Harlan wilkerson (talk | contribs) The UN approved an Arab state within a portion of Palestine. It is not "subtle POV-pushing" to link Arab countries cat to this article |
doesn't specify recognition, but just mentions Palestinians claim they have recognition |
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* "Costa Rica Opens Official Ties With ‘State of Palestine’", By Marc Perelman [http://www.forward.com/articles/12761/ 2], The Jewish Daily Forward, Retrieved 4 June 2009 |
* "Costa Rica Opens Official Ties With ‘State of Palestine’", By Marc Perelman [http://www.forward.com/articles/12761/ 2], The Jewish Daily Forward, Retrieved 4 June 2009 |
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* "DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, Customs Service, T.D. 97–16, Country of Origin Marking of Products From the West Bank and Gaza" [http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1997-03-14/pdf/97-6434.pdf 3], US Federal Register, Retrieved 4 June 2009 |
* "DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, Customs Service, T.D. 97–16, Country of Origin Marking of Products From the West Bank and Gaza" [http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1997-03-14/pdf/97-6434.pdf 3], US Federal Register, Retrieved 4 June 2009 |
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* "ICC prosecutor considers ‘Gaza war crimes’ probe" [http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=169152 4], Today's Zaman, Retrieved 4 June 2009 |
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* "Is Palestine a State?", by Forji Amin George [http://www.expertlaw.com/library/international_law/palestine.html 5], Expert Law. Retrieved 4 June 2009.</ref> or to [[Proposals for a Palestinian state]] in line with the pre-1967 borders.<ref> Proposals for a Palestinian state: |
* "Is Palestine a State?", by Forji Amin George [http://www.expertlaw.com/library/international_law/palestine.html 5], Expert Law. Retrieved 4 June 2009.</ref> or to [[Proposals for a Palestinian state]] in line with the pre-1967 borders.<ref> Proposals for a Palestinian state: |
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*Ehud Olmert’s Parting Words Dared To Offer Painful Truth, [http://www.forward.com/articles/14309/ 1], The Jewish Daily Forward, Retrieved 4 June 2009 |
*Ehud Olmert’s Parting Words Dared To Offer Painful Truth, [http://www.forward.com/articles/14309/ 1], The Jewish Daily Forward, Retrieved 4 June 2009 |
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The name and the borders of Palestine have varied throughout history, though Palestine has certain natural boundaries that justify its historical individuality. The name itself was given to these lands by the [[Romans]] around 135 CE when the emperor [[Hadrian]] brutally suppressed the Jewish [[Resistance movement]] and [[occupied]] Judea. They called it the Province of '[[Syria Palaestina]] and built a temple to [[Jupiter]] on Israel's destroyed holiest site. {{Fact|date=June 2009}} |
The name and the borders of Palestine have varied throughout history, though Palestine has certain natural boundaries that justify its historical individuality. The name itself was given to these lands by the [[Romans]] around 135 CE when the emperor [[Hadrian]] brutally suppressed the Jewish [[Resistance movement]] and [[occupied]] Judea. They called it the Province of '[[Syria Palaestina]] and built a temple to [[Jupiter]] on Israel's destroyed holiest site. {{Fact|date=June 2009}} |
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According to the Jewish Encyclopedia published between 1901-1906:<blockquote> |
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia published between 1901-1906:<blockquote> |
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Palestine extends, from 31° to 33° 20′ N. latitude. Its southwest point (at Raphia = Tell Rifaḥ, southwest of Gaza) is about 34° 15′ E. longitude, and its northwest point (mouth of the Liṭani) is at 35° 15′ E. longitude, while the course of the Jordan reaches 35° 35′ to the east. The west-Jordan country has, consequently, a length of about 150 English miles from north to south, and a breadth of about 23 miles at the north and 80 miles at the south. The area of this region, as measured by the |
Palestine extends, from 31° to 33° 20′ N. latitude. Its southwest point (at Raphia = Tell Rifaḥ, southwest of Gaza) is about 34° 15′ E. longitude, and its northwest point (mouth of the Liṭani) is at 35° 15′ E. longitude, while the course of the Jordan reaches 35° 35′ to the east. The west-Jordan country has, consequently, a length of about 150 English miles from north to south, and a breadth of about 23 miles at the north and 80 miles at the south. The area of this region, as measured by the survey |
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<ref> Jewish Encyclopedia [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=31&letter=P&search=palestine#133 Boundaries and Extent]</ref></blockquote> |
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Some other terms that have been used to refer to all or part of this area include [[Canaan]], [[Greater Israel]], [[Greater Syria]], the [[Holy Land]], [[Iudaea Province]], [[Judea]],<ref>[http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761579829 Judea]</ref> [[Israel]], "Israel HaShlema", [[Kingdom of Israel]], [[Kingdom of Jerusalem]], [[Land of Israel]] (Eretz Yisrael or Ha'aretz), [[Levant]], ''Retenu'' (Ancient Egyptian), [[Southern Syria]], and [[Syria Palestina]]. |
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In the Bible, the area inhabited by the [[Philistines]] was known as ''Pleshet'' [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]], X.13. The Philistines were a seafaring people who lived in cities along the coast. During the Late Bronze Age, [[Philistia]] was located approximately where the [[Gaza Strip]] is situated. Philistia was a confederation of five city states: [[Gaza]], [[Ashkelon]] and [[Ashdod]] on the coast, and [[Ekron]] and [[Gath (city)|Gath]] inland.<ref name=ehrlich>Carl S. Ehrlich "Philistines" ''The Oxford Guide to People and Places of the Bible''. Ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan. Oxford University Press, 2001.</ref> |
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The ethnic affiliation of the Philistines is not clear. The Philistine names preserved on inscriptions appear to "contradict the notion that they were Greek-speakers."<ref>M.L. West, ''The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth,'' Clarendon Press, Oxford 1997 p. 38 n148</ref> Some scholars argue however that they were a non-Semitic group, with roots in Southern [[Greece]] dating back to the period of early [[Mycenaean]] civilization.<ref>Killebrew, 2005, p. 231.</ref> A hypothetical link to the Anatolian people, based upon mere phonological similitude to the [[Palaic language]], seems tenuous but not impossible. |
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===Non-Biblical texts=== |
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[[Ancient Egypt]]ian texts called the entire coastal area along the [[Mediterranean Sea]] between modern Egypt and Turkey ''R-t-n-u'' (conventionally ''[[Retjenu]]''). ''Retjenu'' was subdivided into three regions and the southern region, ''[[Djahy]]'', shared approximately the same boundaries as Canaan, or modern-day Israel and the [[Palestinian territories]], though including also [[Syria]].<ref>Sir [[Alan Gardiner]], ''Egypt of the Pharaohs'',Clarendon Press, Oxford (1961) 1964 pp.131, 199, 285, n.1</ref> |
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[[File:Israel segment.jpg|right|thumb|200px|From the Merneptah Stele "Israel is wasted, its seed is no longer".]] |
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Early archeological textual reference to the territory of Palestine is found in the [[Merneptah Stele]], dated c. 1200 BCE, containing a recount of Egyptian king [[Merneptah]]'s victories in the land of [[Canaan]], mentioning place-names such as [[Gezer]], [[Ashkelon]] and Yanoam, along with Israel, which is mentioned using a hieroglyphic determinative that indicates a nomad people, rather than a state.<ref>Carol A. Redmount, 'Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt' in The Oxford History of the Biblical Word, ed: Michael D. Coogan, (Oxford University Press: 1999), p. 97</ref> |
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Egyptian texts of the temple at [[Medinet Habu (temple)|Medinet Habu]], record a people called the ''P-r-s-t'' (conventionally ''Peleset''), one of the [[Sea Peoples]] who invaded [[Egypt]] in [[Ramesses III]]'s reign. This is considered very likely to be a reference to the Philistines. The [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] name ''Peleshet'' ({{lang|he|פלשת}} {{lang|he-Latn|''Pəléshseth''}}) usually translated as ''Philistia'' in English, is used in the [[Bible]] to denote "the coastal region north and south of Gaza which was occupied and settled by Philistine invaders from across the sea".<ref>Lewis, 1993, p. 153.</ref> |
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[[File:Mesha Stele (511142469).jpg|left|thumb|200px|Mesha Stele]] |
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Another famous inscription is that of the [[Mesha Stele]], bearing an inscription by the [[9th century BC]] [[Moabite]] King [[Mesha]], discovered in 1868 at [[Dhiban]] (biblical "Dibon," capital of Moab) now in [[Jordan]]. The Stele is notable because it is thought to be the earliest known reference to the sacred [[Hebrew]] name of God - [[YHWH]]. It also notable as the most extensive inscription ever recovered that refers to [[ancient Israel]] (see more below). |
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The Assyrian emperor [[Sargon II]] called the region the ''Palashtu'' in his Annals. By the time of [[Assyria]]n rule in 722 BCE, the Philistines had become 'part and parcel of the local population',<ref name="Shahinp6">Shahin (2005), p. 6 {{Specify|date=February 2008}}</ref><ref name=Philistines>{{cite web|title=The Philistines|publisher=Jewish Virtual Library|url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Philistines.html|accessdate=2007-08-11}}</ref> and prospered under Assyrian rule during the seventh century despite occasional rebellions against their overlords.<ref name=ehrlich /> In 604 BCE, when Assyrian troops commanded by the [[Babylonian]] empire carried off significant numbers of the population into slavery, the distinctly Philistine character of the coastal cities dwindled away,<ref name="Shahinp6"/><ref>"Philistines" ''A Dictionary of the Bible''. W. R. F. Browning. Oxford University Press, 1997. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.</ref> and the history of the Philistine people effectively ended.<ref name=ehrlich /> |
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In the 5th century BCE, the Greek historian and geographer [[Herodotus]] wrote in Greek of a "district of Syria, called ''{{lang|el|Παλαιστινη}}'' ({{lang|el-Latn|''Palaistinê''}})."<ref>[http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-097X%28199902%29313%3C65%3APAI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage Palestine and Israel David M. Jacobson Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 313 (Feb., 1999), pp. 65-74]</ref><ref>The Southern and Eastern Borders of Abar-Nahara |
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Steven S. Tuell |
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Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 284 (Nov., 1991), pp. 51-57 |
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</ref><ref>Herodotus' Description of the East Mediterranean Coast |
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Anson F. Rainey |
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Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 321 (Feb., 2001), pp. 57-63</ref> Syria, at that time, referred rather imprecisely to the region lying between Asia Minor, Sinai, the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. The boundaries of the "district" of Palaistinê described by Herodotus are even more imprecise, as is the ethnic nature of its people; sometimes it denotes the coast north of [[Mount Carmel]], and elsewhere it seems to extend down all the coast from Phoenicia to Egypt, and as far east as the [[Jordan River]].<ref>Herodotus, ''The Histories'' Bk.7.89</ref> |
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During the Roman period, the province of [[Iudaea Province|Iudaea]] covered much of modern Palestine, although the [[Galilee]] and other northern areas remained distinct administratively. However, many writers continued to use the Greek name. For example, in the first century C.E., the Roman writer [[Pliny the Elder]] mentions a region of Syria that was "formerly called ''Palaestina''" among the areas of the Eastern Mediterranean.<ref>[[Pliny the Elder]], ''[[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]]'' V.66 and 68.</ref> The Jewish historian [[Josephus]], writing in Greek, used the name ''Palaistinê'' for the smaller coastal area which most of his contemporaries preferred to call ''Philistia''.<ref>e.g. [[Antiquities of the Jews|Antiquities]] 1.136.</ref> the Jewish writer [[Philo of Alexandria]], also writing in Greek, used the terms Palestine and Canaan interchangeably, noting that the region's Jewish population was larger than that of any other single country.<ref>Palestine and Israel |
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David M. Jacobson, ''Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research'', No. 313 (Feb., 1999), pp. 65-74</ref> |
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After the Jewish rebellions of the first and second centuries CE, the Romans merged the province of Iudaea with Galilee, Samaria and Idumaea, uniting the entire area in a new province bearing the Greco-Latin name [[History of Palestine#Late Roman Period II 135–220 CE|Syria-Palaestina]].<ref name="Lehmann">{{cite web |url=http://www.usd.edu/~clehmann/erp/Palestine/history.htm#135-337 |title=Palestine: History: 135–337: Syria Palaestina and the Tetrarchy |accessdate=2009-01-29 |last=Lehmann |first=Clayton Miles |year=1998 |month=May-September |work=The On-line Encyclopedia of the Roman Provinces |publisher=University of South Dakota }}</ref><ref>''Palestine and Israel'' |
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Jacobson, David M. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 313 (February 1999), pp. 65-74</ref> The application of the Latinized name ''Palaestina'' to the region of the [[Iudaea Province]] by the Roman emperor [[Hadrian]]<ref>{{cite web|last=McCall |first=Thomas S. |url=http://www.levitt.com/essays/palestine.html |title=Palestine vs. Israel as the Name of the Holy Land |publisher=Levitt.com |date= |accessdate=2009-06-16}}</ref><ref>Greek {{lang|el|Παλαιστινη}} from {{lang|el|Φυλιστινος}}/{{lang|el|Φυλιστιειμ}}, see e.g. [[Josephus]], [[Antiquities of the Jews|''Antiquities'']] I.136; cf.</ref> following the crushing [[Bar Kochba's revolt]] in 132-135<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/revolt1.html The Bar-Kokhba Revolt (132-135 C.E.) by Shira Schoenberg], [[The Jewish Virtual Library]]</ref> is seen by some historians as an attempt to suppress Jewish national feelings.<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=1TA-Fg4wBnUC&pg=PA33&dq=intentionally+suppressed+jewish+national+Aelia+Capitolina+Palaestina&sig=xxUlDy9oYikzsdYmFHP0E-lDFE8 'The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered'] By Peter Schäfer, ISBN 3161480767</ref><ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/palname.html 'The Name “Palestine”], [[The Jewish Virtual Library]]</ref> |
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During the [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine Period]], this entire region (including Syria, Palestine, Samaria, and Galilee) was renamed ''Palaestina'' and then subdivided into Diocese I and II. The Byzantines also renamed an area of land including the [[Negev]], [[Sinai]], and the west coast of the [[Arabian Peninsula]] as ''Palaestina Salutoris'', sometimes called ''Palaestina III''. Since the Byzantine Period, the Byzantine borders of ''Palaestina'' (''I'' and ''II'') have served as a name for the geographic area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. |
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The use of the term Palestine became more common place after the European renaissance.<ref>Gudrun Krämer (2008) ''A History of Palestine: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Founding of the State of Israel'' Translated by Gudrun Krämer and Graham Harman Princeton University Press, ISBN 0691118973 p 16</ref> |
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The [[World Zionist Organization|Zionist Organization]] provided their definition concerning the boundaries of Palestine in a statement to the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Paris Peace Conference in 1919]]; it also includes a statement about the importance of water resources that the designated area includes.<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/zoparis.html Zionist Organization Statement on Palestine, Paris Peace Conference, (February 3, 1919) The Boundaries of Palestine]</ref><ref>[ http://www.mideastweb.org/zionistborders.htm Statement of the Zionist Organization Regarding Palestine Presented to the Paris Peace Conference (with proposed map of Zionist borders) February 3, 1919]</ref> On the basis of a League of Nations mandate, the British administered Palestine after World War I, promising to establish a Jewish homeland therein.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mideastweb.org/mebalfour.htm |title=Middle East Documents Balfour Declaration |publisher=Mideastweb.org |date= |accessdate=2009-06-16}}</ref> The original British Mandate included what is now Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan), and trans-Jordan (the present kingdom of Jordan), although the latter was disattached by an administrative decision of the British in 1922.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mideastweb.org/mandate.htm |title=The British Mandate for Palestine |publisher=Mideastweb.org |date= |accessdate=2009-06-16}}</ref> These proposed boundaries, although superseded by later colonial decisions of the [[British Mandate of Palestine|Mandate Administration]], included portions of present-day southern [[Lebanon]], southwestern [[Syria]] and western [[Jordan]], as well as [[Israel]] and the [[Palestinian territories]]. |
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===Biblical texts=== |
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[[File:1759 map Holy Land and 12 Tribes.jpg|thumb|''The Holy Land, or Palestine, showing not only the Ancient Kingdoms of Judah and Israel in which the 12 Tribes have been distinguished, but also their placement in different periods as indicated in the Holy Scriptures.'' Tobias Conrad [[Lotter]], [[Geographer]]. [[Augsburg]], [[Germany]], 1759'']] |
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In the Biblical account, the [[United Monarchy|United Kingdom of Israel and Judah]] ruled from [[Jerusalem]] a vast territory extending far west and north of Palestine for some 120 years. Archaeological evidence for this period is very rare, however, and its implications much disputed.<ref name="Thompson">{{cite book|title=The Mythic Past:How Writers Create the Past|author=Thomas L. Thompson|publisher=[[Basic Books]]|year=1999|isbn=0465006493|url=http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=QzOJ9nMlUJcC&oi=fnd&pg=RA1-PR11&dq=archaeological+evidence+israel+kingdom&ots=_oKqm0jKLs&sig=YC3ODVfVBBI2A4J69_l6wp4iy2g}}</ref><ref name=Finkelstein>{{cite web|title=The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts|author=Israel Finkelstein and Neil Ascher Silberman|publisher=Bible and Interpretation|year=2000|accessdate=2007-05-14|url=http://www.bibleinterp.om/commentary/Finkelstein_Silberman022001.htm}}</ref> |
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The [[Hebrew Bible]] calls the region {{lang|he-Latn|''[[Canaan]]''}} ({{lang|he|כּנען}}) ({{bibleverse||Numbers|34:1–12|NIV}}), while the part of it occupied by Israelites is designated ''[[Land of Israel|Israel]]'' ({{lang|he-Latn|''Yisrael''}}). The name "[[Hebrews|Land of the Hebrews]]" ({{lang|he|ארץ העברים}}, {{lang|he-Latn|''Eretz Ha-Ivrim''}}) is also found, as well as several poetical names: "land flowing with milk and honey", "land that [God] swore to your fathers to assign to you", "Land of the Lord", and the "[[Promised Land]]". |
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The Land of Canaan is given a precise description in ({{Niv|Numbers|34:1–12|Numbers 34:1}}) as including all of Lebanon, as well ({{Niv|Joshua|13:5|Joshua 13:5}}). The wide area appears to have been the home of several small nations such as the Canaanites, Hebrews, [[Biblical Hittites|Hittites]], [[Amorrhites]], Pherezites, Hevites and [[Jebusites]]. According to Hebrew tradition, the land of Canaan is part of the land given to the descendants of [[Abraham]], which extends from the Nile to the Euphrates River ({{Niv|Genesis|15:18|Genesis 15:18}}). |
