Introduction (By S. Brian Willson)
The land that later came to be called Palestine was first inhabited as early as 9,000 years ago. The city of Jericho, a few miles north of the Dead Sea and west of the Jordan River, is reported to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. Canaan (the Biblical name for Palestine) later became inhabited by Semitic tribes from the inner Arabian Peninsula. The Jebusites, one of the Canaanite tribes, built a settlement 5,000 to 6,000 years ago called Urusalin (Jerusalem), meaning "the city of peace." Peace is still "salaam" in Arabic and "shalom" in Hebrew. Around 2000 BC, another Semitic people, the Hebrews, headed by Abraham, passed through Canaan on their way south. About 1300 BC Hebrew tribes under the leadership of Moses returned from Egypt and engaged in wars with the Canaanite tribes for possession of the land. The Philistines in the south, the Canaanites (Jebusites), Phoenicians, Amorites, and Hittites in the north resisted the Hebrew (Israelite) invasion. Four centuries later, the Israelites, under David, were successful in uniting the Hebrew nation, conquering and substantially absorbing the Canaanites. From this point, Israelites, Philistines, Hittites, and Canaanites mixed races and have subsequently been a racially mixed, Semitic people.
Note: Semitic designates a subfamily of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages including Arabic and Hebrew, among others.
Canaan, later to be named Palestine by the Romans, was at different times ruled by the Egyptian Pharaohs, the Hebrews, and Assyrians, the Chaldaeans, the Babylonians and Persians, Macedonians (Alexander the Great), the Egyptian Empire of the Ptolemies, and the Seleucids from Syria. The first Jewish dispersion occurred in 586 BC under the rule of the Chaldaeans (Babylonia), with thousands forced into exile to Babylon until the reconstruction in Palestine of a new Jewish state after 538 BC. During the Babylonia captivity, the Jews developed ideas and institutions that were subsequently to form the foundation of Jewish political and social life after the second dispersion in 135 AD. In 67 BC, a rebellion headed by Judas Maccabeus restored the Jewish state. However, the invincible Roman Empire seized Jerusalem and subdued the Jewish tribes in 63. Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD and the Jews were expelled in 135 AD. All of Judea was destroyed, 985 towns and villages burned, and 50 fortresses razed to the ground. The Romans had renamed Biblical Canaan, Palestine. Palestine was considered the land of the Philistines. In Arabic, Palestine is "Filastin." With the decline of Rome in 476 and Byzantine in 611, the Jews (descendants of Judah) began to migrate to Western Europe. The Muslim Arabs, also a Semitic people, conquered Palestine in 634 from the Persians. It was in Jerusalem that the prophet Muhammad reportedly rose to the heavens. Thus the city became holy land for the three great monotheistic religions. Palestine became predominantly Arab and Islamic by the end of the Seventh Century, and united the Semitic people with the exception of the Jews. The land was not even nominally Jewish after this point. With short intervals of partial domination by the Christian Crusaders and the Mongols in the 11th through 13th Centuries, Palestine was under Arab rule for approximately 1000 years and Islamic governments for 15 centuries. In 1516, Palestine came under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The Jews over the same period were to experience, with some exceptions, a long history of rejections, repression, and pogroms. They were expelled from England in 1290, France in 1392, and from Spain the same year of Columbus' voyage in 1492 looking for India. They were then expelled from Portugal in 1497. They attempted, with varying responses, to live throughout Europe, including Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Hungary, Turkey, Morocco, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.
S. Brian Willson
1992, Revised May 2002
