History of Palestine
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The History of Palestine is the account of events in the geographic area called Palestine, from ancient times to the present. For the history of the use of the term "Palestine", see Boundaries and name of the region of Palestine. For the archaeology of this region, see Archaeology of Israel.
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[edit] Prehistoric Period
[edit] Paleolithic Period
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).
[edit] Epipalaeolithic Period
They were followed by the Natufian culture (c. 10,500 BCE - 8500 BCE). (This and the other prehistoric cultures are named after archaeological sites, in the absence of any indication of what they called themselves.)--
[edit] Neolithic Period 8500–4300 BCE
Yarmukians (c. 8500–4300 BCE). People began agriculture.
[edit] Chalcolithic Period 4300–3300 BCE
Ghassulians (carbon dated c. 4300–3300 BCE). People became urbanized and lived in city-states, including Jericho.
[edit] Biblical Period
- Main article: History of ancient Israel and Judah
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.
[edit] Canaanite Period (Bronze Age) 3300–1200 BCE
The use of the term Canaanite can be confusing. Archaeologists use it to refer to a long period of time (the entire Bronze Age) and a wide geographical region (ranging from modern Israel to the entire Levant). Thus all of the people in this time and place can be called Canaanites. However, Canaanites proper were a smaller ethnic group radiating out of modern day Lebanon, who are mentioned in the Bible and Ancient Egyptian texts, and who are only one among many ethnic groups in this area. Most of these ethnic groups assimilated to the same wider culture and are sometimes difficult to distinguish from each other.
[edit] Early Canaanite Period (Early Bronze Age) 3300–2300 BCE
There is cultural continuity within the local Semitic-speaking culture from the previous Chalcolithic Period, but now also intermingling with outside influences. The settlement patterns of this Period are still a matter of "guesswork". Some archaeologists suggest a group from the Arabian Peninsula[1] (who trade with Mesopotamia) settled among the indigenous peoples who had been there since the original Semitic emigration from Africa. Some archaeologists suggest a group from Syria. Other archaeologists suggest the cultural developments are indigenous, and the outside influences result from trade.[1] Of course, with trade routes come at least some immigration.
[edit] Middle Canaanite Period (Middle Bronze Age) 2300-1550 BCE
[edit] Late Canaanite Period (Late Bronze Age) 1550–1200 BCE
- Israel enters History
During the Late Canaanite Period (Late Bronze Age), the Israelites appear in history, mentioned in the Merneptah Stele of Ancient Egypt in the 13th century BCE. Eventually, the twelve tribes of Israel will emerge as a dominant cultural presence during the Israelite Period (Iron Age).
During the Late Canaanite and Early Israelite Periods, the emerging Israelites are part of Canaanite culture in language and customs. They are virtually indistinguishable from their neighbors. Archaeologists have not yet reached a consensus about the precise origins of the Israelites. Some archaeologists regard them as an outgrowth of the Canaanite culture, who were perhaps displaced during the unusually turbulent [2] Late Canaanite Period, living as semi-nomads, until settling the hill areas of Samaria and Judah during the Early Israelite Period.
Alternatively, Israelites are ancient Aramean immigrants from Aram-Naharaim (around the Syro-Turkish area of Mesopotamia). Genetic testing has shown that, throughout the world, modern "Jews [are genetically] more closely related to groups from the north of the Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks and Armenians) than to their Arab neighbors." [3] These ancient immigrants from Aram-Naharaim to the Land of Israel lived a semi-nomadic life of commerce and herding with periodic stops for raising crops. [4] They lived on the fringes of the unstable Canaanite society for centuries, acquiring the Canaanite language and material culture, before finally urbanizing across the hill areas of modern Israel around the 13th century.
According to the tradition recorded in the Hebrew Bible's book of Genesis (composed in the 9th/10th centuries BC), the Israelites descended from Abraham who is called a "wandering Aramean", whose family is associated with Aram-Naharaim, including the ancient places there, such as Haran and Teran in Turkey. After Abraham, the Israelites are said to descend through Isaac, born in the land of Israel, and then through their eponymous ancestor Jacob who is also known as Israel. Israel's sons often took Canaanite wives, adopting Canaanite customs. The Bible also describes a time when the Israelites relocated to Egypt, and following the Exodus back from Egypt, a time when they conquered (sometimes exterminating and sometimes absorbing) the ethnic groups there, reclaiming the land God promised them.