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In {{Kjv|Exodus|13:17|Exodus 13:17}}, "And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the [[Philistines]], although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to [[Egypt]]." |
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The events of the [[Four Gospels]] of the [[Christian Bible]] take place almost entirely in this country, which in Christian tradition thereafter became known as The [[Holy Land]]. |
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In the [[Qur'an]], the term {{lang|ar|'''الأرض المقدسة'''}} ({{lang|ar-Latn|''Al-Ard Al-Muqaddasah''}}, {{lang-en|"Holy Land"}}) is mentioned at least seven times, once when [[Moses]] proclaims to the [[Children of Israel]]: "O my people! Enter the holy land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin." ([[wikisource:The Holy Qur'an/Al-Meada|Surah 5:21]]) |
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==History== |
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{{Main|History of Israel|History of Palestine}} |
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===Paleolithic and Neolithic periods (1 mya–5000 BCE)=== |
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{{See also|Paleolithic|Neolithic}} |
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The earliest human remains in Palestine were found in [[Ubeidiya]], some 3 km south of the [[the]], in the [[Jordan Rift Valley]]. The remains are dated to the [[Pleistocene]], ca. 1.5 million years ago. It is traces of the [[early human migration|earliest migration]] of ''[[Homo erectus]]'' out of Africa. The site yielded [[hand axe]]s of the [[Acheulean]] type. |
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<ref>Galilee, Sea of. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 12, 2007, from [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9035871 Encyclopædia Britannica Online]</ref>. |
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Wadi El Amud between [[Safad]] and the Sea of Galilee] was the site of the first prehistoric digging in Palestine, in 1925. The discovery of the [[Palestine Man]] in the Zuttiyeh Cave in Wadi Al-Amud near [[Safad]] in 1925 provided some clues to human development in the area.<ref>{{cite web|title=Human Evolution and Neanderthal Man|publisher=Antiquity Journal|url=http://antiquity.ac.uk/Ant/034/0090/Ant0340090.pdf|format=PDF}}</ref><ref> Amud. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 12, 2007, from [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9007286 Encyclopædia Britannica Online]</ref> |
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[[Qafzeh]], is a [[paleoanthropology|paleoanthropological]] site south of [[Nazareth]] where eleven significant [[fossil]]ised ''[[Homo sapiens]]'' skeletons have been found at the main rock shelter. These [[anatomically modern humans]], both adult and infant, are now dated to circa 90-100,000 years old, and many of the bones are stained with [[red ochre]] which is conjectured to have been used in the burial process, a significant indicator of [[ritual|ritual behavior]] and thereby [[symbolism|symbolic thought]] and [[intelligence]]. 71 pieces of unused [[red ochre]] also littered the site. |
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[[File:Skhul burial.jpg|thumb|right|400px|Double burial of homo sapiens at Qafzeh cave]] |
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[[Mount Carmel#Archaeology|Mount Carmel]] has yielded several important findings, among them |
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[[Kebara Cave]] that was inhabited between 60,000 - 48,000 [[Before Present|BP]] and where the most complete [[Neanderthal]] [[skeleton]] found to date. The [[Tabun, Israel|Tabun]] cave was occupied intermittently during the Lower and Middle [[Paleolithic age]]s (500,000 to around 40,000 years ago). [[Excavation (archaeology)|Excavation]] suggests that it features one of the longest sequences of human occupation in the [[Levant]]. In the nearby [[Es Skhul]] cave excavations 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 [[Neanderthal]]s - present in the region from 200,000 - 45,000 years ago - lived alongside modern humans dating to 100,000 years ago.<ref>Olson, S. <u>Mapping Human History.</u> Houghton Mifflin, New York (2003). p.74-75.</ref> |
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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. 12800–10300 BCE). Other remains from this era have been found at Tel Abu Hureura, Ein Mallaha, Beidha and [[Jericho]].<ref>Belfer-Cohen and Bar-Yosef, 2000, pp. 19–38.</ref> |
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[[File:Jerycho8.jpg|thumb|left|A dwelling unearthed at Tell es-Sultan.]] |
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Between 10000 and 5000 BCE, 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 {{convert|23|ft|adj=on}} tower with an internal staircase <ref>Stearns, 2001, p. 13.</ref><ref>Harris, 1996, p. 253.</ref> |
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Jericho is believed to be one of the [[List of oldest continuously inhabited cities|oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world]], with evidence of settlement dating back to 9000 BC, providing important information about early human habitation in the [[Near East]].<ref>Gates, 2003, p. 18.</ref> |
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===Chalcolithic period (4500–3000 BCE) and Bronze Age (3000–1200 BCE)=== |
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{{See also|Chalcolithic|Bronze Age}} |
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[[File:CanaanMap.jpg|thumb|right|An 1882 rendering of Canaan, as divided among the [[Israelite|Twelve Tribes]], by the American Sunday-School Union of Philadelphia.]] |
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Along the Jericho-[[Dead Sea]]-[[Beersheva|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.<ref name="Shahinp4">Shahin (2005), page 4</ref><ref>Rosen, 1997, pp. 159–161.</ref><ref>Neil Asher Silberman, Thomas E. Levy, Bonnie L. Wisthoff, Ron E. Tappy, John L. Meloy "Near East" ''The Oxford Companion to Archaeology''. Brian M. Fagan, ed., Oxford University Press 1996.</ref> |
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By the early Bronze Age (3000–2200 BCE) independent [[Canaanite]] city-states situated in plains and coastal regions and surrounded by mud-brick defensive walls were established and most of these cities relied on nearby agricultural hamlets for their food needs.<ref name="Shahinp4" /><ref>Canaan. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 12, 2007, from [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9019900 Encyclopædia Britannica Online].</ref> |
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Archaeological finds from the early Canaanite era have been found at [[Tel Megiddo]], Jericho, Tel al-Far'a (Gaza), [[Bet Shean|Bisan]], and [[Ai (Bible)|Ai]] ([[Deir Dibwan]]/[[Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate|Ramallah District]]), Tel an Nasbe ([[al-Bireh]]) and [[Jib (village)|Jib]] ([[Jerusalem]]). |
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The Canaanite city-states held trade and diplomatic relations with [[Egypt]] and [[Syria]]. Parts of the Canaanite urban civilization were destroyed around 2300 BCE, though there is no consensus as to why. Incursions by nomads from the east of the [[Jordan River]] who settled in the hills followed soon thereafter.<ref name="Shahinp4"/><ref>Mills, 1990, p. 439.</ref> |
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In the [[Middle Bronze Age]] (2200–1500 BCE), [[Canaan]] was influenced by the surrounding civilizations of Egypt, [[Mesopotamia]], [[Phoenicia]], 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.<ref name="Shahinp4" /><ref name=MiddleBronzeAge>{{cite web|title=Palestine: Middle Bronze Age|publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica Online|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-45048/Palestine}}</ref> Burial customs from this time seemed to be influenced by a belief in the afterlife.<ref name="Shahinp4" /><ref>Ember & Peregrine, 2002, p. 103.</ref> |
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Political, commercial and military events during the [[Late Bronze Age]] period (1450–1350 BCE) were recorded by ambassadors and Canaanite proxy rulers for Egypt in 379 cuneiform tablets known as the [[Amarna Letters]].<ref>William H. Propp "Amarna Letters" ''The Oxford Companion to the Bible''. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, eds. Oxford University Press Inc. 1993. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.</ref> |
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By c. 1190 BCE, the [[Philistines]] arrived and mingled with the local population, losing their separate identity over several generations.<ref name="Shahinp6">Shahin (2005), p. 6</ref><ref>Carl S. Ehrlich "Philistines" ''The Oxford Guide to People and Places of the Bible''. Ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.</ref> |
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===Iron Age (1200–330 BCE)=== |
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{{See also|Iron Age}} |
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Pottery remains found in [[Ashkelon]], [[Ashdod]], [[Gat]], [[Ekron]] and Gaza decorated with stylized birds provided the first archaeological evidence for Philistine settlement in the region. The Philistines are credited with introducing iron weapons and chariots to the local population.<ref>Philistine. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 12, 2007, from [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9059701 Encyclopædia Britannica Online]</ref> |
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Developments in Palestine between 1250 and 900 BCE have been the focus of debate between those who accept the Old Testament version on the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes, and those who reject it.<ref name=Ladislau>{{cite journal|title=Historiographic Views on the Settlement of the Jewish Tribes in Canaan|author=Gyémánt, Ladislau|publisher=Sacra Scripta|volume=1/2003|year=2003|url=http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/issuedetails.aspx?issueid=ed58f96d-8032-41bb-8d65-f34a8b8f2a36&articleId=835a199a-72a0-4b2d-ba9c-32b1347129f5|pages=26–30}}</ref> Niels Peter Lemche, of the [[The Copenhagen School (theology)|Copenhagen School]] of Biblical Studies, submits that the picture of ancient Israel "is contrary to any image of ancient Palestinian society that can be established on the basis of ancient sources from Palestine or referring to Palestine and that there is no way this image in the Bible can be reconciled with the historical past of the region."<ref name=LemcheJHS>{{cite web|title=On the Problems of Reconstructing Pre-Hellenistic Israelite (Palestinian) History|author=Niels Peter Lemche|publisher=Journal of Hebrew Scriptures|accessdate=2007-05-10|url=http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/JHS/Articles/article_13.htm}}</ref> |
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The "[[David's Palace]]" site,<ref name=nytimes>{{cite news|title=King David's Palace Is Found, Archaeologist Says |last=Erlanger |first=Steven |date=2005-08-05 |accessdate=2007-05-24 |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/middleeast/05jerusalem.html?ex=1280894400&en=3c435bc7bd0cd531&ei=5088 |publisher=The New York Times}}</ref> the [[Mount Ebal|sacrificial site]] at [[Shechem]]<ref>Matthew Sturgis, ''It ain't necessarily so'', ISBN 0-7472-4510-X</ref> and the [[Merneptah Stele]],<ref>Carol A. Redmount, 'Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt' in The Oxford History of the Biblical Word, ed: Michael D. Coogan, (Oxford University Press: 1999)</ref><ref>Stager, Lawrence E., "Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel" in Michael Coogan ed. The Oxford History of the Biblical World, Oxford University Press, 2001. p.92</ref><ref>M. G. Hasel, "Israel in the Merneptah Stela", BASOR 296, 1994, pp.54 & 56, n.12.</ref> and [[Mesha Stele]]<ref>Baruch Margalit, "Studies in NWSemitic Inscriptions", ''Ugarit-Forschungen'' 26, p. 275</ref><ref>''[[Time (magazine)]]'', December 18, 1995.</ref><ref>For a full but technical discussion, see Lawrence J. Mykytiuk, _Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200–539 BCE_, Academia Biblica series, no. 12 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), pp. 265–277.</ref> among others are subject to different historical interpretations: scholars in the "conservative camp" reconstruct the history of Israel according to the biblical text and view the archaeological evidence in that context, whilst scholars in the minimalist or deconstructionist school argue that there is no archaeological evidence supporting the [[United Monarchy]] because the biblical account is a religious mythology created wholly by Judean scribes in the Persian and Hellenistic periods; a third camp of centrist scholars acknowledges the value of some isolated elements of the [[Pentateuch]] and of Deuteronomonistic accounts as potentially valid history of monarchic times that can be in accord with the archaeological evidence, but argue that nevertheless the biblical narrative should be understood as highly ideological and adapted to the needs of the community at the time of its compilation.<ref>Finkelstein, Mazar and Schmidt, 2007, pp. 10-20</ref> |
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====Hebrew Bible period==== |
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[[File:Levant 830.svg|thumb|right|272px|Map of the southern [[Levant]], c.830s BCE. |
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{{legend|#00ff00|Kingdom of Judah}} |
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{{legend|#008000|Kingdom of Israel}} |
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{{legend|#777777|Philistine city-states}} |
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{{legend|#3000ee|Phoenician states}} |
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{{legend|#7777ff|Kingdom of Ammon}} |
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{{legend|#ffff00|Kingdom of Edom}} |
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{{legend|#007777|Kingdom of Aram-Damascus}} |
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{{legend|#ffffff|Aramean tribes}} |
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{{legend|#800080|Arubu tribes}} |
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{{legend|#804020|Nabatu tribes}} |
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{{legend|#005fff|Assyrian Empire}} |
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{{legend|#808040|Kingdom of Moab}}]] |
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{{See also|Archaeology of Israel|History of ancient Israel and Judah}}'' |
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Though the Biblical tradition holds that the [[Israelite]]s arrived in [[Canaan]] from [[Egypt]], archaeology provides strong evidence that they emerged from among the local population existent there at the time; these events are generally dated to between the 13th and 12th centuries BCE.<ref name="Ladislau"/> Archaeological evidence indicates that the late 13th, the 12th and the early 11th centuries BCE witnessed the foundation of perhaps hundreds of insignificant, unprotected village settlements, many in the mountains of Palestine.<ref name=LemcheJHS /> From around the 11th century BCE, there was a reduction in the number of villages, though this was counterbalanced by the rise of certain settlements to the status of fortified townships.<ref name=LemcheJHS /> |
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According to Biblical tradition, the [[United Monarchy|United Kingdom of Israel]] was established by the Israelite tribes with [[Saul]] as its first king in 1020 BCE.<ref name=MFA>{{cite web|title=Facts about Israel:History|publisher=Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affaits|accessdate=2007-05-10|url=http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/History+of+Israel/Facts%20About%20Israel-%20History}}</ref> In 1000 BCE, [[Jerusalem]] was made the capital of King [[David]]'s kingdom and it is believed that the [[Temple in Jerusalem|First Temple]] was constructed in this period by [[Solomon|King Solomon]].<ref name=MFA/> By 930 BCE, the united kingdom split to form the northern [[Kingdom of Israel]], and the southern [[Kingdom of Judah]].<ref name=MFA/> These kingdoms co-existed with several more kingdoms in the greater Palestine area, including [[Philistine]] town states on the Southwestern Mediterranean coast, [[Edom]], to the South of [[Kingdom of Judah|Judah]], and [[Moab]] and [[Ammon]] to the East of the [[Jordan River|river Jordan.]]<ref>Bienkowski, ''op.cit.''</ref> |
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There was an at least partial [[Egypt]]ian withdrawal from Palestine in this period, though it is likely that [[Bet Shean]] was an Egyptian garrison as late as the beginning of the 10th century BCE.<ref name=LemcheJHS /> The socio-political system was characterized by local patrons fighting other local patrons, lasting until around the mid-9th century BCE when some local chieftains were able to create large political structures that exceeded the boundaries of those present in the [[Bronze Age Levant#Bronze Age|Late Bronze Age Levant]].<ref name=LemcheJHS/> |
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Archaeological findings from this era include, among others, the [[Mesha Stele]], from c. 850 BCE, which recounts the conquering of [[Moab]], located East of the [[Dead Sea]], by king [[Omri]], and the successful revolt of Moabian king [[Mesha]] against Omri's son, presumably [[King Ahab]] (and French scholar [[André Lemaire]] reported that line 31 of the Stele bears the phrase "the house of [[David]]" (in ''Biblical Archaeology Review'' [May/June 1994], pp. 30–37).<ref name="jewishhistory.com">[http://www.jewishhistory.com/jh.php?id=Assyrian&content=content/house_of_david "House of David" Restored in Moabite Inscription:A new restoration of a famous inscription reveals another mention of the "House of David" in the ninth century B.C.E.]</ref>); and the [[Kurkh Monolith]], dated c. 835 BCE, describing King [[Shalmaneser III]] of Assyria's [[Battle of Qarqar]], where he fought alongside the contingents of several kings, among them [[King Ahab]] and King [[Gindibu]]. |
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Between 722 and 720 BCE, the northern [[Kingdom of Israel]] was destroyed by the [[Assyrian Empire]] and the Israelite tribes - thereafter known as the [[Lost Tribes]] - were exiled.<ref name=MFA/> The most important finding from the southern Kingdom of Judah is the [[Siloam Inscription]], dated c. 700 BCE, which celebrates the successful encounter of diggers, digging from both sides of the Jerusalem wall to create the [[Hezekiah's Tunnel|Hezekiah water tunnel]] and water pool, mentioned in the [[Bible]], in {{bibleverse||2Kings|20:20|KJV}}.{{Fact|date=December 2007}} In 586 BCE, [[Kingdom of Judah|Judah]] was conquered by the [[Babylonian Empire|Babylonians]] and Jerusalem and the [[First Temple]] destroyed.<ref name=MFA/> Most of the surviving [[Jew]]s, and much of the other local population, were [[Babylonian captivity|deported to Babylonia]].<ref name="Shahinp6" /><ref>"Babylon" ''A Dictionary of the Bible''. W. R. F. Browning. Oxford University Press, 1997. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.</ref> |
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====Persian rule (538 BCE)==== |
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After the [[Persian Empire]] was established, Jews were allowed to return to what their holy books had termed the [[Land of Israel]], and having been granted some autonomy by the Persian administration, it was during this period that the [[Second Temple]] in Jerusalem was built.<ref name="Shahinp6" /><ref name=Edelman>{{cite web|title=Redating the Building of the Second Temple|author=Diana Edelman|month=November | year=2005|url=http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Edelman_Redating_Second_Temple.htm}}</ref> [[Samaria#Sebastia|Sebastia]], near [[Nablus]], was the northernmost province of the Persian administration in Palestine, and its southern borders were drawn at [[Hebron]].<ref name="Shahinp6" /><ref name=palestineeb>Palestine. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 12, 2007, from [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-45053 Encyclopædia Britannica Online].</ref> Some of the local population served as soldiers and lay people in the Persian administration, while others continued to agriculture. In 400 BCE, the [[Nabataeans]] made inroads into southern Palestine and built a separate civilization in the [[Negev]] that lasted until 160 BCE.<ref name="Shahinp6" /><ref name=Avdat>{{cite web|title=Avdat: A Nabatean City in the Negev|publisher=Jewish Virtual Library|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/Avdat.html}}</ref> |
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===Classical antiquity=== |
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{{See also|Classical antiquity}} |
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====Hellenistic rule (333 BCE)==== |
