PALESTINE
PALESTINE, PAL es tine, is one of the most famous lands in the world. It is the Holy Land of the Bible. It has been known in history for at least 5,000 years. Palestine is sacred to three great religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Judaism and Christianity were born here. Most of the events described in the Bible took place in Palestine.
Historic Palestine covers an area of 10,434 square miles along the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea, between Egypt and Syria. It is a little larger than the state of Vermont. More than 8,000 square miles of Palestine now belongs to Israel, and the rest to Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
People lived in Palestine at least 200,000 years ago, during the Old Stone Age. Archaeologists have dug up relics which date back to that time. They have also found rich remains from the New Stone Age, about 12,000 years ago.
The Land of Canaan. By 3000 B.C., Palestine, or Canaan, was inhabited by a people called Cannanites. For 1,500 years, the Canaanites developed their civilization. Their arts and industries were much like those of Egyptians, and they wrote in special signs called cuneiform as the Babylonians did.
Sometimes around the 1900’s B.C., the Hebrew patriarch Abraham and his tribesmen came across the Arabian Desert from Mesopotamia and settled in Canaan. The Hebrews made their homes in the area, and traded with their neighbors. Later, perhaps in the 1300’s B.C., the Egyptians enslaved many of them. In the 1200’s B.C., Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, and they returned to Palestine. This was the beginning of a great Hebrew civilization in Palestine.
The Hebrews had been simple shepherds. But they soon adopted much of the Canaanite civilization. Many of them began to leave their tents and to live in the houses. They also intermarried with the Canaanites.
These changes took place faster in the fertile valleys and towns of northern Palestine than in the southern desert. Differences between the settled Hebrews of the north and the wandering, or nomadic, Hebrews of the south divided the people for many years.
The Monarchy. By 1100 B.C. the Israelites had conquered most of the hill country of Palestine. At about this time the Philistines migrated from the Aegean Islands and formed a highly civilized and warlike nation called Philistia in southwest Palestine.
The Israelites were loosely organized into twelve tribes. Warfare with Canaanite and Philistine peoples in Palestine forced these tribes to rally closer together. They established a monarchy under Kind Saul (1010-970 B.C.). After Saul came David, the first great national king of the Hebrews. David made the Israelites into a strong, united nation. He established Jerusalem as the capital of the nation. His son, King Solomon, built the first Temple in Jerusalem.
On Solomon’s death, the kingdom split in two. The northern kingdom was called Israel, and the southern kingdom was called Judah. The people of Judah were called Judeans, or Jews. Eventually, all the Hebrews came to be called Jews. In 721 B.C., Israel was conquered by the Assyrian Empire. Many of its people were captured and sent to distant lands. The people of these northern tribes lost their identity as Hebrews and mixed with other people. They are sometimes called “the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.” The Babylonians conquered Judah in 587 B.C., enslaving many Jews.
The Return from Babylon. After about fifty years, a Persian king called Cyrus conquered Babylonia. He allowed the Judean exiles to return to their homeland. Under Zerubabbel they rebuilt the Temple. During this period, the religious and social code of the Hebrew people, and most of the writings which form the Old Testament, took their final form.
About 170 B.C. the Greek rulers of Syria conquered Palestine. The Hebrews successfully revolted and won back their independence under Judas Maccabeus, who founded a dynasty which lasted a hundred years.
The Beginning of Christianity. In 63 B.C. the Romans conquered Palestine. Their harshness led to constant quarrels with the Jews. During this troubled time of Roman oppression, Jesus of Nazareth began teaching a new religion and philosophy of life in Palestine. He was put to death, but the Gospel of Jesus spread. The hundred years of strife in Palestine ended in a general Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire. But after six years of bitter fighting, the Romans crushed Jewish resistance. In A.D. 70 the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. Most of the Jews went to other lands throughout the world. For 500 years Palestine was under the rule of Rome, and of the Byzantine Empire that followed it.
Arab Conquest. In the A.D. 600’s, the Arabs, fresh and zealous converts to Islam, swept out of the Arabian Desert. They seized Palestine in their great campaign of conquest. In Iraq, Egypt, and other countries, great centers of Moslem civilization arose. But Palestine remained in the background. The Arab Empire lasted about 400 years. Then Palestine, together with the other Arab provinces, fell to the Seljuk Turks. Later the Turks lost most of Palestine t the Christian Crusaders, who came from Europe to free the Holy Land from the Moslems. The Crusaders were driven out by the Mamelukes of Egypt. In 1517 Palestine was conquered by the Ottoman Turks.
The long series of conquests and increasing neglect turned Palestine into almost a wasteland. Cities crumbled, and swamps formed over rich soil. The population was mostly Arabs. There was also a small number of Jews. All of them were miserably poor. In 1882 the first group of Jews from Europe came to settle in Palestine. That was the start of the Zionist pioneering movement that led to the creation of the State of Israel.
World War I and After. World War I again turned Palestine into a battlefield. In 1918 British troops drove out the Turks and occupied the land. Some of the Jews of Palestine helped the British. In 1917 the great British scientist-statesmen and Zionist, Chaim Weizmann, persuaded the British Government to issue a statement favoring the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. This statement was called the Balfour Declaration. After the war, the League of Nations ratified, or approved, the Balfour Declaration. In 1922 it appointed the British to rule the country as a League mandate.
Many thousands of Jews came to settle in Palestine from different countries. Zionist pioneers drained swamps and built up cities. The country began to flourish. But a feeling of nationalism was awakening among the Arabs of Palestine. They did not want Palestine to become a Jewish national home. They wanted it to become an Arab state. Arab riots broke out against the Jews. Meanwhile the Nazi terror in Germany drove large numbers of German Jews to find a refuge in Palestine.
In 1936 the Arabs started guerrilla fighting against the Jews in Palestine. The British seemed unable to stop it. It lasted for three years. In 1939 the British finally yielded to a large part of the Arab demands. They decided practically to stop Jewish immigration into Palestine. To the Jews, this would have meant the end of the Jewish national home, and they bitterly opposed the British policy. Many Jewish immigrants were brought into Palestine illegally. Trouble between the Jews and the British became steadily worse.
World War II and the Partition Plan. When World War II broke out, the Jews of Palestine joined the Allies. When the war was over they resumed their struggle against the British policy in Palestine.
In 1947 the British Government asked the United Nations to solve the problem of Palestine. After full investigations, the United Nations decided to divide Palestine into two independent stats, a Jewish state and an Arab state. It also decided that the city of Jerusalem should be internationalized.
The Jews accepted this partition plan, but the Arabs refused to accept it. Wide-scale Arab attacks broke out against the Jews. Bands of Arabs from the neighboring countries joined the Palestine Arabs. In May, 1948, the British mandate over Palestine came to an end and the Zionists in Palestine proclaimed the new State of Israel.
By Yehuda Harry Levin and Winfred E. Garrison
The World Book Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. pp. 85-86. Field Enterprises Educational Corporation. Chicago:Copyright © 1968.
April, 2002