History of Israel

Visual History of Israel by Arthur Szyk, 1948

The history of Israel covers an area of the Southern Levant also known as Canaan, Palestine or the Holy Land, which is the geographical location of the modern states of Israel and Palestine. From a prehistory as part of the critical Levantine corridor, which witnessed waves of early humans out of Africa, to the emergence of Natufian culture c. 10th millennium BCE, the region entered the Bronze Age c. 2,000 BCE with the development of Canaanite civilization, before being vassalized by Egypt in the Late Bronze Age. In the Iron Age, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were established, entities that were central to the origins of the Jewish and Samaritan peoples as well as the Abrahamic faith tradition.[1][2][3][4][5][6] This has given rise to Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, Druzism, Baha'ism, and a variety of other religious movements. Throughout the course of human history, the Land of Israel has seen many conflicts and come under the sway or control of various polities and, as a result, it has historically hosted a wide variety of ethnic groups.

In the following centuries, the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian and Macedonian empires conquered the region. The Ptolemies and the Seleucids vied for control over the region during the Hellenistic period. However, with the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty, the local Jewish population maintained independence for a century before being incorporated into the Roman Republic.[7] As a result of the Jewish-Roman Wars in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, many Jews were killed, displaced or sold into slavery.[8][9][10][11] Following the advent of Christianity, which was adopted by the Greco-Roman world under the influence of the Roman Empire, the region's demographics shifted towards newfound Christians, who replaced Jews as the majority of the population by the 4th century. However, shortly after Islam was consolidated across the Arabian Peninsula under Muhammad in the 7th century, Byzantine Christian rule over the Land of Israel was superseded in the Muslim conquest of the Levant by the Rashidun Caliphate, to later be ruled by the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates, before being conquered by the Seljuks in the 1070s. Throughout the 12th and much of the 13th century, the Land of Israel became the centre for intermittent religious wars between European Christian and Muslim armies as part of the Crusades, with the Kingdom of Jerusalem being almost entirely overrun by Saladin's Ayyubids late in the 12th century, although the Crusaders managed to first expand from their remaining outposts, and then hang on to their constantly decreasing territories for another century. In the 13th century, the Land of Israel became subject to Mongol conquest, though this was stopped by the Mamluk Sultanate, under whose rule it remained until the 16th century. The Mamluks were eventually defeated by the Ottoman Empire, and the region became an Ottoman province until the early 20th century.

The late 19th century saw the rise of a Jewish nationalist movement in Europe known as Zionism, as part of which aliyah (Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel from the diaspora) increased. During World War I, the Sinai and Palestine campaign of the Allies led to the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. Britain was granted control of the region by League of Nations mandate, in what became known as Mandatory Palestine. The British government had publicly committed itself to the creation of a Jewish homeland in the 1917 Balfour declaration. Palestinian Arabs opposed this design, asserting their rights over the former Ottoman territories and seeking to prevent Jewish immigration. As a result, Arab–Jewish tensions grew in the succeeding decades of British administration. In late 1947, the United Nations voted for the partition of Mandate Palestine and the creation of a Jewish and an Arab state on its territory; the Jews accepted the plan, while the Arabs rejected it. A civil war ensued, won by the Jews.

In May 1948, the Israeli Declaration of Independence sparked the 1948 War in which Israel repelled the invading armies of the neighbouring states. It resulted in the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight and subsequently led to waves of Jewish emigration from other parts of the Middle East. Today, approximately 43 percent of the global Jewish population resides in Israel. In 1979, the Egypt–Israel peace treaty was signed, based on the Camp David Accords. In 1993, Israel signed the Oslo I Accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was followed by the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority. In 1994, the Israel–Jordan peace treaty was signed. Despite efforts to finalize the peace agreement, the conflict continues to play a major role in Israeli and international political, social, and economic life.

  1. ^ Shen et al. 2004, pp. 825–826, 828–829, 826–857.
  2. ^ Raymond P. Scheindlin (1998). A Short History of the Jewish People: From Legendary Times to Modern Statehood. Oxford University Press. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-0-19-513941-9. Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites"
  3. ^ Facts On File, Incorporated (2009). Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Africa and the Middle East. Infobase Publishing. pp. 337–. ISBN 978-1-4381-2676-0."The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history"
  4. ^ Harry Ostrer MD (2012). Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People. Oxford University Press. pp. 26–. ISBN 978-0-19-997638-6.
  5. ^ "Jew | History, Beliefs, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 20 August 2022. In the broader sense of the term, a Jew is any person belonging to the worldwide group that constitutes, through descent or conversion, a continuation of the ancient Jewish people, who were themselves descendants of the Hebrews of the Old Testament.
  6. ^ "Hebrew | people | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ben-Eliyahu-2019 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Taylor2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ M. Avi-Yonah, The Jews under Roman and Byzantine Rule, Jerusalem 1984 pp. 12–14
  10. ^ Mor, M. The Second Jewish Revolt: The Bar Kokhba War, 132-136 CE. Brill, 2016. P471/
  11. ^ Mor, Menahem (18 April 2016). The Second Jewish Revolt. BRILL. pp. 483–484. doi:10.1163/9789004314634. ISBN 978-90-04-31463-4. Land confiscation in Judaea was part of the suppression of the revolt policy of the Romans and punishment for the rebels. But the very claim that the sikarikon laws were annulled for settlement purposes seems to indicate that Jews continued to reside in Judaea even after the Second Revolt. There is no doubt that this area suffered the severest damage from the suppression of the revolt. Settlements in Judaea, such as Herodion and Bethar, had already been destroyed during the course of the revolt, and Jews were expelled from the districts of Gophna, Herodion, and Aqraba. However, it should not be claimed that the region of Judaea was completely destroyed. Jews continued to live in areas such as Lod (Lydda), south of the Hebron Mountain, and the coastal regions. In other areas of the Land of Israel that did not have any direct connection with the Second Revolt, no settlement changes can be identified as resulting from it.