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The [[Persian Empire]] fell to Greek forces of the [[Ancient Macedonians|Macedonian]] general [[Alexander the Great]].<ref name = "Shahinp7">Shahin (2005), p. 7</ref><ref name=Hooker>{{cite web|title=Hellenistic Greece:Alexander the Great|publisher=Washington State University|year=1996|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/ALEX.HTM}}</ref> After his death, with the absence of heirs, his conquests were divided amongst his generals, while the region of the Jews ("Judah" or [[Judea]] as it became known) was first part of the [[Ptolemaic dynasty]] and then part of the [[Seleucid Empire]].<ref name=Pastor>Pastor, 1997, p. 41.</ref> |
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The landscape during this period was markedly changed by extensive growth and development that included urban planning and the establishment of well-built fortified cities.<ref name=palestineeb/><ref name=Shahinp7 /> [[Hellenistic]] [[pottery]] was produced that absorbed Philistine traditions. Trade and commerce flourished, particularly in the most Hellenized areas, such as [[Ascalon]], Jaffa,<ref>{{cite web|title=Palestine|publisher=Britannica|accessdate=2007-08-14|url=http://www.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=108522&fullArticle=true&tocId=45078 }}</ref> Jerusalem,<ref>{{cite web|title=''The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament's Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book''|author=Julie Galambush|publisher=HarperCollins.ca|year=2006|accessdate=2007-08-20|url=http://www.harpercollins.ca/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0060872012&tc=cx}}</ref> Gaza,<ref>{{cite web|title=Gaza:Contested Crossroads|author=Dick Doughty|publisher=SaudiAramcoWorld|date=September-October 1994|accessdate=2007-08-20|url=http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199405/gaza-contested.crossroads.htm}}</ref> and ancient Nablus (Tell Balatah).<ref name=Shahinp7 /><ref>{{cite web|title=Tell Balatah (Shechem or Ancient Nablus)|publisher=World Monuments Watch:100 Most Endangered Sites 2006|accessdate=2007-08-20|url=http://wmf.org/resources/sitepages/palestinian_territories_tell_balatah.html}}</ref> |
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The Jewish population in Judea was allowed limited autonomy in religion and administration.<ref>Hayes & Mandell, 1998, p. 41.</ref> |
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====Hasmonean dynasty (140 BCE)==== |
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{{Main|Hasmonean}} |
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[[File:Hasmoneese rijk.PNG|left|thumb|The extent of the Hasmonean kingdom.]] |
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An independent Jewish kingdom under the Hasmonean Dynasty existed from 140–37 BCE. |
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In the second century BCE fascination in Jerusalem for Greek culture resulted in a movement to break down the separation of Jew and Gentile and some people even tried to disguise the marks of their circumcision.<ref name=Johnston186>Johnston, 2004, p. 186.</ref> Disputes between the leaders of the reform movement, [[Jason (high priest)|Jason]] and [[Menelaus (High Priest)|Menelaus]], eventually led to civil war and the intervention of [[Antiochus IV Epiphanes]].<ref name=Johnston186/> Subsequent persecution of the Jews led to the [[Maccabees|Maccabean Revolt]] under the leadership of the [[Hasmonean]]s, and the construction of a native Jewish kingship under the Hasmonean Dynasty.<ref name=Johnston186/> After approximately a century of independence disputes between the Hasmonean rivals [[Aristobulus II|Aristobulus]] and [[Hyrcanus II|Hyrcanus]] led to control of the kingdom by the Roman army of [[Pompey]]. The territory then became first a [[Roman Empire|Roman]] [[client kingdom]] under Hyrcanus and then, in 70CE, a Roman Province administered by the governor of Syria.<ref>Chancey, 2005, p. 44.</ref> |
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====Roman rule (63 BCE)==== |
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[[File:First century palestine.gif|right|272px|thumb|Roman [[Iudaea Province]] in the 1st century CE as based on Robert W. Funk's ''The Acts of Jesus'', Michael Grant's's ''Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels'' and John P. Meier's ''A Marginal Jew''.]] |
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Though General Pompey arrived in 63 BCE, Roman rule was solidified when [[Herod the Great|Herod]], whose dynasty was of [[Idumean]] ancestry, was appointed as king.<ref name=Shahinp7 /><ref name=Britannica>{{cite web|title=Herod|publisher=Concise Encyclopedia Britannica|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9040191/Herod}}</ref> Urban planning under the Romans was characterized by cities designed around the Forum - the central intersection of two main streets - the [[Cardo]], running north-south and the [[Decumanus Maximus|Decumanus]] running east-west.<ref name=UNESCO>{{cite web|title=Introducing Young People to the Protection of Heritage Sites and Historic Cities|publisher=UNESCO|year=2003|accessdate=2007-08-14|url=http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:2NfvwatBy4oJ:www.iccrom.org/eng/02info_en/02_04pdf-pubs_en/ICCROM_doc09_ManualSchoolTeachers_en.pdf |format=PDF}}</ref> Cities were connected by an extensive road network developed for economic and military purposes. Among the most notable archaeological remnants from this era are [[Herodium]] (Tel al-Fureidis) to the south of Bethlehem,<ref name=Herodium>{{cite web|title=HERODIUM (Jebel Fureidis) Jordan/Israel|publisher=The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://icarus.umkc.edu/sandbox/perseus/pecs/page.1979.a.php}}</ref> [[Masada]] and [[Caesarea Maritima]].<ref name=Shahinp7 /><ref name=Caesarea>{{cite web|title= publisher=The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://icarus.umkc.edu/sandbox/perseus/pecs/page.887.a.php}}</ref> [[Herod's Temple|Herod arranged a renovation]] of the [[Second Temple]] in [[Jerusalem]], with a massive expansion of the [[Temple Mount]] platform and major expansion of the [[Jewish Temple]] around 19 BCE. The Temple Mount's natural plateau was extended by enclosing the area with four massive retaining walls and filling the voids. This artificial expansion resulted in a large flat expanse which today forms the eastern section of the Old City of Jerusalem. |
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Around the time associated with the birth of [[Jesus]], Roman Palestine was in a state of disarray and direct Roman rule was re-established.<ref name=Shahinp7 /><ref name=UNRV>{{cite web|title=Judaea-Palestine|publisher=UNRV History: Roman Empire|accessdate=2007-08-14|url=http://www.unrv.com/provinces/judaea.php}}</ref> The early Christians were oppressed and while most inhabitants became Romanized, others, particularly Jews, found Roman rule to be unbearable.<ref name=Shahinp7 /><ref name=UNRV /> |
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[[File:Half Shekel.jpg|left|thumb|150px|[[First Jewish revolt]] shekel issued in 68. Obverse: "[[Shekel]] Israel, year 3". Reverse: "Jerusalem the Holy"]] |
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As a result of the [[First Jewish-Roman War]] (66-73), [[Titus]] [[Siege of Jerusalem (70)|sacked Jerusalem]] destroying the [[Second Temple]], leaving only supporting walls, including the [[Western Wall]]. |
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[[File:Barkokhba-silver-tetradrachm.jpg|left|thumb|[[Bar Kochba revolt]] silver [[Shekel]]. Obverse: the [[Temple in Jerusalem|Jewish Temple]] facade with the rising star, surrounded by "[[Simon bar Kokhba|Shimon]]". Reverse: A [[lulav]], the text reads: "To the freedom of Jerusalem"]] |
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In 135, following the fall of a [[Bar Kokhba's revolt|Jewish revolt]] led by [[Bar Kokhba]] in 132–135, the Roman emperor [[Hadrian]] attempted the expulsion of Jews from Judea. His attempt was as unsuccessful as were most of Rome's many attempts to alter the demography of the Empire; this is demonstrated by the continued existence of the rabbinical academy of [[Lydda]] in Judea, and in any case large Jewish populations remained in Samaria and the Galilee.<ref name = "Lehmann" /> Tiberias became the headquarters of [[Sanhedrin#The Dissolution of the Classical Sanhedrin|exiled Jewish patriarchs]]. The Romans joined the province of Judea (which already included Samaria) together with Galilee to form a new province, called Syria Palaestina, to complete the disassociation with Judaea.<ref name = "Lehmann" /> Notwithstanding the oppression, some two hundred Jewish communities remained. Gradually, certain religious freedoms were restored to the Jewish population, such as exemption from the imperial cult and internal self-administration. The Romans made no such concession to the Samaritans, to whom religious liberties were denied, while their sanctuary on Mt.[[Gerizim]] was defiled by a pagan temple, as part of measures were taken to suppress the resurgence of Samaritan nationalism.<ref name = "Lehmann" /> |
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In 132 CE, the Emperor [[Hadrian]] changed the name of the province from Iudaea to Syria Palaestina and renamed Jerusalem "[[Aelia Capitolina]]" and built temples there to honor [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]]. Christianity was practiced in secret and the [[Hellenization]] of Palestine continued under [[Septimius Severus]] (193–211 CE).<ref name=Shahinp7 /> New pagan cities were founded in Judea at [[Eleutheropolis]] ([[Bayt Jibrin]]), Diopolis ([[Lod|Lydd]]), and [[Emmaus Nicopolis|Nicopolis]] ([[Emmaus Nicopolis|Emmaus]]).<ref name=palestineeb/><ref name=Shahinp7 /> |
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====Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire) rule (330–640 CE)==== |
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[[File:Israel Byzantine 5c.jpg|right|272px|thumb|5th century CE: Byzantine Diocese of ''Palaestina I'' (Philistia, Judea and Samaria) and ''Palaestina II'' (Galilee and Perea).]] |
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Emperor [[Constantine I and Christianity|Constantine's conversion to Christianity]] around 330 CE made Christianity the official religion of Palaestina.<ref name="Shahinp8">Shahin (2005), page 8</ref><ref name=Cohen>{{cite web|title=Legitimization Under Constantine|author=Shaye I.D. Cohen|publisher=PBS|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/why/legitimization.html}}</ref> After his mother Empress Helena identified the spot she believed to be where Christ was crucified, the [[Church of the Holy Sepulcher]] was built in Jerusalem.<ref name=Shahinp8 /> The [[Church of the Nativity]] in Bethlehem and the [[Church of the Ascension]] in Jerusalem were also built during Constantine's reign.<ref name=Shahinp8 /> This was the period of its greatest prosperity in antiquity. Urbanization increased, large new areas were put under cultivation, monasteries proliferated, synagogues were restored, and the population West of the Jordan may have reached as many as one million.<ref name = "Lehmann" /> |
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Palestine thus became a center for pilgrims and [[ascetic]] life for men and women from all over the world.<ref name=palestineeb/><ref name=Shahinp8 /> Many monasteries were built including the [[St. George's Monastery]] in [[Wadi al-Qelt]], the [[Monastery of the Temptation]] and [[Deir Hajla]] near [[Jericho]], and Deir [[Mar Saba]] and Deir [[Theodosius]] east of Bethlehem.<ref name=Shahinp8 /> |
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In 352 CE, a [[War against Gallus|Jewish revolt against Byzantine rule]] in Tiberias and other parts of the [[Galilee]] was brutally suppressed. Imperial patronage for Christian cults and immigration was strong, and a significant wave of immigration from Rome, especially to the area about Aelia Capitolina and Bethlehem, took place after that city was [[Sack of Rome (410)|sacked]] in 410.<ref name = "Lehmann" /> |
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In approximately 390 CE, Palaestina was further organised into three units: ''Palaestina Prima'', ''Secunda'', and ''Tertia'' (First, Second, and Third Palestine).<ref name=NYTimes>{{cite news|title=Weathered by Miracles: A History of Palestine From Bonaparte and Muhammad Ali to Ben-Gurion and the Mufti|author=Thomas A. Idniopulos|year=1998|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/i/idinopulos-miracles.html}}</ref><ref name=Shahinp8 /> ''Palaestina Prima'' consisted of Judea, [[Samaria]], the coast, and [[Perea (Holy Land)|Peraea]] with the governor residing in [[Caesarea Palaestina|Caesarea]]. ''Palaestina Secunda'' consisted of the Galilee, the lower [[Jezreel Valley]], the regions east of Galilee, and the western part of the former [[Decapolis]] with the seat of government at [[Scythopolis]]. ''Palaestina Tertia'' included the [[Negev]], southern [[Jordan]] — once part of Arabia — and most of [[Sinai Peninsula|Sinai]] with [[Petra]] as the usual residence of the governor. Palestina Tertia was also known as Palaestina Salutaris.<ref name=Shahinp8 /><ref name=Salutaris>{{cite web|title=Roman Arabia|publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica|accessdate=2007-08-11|url= http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-439113/Palaestina-Salutaris}}</ref> |
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In 536 CE, [[Justinian I]] promoted the governor at [[Caesarea]] to [[proconsul]] (anthypatos), giving him authority over the two remaining consulars. Justinian believed that the elevation of the governor was appropriate because he was responsible for "the province in which our Lord [[Jesus Christ]]... appeared on earth".<ref name=Holum>Kenneth G. Holum "Palestine" ''The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium.'' Ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan. Oxford University Press 1991.</ref> This was also the principal factor explaining why Palestine prospered under the Christian Empire. The cities of Palestine, such as [[Caesarea Maritima]], Jerusalem, Scythopolis, [[Neapolis]], and Gaza reached their peak population in the late Roman period and produced notable Christian scholars in the disciplines of [[rhetoric]], [[historiography]], [[Eusebius of Caesarea|Eusebian ecclesiastical history]], classicizing history and [[hagiography]].<ref name=Holum/> |
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Byzantine administration of Palestine was temporarily suspended during the Persian occupation of 614–28, and then permanently after the Muslims arrived in 634 CE, defeating the empire's forces decisively at the [[Battle of Yarmouk]] in 636 CE. Jerusalem capitulated in 638 CE and Caesarea between 640 CE and 642 CE.<ref name=Holum/> |
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===Islamic period (630-1918 CE)=== |
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The [[Islamic prophet]] [[Muhammad]] established a new unified political polity in the [[Arabian peninsula]] at the beginning of the seventh century. The subsequent [[Rashidun]] and [[Umayyad]] [[Caliphate]]s saw a century of rapid expansion of [[Arab]] power well beyond the Arabian peninsula in the form of a vast [[Muslim]] [[Arab Empire]]. In the fourth decade of the seventh century this empire conquered Palestine and it remained under the control of Islamic Empires for most of the next 1300 years. |
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====Arab Caliphate rule (638–1099 CE)==== |
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[[File:Medieval Arab Palestine.jpg|right|thumb|272px|An 1890 map of Palestine as described by medieval Arab geographers, with [[Jund Filastin]] administrative area]] |
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In 638 CE, following the [[Siege of Jerusalem (637)|Siege of Jerusalem]], the Caliph [[Umar|Omar Ibn al-Khattab]] and [[Sophronius|Safforonius]], the [[Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem|Patriarch]] of Jerusalem, signed ''Al-Uhda al-'Omariyya'' ([[The Umariyya Covenant]]), an agreement that stipulated the rights and obligations of all non-Muslims in Palestine.<ref name="Shahinp8">Shahin (2005), page 8</ref> Christians and Jews where considered [[People of the Book]], enjoyed some [[dhimmi|protection]] but had to a pay special [[poll tax]] called [[jizyah]] ("[[tribute]]"). During the early years of Muslim control of the city, a small permanent Jewish population returned to Jerusalem after a 500-year absence.<ref>Gil, Moshe (February 1997). A History of Palestine, 634-1099. Cambridge University Press. pp. 68–71. ISBN 0521599849.</ref> |
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Omar Ibn al-Khattab was the first conqueror of Jerusalem to enter the city on foot, and when visiting the site that now houses the [[Haram al-Sharif]], he declared it a sacred place of prayer.<ref>[http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/umar.html CALIPH UMAR'S ADDRESS AFTER JERUSALEM]</ref><ref>The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City By Dore Gold, pg. 97</ref> |
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=====Umayyad rule (661–750 CE)===== |
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Under [[Umayyad]] rule, the Byzantine province of Palaestina Prima became the administrative and military sub-province (''jund'') of [[Jund Filastin|Filastin]] - the Arabic name for Palestine from that point forward.<ref name=WKhalidi27>{{cite book|title=Before Their Diaspora|author=Walid Khalidi|publisher=Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington DC|year=1984|pages=27–28}}</ref> It formed part of the larger province of ''ash-Sham'' (Arabic for [[Bilad ash-Sham|Greater Syria]]).<ref name=Gerber>{{cite journal|title="Zionism, Orientalism, and the Palestinians"|author=Haim Gerber|publisher=Journal of Palestine Studies|date=Fall 2003|volume=Vol. 33, No. 1|pages=23–41|url=http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/jps.2003.33.1.23?cookieSet=1&journalCode=jps|journal=Journal of Palestine Studies|doi=10.1525/jps.2003.33.1.23}}</ref> ''[[Jund Filastin]]'' (Arabic جند فلسطين, literally "the army of Palestine") was a region extending from the Sinai to the plain of [[Acre]]. Major towns included [[Rafah]], [[Caesarea]], [[Gaza]], [[Jaffa]], [[Nablus]] and [[Jericho]].<ref name=Parkes>{{cite web|title=Palestine Under the Caliphs|author=James Parkes|publisher=MidEastWeb|accessdate=2007-08-20|url=http://www.mideastweb.org/palcaliph1.htm}}</ref> |
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[[Lod]] served served as the headquarters of the province of Filastin and the capital later moved to [[Ramla]]. |
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''Jund al-Urdunn'' (literally "the army of Jordan") was a region to the north and east of Filastin which included the cities of [[Acre, Israel|Acre]], [[Beit She'an|Bisan]] and [[Tiberias]].<ref name=Parkes/> |
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[[File:Dome of the Rock1.jpg|thumb|left|250px| The Dome of the Rock on the [[Temple Mount]]]] |
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In 691, Caliph [[Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan]] ordered that the [[Dome of the Rock]] be built on the site where the Islamic prophet [[Muhammad]] is believed by Muslims to have begun his nocturnal journey to heaven, on the [[Temple Mount]]. About a decade afterward, Caliph [[Al-Walid I]] had the [[Al-Aqsa Mosque]] built.<ref name=Faizer>{{cite web|title=The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem|author=Rizwi Faizer|publisher=Rizwi's Bibliography for Medieval Islam|year=1998|accessdate=2007-07-14|url=http://us.geocities.com/rfaizer/reviews/book9.html}}</ref> |
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During the rule of the Umayyads the process of Islamization and Arabization of the population gained momentum. |
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The Umayyad caliph [[Umar II]] (717–720) imposed humiliating restrictions on his non-Muslim subjects, causing Christians to convert. These conversion together with the immigration from the [[Arabian Peninsula]] changed the religious character of the country. |
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<ref>In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved May 28, 2009, from [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9004124 Encyclopædia Britannica Online]</ref> |
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=====Abbasid rule (750–969 CE)===== |
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In 750 the [[Abbasid]] Caliphs took over the Ara Empire and moved the capital to [[Baghdad]] from [[Damascus]]. |
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During the rule of the Abbasids Caliphs Palestine was much less central than in [[Umayyad]]s time. One reason is the geographical distance from the capital. |