[edit] Israelite Period (Iron Age) 1200–539 BCE
- The tribes of Israel emerge as the dominant culture of the Land of Palestine
[edit] Judges Period (Iron Age I) 1200–1000 BCE
- Palestine urbanizes across the hill area of Judea and Samaria
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 Phoenicians (who are the Canaanites of Lebanon, not the ones conquered by the Israelites) 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 Sea the Sea Peoples. The Philistines (whose traces disappear before the 5th century BCE) are presently considered to have been among them, giving the name Philistia to the region in which they settled.
For further discussion on the very early ethnic history of the region, see:
[edit] Monarchy Period (Iron Age II) 1000–586 BCE
[edit] Divided Monarchies of Judah and Israel (Iron Age IIB) 925–722 BCE
- Civil war schisms into Kingdoms of Judah and Israel
With the death of King Solomon around 925 BCE, the Israelites fell into civil war, and the kingdom split into the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom was far more wealthy and politically influential, but its monarchy was unstable with frequent intrigue and dynastic changes.
In the relative backwaters of the southern Kingdom of Judah, the Davidic Dynasty alone ruled Judah and its vicinities for centuries until the Persian Period, proving remarkably stable. Several factors contrubuted to the stability of the southern monarchy. Its kings made a frequent practice of ruling alongside a son in a period of coregency. Gradually, the kings centralized all religious authority to Jerusalem the capital city: to the Temple located next to the king's palace. Unlike El that was perceived as a universal deity in the north, Yhwh was perceived in the south as a patron deity of the nation of Israel, thus worship of other gods equated to treason. Throughout the Davidic Dynasty of the Kingdom of Judah, religious loyalty and loyalty to the king consolidated.
[edit] Monarchy of Judah/Neo-Assyrian Period (Iron Age IIC) 722–586 BCE
- Neo-Assyrian Empire terminates the northern kingdom, but the southern Kingdom of Judah stays strong
In 722 BCE, the northern Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians, many of it's inhabitants (mainly the elite amongst them) were deported (giving rise to the legend of "the Lost Tribes") and replaced by settlers from elsewhere in the Assyrian Empire. Many, however, probably fled to their southern Israelite sister kingdom of Judah, but others most likely stayed behind..
[edit] Neo-Babylonian Period (Iron Age III) 586–539 BCE
- Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem
The Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar conquered the (southern) Kingdom of Judah in 597–586 BCE, and exiled the middle and upper classes of the Jews (that is, the citizens of the Kingdom of Judah, consisting mostly of the members of the tribe of Judah but also some members of the other tribes) to Babylonia, where they flourished. Most regard the collapse of the Israelite kingdoms as the beginning of the Jewish diaspora.
[edit] Persian Period 539-333 BCE
- Rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem
Cyrus II of Persia conquered the Babylonian Empire by 539 BCE and incorporated Judah and Palestine into the Persian Empire. Cyrus organized the empire into provincial administrations called satrapies. The administrators of these provinces, called satraps, had considerable independence from the emperor. The Persians allowed Jews to return to the regions that the Bablyonians had exiled them from.
The exiled Jews who returned to the lands they had occupied encountered the Jews that had remained, surrounded by a much larger non-Jewish majority. 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.
[edit] Classical Period
[edit] Hellenistic Period 333–165 BCE
- Cultural legacy of the empire of Alexander the Great
In the early 330s BCE, Alexander the Great conquered the region, beginning an important period of Hellenestic influence in Palestine.
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.
[edit] Maccabean/Hasmonean Period 165–63 BCE
- Jews restore their sovereignty over Palestinian homeland
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. Jews achieved sovereignty in Palestinian land throughout the Maccabean Period, and their Kingdom of Judea controlled most of the region of Palestine (without the Negev but with the West Bank, Golan, and parts of the Gaza Strip) and parts of eastern Jordan.
[edit] Roman Period 63 BCE–330 CE
[edit] Early Roman Period 63 BCE–70 CE
- Jewish insurrection against Roman occupation ultimately results in the collapse of Jewish sovereignty
Following the Roman conquest in 63 BCE, parts of Palestine—first a client kingdom of the Roman Empire, after year 6 CE the Iudaea Province—were in nearly constant revolt against Roman occupation (see Jewish-Roman Wars). The Great Jewish Revolt began in 66 CE and resulted in the destruction of Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE.
Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish teacher of Galilaea inspired what will eventually evolve, through Paul of Tarsus, into Christianity.
[edit] Late Roman Period I 70–135 CE
- Destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem
This early part of the Late Roman Period (70–135 CE) is sometimes called Early Roman.
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 by the Roman army led by Titus Flavius and the estimated death toll of 600,000 to 1,300,000 Jews (see Josephus Flavius).
Rabbi Yokhanan ben Zakai, a student of Hillel, fled during the siege of Jerusalem to negotiate with the Roman General Vespasian, who he predicted would soon become emperor. Yokhanan obtained permission to reestablish a Sanhedrin in the coastal city of Yavne (just south of Tel Aviv), see also Council of Jamnia. He founded a school of Torah there that would eventually evolve, through the Mishna in around 200 CE, into Rabbinic Judaism.
[edit] Late Roman Period II 135–220 CE
- Romans rename the province of Iudaea (Samaria, Judea, Idumea) as Syria Palaestina
In 135 CE, the costly victory in Bar Kokhba's revolt by Hadrian resulted in 580,000 Jews killed (according to Cassius Dio) and an effort to destablize the region's Jewish population, including the re-establishment of Jerusalem as the Roman military colony of Aelia Capitolina,in which Jews were forbidden to set foot. Many Jews left the country altogethether, and untold numbers of captives were sold as slaves throughout the Empire.
As part of a program of provinical reorgaization, the Romans tried deny the Jews their priorietary rights to the land of Judea and so renamed it Syria Palaestina, applying a name that had long been in use among local Greek speakers.
A number of events with far-reaching consequences took place, including religious schisms, such as Christianity branching off of Judaism.
The Romans destroyed the Jewish community of the Mother Church in Jerusalem, which had existed since the time of Jesus. The line of Jewish bishops in Jerusalem, which started with Jesus's brother James the Righteous (Hebrew: Yaakov Ha-Tsadik) as its first bishop, now ceases to exist. The Romans impose a new line of non-Jewish bishops in Jerusalem.[citation needed] Christianity ceases to be a Jewish movement.
[edit] Late Roman Period III 220–330 CE
- Known simply as Rabbi, Yhuda Ha-Nasi finalized the Mishna
- Amoraic Period (220-470 CE) begins
The use of Hebrew as the spoken language gradually declines in the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, becoming negligible approximately 300 CE but surviving as a literary language.
During the Hellenistic, Hasmonean, and Roman Periods, the Jewish 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. Frequent conflict contributed to Jewish emigration, both as refugees, through deportation, and by reducing economic opportunities in the region. It also led to many deaths among the Jewish population - 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, during the Byzantine Period, the Jewish population in the north of Palestine remained large for several centuries.
[edit] Byzantine Period 330–638 CE
- Byzantines rename the entire geographic area as Palaestina ("Palestine")
The Land of Israel 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 CE).
Around year 390 CE, the Byzantines redrew the borders of the Land of Israel. The various Roman provinces (Syria Palaestina, Samaria, Galilaea, and Peraea) were reorganized into two diocese of Palaestina.
In the year 351 CE, the Jews launched another revolt, provoking heavy retribution.
In year 438 CE, Empress Eudocia allows Jews to return to Jerusalem to live.
The Nabateans roamed the Negev by the Roman Period, and by the Byzantine Period dominated the swath of sparsely populated deserts, from the Sinai to the Negev to the northwest coast of Arabia, the outlands that the Byzantines called the diocese of Palaestina Salutoris (meaning something like "near Palestine"). Its capital Petra was formally the capital of the Roman province of Arabia Petraea. The Nabateans also inhabited the outland of Jordan and southern Syria, improperly called the diocese of Arabia because its capital Bostra was within the northern extremity of the Roman province of Arabia Petrae. The origin of the Nabateans remains obscure, but they were Aramaic speakers, and the term "Nabatean" was the Arabic name for an Aramean of Syria and Iraq. By the third century during the Late Roman Period, the Nabateans stopped writing in Aramaic and began writing in Greek, and by the Byzantine Period they converted to Christianity.[2]
The two diocese of Palaestina proper also became increasingly Christianized. They probably had a Christian majority by the time of Diocletian.[citation needed] Some areas, like Gaza, were well-known as pagan holdouts, and remained attached to the worship of Dagon and other deities as their ancestors had been for thousands of years.[citation needed]
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.)
