Medieval Ruin Park

The history of Palestine is the study of the past in the region of Palestine, generally defined as a geographic region in the Southern Levant between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River , and various adjoining lands. Situated at a strategic point between Europe, Asia, and Africa, and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region has a long and tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. The Palestine region or parts of it have been controlled by numerous different peoples and regional powers, including the Canaanites, Amorites, Ancient Egyptians, Israelites, Moabites, Ammonites, Tjeker, Philistines, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, different dynasties of the Early Muslim period , Crusaders, Late Muslim dynasties , the British, Jordanians and Egyptians , and modern Israelis and Palestinians. Other terms for approximate geographic area include Canaan, Zion, the Land of Israel, Southern Syria, Outremer and the Holy Land. The region was among the earliest in the world to see human habitation, agricultural communities and civilization. During the Early and Middle Bronze Age, independent Canaanite city-states were established, and were influenced by the surrounding civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Minoan Crete, and Syria. During Late Bronze Age 1550–1400 BCE, the Canaanite cities became vassals to the Egyptian New Kingdom who held power until the 1178 BCE Battle of Djahy during the wider Bronze Age collapse. Modern archaeologists dispute parts of the Biblical tradition, the latest thinking being that the Israelites emerged from a dramatic social transformation that took place in the people of the central hill country of Canaan around 1200 BCE, with no signs of violent invasion or even of peaceful infiltration of a clearly defined ethnic group from elsewhere. The Philistines, part of Sea Peoples of Southern Europe, arrived and mingled with the local Canaanite population, and according to Biblical tradition, the United Kingdom of Israel was established in 1020 BCE and split within a century to form the northern Kingdom of Israel, and the southern Kingdom of Judah. The region became part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from c. 740 BCE, which was itself replaced by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in c. 627 BCE. A war of Baylonians with Judean Kingdom culminated in 586 BCE when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II and the local leaders were deported to Babylonia, only to be allowed to return under the rule of the Achaemenid Empire. In the 330s BCE, Alexander the Great conquered the coastline of the region of Palestine, and it changed hands numerous times during the wars of the Diadochi, ultimately joining the Seleucid Empire between 219 and 200 BCE. In 116 BCE, a Seleucid civil war resulted in the independence of certain regions including the minor Hasmonean principality in the Judean Mountains. From 110 BCE, the Hasmoneans extended their authority over much of the area, creating a Judean–Samaritan–Idumaean–Ituraean–Galilean alliance. The Judean control over the wider region resulted in it also becoming known as Hasmonean Judaea, a term that had previously only referred to the smaller region of the Judean Mountains. During 73–63 BCE, the Roman Republic extended its influence into the region in the Third Mithridatic War, making Judea a vassal kingdom in 63 BCE, and splitting the Hasmonean Kingdom into five districts. After several decades as vassal of the Roman Empire, the Herodian kingdom and tetrarchy was gradually absorbed into Roman Empire as the Roman Judea. Between 66 and 135 CE massive Judean revolts troubled the province, resulting in sack of Jerusalem and extensive depopulation of the country. Jews were prohibited from living in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and in 132 Jerusalem was renamed Aelia Capitolina. As a result, many Jewish landowners converted to the Ebionim to maintain their properties. After the Bar Kokhba revolt Hadrian joined the province of Judaea with Syria to form a new province and renamed it Syria Palaestina. During 259–272, the region briefly fell under the rule of Odaenathus as King of the Palmyrene Empire. Following the victory of Christian emperor Constantine in the Civil Wars of the Tetrarchy , the Christianization of the Roman Empire began, and in 326, Constantine's mother Saint Helena visited Jerusalem and began the construction of churches and shrines. Byzantine Palestine became a center of Christianity, attracting numerous monks and religious scholars. Persecution of Ebionites led to their dispersion to Arabia and the Parthian Empire. The Christians gradually gained dominance demographically, especially after the Samaritan Revolts during late Byzantine period, which had caused the near extinction of Samaritans. In early 7th century the region briefly fell under the Sasanian Empire and Jewish rebels, until the return of Byzantines in 625-9. Region of Palestine was conqueredby the Islamic Empire following the 636 CE Battle of Yarmouk during the Muslim conquest of Syria, and the Muslims gave relief from burdensome Roman taxes and religious persecution of Christian heretics. The country was incorporated into Bilad al-Sham Province as military districts of Urdunn and Filastin. In 661 CE, with the assassination of Ali, Muawiyah I became the uncontested Caliph of the Islamic World after being crowned in Jerusalem. In 691, the Dome of the Rock became the world's first great work of Islamic architecture. The Umayyads were replaced by the Abbasids in 750. From 878 Palestine was ruled from Egypt by semi-autonomous rulers for almost a century, beginning with Ahmad ibn Tulun and ending with the Ikhshidid rulers who were both buried in Jerusalem. The