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The influence of Arab tribes has declined and the only context where they are reported is in uprising against the central authority.<ref>Gil, Moshe (February 1997). A History of Palestine, 634-1099. Cambridge University Press. pp. 279-281. ISBN 0521599849.</ref> The Abbasids visited the country less frequently than the Ummayads , but ordered some significant constructions in Jerusalem. Thus, [[Al-Mansur]] Ordered in [[758]] the renovation of the [[Dome of the Rock]] that had collapsed in an earthquake.<ref>Gil, Moshe (February 1997). A History of Palestine, 634-1099. Cambridge University Press. pp. 297-298. ISBN 0521599849.</ref> The Abbasids continued to build up Ramle.<ref name="Shahinp10">Shahin (2005), page 10</ref><ref name=Lev>{{cite journal|title=The Ethics and Practice of Islamic Medieval Charity|author=Yaacov Lev|publisher=History Compass|volume=5, Issue 2|pages=603–618|year=2007}}</ref> Coastal areas were fortified and developed and port cities like Acre, [[Haifa]], Caesarea, [[Arsuf]], Jaffa and [[Ashkelon]] received monies from the state treasury.<ref name="Shahinp11">Shahin (2005), p. 11</ref> |
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During that time a dress code was instituted, requiring Christians and Jews to wear a Yellow dress. It is not known how much the code was enforced in Palestine. During [[Harun al-Rashid]] (786-809) reign the first contacts with the [[Frankish Kingdom]] of [[Charlemagne]] occurred, though the actual extent of these contacts is not known. As a result Charlemagne sent money for construction of churches and established a Latin Pilgrims' Inn in Jerusalem.<ref>Gil, Moshe (February 1997). A History of Palestine, 634-1099. Cambridge University Press. pp. 159 and 285-289. ISBN 0521599849.</ref> Also during this period, in 796, a [[Civil War in Palestine (793-796)|civil war]] between the [[Mudhar]] and Yamani tribes occurred, resulting in widespread destruction in Palestine.<ref>Gil, Moshe (February 1997). A History of Palestine, 634-1099. Cambridge University Press. 283-284. ISBN 0521599849.</ref> |
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=====Fatimid rule (969–1099 CE)===== |
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From their base in [[Tunisia]], the [[Shi'ite]] [[Fatimid]]s, who claimed to be descendants of Muhammad through his daughter [[Fatima]], conquered Palestine by way of Egypt in 969 CE.<ref name=Arabnet>{{cite web|title=Egypt: The Fatimid Period 969 - 1771|publisher=Arab Net|year=2002|accessdate=2007-08-14|url=http://www.arab.net/egypt/et_fatimid.htm}}</ref> Their capital was [[Cairo]]. Jerusalem, Nablus, and Askalan were expanded and renovated under their rule.<ref name="Shahinp11" /> |
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After the 10th century, the division into ''Junds'' began to break down.<ref name="Shahinp11" /> In the second half of the 11th Century the |
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[[Fatimids]] empire suffered setback from fighting with the [[Seljuk]] [[Turkish people|Turks]]. Warfare between the Fatimids and Seljuks caused great disruption for the local Christians and for western pilgrims. The Fatimids had lost Jerusalem to the Seljuks in 1073,<ref> Moshe Gil, ''A History of Palestine'' (Cambridge, 1992) p. 410; p. 411 n. 61</ref> but recaptured it from the [[Ortoqids]], a smaller Turkic tribe associated with the Seljuks, in 1098, just before the arrival of the crusaders.<ref>Holt, pp. 11–14.</ref> |
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: ''See also the [http://www.mideastweb.org/palcaliph1.htm Mideastweb map of "Palestine Under the Caliphs"], showing Jund boundaries (external link).'' |
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====Crusader rule (1099–1187 CE)==== |
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{{See also|Crusade|Kingdom of Jerusalem}} |
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[[File:Near East 1135.svg|right|thumb|272px| The kingdom of Jerusalem and the other Crusader states in 1135.]] |
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The [[Kingdom of Jerusalem]] was a [[Christianity|Christian]] kingdom established in the [[Levant]] in 1099 after the [[First Crusade]]. It lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, [[Acre, Israel|Acre]], was destroyed by the [[Mamluk]]s. |
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At first the kingdom was little more than a loose collection of towns and cities captured during the [[crusade]]. At its height, the kingdom roughly encompassed the territory of modern-day [[Israel]] and the [[Palestinian territories]]. It extended from modern [[Lebanon]] in the north to the [[Sinai Desert]] in the south, and into modern [[Jordan]] and [[Syria]] in the east. There were also attempts to expand the kingdom into [[Fatimid]] [[Egypt]]. Its kings also held a certain amount of authority over the other [[crusader state]]s, [[County of Tripoli|Tripoli]], [[Principality of Antioch|Antioch]], and [[County of Edessa|Edessa]]. |
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Many customs and institutions were imported from the territories of Western Europe from which the crusaders came, and there were close familial and political connections with the West throughout the kingdom's existence. It was, however, a relatively minor kingdom in comparison and often lacked financial and military support from Europe. The kingdom had closer ties to the neighbouring [[Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia|Kingdom of Armenia]] and the [[Byzantine Empire]], from which it inherited "oriental" qualities, and the kingdom was also influenced by pre-existing Muslim institutions. Socially, however, the "Latin" inhabitants from Western Europe had almost no contact with the Muslims and native Christians whom they ruled. |
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Under the European rule, fortifications, castles, towers and fortified villages were built, rebuilt and renovated across Palestine largely in rural areas.<ref name=Shahinp11 /><ref name=Nicolle>{{cite book|title=Crusader Castles in the Holy Land 1192-1302|author=[[David Nicolle]]|publisher=Osprey|isbn=9781841768274|month=July | year=2005|url=http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=S8278~per=41}}</ref> A notable urban remnant of the Crusader architecture of this era is found in [[Acre]]'s old city.<ref name=Shahinp11 /><ref name=IsraelAntiquities>{{cite web|title=Projects:The Old City of Akko (Acre)|publisher=Israeli Antiquities Authority|accessdate=2007-08-14|url=http://www.iaa-conservation.org.il/Projects_Item_eng.asp?subject_id=11&site_id=5&id=22}}</ref> |
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Jews had defended against the crusaders and fought along side the Muslims in [[Jerusalem]] in 1099 and [[Haifa]] in 1100. They were not allowed to live in Jerusalem and initially most of cities saw the destruction of the Jewish communities, but communities did continue in the rural areas. For instance, it is known about at least 24 villages in the [[Galilee]] were Jews lived. Later in the history of the Crusaders state Jews settled in the Coastal cities. Unlike the treatment of Jews by the Crusaders Europe, where many Massacres occurred, in Palestine no distinction was made between Jews and other non Christians and there were no laws specifically against Jews. Some Jews from Europe visited the country, like [[Benjamin of Tudela]] who wrote about it.<ref> |
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A History of the Crusades: The Impact of the Crusades on the Near East (vol 5), |
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By Kenneth M. Setton, Norman P. Zacour, Harry W. Hazard, Marshall Whithed Baldwin, Robert Lee Wolff, |
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Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1985 |
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ISBN 0299091449, 9780299091446, pp. 96. |
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</ref> [[Maimonides]] escaped to Palestine from the [[Almohad]]s in 1165 and visited [[Acre]], [[Jerusalem]] and [[Hebron]], finally settling in [[Fostat]] in [[Egypt]].<ref>Sefer HaCharedim Mitzvat Tshuva Chapter 3</ref> |
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In July 1187, the [[Cairo]]-based [[Kurdistan|Kurdish]] General [[Saladin]] commanded his troops to victory in the [[Battle of Hattin]].<ref name=Setton>Kenneth Setton, ed. ''[http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/History.CrusOne A History of the Crusades, vol. I.]'' [[University of Pennsylvania]] Press, 1958</ref><ref name="Shahinp12">Shahin (2005), page 12.</ref> Saladin went on to take Jerusalem. An agreement granting special status to the Crusaders allowed them to continue to stay in Palestine and In 1229, [[Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor|Frederick II]] negotiated a 10-year treaty that placed Jerusalem, [[Nazareth]] and Bethlehem once again under Crusader rule.<ref name=Setton/> |
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In 1270, Sultan [[Baibars]] expelled the Crusaders from most of the country, though they maintained a base at Acre until 1291.<ref name=Setton/> Thereafter, any remaining Europeans either went home or merged with the local population.<ref name=Shahinp12 /> |
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====Mamluk rule (1270–1516 CE)==== |
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[[File:White to.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Tower of Ramla, constructed in 1318]] |
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Palestine formed a part of the [[Damascus]] [[Wilayah]] (district) under the rule of the [[Mamluk Sultanate]] of Egypt and was divided into three smaller [[Sanjak]]s (subdivisions) with capitals in Jerusalem, Gaza, and Safad.<ref name=Shahinp12 /> Celebrated by Arab and Muslim writers of the time as the "blessed land of the Prophets and Islam's revered leaders,"<ref name=Shahinp12 /> Muslim sanctuaries were "rediscovered" and received many pilgrims.<ref name=WKhalidi28>{{cite book|title=Before Their Diaspora|author=Walid Khalidi|publisher=Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington DC|year=1984|pages=28–29}}</ref> |
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During the end of the 13th century the [[Mamluks]] fought against the [[Mongols]], and a decisive battle [[Battle of Ain Jalut|took place in Ain Jalut]] in the [[Jezreel Valley]] on 3 September 1260. The Mamluks achieved a decisive victory, and the battle established a highwater mark for the Mongol conquests. |
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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. [[sea port|Port]]s 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 affect on those areas, that remained sparsely populated for centuries. In Jerusalem, the walls, gates and fortifications were destroyed as well, for similar reasons. The activity in that time concentrated more inland.<ref>Myriam Rosen-Ayalon, ``Between Cairo and Damascus: Rural Life and Urban Economics in the Holy Land During the the Ayyuid, Maluk and Ottoman Periods'' in '''The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land'' |
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edited Thomas Evan Levy, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1998</ref> The Mamluks constructed a "postal road" from [[Cairo]] to [[Damascus]], that included lodgings for travelers ([[Caravanserai|khans]]) and bridges, some of which survive to this day (Jisr Gindas, near [[Lod]]). The also saw the construction of many schools and the renovation of mosques neglected or destroyed during the Crusader period,<ref name=WKhalidi28 />. |
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In 1267 the Catalan Rabbi [[Nahmanides]] left Europe, seeking refuge in Muslim lands from Christian persecution,<ref>p. 73 in Jonathan Sachs (2005) To heal a fractured world : the ethics of responsibility. London : Continuum (ISBN 9780826480392)</ref> he made [[aliyah]] to [[Jerusalem]]. There he established a synagogue in the [[Old City]] that exists until present day, known as the [[Ramban Synagogue]] and re-established Jewish communal life in Jerusalem. |
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In 1486, hostilities broke out between the Mamluks and the [[Ottoman Turks]] in a battle for control over western Asia. The Mamluk armies were eventually defeated by the forces of the Ottoman Sultan, [[Selim I]], and lost control of Palestine after the 1516 battle of [[Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri|Marj Dabiq]].<ref name=Shahinp12 /><ref>Chase, 2003, pp. 104-105.</ref> |
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====Ottoman rule (1516–1831 CE)==== |
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[[File:OttomanEmpireIn1683.png|thumb|right|Territory of the [[Ottoman Empire]] in 1683]] |
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After the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] conquest, the name "Palestine" disappeared as the official name of an administrative unit, as the Turks often called their (sub)provinces after the capital. Following its 1516 incorporation in the Ottoman Empire, it was part of the'' [[vilayet]]'' ([[Subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire|province]]) of Damascus-Syria until 1660. It then became part of the ''vilayet'' of [[Sidon|Saida]] (Sidon), briefly interrupted by the 7 March 1799 - July 1799 French occupation of Jaffa, Haifa, and Caesarea. During the [[Siege of Acre (1799)|Siege of Acre]] in 1799, [[Napoleon]] prepared a proclamation declaring a Jewish state in Palestine. |
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[[File:Dahercastle.jpg|thumb|left|The remains of [[Dhaher al-Omar]]'s castle in [[Deir Hanna]] (18th Century) ]] |
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====Egyptian rule (1831-1841)==== |
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<!-- The Founder of Modern Egypt - A Study of Muhammad 'Ali by Henry Dodwell |
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Palmerston and the Levant Crisis, 1832 |
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M. Vereté |
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The Journal of Modern History > Vol. 24, No. 2 (Jun., 1952), pp. 143-151 --> |
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On 10 May 1832 the territories of [[Bilad ash-Sham]], which include modern Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine were conquered and annexed by [[Muhammad Ali of Egypt|Muhammad Ali]]'s expansionist Egypt (nominally still Ottoman) in the [[1831 Egyptian-Ottoman War]]. 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. |
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====Ottoman rule (1841-1917)==== |
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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 ''[[sanjak]]s'' (districts) of Acre, Beirut and Nablus. The southern part, from Jaffa downwards, was part of the special district of Jerusalem. 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 ''wilayet'' of Hijaz, which also included the Sinai Peninsula and the western part of Arabia.<ref name="boundaries">Gideon Biger, ''The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840-1947'', pp. 13-15. Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0714656542</ref> |
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Nonetheless, the old name remained in popular and semi-official use. Many examples of its usage in the 16th and 17th centuries have survived.<ref>Gerber, 1998.</ref> During the 19th century, the Ottoman Government employed the term ''Ardh-u Filistin'' (the 'Land of Palestine') in official correspondence, meaning for all intents and purposes the area to the west of the River Jordan which became 'Palestine' under the British in 1922".<ref>Mandel, 1976, p. ''xx''.</ref> However, the Ottomans regarded "Palestine" as an abstract description of a general region but not as a specific administrative unit with clearly defined borders. This meant that they did not consistently apply the name to a clearly defined area.<ref name="boundaries" /> Ottoman court records, for instance, used the term to describe a geographical area that did not include the ''sanjaks'' of Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus, although these had certainly been part of historical Palestine.<ref>Judith Mendelsohn Rood, ''Sacred Law in the Holy City'', p. 46. Brill Publishers, 2004.</ref><ref>Bernard Lewis, "Palestine: On the History and Geography of a Name", ''International History Review'' 11 (1980): 1-12</ref> Amongst the educated Arab public, ''Filastin'' was a common concept, referring either to the whole of Palestine or to the Jerusalem ''sanjak'' alone<ref>Porath, 1974, pp. 8-9.</ref> or just to the area around Ramle.<ref>Haim Gerber (1998) referring to [[fatwa]]s by two [[Hanafite]] Syrian jurists.</ref> |
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The end of the 19th century saw the beginning of [[Zionist]] immigration. |
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The "[[First Aliyah]]" was the first modern widespread wave of [[Zionism|Zionist]] [[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.<ref> Scharfstein, Sol, ''Chronicle of Jewish History: From the Patriarchs to the 21st Century'', p.231, KTAV Publishing House (1997), ISBN 0-88125-545-9</ref> An estimated 25,000<ref name="jafi">{{cite web|url=http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/concepts/aliyah3.html|title=New Aliyah - Modern Zionist Aliyot (1882 - 1948)|publisher=[[Jewish Agency for Israel]]|accessdate=2008-10-26}}</ref>–35,000<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Immigration/First_Aliyah.html |title=The First Aliyah |publisher=Jewishvirtuallibrary.org |date= |accessdate=2009-06-16}}</ref> Jews immigrated during the First Aliyah. The First Aliyah laid the cornerstone for Jewish settlement in Israel and created several settlements such as [[Rishon LeZion]], [[Rosh Pina]], [[Zikhron Ya'aqov]] and [[Gedera]]. |
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[[File:TelAviv-Founding.jpg|thumb|left|Tel Aviv was founded on land purchased from Bedouins north of [[Jaffa]]. This is the 1909 auction of the first lots]] |
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The "[[Second Aliyah]]" took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 40,000 Jews immigrated, mostly from [[Russia]] and [[Poland]],<ref>[http://www.moia.gov.il/Moia_en/AboutIsrael/aliya2.htm Israeli government site on the Second Aliyah]</ref> and some from [[Yemen]]. The Second Aliyah immigrants were primarily idealists, inspired by the revolutionary ideals then sweeping the [[Russian Empire]] who sought to create a communal agricultural settlement system in Palestine. They thus founded the [[kibbutz]] movement. The first kibbutz, [[Degania]], was founded in 1909. [[Tel Aviv]] was founded at that time, though its founders were not necessarily from the new immigrants. |
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The Second Aliyah is largely credited with the [[Revival of the Hebrew language]] and establishing it as the standard language for Jews in Israel. [[Eliezer Ben-Yehuda]] contributed to the creation of the first [[modern Hebrew]] dictionary. Although he was an immigrant of the First Aliyah, his work mostly bore fruit during the second. |
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Ottoman rule over the eastern Mediterranean lasted until [[World War I]] when the Ottomans [[World War I#Ottoman Empire|sided]] with [[Germany]] and the [[Central Powers]]. During [[World War I]], the Ottomans were driven from much of the region by the [[United Kingdom]] during the [[dissolution of the Ottoman Empire]]. |
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===The 20th century=== |
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[[File:Palestine south 1924.jpg|thumb|right|Palestine in British map 1924 the map now in the National Library of Scotland]] |
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In European usage up to [[World War I]], "Palestine" was used informally 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.<ref>[Biger]</ref> |
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Under the [[Sykes–Picot Agreement]] of 1916, it was envisioned that most of Palestine, when freed from Ottoman control, would become an international zone not under direct French or British colonial control. Shortly thereafter, British foreign minister [[Arthur Balfour]] issued the [[Balfour Declaration of 1917]], which promised to establish a Jewish national home in Palestine.<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=6T_Ff6Ra57sC&pg=PA9 Baylis Thomas,''How Israel was Won'' (1999) p.19]</ref> |
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The British-led [[Egyptian Expeditionary Force]], commanded by [[Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby|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 (1918)|Battle of Megiddo]] in September 1918 and the capitulation of Turkey on 31 October.<ref>Hughes, 1999, p. 17; p. 97.</ref> |
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===British Mandate (1920–1948)=== |
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{{Main|British Mandate of Palestine}} |
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[[File:BritishMandatePalestine1920.png|thumb|right|Palestine and [[Transjordan]] were incorporated (under different legal and administrative arrangements) into the Mandate for Palestine issued by the [[League of Nations]] to [[Great Britain]] on [[29 September]] [[1923]]]] |