In 613 CE, the Persian Sassanian Empire under Khosrau II invaded Palaestina. Jews under Benjamin of Tiberias assisted the conquering Persians, revolting against the Byzantine Empire under Heraclius in the hopes of controlling Jerusalem autonomously. In 614 CE, the Persians conquered Jerusalem, destroying most of the churches and expelling 37,000 Christians. The Jews of Jerusalem gained autonomy to some degree, but frustrated with its limitations and anticipating its loss offered to assist the Byzantines in return for amnesty for the revolt. In 617 CE, the Persians signed a peace treaty with Byzantines. At that time the Persians betrayed the agreements with the Jews and expelled the Jewish population from Jerusalem, forbidding them to live within 3 miles of it. In 625 CE, the Byzantinian army returned to the area, promising amnesty to Jews who had joined the Persians, and was greeted by Benjamin of Tiberias. In 629 CE, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius marched into Jerusalem at the head of his army with the support of the Jewish population who had received amnesty. Nevertheless, upon entry, the Christian priests in Jerusalem convinced the emperor that God commanded him to kill Jews and therefore his amnesty was invalid, whereupon the Byzantines massacred the Jews in Jerusalems and put thousands of Jewish refugees to flight from Palaestina to Egypt.
In 634 CE, the Byzantine Empire lost control of the entire Mideast. The Arab Islamic Empire under Caliph Umar conquered Jerusalem along with the lands of Mesopotamia, Syria, Palaestina, and Egypt.
[edit] Islamic Period
[edit] Arab Caliphate Period 638–1099 CE
[edit] Umayyad Period 638–750 CE
In 638 CE, the Christians of Jerusalem surrendered to the conquering armies of the Caliphate (Islamic Empire) under Caliph (Emperor) Umar, the second of the initial four Rashidun Caliphs.
Umar allowed seventy families from Tiberias in Galilee to move to Jerusalem to live.
The Arab conquerors colonized Palaestina, and over the centuries it acquired a Muslim, Arabic-speaking majority, through immigration, language shift and conversion.
In Arabic, the area approximating the Byzantine Diocese of Palaestina I in the south (roughly Judea, Philistia, and southern Jordan) was called Filastin, and the Diocese of Palaestina II in the north (roughly Samaria, Galilee, Golan, and northern Jordan) Jordan.
In 661 CE, with the assassination of Ali, the last of the Rashidun Caliphs, Muawiyah I became the uncontested Caliph and founded the Ummayad Dynasty.
[edit] Abbasid Period 750–1099 CE
The Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads in 750.
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.
[edit] Crusader Period 1099–1244 CE
After the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 CE, the Crusader Kingdom survived throughout Ayyubid Period until 1291 CE well into Mamluk Period, but here we will consider its peak period, until AD 1244.
[edit] Kingdom of Jerusalem Period 1099–1187 CE
The proximate cause of the Crusades, following 1095, by the Christian European powers was the desire to reconquer the birthland and holy land of Christianity, which had been lost to the Islamic Arab invasion of the Byzantine Roman empire in the 7th century. The Christian forces established the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which lasted from 1099 until 1291, though Saladin reconquered the city of Jerusalem in 1187.
[edit] Ayyubid Period 1187–1244 CE
- Saladin conquers Jerusalem
The Ayyubid Sultanate, founded by Saladin, controlled Jerusalem and some but not all of the region until 1250, when it was defeated by the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.
[edit] Mamluk Period 1244–1517 CE
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.
[edit] Ottoman Period 1517-1917 CE
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. In 1799 Napoleon announced a plan to re-establish a Jewish State in Palestine. 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.
[edit] Modern Period
[edit] British Mandate Period 1917–1948 CE
The rise of Zionism, a political movement started in Europe and Russia in the 19th century seeking to create a Jews homeland in Palestine, increased the trend of Jewish immigration. By 1920, the Jewish population of Palestine had reached 11% of the population.[3]
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" while respecting the rights of the indigeneous majority.
