the Emirate of Transjordan and on 15 May 1923 recognized it as a state.

Under the Mandate, Jewish immigration to Palestine increased substantially. Between 1920 and 1945, Jews went from 11% to 31% of the rapidly expanding population, partly due to an influx of Jewish refugees from Nazism in Europe. Palestinian Arab leaders strongly opposed the immigration. In 1936 the British Peel Commission advised that the western part of Palestine be divided between Arabs and Jews. The Arabs then launched the Great Uprising against British rule in an effort to end the immigration. The Jews, for their part, organized the Irgun and Lehi to fight the British and the Haganah and Palmach to fight the Arabs. By the time order was restored in March of 1939, more than 3,000 Arabs, 2,000 Jews, and 600 Britons had been killed.

Post-Mandate

Soon after World War II, the British, under constant armed attack by Jews and Arabs, decided to leave Palestine. The United Nations attempted to solve the dispute by putting forward the 1947 UN Partition Plan, dividing the land area between the two populations, on November 29, 1947; the Jewish Agency accepted the plan, while the Palestinian Arabs, along with their allies elsewhere in the Arab world, rejected it as inadequate. The Arab-Jewish fighting within Palestine escalated to full-scale war right after the UN partition plan was approved, and on May 14, 1948, the Jewish population declared independence as the state of Israel. The armies of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria then invaded, but did not succeed even in holding onto much of the areas reserved in the UN partition plan for the Arab state. (For a more detailed account, see 1948 Arab-Israeli War). Large numbers of Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes during the fighting, in what is called in Arabic the Nakba, or "Tragedy", and to this day have not been allowed to return (see Palestinian exodus). Israel managed to maintain its independence and even expand its borders, but a new refugee problem, this one of Palestinian Arabs, was created, and was compounded by Jewish exodus from Arab lands.

What remained of the territories allotted to the Arab state in Palestine was annexed by Jordan (the West Bank) or occupied by Egypt (the Gaza Strip) from 1948 to 1967.

As a result of the 1967 Six Day War, the Israel Defense Force took control of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula bringing them under military rule (see:Arab-Israeli conflict) The United Nation's Security Council passed Resolution 242, 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. Since that time, the Palestinians have struggled to assert their own independence, either in all the territories of Palestine or in the West Bank and Gaza Strip particularly.

After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt as part of the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel. In the early 1990s, Yassir Arafat, Chairman and President of the Palestine Liberation Organization entered into peace talks with the Israelis. Following the historic 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Palestinians and Israel (the "Oslo Accords"), which gave the Palestinians limited self-government through the Palestinian Authority, and other detailed negotiations, proposals for a Palestinian state gained momentum. They were soon followed in 1994 by the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace. An attempt was made to end the struggle at the Camp David 2000 Summit between Palestinians and Israel but no agreement was reached. To date, efforts to resolve the conflict have ended in deadlock, and the people of Palestine, Jews and Arabs, are engaged in a bloody conflict, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Intifada, Separation Barrier, Road Map

From 1987 to 1993 the First Intifada by Palestinians against Israel took place. A fierce Intifada by the Palestinians then erupted in 2000 known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada allegedly in response to a visit to the Temple Mount by Ariel Sharon (who subsequently became Israel's Prime Minister). The violence grew, particularly suicide bombings by Hamas, Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Islamic Jihad, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command. Israeli Security Forces retaliated with invasions, targeted assassinations of Palestinian military leaders and organizers and by building a complex separation barrier between Israel, including key Israeli settlements, and the large Palestinian populations in the West Bank.

In 2002 the Road map for peace calling for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was proposed by a "quartet": The United States, European Union, Russia, and United Nations. U.S. President George W. Bush in a speech on June 24, 2002 called for an independent Palestinian state living side by side with the Israeli state in peace. Bush was the first U.S. President to explicitly call for such a Palestinian state.

Finally, Israel's government announced Israel's unilateral disengagement plan of 2004 from some important areas it had occupied for which Ariel Sharon has been hotly condemned by his own right wing allies in Israel. Palestinians have continued to fight using a variety of tactics and weapons, such as the Qassam rockets, special explosive belts for more suicide bombings, called martyrdom operations by some Muslims, car bombs and smuggling tunnels to bring in additional weapons and ammunition from Egypt. In response the Israeli West Bank barrier is being built in an attempt to stifle the movements of Palestinians between areas. Areas of Israel protected by the barrier have experienced a sharp decrease in terror attacks, though it is not clear if the barrier alone is responsible for this. Yet violence against Israelis continues with a long list of massacres committed during the Al-Aqsa Intifada with simultaneous accusations against Israel of war crimes during the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

See also

• Occupations of Palestine
• History of ancient Israel and Judah
• History of Israel
• History of Levant
• Palestine
• Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan
• Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt

External References

• Zionism and its impact Article discussing the impact of Zionist Settlement in Palestine.
• Population of Palestine in Ottoman and Mandate Times
• A History of Zionism and the Creation of Israel Israeli-Arab relations during Ottoman and Mandatory times.
• A brief history of Israel, Palestine and the Conflict Balanced and comprehensive history of Palestine and Israel from earliest times.