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[[File:Samuelarrival.jpg|thumb|left|The new era in Palestine. The arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel, H.B.M. high commissioner, etc. with Col. Lawrence, Emir Abdullah, Air Marshal [[Geoffrey Salmond|Salmond]] and Sir Wyndham Deedes.]] |
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Following the [[First World War]] and the occupation of the country by the British, |
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the principal [[Allied Powers|Allied and associated powers]] drafted the Mandate which was formally approved by the [[League of Nations]] in [[1922]]. By the power granted under the mandate, [[United Kingdom|Britain]] ruled Palestine between [[1920]] and [[1948]], a period referred to as the "British Mandate." |
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- The preamble of the mandate declared: |
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- <blockquote>Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the [[Balfour Declaration of 1917|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.<ref>[http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp The Palestine Mandate]</ref> </blockquote> |
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Not all were satisfied with the mandate. Some of the Arabs felt that Britain was violating the |
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[[McMahon-Hussein Correspondence]] and the understanding of the [[Arab Revolt]]. Some wanted a unification with Syria: |
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In February 1919 several Moslem and Christian groups from [[Jaffa]] and [[Jerusalem]] met and adopted a platform which endorsed unity with Syria and opposition to Zionism (this is sometime called the First Palestinian National Congress). A letter was sent to Damascus authorizing [[Faisal I of Iraq|Faisal]] to represent the Arabs of Palestine at the Paris Peace Conference. In May 1919 a General Syrian Congress was held in [[Damascus]], and a Palestinian delegation attended its sessions.<ref>see A History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, By Mark A. Tessler, Indiana University Press, 1994, ISBN 0253208734, pages 155-156</ref> |
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In April 1920 violent Arab disturbances against the Jews in Jerusalem occurred which became 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 between 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. |
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In April 1920 the Allied Supreme Council (the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan) met at [[San Remo conference|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:<blockquote>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.<ref>'Zionist Aspirations: Dr Weizmann on the Future of Palestine', ''The Times'', Saturday, 8 May, 1920; p. 15.</ref></blockquote> |
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[[File:Churchillabdullah.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Churchill and Abdullah (with Herbert Samuel) during their negotiations in Jerusalem, March 1921.]] |
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The purported objective of the League of Nations Mandate system was to administer parts of the defunct [[Ottoman Empire]], which had been in control of the [[Middle East]] since the [[16th century]], "until such time as they are able to stand alone."<ref>[http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/leagcov.htm#art22 Article 22, The Covenant of the League of Nations] and "Mandate for Palestine," Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 11, p. 862, Keter Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1972</ref> |
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In July 1920, the French drove [[Faisal I of Iraq|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 [[Abdullah I of Jordan|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]].<ref>Gelber, 1997, pp. 6-15.</ref> 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 [[Arthur Balfour|Lord Balfour]] confirming the exemption of Transjordan from the clauses of the mandate concerning the creation of a Jewish national home and from the mandate's responsibility to ''facilitate'' Jewish immigration and land settlement.<ref>Sicker, 1999, p. 164.</ref> 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. |
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In 1923 an agreement between the [[United Kingdom]] and [[France]] established 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 <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.caabu.org/press/focus/gee.html |title=The Council for Arab-British Understanding |publisher=CAABU |date= |accessdate=2009-06-16}}</ref> with the provisons that Syria have fishing and navigation rights in the Lake. <ref>No. 565. — EXCHANGE OF NOTES * CONSTITUTING AN AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE BRITISH AND FRENCH GOVERNMENTS RESPECTING THE BOUNDARY LINE BETWEEN SYRIA AND PALESTINE FROM THE MEDITERRANEAN TO EL HAMMÉ, PARIS MARCH 7, 1923, Page 7 [http://untreaty.un.org/unts/60001_120000/20/29/00039450.pdf Border Treaty]</ref> |
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The [[Palestine Exploration Fund]] published surveys and maps of [http://books.google.com/books?q=survey%20of%20western%20palestine&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wp '''Western Palestine'''] (aka Cisjordan) starting in the mid-19th century. Even before the Mandate came into legal effect in 1923 ([[1922 Text: League of Nations Palestine Mandate|text]]), British terminology sometimes used '"Palestine" for the part west of the Jordan River and "Trans-Jordan" (or ''Transjordania'') for the part east of the Jordan River.<ref>Ingrams, 1972</ref><ref> |
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{{cite web | url = http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/349b02280a930813052565e90048ed1c | title = Mandate for Palestine - Interim report of the Mandatory to the LoN/Balfour Declaration text | accessdate = 2007-03-08 | date = 1921-07-30 | publisher = League of Nations }}</ref> |
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[[File:Palestine stamp.jpg|thumb|right|[[Rachel's Tomb]] on a 1927 British Mandate stamp. "Palestine" is shown in English, Arabic ({{lang|ar|فلسطين}}), and Hebrew, the latter includes the acronym {{lang|he|א״י}} for {{lang|he-Latn|''[[Eretz Yisrael]]''}}]] |
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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.<ref> Henry Laurens, {{lang|fr|''La Question de Palestine''}}, Fayard, Paris 2002 vol.2 p.101</ref> |
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====Infrastructure and development==== |
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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 Palestinian Arabs, but Arab literacy was steadily increasing.<ref>Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood, 2006. Beacon Press. [http://books.google.com/books?id=xp3MQavDxjIC].</ref> |
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Under the British Mandate, the country developed economically and culturally. In 1919 the Jewish community founded a centralized Hebrew school system, and the following year established the [[Assembly of Representatives (Mandate Palestine)|Assembly of Representatives]], the [[Jewish National Council]] and the [[Histadrut]] labor federation. The [[Technion]] university was founded in 1924, and the [[Hebrew University of Jerusalem]] in 1925.<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/jews_mandate.html The Jewish Community under the Mandate]</ref> |
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As for Arab institutions, the office of “Mufti of Jerusalem”, traditionally limited in authority and geographical scope, was refashioned by the British into that of “Grand Mufti of Palestine”. Furthermore, a Supreme Muslim Council (SMC) was established and given various duties, such as the administration of religious endowments and the appointment of religious judges and local muftis. During the revolt (see below) the [[Arab Higher Committee]] was established as the central political organ of the Arab community of Palestine. |
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During the Mandate period, Many factories were established and roads and railroads were built throughout the country. The Jordan River was harnessed for production of electric power and the [[Dead Sea]] was tapped for minerals - [[potash]] and [[bromine]]. |
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====1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine==== |
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{{Main|1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine}} |
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Sparked off by the death of [[Sheikh|Shaykh]] [[Izz ad-Din al-Qassam]] at the hands of the British police near [[Jenin]] in November 1935, in the years 1936-1939 the Arabs participated in an uprising and protest against British rule and against mass Jewish [[Immigration]]. The revolt manifested in a [[Palestinian general strike|strike]] and armed insurrection started sporadically, becoming more organized with time. Attacks were mainly directed at British strategic installation such as the [[Trans Arabian Pipeline]] (TAP) and railways, and to a lesser extent against Jewish settlements, secluded Jewish neighborhoods in the mixed cities, and Jews, both individually and in groups. |
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Violence abated for about a year while the [[Peel Commission]] deliberated and eventually recommended partition of Palestine. With the rejection of this proposal, the revolt resumed during the autumn of [[1937]] Violence continued throughout 1938 and eventually petered out in 1939. |
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The [[United Kingdom|British]] responded to the violence by greatly expanding their military forces and clamping down on [[Arab]] dissent. "Administrative detention" (imprisonment without charges or trial), curfews, and house demolitions were among British practices during this period. More than 120 Arabs were sentenced to death and about 40 hanged. The main Arab leaders were arrested or expelled. |
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The ''[[Haganah]]'' ([[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] for "defense"), an illegal Jewish paramilitary organization, actively supported British efforts to quell the insurgency, which reached 10,000 Arab fighters at their peak during the summer and fall of 1938. Although the British administration didn't officially recognize the ''Haganah'', the British security forces cooperated with it by forming the [[Jewish Settlement Police]] and [[Special Night Squads]].<ref>see [http://www.historama.com/online-resources/online-gallery/eretz_israel_palestine_noter_jewish_settlement_police_uniform.html see Uniform and History of the Palestine Police]</ref> A [[terrorist]] splinter group of the Haganah, called the ''[[Irgun]]'' (or ''Etzel'')<ref>[http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac02.htm Etzel - The Establishment of Irgun].</ref> adopted a policy of violent retaliation against Arabs for attacks on Jews.<ref>[http://www.etzel.org.il/english/ac03.htm Etzel - Restraint and Retaliation]</ref> At a meeting in Alexandria in July 1937 between Jabotinsky and Irgun 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.<ref>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 in Terror Out of Zion, by J. Bowyer Bell, Transaction Publishers, , 1996, ISBN 1560008709, pages 35-36.</ref> [[File:Havlagah bus during 1936-1939 Arab revolt-British Mandate of Palestine.jpg|right|thumb|320px|The Arab revolt of 1936–39 in Palestine. A Jewish bus equipped with wire screens to protect civilian riders against rocks and [[grenades]]{{Fact|date=July 2009}} thrown by Arabs.]] |
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The revolt did not achieve its goals, although it is "credited with signifying the birth of the Arab Palestinian identity.".<ref name=HistoryOfPalestinianRevolts>[http://web.archive.org/web/20051215061527/http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9A489B74-6477-4E67-9C22-0F53A3CC9ADF.htm Aljazeera: The history of Palestinian revolts]</ref> It is generally credited with forcing the issuance of the [[White Paper of 1939]] which renounced Britain's intent of creating a Jewish National Home in Palestine, as proclaimed in the 1917 [[Balfour Declaration]]. |
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Another outcome of the hostilities was the partial disengagement of the Jewish and Arab economies in Palestine, which were more or less intertwined until that time. For example, whereas the Jewish city of [[Tel Aviv]] previously relied on the nearby Arab seaport of [[Jaffa]], hostilities dictated the construction of a separate Jewish-run seaport for Tel-Aviv. |
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====World War II and Palestine==== |
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When the Second World War broke out, the Jewish population sided with Britain. [[David Ben Gurion]], head of the [[Jewish Agency]], 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). |
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As in most of the Arab world, there was no unanimity amongst the Palestinian Arabs as to their position regarding the combatants in World War II. A number of leaders and public figures saw an [[Axis powers|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, in particular encouraging Muslim [[Bosniaks]] to join the [[Waffen SS]] in German-conquered [[Bosnia (region)|Bosnia]]. About 6,000 Palestinian Arabs and 30,000 Palestinian Jews joined the British forces. |
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On 10 June 1940, Italy declared war on the British Commonwealth and sided with Germany. Within a month, the Italians [[Italian bombings on Palestine in World War II|attacked Palestine from the air]], bombing [[Tel Aviv]] and [[Haifa]].<ref>[http://www.isracast.com/article.aspx?ID=470&t=Why-Italian-Planes-Bombed-Tel-Aviv? Why Italian Planes Bombed Tel-Aviv?]</ref> |
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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 period was referred to as the [[200 days of anxiety|two hundred days of anxiety]]. This event was the direct cause for the founding, with British support, of the [[Palmach]]<ref>[http://www.historycentral.com/Israel/1941PalmachFormed.html How the Palmach was formed] (History Central)</ref> — a highly-trained regular unit belonging to [[Haganah]] (which was mostly made up of reserve troops). |
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[[File:JB HQ.jpg|left|thumb|Jewish Brigade headquarters under both [[Union Flag]] and [[Flag of Israel|Jewish flag]]]] |
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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 [[Nazi Germany|German]]s 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 Force]]. |
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Starting in 1939 and throughout the war and the [[Holocaust]], the British reduced the number of immigrants allowed into Palestine, following the of the [[MacDonald White Paper]]. Once the 15,000 annual quota was exceeded, Jews fleeing Nazi persecution were placed in detention camps or deported to places such as [[Mauritius]].<ref> Karl Lenk, ''The Mauritius Affair, The Boat People of 1940/41'', London 1991 </ref> |
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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, 1917|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|Lehi]], another splinter group, opposed cessation of operations against the British authorities all along. The [[Jewish Agency]] 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. |
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The country developed economically during the war, with increased industrial and agricultular outputs and the period was consider an `economic Boom'. In terms of Arab-Jewish relations, these were relatively quiet times.<ref>James L. Gelvin, '''The Israel-Palestine conflict''', Cambridge University Press, 2007, page 120. </ref> |
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====End of the British Mandate 1945-1948==== |
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{{Main|British–Zionist conflict}} |
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In the years following [[World War II]], Britain's control over Palestine became increasingly tenuous. This was caused by a combination of factors, including: |
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[[File:Bombe Irgoun 29 dec 1947.jpg|thumb|right|300x226px|Arab autobus after the terrorist attack by Irgun 29 dec 1947]] |
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*World public opinion turned against Britain as a result of the British policy of preventing [[Holocaust]] survivors from reaching Palestine, sending them instead to [[Cyprus internment camps]], or even back to [[Germany]], as in the case of [[Exodus (ship)|Exodus 1947]]. |
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*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.<ref>The Rise and fall of the British Empire, By Lawrence James, Macmillan, 1997, ISBN 031216985X, page 562</ref> |
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*Rapid deterioration due to the actions of the Jewish paramilitary organizations ([[Hagana]], [[Irgun]] and [[Lehi (group)|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".<ref>For instance, in his memoir ''The Revolt'', [[Menachem Begin]] cites Colonel Archer-Cust, Chief Secretary of the British Government in Palestine, as saying in a lecture to the Royal Empire Society that "The hanging of the two British Sergeants [an Irgun retaliation to British executions] did more than anything to get us out [of Palestine]".</ref> |
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*US 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. |
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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.<ref>see [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/ukreq.html Request for a Special Session of the General Assembly on Palestine]</ref> 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.<ref>see 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</ref> |
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===UN partition and the 1948 Palestine War=== |
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{{Nakba}} |
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{{Main|United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine|1948 Palestine War}} |
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[[File:UN Partition Plan Palestine.png|left|thumb|132px|UN partition plan, 1947]] |
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On 29 November 1947, the [[United Nations]] [[UN General Assembly|General Assembly]] voted 33 to 13 with 10 abstentions, in favour of a plan to partition the territory into separate [[Jew]]ish and [[Arab]] states, under economic union, with the Greater [[Jerusalem]] area (encompassing [[Bethlehem]]) coming under international control. Zionist leaders (including the [[Jewish Agency]]), accepted the plan, while Palestinian Arab leaders rejected it and all independent Muslim and Arab states voted against it.<ref>6 Arab states, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen: 4 Moslem states, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey: Greece, Cuba and India also voted against. See Henry Cattan, ''The Palestine question'', Routledge, London 1988 p.36</ref> Almost immediately, sectarian violence erupted and spread, killing over the ensuing months hundreds of Arabs, Jews and British. |
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The rapid evolution of events precipitated into a [[1947-1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine|Civil War]]. Arab volunteers of the [[ALA]] entered Palestine to fight with the Palestinians, but the April-May offensive of [[Yishuv]]'s forces crushed the Arabs and Palestinian society collapsed. Some [[1948 Palestinian exodus|300,000 to 350,000 Palestinians]] caught up in the turmoil fled or were driven from their homes. |
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[[File:Declaration of State of Israel 1948.jpg|thumb|left|[[David Ben-Gurion]] proclaiming independence beneath a large portrait of [[Theodor Herzl]], founder of modern [[Zionism]]]] |
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On 14 May, the Jewish Agency declared [[Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel|the independence of the state of Israel]]. The neighbouring Arab state intervened to prevent the partition and support the Palestinian Arab population. While Transjordan took control of territory designated for the future Arab State, Syrian, Iraqi and Egyptian expeditionary forces attacked Israel without success. The most intensive battles were waged between the Jordanian and Israeli forces over the control of Jerusalem. |