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 and the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, while creating a large Arab state based in Syria. 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 Allied Supreme Council meeting at San Remo offered a Mandate for Palestine to Great Britain, but the borders and terms under which the mandate was to be held were not finalised until September 1922. Article 25 of the mandate specified that the eastern area (then known as Transjordan or Transjordania) did not have to be subject to all parts of the Mandate, notably the provisions regarding a Jewish national home. 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 Cisjordan Palestine increased substantially with a rise in Jewish nationalism, which encouraged Zionism, a return to the ancient land of the Jews. Between 1922 and 1946, Jews went from less than 11% to 33%[3] of the rapidly expanding population, due in part to an influx of Jewish refugees from Nazism in Europe and the refusal of the USA, France, Britain and other countries to allow Jewish immigration.
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 militia groups like 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 5,000 Arabs, 400 Jews, and 200 Britons were killed.
[edit] Israeli Period 1948 CE–Present
- Jewish State of Israel
Soon after World War II, the British 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 and to this day most 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.
Following threats by Egypt and Syria, backed by Egyptian president Nasser's request to UN to remove its peace-keeping troops from the Egyptian-Israeli border, in June 1967 Israeli forces went to action against Egypt and Syria, and, after failing to persuade it to stay out of the conflict, Jordan, in what has come to be known as the Six-Day War. As a result of that war, the Israel Defense Forces occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula bringing them under military rule. The United Nation's 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. Since that time, the Palestinians refugees have struggled to assert their own independence, either in all the territories of Palestine or in the West Bank and Gaza Strip particularly. In the course of 1973 Yom Kippur War, the invading forces of Egypt and Syria were pushed back. Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt as part of the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords between Egypt and Israel.
[edit] Oslo Peace Accords, Intifada, Separation Barrier, Road Map 1993 CE–Present
After the First Intifada, attempts at the peace process in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were made at the Madrid Conference of 1991. As the process progressed, in 1993 the Israelis allowed Chairman and President of the Palestine Liberation Organization Yassir Arafat to return to the region.
Following the historic 1993 Oslo Peace Accords between Palestinians and Israel (the "Oslo Accords"), which gave the Palestinians limited self-government in some parts of the Occupied Territories 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, called variously the "Arab-Israeli conflict" or "Israeli-Palestinian conflict".
From 1987 to 1993, the First Palestinian Intifada against Israel took place. After few years of on-and-off negotiations, the second Intifada erupted in 2000. This was known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada and began after a controversial visit by Likud party chairman Ariel Sharon (who subsequently became Israel's Prime Minister) to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem - holy to both Jews and Muslims. The events were highlighted by Palestinian suicide bombing in Israel that killed many civilians, and by Israeli Security Forces invasions and targeted killings of Palestinian militant leaders and organizers during which many Palestinian civilians were also killed or injured. Israel began building a complex separation barrier to separate itself from the West Bank in 2002.
Also 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 Israel in peace. Bush was the first U.S. President to explicitly call for such a Palestinian state.
According to 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. Following Israel's withdrawal, some Palestinian groups failed to abide by a 'calming' (de facto ceasefire) negotiated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Palestinian militia groups fired Qassam rockets into Israel and attempted to smuggle additional weapons and ammunition into Gaza from Egypt. After 2 Israeli soldiers were killed and one was kidnapped by Palestinian militants in the 6th of June 2006, Israel launched a military operation and reentered to some parts of the Gaza Strip.
[edit] See also
- History of ancient Israel and Judah
- History of Israel
- History of Levant
- History of pottery in the Southern Levant
- Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan
- Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt
[edit] References
- ^ Amahai Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible (New York: Double Day 1990) p. 104.
- ^ Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (London 1987)
- ^ a b The Population of Palestine Prior to 1948. Population of Ottoman and Mandate Palestine: Statistical and Demographic Considerations. Mideastweb (2005). Retrieved on July 31, 2006.
[edit] External links
- The Destroyed Palestinian Villages on Google Earth
- 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.
- Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt by Colonel Sir Charles William Wilson, ed. (published 1881-1884) image gallery at New York Public Library
- Jewish History: Timeline
- hWeb - Israel-Palestine in Maps
- Holy land Maps
Categories: Articles lacking sources from February 2007 | All articles lacking sources | Articles which may be biased | Accuracy disputes | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | History of the Levant | History of the Middle East | History of Israel | Zionism | Jewish history | Palestinian history | Roman roads in Syria and Palestina