Fatimids conquered the region in 969. In 1073, Palestine was captured by the Great Seljuq Empire, only to be recaptured by the Fatimids in 1098, who then lost the region to the Crusaders in 1099. Crusader control of Jerusalem and most of Palestine as the Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted almost a century until defeat by Saladin's forces in 1187, after which most of Palestine became controlled by the Ayyubids. A rump Crusader state in the northern coastal cities survived for another century, but despite seven further Crusades, the Crusaders were no longer a significant power in the region. The Mamluk Sultanate was indirectly created in Egypt as a result of the Seventh Crusade. The Mongol Empire reached Palestine for the first time in 1260, beginning with the raids into the Levant under Nestorian Christian general Kitbuqa and reaching an apex at the pivotal Battle of Ain Jalut. In 1486, hostilities broke out between the Mamluks and the Ottoman Turks and the Ottomans captured Mamluk Palestine and Syria in 1516. The Ottoman rule of the country lasted for four centuries, administratively included in the provinces of Ottoman Syria. In 1832, the region was conquered by Muhammad Ali's Egypt, but, in 1840, Britain intervened and returned control of the Levant to the Ottomans in return for further capitulations. The turbulent period of Egyptian rule experienced two major revolts and a significant demographic change in coastal areas, repopulated by Egyptian Arab peasants and former soldiers of Muhammad Ali. Late 19th century was the timing for regional migrations of Druze, Circassians and Bedouin tribes and also the spike of Jewish immigration and the revival of the Hebrew language. Increasing Jewish immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries added considerably to the Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Jaffa.During World War I the British government issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917, stating that the British Government favors the establishment of national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. The British captured Jerusalem a month later. The League of Nations formally awarded Britain a mandate over Palestine in 1922. The land west of the Jordan River was under direct British administration until 1948, while the land east of the Jordan was a semi-autonomous region known as Transjordan Emirate, under the rule of the Hashemite family from the Hijaz, and gained independence in 1946. The 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine was a nationalist uprising by Palestinian Arabs against British colonial rule and mass Jewish immigration. After the Nazi Holocaust, pressure grew for the international recognition of a Jewish state in Palestine. In 1947, the British Government announced its intention to terminate the Mandate. The United Nations General Assembly voted to partition British Palestine into independent Arab and Jewish states, with a special international regime for Jerusalem. The Arabs rejected the partition of Palestine and civil war erupted in the immediate aftermath. The Jews of British Palestine declared the independence of the State of Israel in May 1948. During the 1948 Palestine War, Israel overran far more territory than was proposed by the Partition Plan; Jordan captured and annexed the West Bank, while in the Gaza Strip the All-Palestine Government was announced in September 1948. In what is known as the Nakba, or Catastrophe, hundreds of Palestinian villages and over 70,000 Palestinian homes were ruined and destroyed. 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes by the Israelis. The Palestinian refugees were unable to return following the Lausanne Conference, 1949. The question of the Palestinian right to return of the refugees and their descendants remains a source of dispute. During and after the 1948 war, a wave of Jewish refugees from Arab countries arrived in the newly created state of Israel. The All-Palestine Government was shortly moved from Gaza to Cairo and eventually dissolved in 1959 by Egyptian President Nasser. Gaza was taken into Egyptian military administration until 1967. The Palestinian national movement gradually regrouped in the West Bank and Gaza, and in refugee camps in neighbouring Arab states. The Palestine Liberation Organisation emerged as its leading umbrella group in 1965. During the Six-Day War in June 1967, Israel seized East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt, as well as the Golan Heights from Syria. Despite international objections and UN resolutions calling them illegal, Israel began a policy of establishing Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories. The PLO under Yasser Arafat gradually won international recognition as the representative of the Palestinian people. From 1987 to 1993, the First Palestinian Intifada against Israel took place, ending with the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords. These accords established a Palestinian National Authority as an interim body to run parts of Gaza and the West Bank pending an agreed solution to the conflict. During the Second Intifada , Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and began building the West Bank barrier. In 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections and took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, triggering the Israeli and Egyptian Blockade of the Gaza Strip . In 2008–09 and again in 2014, Israel and Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip engaged in warfare. In November 2012, the State of Palestine was upgraded in the UN to non-member observer state status, a move that allows it to take part in General Assembly debates and improves its chances of joining other UN agencies.
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