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On June 11, 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, it then 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. In this phase, 350,000 more Arab Palestinians fled or were expelled from the conquered areas. |
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During the 6 first months of 1949, negotiations between the belligerents came to terms over armistice lines that delimited Israel's borders. On the other side, no Palestinian Arab state was founded: Jordan annexed the Arab territories of the Mandatory regions of Samaria and Judea (today known as the [[West Bank]]), as well as East Jerusalem, while the Gaza strip came under Egyptian administration. |
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===Current status=== |
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On the same day that the State of Israel was announced, the Arab League announced that they would setup a single Arab civil administration throughout Palestine.<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=JAW2aHnkL4UC&pg=PA107&dq=&ei=ViVOSZmiOY2YMpqHxNYI&client= Truman, the Jewish Vote, and the Creation of Israel, John Snetsinger, Hoover Press, 1974, ISBN 0817933913, page 107]</ref><ref>see The Middle East Journal, Middle East Institute (Washington, D.C.), 1949, - Page 78, Oct. 1): Robert A. Lovett, Acting Secretary of State, announced the US would not recognize the new Arab Government in Palestine, and [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1948v05p2&isize=M&submit=Go+to+page&page=1448 Foreign relations of the United States, 1948. The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Volume V, Part 2, page 1448]</ref> The All-Palestine government was declared in Gaza on 1 October 1948,<ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=DWhgIe3Hq98C&printsec=frontcover&dq=&ei=0NSUSZ2ANY6mNYju7KQJ&client=#PPA294,M1 First Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine]</ref> partly as an Arab League move to limit the influence of Transjordan over the Palestinian issue. The former mufti of Jerusalem, [[Amin al-Husayni|Haj Amin al-Husseini]], was appointed as president. The government was recognised by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, [[Saudi Arabia]], and [[Yemen]], but not by Transjordan (later known as [[Jordan]]) or any non-Arab country. It was little more than an Egyptian protectorate and had negligible influence or funding. 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]]. Palestinian Arabs living in the [[Gaza Strip]] or Egypt were issued with All-Palestine passports until 1959, when [[Gamal Abdul Nasser]], president of Egypt, issued a decree that annulled the All-Palestine government. |
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[[File:Is-wb-gs-gh v3.png|thumb|The region as of today: Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the [[Golan Heights]]]] |
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In addition to the UN-partitioned area allotted to the Jewish state, Israel captured and incorporated {{Fact|date=May 2009}}a further 26% of the Mandate territory (namely of the territory to the west of the Jordan river). Jordan [[Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan|captured and annexed about 21% of the Mandate territory]], which it referred to as the [[West Bank]] (to differentiate it from the newly-named [[East Bank]] - the original Transjordan). Jerusalem was divided, with Jordan taking the eastern parts, including the [[Jerusalem's Old City walls|Old City]], and Israel taking the western parts. The [[Gaza Strip]] was [[Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt|captured by Egypt]]. In addition, Syria held on to small slivers of 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. |
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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]]. |
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[[File:West Bank & Gaza Map 2007 (Settlements).png|left|thumb|250px|Map of the [[West Bank]] and the [[Gaza Strip]], 2007]] |
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In the course of the [[Six Day War]] in June 1967, Israel captured the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. |
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From the 1960s onward, the term "Palestine" was regularly used in political contexts. Various declarations, such as the 15 November 1988 proclamation of a [[State of Palestine]] by the [[Palestine Liberation Organization|PLO]] referred to a country called Palestine, defining its borders based on the U.N. Resolution [[U.N. Resolution 242|242]] and 383 and the principle of land for peace. The [[Green Line (Israel)|Green Line]] was the pre-1967 border established by many UN resolutions including those mentioned above. |
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According to the [[CIA World Factbook]], |
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<ref>[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/is.html ]{{dead link|date=July 2009}}</ref><ref>[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/we.html ]{{dead link|date=July 2009}}</ref> |
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<ref>[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gz.html ]{{dead link|date=July 2009}}</ref> of the ten million people living between Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, about five million (49%) identify as [[Palestinian people|Palestinian]], [[Arab]], [[Bedouin]] and/or [[Druze]]. One million of those are [[Arab citizens of Israel|citizens of Israel]]. The other four million are residents of the West Bank and Gaza, which are under the jurisdiction of the [[Palestinian National Authority]], which was formed in 1994, pursuant to the [[Oslo Accords]]. |
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In the West Bank, 360,000 [[Israeli settler|Israelis have settled]] in a hundred scattered new towns and settlements with connecting corridors. The 2.5 million West Bank Palestinians live primarily in four blocs centered in [[Hebron]], [[Ramallah]], [[Nablus]], and [[Jericho]]. In 2005, Israel withdrew its army and all the Israeli settlers were evacuated from the [[Gaza Strip]], in keeping with [[Ariel Sharon]]'s plan for unilateral disengagement, and control over the area was transferred to the Palestinian Authority. |
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The [[Palestine Liberation Organization]] has enjoyed status as a non-member observer at the [[United Nations]] since 1974, and continues to represent "Palestine" there.<ref name=Cornwall>{{cite web|title=UN upgrades Palestine status|publisher=Independent, The (London)|date=July 8, 1998|author=Rupert Cornwell|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19980708/ai_n14176782}}</ref> After the 1988 declaration of state, the [[State of Palestine]] was formally recognized by 117 [[United Nations]] member states.<ref name=Kurzp123>Kurz, 2005, p. 123.</ref> Many countries, including the EU and the United States, have diplomatic ties with the Palestinian Authority, and have recognized the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza as a "Country" for legal, economic, and political purposes.<ref>see [http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1997-03-14/pdf/97-6434.pdf DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, Customs Service, T.D. 97–16, Country of Origin Marking of Products From the West Bank and Gaza]</ref><ref name="palestine1">See [http://www.forward.com/articles/12761/ Costa Rica Opens Official Ties With ‘State of Palestine’]</ref> Dozens of other States have gone one step further and legally recognized that same national entity as the "State of Palestine".<ref name="palestine1"/><ref>see [http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=169152 ICC prosecutor considers ‘Gaza war crimes’ probe]</ref> There have also been published reports of Israeli's who have accepted Palestinian citizenship and passports.<ref>see [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/944235.html Israeli pianist Daniel Barenboim takes Palestinian citizenship]</ref> Palestine is also represented at international sporting events, like the [[Palestine at the Olympics|Olympics]] and [[Palestine at the Paralympics|Paralympics]] and films from Palestine have won awards at international cinema events, like the [[Oscars]]. (See also [[Cinema of Palestine]]).<ref name=Tristam>{{cite web|title=Palestine at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Summer Games: Your Guide to Palestine's Athletes, Competitions and Olympic History|author=Pierre Tristam|publisher=About.com|url=http://middleeast.about.com/od/palestinepalestinians/a/me080806c.htm}}</ref><ref name=Fassed>{{cite web|title=Palestine gets its first Oscar nomination with Paradise Now|author=Arjan El Fassed|publisher=The Electronic Intifada|date=31 January 2006|url=http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4442.shtml}}</ref> |
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==Demographics== |
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===Early demographics=== |
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Estimating the population of Palestine in antiquity relies on 2 methods - censuses and writings made at the times, and the scientific method based on excavations and statistical methods that consider the number of settlements at the particular age, area of each settlement, density factor for each settlement. |
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According to [[Joseph Jacobs]], writing in the ''[[Jewish Encyclopedia]]''<ref>[http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1044&letter=S Statistics], accessed 21 May, 2007.</ref> (1901-1906), the [[Pentateuch]] contains a number of statements as to the number of Jews that left [[Egypt]], the descendants of the seventy sons and grandsons of [[Jacob]] who took up their residence in that country. Altogether, including [[Levite]]s, there were 611,730 males over twenty years of age, and therefore capable of bearing arms; this would imply a population of about 3,154,000. The Census of [[David]] is said to have recorded 1,300,000 males over twenty years of age, which would imply a population of over 5,000,000. The number of exiles who returned from [[Babylon]] is given at 42,360. [[Tacitus]] declares that [[Jerusalem]] at its fall contained 600,000 persons; [[Josephus]], that there were as many as 1,100,000. According to Israeli archeologist Magen Broshi, "... the population of Palestine in antiquity did not exceed a million persons. It can also be shown, moreover, that this was more or less the size of the population in the peak period--the late [[Byzantine]] period, around AD 600"<ref> Magen Broshi, The Population of Western Palestine in the Roman-Byzantine Period, ''Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research'', No. 236, p.7, 1979.</ref> Similarly, a study by Yigal Shiloh of [[The Hebrew University]] suggests that the population of Palestine in the Iron Age could have never exceeded a million. He writes: "... the population of the country in the Roman-Byzantine period greatly exceeded that in the Iron Age...If we accept Broshi's population estimates, which appear to be confirmed by the results of recent research, it follows that the estimates for the population during the Iron Age must be set at a lower figure."<ref>Yigal Shiloh, The Population of Iron Age Palestine in the Light of a Sample Analysis of Urban Plans, Areas, and Population Density, ''Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research'', No. 239, p.33, 1980.</ref> |
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[[Shmuel Katz]] writes:<ref>Katz, p.113-115 {{he icon}}</ref> |
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<blockquote> |
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When Jewish independence came to an end in the year 70, the population numbered, at a conservative estimate, some 5 million people. (By [[Josephus]]' figures, there were nearer 7 million.) Even sixty years after the destruction of the Temple, at the outbreak of the revolt led by Bar Kochba in 132, when large numbers had fled or been deported, the Jewish population of the country must have numbered at least 3 million, according to [[Dio Cassius]]' figures. Sixteen centuries later, when the practical possibility of the return to Zion appeared on the horizon, Palestine was a denuded, derelict, and depopulated country. The writings of travellers who visited Palestine in the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century are filled with descriptions of its emptiness, its desolation. In 1738, [[Thomas Shaw]] wrote of the absence of people to fill - Palestine's fertile soil. In 1785, [[Constantin-François Chassebœuf|Constantine Francois Volney]] described the "rained" and "desolate" country. He had not seen the worst. Pilgrims and travellers continued to report in heartrending terms on its condition. Almost sixty years later, [[Alexander Keith]], recalling Volney's description, wrote: "In his day the land had not fully reached its last degree of desolation and depopulation.<ref>Tomas Shaw, Travels and Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant (London, 1767), p. 331ff.; Constantine Francois Volney, Travels Through Syria and Egypt in the Years 1783, 1784 and 1785 (London, 1787); Alexander Keith, The Land of Israel (Edinburgh, 1944), P. 465.</ref></blockquote> |
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The table below represents estimates of the first century population of Palestine (as adapted from Byatt, 1973). |
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<center> |
|||
{| class="sortable wikitable" |
|||
|- |
|||
! Authority |
|||
! Jews |
|||
! Total population<sup>1</sup> |
|||
|- |
|||
| Conder, C R<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Conder|first=C. R.|author=|authorlink=|coauthors= |editor=[[James Hastings]] |encyclopedia=[[Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible|A Dictionary of the Bible]] |title= Palestine |url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/hastings/dictv3/Page_646.html |accessdate= |accessyear= |accessmonth= |edition= |year= 1900|month= |publisher= |volume=III |location= |id= |isbn= |doi= |pages=pages 646-647 |quote= }}</ref> |
|||
| - |
|||
| 6 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Juster, J<ref>''Les Juifs dans l'empire romain'' (1914), 1, 209f.</ref> |
|||
| 5 million |
|||
| >5 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Mazar, Benjamin<ref>Referred to by W C Lowdermilk, ''Palestine, Land of Promise'',(1944), p. 47.</ref> |
|||
| - |
|||
| >4 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Klausner, Joseph<ref>''From Jesus to Paul'' (1944), 33.</ref> |
|||
| 3 million |
|||
| 3.5 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Grant, Michael<ref>''Herod the Great'' (1971), 165.</ref> |
|||
| 3 million |
|||
| not given |
|||
|- |
|||
| Baron, Salo W<ref>A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2nd ed. (1952), Vol. 1, 168, 370-2.</ref> |
|||
| 2-2.5 million |
|||
| 2.5-3 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Socin, A<ref>''[[Encyclopaedia Biblica]]'' column 3550.</ref> |
|||
| - |
|||
| 2.5-3 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Lowdermilk, W C<ref>Referred to by W C Lowdermilk, ''Palestine, Land of Promise'' (1944), 47.</ref> |
|||
| - |
|||
| 3 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Avi-Yonah, M<ref>''The Holy Land'' (1966), 220, 221.</ref> |
|||
| - |
|||
| 2.8 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Glueck, N<ref>Letter of 16 December 1941 reported by Lowdermilk, ibid, 47.</ref> |
|||
| - |
|||
| 2.5 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Beloch, K J<ref>''Die Bevolkerung der griechischromischen Welt'' (1886), 242-9.</ref> |
|||
| 2 million |
|||
| not given |
|||
|- |
|||
| Grant, F C<ref>''Economic Background of the Gospels'' (1926), 83.</ref> |
|||
| - |
|||
| 1.5-2.5 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Byatt, A<ref>Byatt, 1973.</ref> |
|||
| - |
|||
| 2.265 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Daniel-Rops, H<ref>''Daily Life in Palestine at the Time of Christ'' (1962), 43.</ref> |
|||
| 1.5 million |
|||
| 2 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Derwacter, F M<ref>''Preparing the Way for Paul'' (1930), 115.</ref> |
|||
| 1 million |
|||
| 1.5 million |
|||
|- |
|||
| Pfeiffer, R H<ref>''History of New Testament Times'' (1949), 189.</ref> |
|||
| 1 million |
|||
| not given |
|||
|- |
|||
| Harnack, A<ref>''Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums'' (1915), 1, 10.</ref> |
|||
| 500,000 |
|||
| not given |
|||
|- |
|||
| Jeremias, J<ref>''Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus'' (1969), 205.</ref> |
|||
| 500,000-600,000 |
|||
| not given |
|||
|- |
|||
| McCown, C C<ref>The Density of Population in Ancient Palestine, ''Journal of Biblical Literature'', Vol 66 (1947), 425-36.</ref> |
|||
| <500,000 |
|||
| <1 million |
|||
|}</center> |
|||
<sup>'''1.'''</sup> There is no consensus on the population of Palestine in the first century of the Common Era; estimates range from under 1 million to 6 million. |
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===Demographics in the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods=== |
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In the middle of the first century of the Ottoman rule, i.e. 1550 CE, [[Bernard Lewis]] in a study of Ottoman registers of the early Ottoman Rule of Palestine reports:<ref>Bernard Lewis, Studies in the Ottoman Archives--I, ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'', University of London, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 469-501, 1954</ref> |
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<blockquote>From the mass of detail in the registers, it is possible to extract something like a general picture of the economic life of the country in that period. Out of a total population of about 300,000 souls, between a fifth and a quarter lived in the six towns of [[Jerusalem]], [[Gaza]], [[Safed]], [[Nablus]], [[Ramla|Ramle]], and [[Hebron]]. The remainder consisted mainly of peasants, living in villages of varying size, and engaged in agriculture. Their main food-crops were wheat and barley in that order, supplemented by leguminous pulses, olives, fruit, and vegetables. In and around most of the towns there was a considerable number of vineyards, orchards, and vegetable gardens. |
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</blockquote> |
|||
By [[Constantin-François Chassebœuf|Volney's]] estimates in 1785, there were no more than 200,000 people in the country.<ref>Katz, 115 citing C.F.C Conte de Volney: Travels through Syria & Egypt in the years 1783, 1784, 1785 (London, 1798). Vol II p. 219 </ref> |
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In his paper 'Demography in Israel/Palestine: Trends, Prospects and Policy Implications'<ref>DellaPergola, 2001, p. 5.</ref> Sergio DellaPergola, drawing on the work of Bachi (1975), provides rough estimates of the population of Palestine west of the River Jordan by religion groups from the first century onwards summarised in the table below. |
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<center> |
|||
{| class="sortable wikitable" |
|||
|- |
|||
! Year |
|||
! Jews |
|||
! Christians |
|||
! Muslims |
|||
! Total<sup>1</sup> |
|||
|- |
|||
| First half 1st century CE |
|||
| Majority |
|||
| - |
|||
| - |
|||
| ~2,500² |
|||
|- |
|||
| 5th century |
|||
| Minority |
|||
| Majority |
|||
| - |
|||
| >1st century |
|||
|- |
|||
| End 12th century |
|||
| Minority |
|||
| Minority |
|||
| Majority |
|||
| >225 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 14th cent. before [[Black Death]] |
|||
| Minority |
|||
| Minority |
|||
| Majority |
|||
| 225 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 14th cent. after Black Death |
|||
| Minority |
|||
| Minority |
|||
| Majority |
|||
| 150 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 1533-1539 |
|||
| 5 |
|||
| 6 |
|||
| 145 |
|||
| 157 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 1690-1691 |
|||
| 2 |
|||
| 11 |
|||
| 219 |
|||
| 232 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 1800 |
|||
| 7 |
|||
| 22 |
|||
| 246 |
|||
| 275 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 1890 |
|||
| 43 |
|||
| 57 |
|||
| 432 |
|||
| 532 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 1914 |
|||
| 94 |
|||
| 70 |
|||
| 525 |
|||
| 689 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 1922 |
|||
| 84 |
|||
| 71 |
|||
| 589 |
|||
| 752 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 1931 |
|||
| 175 |
|||
| 89 |
|||
| 760 |
|||
| 1,033 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 1947 |
|||
| 630 |
|||
| 143 |
|||
| 1,181 |
|||
| 1,970 |
|||
|}</center> |
|||
<sup>'''1.'''</sup> Figures in thousands. The total includes Druzes and other small religious minorities.<br /> |
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<sup>'''2.'''</sup> There is no consensus on the population of Palestine in the first century of the Common Era; estimates range from under 1 million to 6 million. |
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According to [[Alexander Scholch]], the population of Palestine in 1850 had about 350,000 inhabitants, 30% of whom lived in 13 towns; roughly 85% were Muslims, 11% were Christians and 4% Jews<ref>[http://www.jstor.org/view/00207438/ap010071/01a00050/0 Scholch], 1985, p. 503.</ref> |
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<center> |
|||
{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:right; margin-right:60px;" |
|||
|- |
|||
!rowspan=2| |
|||
!rowspan=2 align=center |Qazas |
|||
!rowspan=2| <small> Number of <br />Towns and <br />Villages</small> |
|||
! colspan=4 rowspan=1 |<center>Number of Households</center> |
|||
|- |
|||
!rowspan=1|<small>Muslims</small> |
|||
!rowspan=1|<small>Christians</small> |
|||
!rowspan=1|<small>Jews</small> |
|||
!rowspan=1|<small>Total</small> |
|||
|- |
|||
| 1 ||align=left | '''Jerusalem''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Jerusalem</small>|| 1 || 1,025 ||738 ||630||2,393 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 116 || 6,118 ||1,202 ||<center>-</center> || 7,320 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 2 ||align=left | '''Hebron''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Hebron</small>|| 1 || 2,800||<center>-</center> ||200||3,000 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 52 || 2,820||<center>-</center>||<center>-</center> || 2,820 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 3 ||align=left | '''Gaza''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Gaza</small>|| 1 || 2,690||65 ||<center>-</center>||2,755 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 55 || 6,417|| <center>-</center> || <center>-</center> || 6,417 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 3 ||align=left | '''Jaffa''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Jaffa</small>|| 3 || 865||266||<center>-</center>||1,131 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Ludd</small>|| . || 700||207||<center>-</center> || 907 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Ramla</small>|| . || 675||250||<center>-</center> || 925 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 61 || 3,439||<center>-</center>||<center>-</center> || 3,439 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 4||align=left | '''Nablus''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Nablus</small>|| 1 || 1,356||108 ||14||1,478 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 176 || 13,022|| 202 ||<center>-</center> || 13,224 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 5 ||align=left | '''Jinin''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Jinin</small>|| 1 || 656||16 ||<center>-</center>||672 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 39 || 2,120|| 17 || <center>-</center> || 2,137 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 6 ||align=left | '''Ajlun''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 97 || 1,599|| 137 || <center>-</center> || 1,736 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 7 ||align=left | '''Salt''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Salt</small>|| 1 || 500||250 ||<center>-</center>||750 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 12 || 685|| <center>-</center> || <center>-</center> || 685 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 8 ||align=left | '''Akka''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Gaza</small>|| 1 || 547||210 || 6 ||763 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 34 || 1,768|| 1,021 || <center>-</center> || 2,789 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 9 ||align=left | '''Haifa''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Haifa</small>|| 1 || 224||228 ||8 ||460 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 41 || 2,011|| 161 || <center>-</center> || 2,171 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 10 ||align=left | '''Nazareth''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Nazareth</small>|| 1 || 275||1,073 ||<center>-</center>||1,348 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 38 || 1,606|| 544 || <center>-</center> || 2,150 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 11 ||align=left | '''Tiberias''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Tiberias</small>|| 1 || 159||66 || 400 ||625 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 7 || 507|| <center>-</center> || <center>-</center> || 507 |
|||
|- |
|||
| 12 ||align=left | '''Safad''' |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Safad</small>|| 1 || 1,295||3 || 1,197 ||2,495 |
|||
|- |
|||
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 38 || 1,117|| 616 || <center>-</center> || 1,733 |
|||
|}</center> |
|||
Figures from Ben-Arieh, in Scholch 1985, p. 388. |
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According to [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] statistics studied by [[Justin McCarthy (American historian)|Justin McCarthy]],<ref>McCarthy, 1990, p.26.</ref> the population of Palestine in the early 19th century was 350,000, in 1860 it was 411,000 and in 1900 about 600,000 of which 94% were [[Arabs]]. In 1914 Palestine had a population of 657,000 Muslim Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs, and 59,000 Jews.<ref>McCarthy, 1990.</ref> McCarthy estimates the non-Jewish population of Palestine at 452,789 in 1882, 737,389 in 1914, 725,507 in 1922, 880,746 in 1931 and 1,339,763 in 1946.<ref>McCarthy, 1990, pp. 37-38.</ref> |
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====Travelers' impressions of 19th century Palestine==== |
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[[Alphonse de Lamartine]] visited Palestine in 1835, "Outside the gates of Jerusalem we saw indeed no living object, heard no living sound, we found the same void, the same silence ... as we should have expected before the entombed gates of Pompeii or Herculaneam a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, on the highways, in the country ... the tomb of a whole people.<ref> Katz, 114 citing Alphonse de Lamartine, ''Recollections of the East'', Vol. I (London, 1845), pp. 268, 308. </ref> |
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The satirist [[Mark Twain]] wrote a humorous account of his visit to Palestine in 1867, and wrote in chapters 46,49,52 and 56 of ''[[Innocents Abroad]]'': "Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Palestine is desolate and unlovely -- Palestine is no more of this workday world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition, it is dreamland."(Chapter 56)<ref> [http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=TwaInno.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=56&division=div1 Chapter 56].</ref> "There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country". (Chapter 52)<ref> [http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=TwaInno.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=52&division=div1 Chapter 52].</ref> "A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tabor safely. We never saw a human being on the whole route". (Chapter 49)<ref>[http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=TwaInno.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=49&division=div1 Chapter 49].</ref> "There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent – not for thirty miles in either direction. ...One may ride ten miles (16 km) hereabouts and not see ten human beings." ...these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness..."(Chapter 46)<ref>[http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=TwaInno.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=46&division=div1 Chapter 46].</ref> |
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"Innocents Abroad" was a literary satire which poked holes in the underpinnings of various popularly held theories, like manifest destiny. Twain held some of the usual colonialist and orientalist assumptions of the day, but he openly mocked Christian and Jewish claims to Arab-owned lands in Palestine.<ref>[http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/marktwain/TomSawyerAbroad/Chap1.html see: Tom Sawyer Abroad Chapter 1]</ref> |
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[[Kathleen Christison]], an American author who spent sixteen years as an analyst for the CIA, was critical of attempts to use Twain's humorous writing as a literal description of Palestine at that time. She writes that "Twain's descriptions are high in Israeli government press handouts that present a case for Israel's redemption of a land that had previously been empty and barren. His gross characterizations of the land and the people in the time before mass Jewish immigration are also often used by US propagandists for Israel."<ref>K. Christison, Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy, Univ. of California Press, 1999; p16.</ref> For example she noted that Twain described the Samaritans of Nablus at length without mentioning the much larger Arab population at all.<ref>K. Christison, Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on US Middle East Policy, Univ. of California Press, 1999; p. 20.</ref> The Arab population of Nablus at the time was about 20,000.<ref>B. B. Doumani, The political economy of population counts in Ottoman Palestine: Nablus, Circa 1950, ''International Journal of Middle East Studies'', Vol 26 (1994) 1-17.</ref> |
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During the nineteenth century, many residents and visitors attempted to estimate the population without recourse to official data, and came up with a large number of different values. Estimates that are reasonably reliable are only available for the final third of the century, from which period Ottoman population and taxation registers have been preserved.<ref>J. McCarthy, The population of Ottoman Syria and Iraq, 1878-1914, ''Asian and African Studies'', vol. 15 (1981) pp. 3-44. K. H. Karpat, Ottoman population 1830-1914 (Univ. Wisconsin Press, 1985).</ref> |
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After a visit to Palestine in 1891, [[Ahad Ha'am]] wrote: |
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<blockquote> |
|||
From abroad, we are accustomed to believe that Eretz Israel is presently almost totally desolate, an uncultivated desert, and that anyone wishing to buy land there can come and buy all he wants. But in truth it is not so. In the entire land, it is hard to find tillable land that is not already tilled; only sandy fields or stony hills, suitable at best for planting trees or vines and, even that after considerable work and expense in clearing and preparing them- only these remain unworked. ... Many of our people who came to buy land have been in Eretz Israel for months, and have toured its length and width, without finding what they seek.<ref> Alan Dowty, Much Ado about Little: Ahad Ha'am's "Truth from Eretz Yisrael", Zionism, and the Arabs, ''Israel Studies'', Vol. 5, No. 2 (Fall 2000) 154-181.</ref> |
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</blockquote> |
|||
In 1852 the [[United States of America|American]] [[writer]] [[Bayard Taylor]] travelled across the [[Jezreel Valley]], which he described in his 1854 book ''The Lands of the Saracen; or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily and Spain'' as: "one of the richest districts in the world.",<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10924/10924-h/10924-h.htm |title=The Lands of the Saracen, by Bayard Taylor |publisher=Gutenberg.org |date=2004-02-01 |accessdate=2009-06-16}}</ref> while [[Laurence Oliphant (1829-1888)|Lawrence Oliphant]], who visited Palestine in 1887, wrote that Palestine's [[Jezreel Valley|Valley of Esdraelon]] was "a huge green lake of waving wheat, with its village-crowned mounds rising from it like islands; and it presents one of the most striking pictures of luxuriant fertility which it is possible to conceive."<ref>Abu-Lughod, 1971, p. 126.</ref> |
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According to Paul Masson, a French economic historian, "wheat shipments from the Palestinian port of Acre had helped to save southern France from famine on numerous occasions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."<ref>Marwan R. Beheiry, "The Agricultural Exports of Southern Palestine, 1885-1 9 14", ''Journal of Palestine Studies'', volume 10, No. 4, 198 1, p. 67.</ref> |
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Walter C. Lowdermilk, Assistant Chief of the United States Soil Conservation Service has compared Palestine favorably to California: |
|||
<blockquote> |
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The similarity of Southern California and Palestine is so close in climate, topography, soils and vegetation that the present condition of similarly placed areas in California is a reliable index of the early condition of the land of Palestine. Vegetation varied from desert scrub on lower slopes of the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea, to luxuriant forests of Cedars of Lebanon on the flanks of Mount Hermon, similar to the desert vegetation from Coachella Valley below sea level in Southern California to pine and fir forests on lower slopes of Mt. Baldy (10,000 ft) in the San Gabriel Range. Rainfall favours Palestine, for Jaffa gets more rain 21.5 inches) per annum than Los Angeles (15.2 inches), and the Mt. Hermon mountain land mass gets up to {{convert|70|in|mm}} of rain while Mt. Baldy only {{convert|50|in|mm}}. Other comparisons are striking. The region of the Jordan River, including Palestine and Trans-Jordan and the maritime slopes, is quite similar to California, but has an added advantage of its limestone country rock. The climates are alike, the natural vegetation, the physiographic features, except for the great limestone springs in Palestine. Similar crops may be grown. Differences are that soils of Palestine were uniformly better, that uplands have been badly eroded from misuse, and that slopes of Palestine favoured tree crops and were terraced where surface rock was ready at hand..".<ref>''Palestine's Economic Future: A Review of Progress and Prospects'' (London: Percy Lund Humphries and Co., Ltd., 1946), pp. 19-23.</ref> |
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</blockquote> |
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====Official reports==== |
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The Report of the Palestine Royal Commission contains a description of conditions along Palestine's coastal plain in 1913: "The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts...No orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached [the Jewish village of] Yabna [Yavne]...Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen...The ploughs used were of wood...The yields were very poor...The sanitary conditions in the village were horrible. Schools did not exist...The western part, towards the sea, was almost a desert...The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants."<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Arabs_in_Palestine.html Jewish Virtual Library: Arabs in Palestine]</ref> |
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In 1920, the League of Nations' ''Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine'' stated that there were 700,000 people living in Palestine: |
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<blockquote> |
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Of these 235,000 live in the larger towns, 465,000 in the smaller towns and villages. Four-fifths of the whole population are Moslems. A small proportion of these are Bedouin Arabs; the remainder, although they speak Arabic and are termed Arabs, are largely of mixed race. Some 77,000 of the population are Christians, in large majority belonging to the Orthodox Church, and speaking Arabic. The minority are members of the Latin or of the Uniate Greek Catholic Church, or--a small number--are Protestants. |
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The Jewish element of the population numbers 76,000. Almost all have entered Palestine during the last 40 years. Prior to 1850 there were in the country only a handful of Jews. In the following 30 years a few hundreds came to Palestine. Most of them were animated by religious motives; they came to pray and to die in the Holy Land, and to be buried in its soil. After the persecutions in Russia forty years ago, the movement of the Jews to Palestine assumed larger proportions.<ref>[http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/349b02280a930813052565e90048ed1c!OpenDocument Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine]</ref></blockquote> |
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By 1948, the population had risen to 1,900,000, of whom 68% were [[Arabs]], and 32% were [[Jews]] ([[UNSCOP]] report, including [[bedouin]]). |
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===The question of late Arab immigration to Palestine=== |
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Whether there was significant Arab immigration into Palestine after the beginning of Jewish settlement there in the late 19th century has become a matter of some controversy. The official British Census data for Palestine, the reports made by the Mandatory Administration to the League of Nations, the 1938 Palestine Partition Commission, Population expert A.M. Carr-Saunders, and the Anglo-American Committee concluded that Arab population growth was attributable to "natural increase", not to any substantial immigration.<ref>[http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2138#note1 From Time Immemorial - Natural Increase and the Growth of Palestine's Arab Population]</ref> |
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According to [[Martin Gilbert]], 50,000 Arabs immigrated to Palestine from the neighboring lands between 1919 and 1939 "attracted by the improving agricultural conditions and growing job opportunities, most of them created by the Jews".<ref>Gilbert, 2005, p. 16.</ref> |
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American economist [http://www.meforum.org/article/522/ Fred Gottheil] argues that there likely was significant Arab immigration: |
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<blockquote> |
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There is every reason to believe that consequential immigration of Arabs into and within Palestine occurred during the Ottoman and British mandatory periods. Among the most compelling arguments in support of such immigration is the universally acknowledged and practiced linkage between regional economic disparities and migratory impulses. The precise magnitude of Arab immigration into and within Palestine is, as Bachi noted, unknown. Lack of completeness in Ottoman registration lists and British Mandatory censuses, and the immeasurable illegal, unreported, and undetected immigration during both periods make any estimate a bold venture into creative analysis. In most cases, those venturing into the realm of Palestinian demography—or other demographic analyses based on very crude data—acknowledge its limitations and the tentativeness of the conclusions that may be drawn.<ref>Gottheil, 2003.</ref> |
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</blockquote> |
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[[Roberto Bachi]] has concluded that there was a small but significant unrecorded Muslim immigration into Palestine estimated at around 900 people per year or approximately 13,500 in total between 1931 and 1945.<ref name = "McCarthy-p33"/> |
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McCarthy explains, "... evidence for Muslim immigration into Palestine is minimal. Because no Ottoman records of that immigration have yet been discovered, one is thrown back on demographic analysis to evaluate Muslim migration."<ref name = "McCarthy-p33">McCarthy, 1990, p. 33.</ref><ref name = "McCarthy-p16">McCarthy, 1990, p. 16.</ref> McCarthy argues that there is no significant Arab immigration into mandatory Palestine: |
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<blockquote> |
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From analyses of rates of increase of the Muslim population of the three Palestinian sanjaks, one can say with certainty that Muslim immigration after the 1870s was small. Had there been a large group of Muslim immigrants their numbers would have caused an unusual increase in the population and this would have appeared in the calculated rate of increase from one registration list to another... Such an increase would have been easily noticed; it was not there.<ref name = "McCarthy-p16"/> |
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</blockquote> |
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<blockquote> |
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The argument that Arab immigration somehow made up a large part of the Palestinian Arab population is thus statistically untenable. The vast majority of the Palestinian Arabs resident in 1947 were the sons and daughters of Arabs who were living in Palestine before modern Jewish immigration began. There is no reason to believe that they were not the sons and daughters of Arabs who had been in Palestine for many centuries.<ref>McCarthy, 1990, p. 38.</ref> |
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</blockquote> |
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McCarthy also concludes that there was no significant internal migration to Jewish areas attributable to better economic conditions: |
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<blockquote> |
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Some areas of Palestine did experience greater population growth than others, but the explanation for this is simple. Radical economic change was occurring all over the Mediterranean Basin at the time. Improved transportation, greater mercantile activity, and greater industry had increased the chances for employment in cities, especially coastal cities... Differential population increase was occurring all over the Eastern Mediterranean, not just in Palestine... The increase in Muslim population had little or nothing to do with Jewish immigration. In fact the province that experienced the greatest Jewish population growth (by .035 annually), Jerusalem Sanjak, was the province with the lowest rate of growth of Muslim population (.009).<ref>McCarthy, 1990, pp. 16-17.</ref> |
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</blockquote> |
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Gad Gilbar has also concluded that the prosperity of the Palestine in the 45–50 years before World War I was a result of the modernization and growth of the economy owing to its integration with the world economy and especially with the economies of Europe. Although the reasons for growth were exogenous to Palestine the bearers were not waves of Jewish immigration, foreign intervention nor Ottoman reforms but "primarily local Arab Muslims and Christians."<ref>Gilbar, 1986, p. 188.</ref> |
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Demographer [[Uziel Schmelz]], in his analysis of Ottoman registration data for 1905 populations of Jerusalem and Hebron ''[[kazas]]'', found that most Ottoman citizens living in these areas, comprising about one quarter of the population of Palestine, were living at the place where they were born. Specifically, of Muslims, 93.1% were born in their current locality of residence, 5.2% were born elsewhere in Palestine, and 1.6% were born outside Palestine. Of Christians, 93.4% were born in their current locality, 3.0% were born elsewhere in Palestine, and 3.6% were born outside Palestine. Of Jews (excluding the large fraction who were not Ottoman citizens), 59.0% were born in their current locality, 1.9% were born elsewhere in Palestine, and 39.0% were born outside Palestine.<ref>Schmelz, 1990, pp. 15-67.</ref> |
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[[Yehoshua Porath]] believes that the notion of "large-scale immigration of Arabs from the neighboring countries" is a myth "proposed by Zionist writers". He writes: |
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<blockquote> |
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As all the research by historian Fares Abdul Rahim and geographers of modern Palestine shows, the Arab population began to grow again in the middle of the nineteenth century. That growth resulted from a new factor: the demographic revolution. Until the 1850s there was no "natural" increase of the population, but this began to change when modern medical treatment was introduced and modern hospitals were established, both by the Ottoman authorities and by the foreign Christian missionaries. The number of births remained steady but infant mortality decreased. This was the main reason for Arab population growth. ... No one would doubt that some migrant workers came to Palestine from Syria and Trans-Jordan and remained there. But one has to add to this that there were migrations in the opposite direction as well. For example, a tradition developed in Hebron to go to study and work in Cairo, with the result that a permanent community of Hebronites had been living in Cairo since the fifteenth century. Trans-Jordan exported unskilled casual labor to Palestine; but before 1948 its civil service attracted a good many educated Palestinian Arabs who did not find work in Palestine itself. Demographically speaking, however, neither movement of population was significant in comparison to the decisive factor of natural increase.<ref>Porath, Y. (1986). [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5249 Mrs. Peters's Palestine]. ''New York Review of Books''. 16 January, 32 (21 & 22).</ref> |
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</blockquote> |
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[[Daniel Pipes]] responded to Porath by granting that [[From Time Immemorial]] quoted carelessly, used statistics sloppily, and ignored inconvenient facts. Nonetheless, he explained that:<blockquote> |
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Miss Peters's central thesis is that a substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century. She supports this argument with an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by any reviewer, including Professor Porath. |
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</blockquote>Professor Porath replied with an array of data culled from expert demographers to confirm his position. He also pointed out that Peters demographic statistics were inexplicable: <blockquote> |
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...nowhere in her main text or in the methodological appendices (V and VI) did Mrs. Peters bother to explain to her readers how she managed to break down the Ottoman or Cuinet's figures into smaller units than subdistricts. As far as I know no figures for the units smaller than subdistricts (Nahia; the parallel of the French commune), covering the area of Ottoman Palestine, were ever published. Therefore I can't avoid the conclusion that Mrs. Peters's figures were, at best, based on guesswork and an extremely tendentious guesswork at that.<ref>[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5172 Mrs. Peters's Palestine: An Exchange], ''The New York Review of Books'', Volume 33, Number 5, March 27, 1986.</ref></blockquote> |
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===Current demographics=== |
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{{See also|Demographics of Israel|Demographics of the Palestinian territories|Demographics of Jordan}} |
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According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, as of May 2006, of Israel's 7 million people, 77% were [[Jew]]s, 18.5% [[Arab]]s, and 4.3% "others".<ref name="pdf2">{{cite web| url= http://www1.cbs.gov.il/shnaton56/st02_01.pdf| title=Population, by religion and population group| accessdate=2006-04-08| first =Government of Israel| last =Central Bureau of Statistics |format=PDF}} </ref> Among Jews, 68% were [[Sabra (person)|Sabras]] (Israeli-born), mostly second- or third-generation Israelis, and the rest are [[oleh|olim]] — 22% from Europe and the [[Americas]], and 10% from Asia and Africa, including the [[Arab world|Arab countries]].<ref name="pdf3">{{cite web| url= http://www1.cbs.gov.il/shnaton56/st02_24.pdf| title=Jews and others, by origin, continent of birth and period of immigration| accessdate=2006-04-08| first =Government of Israel| last =Central Bureau of Statistics |format=PDF}} </ref> |
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According to Palestinian evaluations, The [[West Bank]] is inhabited by approximately 2.4 million [[Palestinians]] and the [[Gaza Strip]] by another 1.4 million. According to a study presented at The Sixth Herzliya Conference on The Balance of Israel's National Security<ref name=Herzliya>{{cite web |
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|title = Arab Population in the West Bank & Gaza: The Million Person Gap |
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|author = Bennett Zimmerman & Roberta Seid |
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|publisher = American-Israel Demographic Research Group |
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|date = January 23, 2006 |
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|url = http://www.pademographics.com |
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|accessdate = 2006-09-27 |
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}}</ref> there are 1.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank. This study was criticised by demographer Sergio DellaPergola, who estimated 3.33 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip combined at the end of 2005.<ref>{{cite web|title=Letter to the Editor|publisher = Azure|date = Winter 2007, No. 27 |author = Sergio DellaPergola|url = http://www.azure.org.il/magazine/magazine.asp?id=356|accessdate=2007-01-11}}{{dead link|date=January 2009}}</ref> |
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According to these Israeli and Palestinian estimates, the population in Israel and the Palestinian Territories stands at 9.8-10.8 million. |
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Jordan has a population of around 6,000,000 (2007 estimate).<ref>[http://encarta.msn.com/fact_631504791/Jordan_Facts_and_Figures.html Jordan: Facts & Figures], accessed 22 May, 2007.</ref><ref>[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/jo.html CIA World Factbook], accessed 22 May, 2007.</ref> Palestinians constitute approximately half of this number.<ref>[http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/assessment.asp?groupId=66302 Assessment for Palestinians in Jordan], Minorities at Risk, accessed 22 May, 2007.</ref> |
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==See also== |
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{{commonscat|Maps of the history of the Middle East}} |
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{{wikiquote}} |
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{{Main|Outline of Palestine}} |
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*[[Arab-Israeli conflict]] |
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*[[British Mandate of Palestine]] |
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*[[Greater Israel]] |
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*[[Greater Syria]] |
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*[[History of Palestine]] |
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*[[Israel|State of Israel]] |
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*[[Israeli-Palestinian conflict]] |
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*[[Land of Israel]] |
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*[[Names of the Levant]] |
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*[[Palestinian Authority]] |
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*[[Palestinian people]] |
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*[[Place names in Palestine]] |
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*[[State of Palestine]] |
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==References== |
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{{Reflist|2}} |
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==External links== |
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*The Hope Simpson Report (London, 1930) [http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/e3ed8720f8707c9385256d19004f057c!OpenDocument] |
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*Palestine Royal Commission Report (the Peel Report) (London, 1937) [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/peel1.html] |
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*Report to the Council of the League of Nations (1928) [http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/3d14c9e5cdaa296d85256cbf005aa3eb/a212ce7d6edb27c6052565d4005af973!OpenDocument] |
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*Report to the Council of the League of Nations (1929) [http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/38bed104db074b49052565e70054eb22!OpenDocument] |
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*Report to the Council of the League of Nations (1934) [http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/3d14c9e5cdaa296d85256cbf005aa3eb/a212ce7d6edb27c6052565d4005af973!OpenDocument] |
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*Report to the Council of the League of Nations (1935) [http://domino.un.org/UNISPAl.NSF/3d14c9e5cdaa296d85256cbf005aa3eb/b672dc87b2d50447052565d4005173df!OpenDocument] |
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*[http://www.mideastweb.org/palpop.htm www.mideastweb.org - A website with a wealth of statistics regarding population in Palestine] |
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*[http://www.drberlin.com/palestine/ Coins and Banknotes of Palestine under the British Mandate] |
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*[http://www.worldstatesmen.org/ WorldStatesmen- Maps, flags, chronology, see Israel and Palestinian National Authority] |
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*[http://www.hweb.org.uk/content/view/69/3/ hWeb - Israel-Palestine in Maps] |
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*[http://www.commonlanguageproject.net/?page_id=41#Palestine Palestine Fact Sheet] from the Common Language Project |
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*[http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Palestine 1911 Encyclopedia description of Palestine] |
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*[http://www.ldfp.eu/ Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine] |
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*[http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/ngo/history.html History of the Palestine Problem, UN website] |
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; Maps |
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*[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gov46/sykes-picot-1916.gif Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916] |
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*[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/images/israel04.jpg 1947 UN Partition Plan] |
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*[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/images/israel05.jpg 1949 Armisitice Lines] |
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*[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gov46/israel-post-armstice-1949.gif Israel After 1949 Armistice Agreements] |
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*[http://www.ldfp.eu/Maps.html Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine]{{Dead link|date=January 2009}} |
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{{col-begin}} |
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{{col-2}} |
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[[Category:Palestine]] |
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[[Category:Arabic-speaking countries]] |
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[[Category:Levant]] |
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[[Category:Regions of Asia]] |
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[[Category:Divided regions]] |
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[[Category:Disputed territories]] |
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[[Category:Zionism]] |
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[[Category:Fertile Crescent]] |
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<!-- interwiki --> |
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[[ar:فلسطين]] |
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[[an:Palestina]] |
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[[arc:ܦܠܫܬ]] |
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[[ast:Palestina]] |
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[[az:Fələstin]] |
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[[be-x-old:Палестына]] |
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[[dv:ފަލަޞްޠީން]] |
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[[el:Παλαιστίνη (ιστορική περιοχή)]] |
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[[fa:فلسطین]] |
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[[fr:Palestine]] |
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[[ga:An Phalaistín]] |
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[[gl:Palestina - فلسطين]] |
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[[hak:Pâ-le̍t-sṳ̂-thán]] |
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[[ko:팔레스타인]] |
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[[ha:Falasdinu]] |
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[[hi:फ़िलस्तीन]] |
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[[io:Palestina]] |
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[[it:Palestina]] |
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[[he:ארץ ישראל]] |
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[[ka:პალესტინა]] |
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[[ks:फिलिस्तीन]] |
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[[la:Palaestina]] |
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[[ml:ഫലസ്തീന്]] |
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[[ru:Палестина]] |
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[[scn:Palistina]] |
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[[simple:Palestine]] |
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[[sk:Palestína (územie)]] |
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[[sl:Palestina]] |
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[[sr:Палестина]] |
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[[fi:Palestiina]] |
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[[sv:Palestina]] |
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[[tt:Фалистын]] |
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[[th:ปาเลสไตน์]] |
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[[tr:Filistin]] |
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[[uk:Палестина]] |
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[[vi:Palestine (tên gọi lịch sử)]] |
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[[wa:Palestene (contrêye)]] |
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[[wuu:巴勒斯坦]] |
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[[yi:פאלעסטינע]] |
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[[zh-yue:巴勒斯坦]] |
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[[zh:巴勒斯坦]] |
Revision as of 07:20, 10 July 2009
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/MiddleEast.A2003031.0820.250m.jpg/220px-MiddleEast.A2003031.0820.250m.jpg)
Palestine (Greek: Παλαιστίνη, Palaistinē; Latin: Palaestina; Hebrew: פלשתינה Palestina; Arabic: فلسطين [Filasṭīn] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [Falasṭīn] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), [Filisṭīn] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region that was earlier called Judea, which spreads between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.[1] It is derived from a name used already much earlier for a narrower geographical region, mainly along the coast.
In its broader meaning as a geographical term, Palestine can refer to an area that includes contemporary Israel and the Palestinian territories, parts of Jordan, and parts of Lebanon and Syria. In its narrow meaning, it can refer to the area within the boundaries of the former British Mandate of Palestine (1920-1948) west of the Jordan River; the Country, or State of Palestine, comprising territory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip;[2] or to Proposals for a Palestinian state in line with the pre-1967 borders.[3]
Name and boundaries
The name and the borders of Palestine have varied throughout history, though Palestine has certain natural boundaries that justify its historical individuality. The name itself was given to these lands by the Romans around 135 CE when the emperor Hadrian brutally suppressed the Jewish Resistance movement and occupied Judea. They called it the Province of 'Syria Palaestina and built a temple to Jupiter on Israel's destroyed holiest site. [citation needed]
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia published between 1901-1906:
Palestine extends, from 31° to 33° 20′ N. latitude. Its southwest point (at Raphia = Tell Rifaḥ, southwest of Gaza) is about 34° 15′ E. longitude, and its northwest point (mouth of the Liṭani) is at 35° 15′ E. longitude, while the course of the Jordan reaches 35° 35′ to the east. The west-Jordan country has, consequently, a length of about 150 English miles from north to south, and a breadth of about 23 miles at the north and 80 miles at the south. The area of this region, as measured by the survey
- ^ "The Palestine Exploration Fund". The Palestine Exploration Fund. Retrieved 2008-04-04.
- ^ Recognition of the existing State of Palestine:
- "Jerusalem court: Palestinian Authority meets criteria to be classed as a sovereign state, by Yuval Yoaz 1 Ha'aretz, Retrieved 4 June 2009
- "Costa Rica Opens Official Ties With ‘State of Palestine’", By Marc Perelman 2, The Jewish Daily Forward, Retrieved 4 June 2009
- "DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, Customs Service, T.D. 97–16, Country of Origin Marking of Products From the West Bank and Gaza" 3, US Federal Register, Retrieved 4 June 2009
- "Is Palestine a State?", by Forji Amin George 5, Expert Law. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
- ^ Proposals for a Palestinian state: