Palestine: From Balfour Declaration to Oslo Accords

Sachin Tiwari

• Editorial: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781528982948
• Categoría: Storia
• Categoría: Storia mediorientale

The last hundred years have been the witness of the battles between the Jews and Palestinians and this has posed a big challenge before the world to establish peace on the region. This seed of conflict emerged around the beginning of 20th century. This book discusses various facts in regard to the origin of the conflict from the beginning of 20th century till its last decade. During this time, the world community saw many facets of the Palestinian-Jewish conflict. One major outcome was the emergence of Israel as a nation. Eventually, Palestinians experienced that they lost their original identity and hence they started their struggle to establish themselves as an independent nation. The book is attempted objectively and the facts are presented in a chronological manner which reveals the ancient historical events, further explaining the criticality of the topic. This book shall help history scholars and general readers of history who are interested in the facts of Middle Eastern history.

Chapter 1

The Land of Palestine and Its History

The reason of conflict between the Palestinians and Jews continuing from the last hundred years is sown in the ancient history of the land and is important to be understood. The country is situated midway between the two large river valleys of Egypt and Mesopotamia, which at a very early period became centres of overpowering political might and influential civilisations.

The world history has a distinct spot for Palestine, as its struggle exemplifies the progress of mankind both spiritually and intellectually more than any other land of the world. Though Palestine is a small land in geographical size, yet its cosmic influence transgressed conspicuously.

According to Herodotus, Palestine was a part of Syria as it was to the Turks, and its inhabitants were the Syrians of Palestine. William of Tyre and other historians of the Crusades also considered Palestine a part of Syria. The name “Palestine” comes from Greek, but it was originally known as “Philistia”, which perpetuates the name of the Indo-European Philistines who occupied the coastal region in the latter part of the thirteenth pre-Christian century, about the same time that the Israelites from Egypt were endeavouring to occupy the interior. Thence the name spread to include the whole area as far as the desert.1

Major Semitic People in Palestine

Amorites

The first reference to the land of the Amorites appears as early as the time of Sargon (2250 BC), the first great name in Semitic history. Gradually, Amorites began to make their appearance in Central Syria, Lebanon and as far south as Palestine.2

One of the principal sources used by Old Testament historians and prophets gives them a dominant position in pre-Israelite Palestine and considers all the inhabitants of the mountain land and of Trans Jordan, prior to the influx of the Israelites, Amorite. The other principal source addresses the inhabitants, especially of the wasteland, Canaanite.3

Canaanites

Canaanites, the second Semitic community after Amorites, interested in Palestine affairs were addressed as Phoenicians by the Greeks.

There is no ethnic difference between the Amorites and Canaanites as they migrated from the same land. However, Amorites had assimilated Sumerian and Hurrian characteristics, the Phoenicians accumulated other native characteristics. Eventually, the cultural difference can be distinctly made between the two. Amorites came under Sumero-Babylonian influence of northern Syria and the Canaanites were oriented towards Egypt at the geographic centre in the littoral. The religious difference was marked by the local environment, but the linguistic differences in dialects were little because both languages were western Semitic, belonging to Hebrew, in the north-western region, but in the south-western region, it was Arabic.4

Canaan was the standard geographical designation for Palestine along with the seacoast and western Palestine, and a large part of Syria. The Old Testament also addressed the inhabitants of the land as Canaanite, which was applied in a broad sense to all inhabitants of land without any racial connotation, and “the language of Canaan” was used as the general designation of the Semitic tongue of Palestine.

The Semitic antiquity saw the emergence of the Canaanite religion and language over a span of a thousand years or more, before Christ. This is known from the modern archaeology, as the names of cities, Jericho, Beth-Shean and Megiddo, are Canaanite names which existed prior to 3000 BC.5

Egyptian in Palestine

The glorious history of Egypt saw the Pharaohs of Dynasty XII (2000–1788 BC) ruling over Palestine and a major part of Syria.

The south Syria and Palestine were in the possession of Egypt, and north Syria including Amurru was under the rule of Ramses II (1296 BC) and was recognised as Hittite.6

Hittite

Palestine never formed a part of the Hittite Empire, but Hittite elements abounded there. The author of one Old Testament document applies the term generally to the non-Semitic natives of the land before the Hebrew conquest.

The author further claims that Hebron was a Hittite town, and in the early days of Abraham, elements of Hittite were found in the Palestine population. Esau married the women of Hittite, and even the children of Israel inter-married the Hittites.7

Archaeology reports that in the 14^th century, weapons and distinctive seals were found dedicated to the Hittite influence. Hittite women were part of Solomon’s Harem.

Hebrew People

Hebrew beginnings in Palestine are shrouded in mystery and recorded in legendary and traditional terms. Hebrew tradition regards Abraham as an ancestor from Ur- Mesopotamia via Harran temporarily settled near Hebron. Abraham’s son Isaac had a son named Jacob and twin brother Esau. It was Jacob who was looked up to be the saviour. Meanwhile, Esau obtained a second name Edom (red) and his descendants, the natives of Mount Seir, came to be known as Edomites. Esau was thus eliminated from the stream of Hebrew life and thought just as Ishmael, Abraham’s son by the Egyptian concubine Hagar, was earlier eliminated in favour of Isaac.

From among the 12 sons of Jacob, his eleventh son, Joseph, the eldest son of Rachel, got sold to Egypt where he reached the eminence of life. After many years of his stay in Egypt, Joseph’s and his brother’s descendants returned to the ‘land of promise’ under the leadership of Moses.8

The Hebrew had a devastating fight for the ownership of the land with the Philistines who had come from the Aegean region.

As Hebrew expanded and captured the central highlands, the Philistines made themselves masters of the coastland. Hordes of migrants, including other Philistinian tribes, turned by land and sea toward Syria and after devastating many of its states, such as Ugarit, reached the Egyptian coast. In 1191 BC, they entered Naval Hattie with Ramses III along the south Syrian coast, and so Philistines came to be known as Philistia.

Along with the Philistine incursion, sea rovers from Asia and Greece descended upon the Egyptian coast via Cyprus, where they were repulsed by Merneptah about 1225 BC9

The Philistines set their coastline extending from Gaza to the south of Jaffa, and their chief cities were Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath, detaining Semitic names of the cities under their rule. Neither Philistines nor Hebrews would have had so much success in gaining a firm foothold in the land, had imperial Egypt been still able to exercise full control over it.

About 1050 BC, the second half of the eleventh century saw the zenith of Philistine power, as they defeated Hebrews and captured the Ark and took into Ashdod. By 1020 BC, they established themselves at garrisons in the hill country. During the region of Saul, they extended their rule over Beth-Shean, and this proves that the Philistines had an upper hand over the people of Israel.10

The Hebrew Monarchy

The Hebrew Monarchy came to glory eventually after they started to resist the Philistines. They developed their own national traits and maintained their national character and individuality. They were bound by religion which became the strength of their unification and solidarity. However, they overlooked the political feature of modern nationalism.

Saul

Saul was made the first king in 1020 BC who encompassed the neighbouring realms. It distinctly maintained its tribal organisation for the administrative purposes, and he ruled according to the dictates of Jehovah, as revealed by his holy men.11

David Monarchy

David Monarchy owes its establishment to David (1004–963 BC) who was Saul’s Armour-bearer; David began his royal career under Philistine Sovereignty. David achieved full independence and extended the territory of his kingdom to a significant stretch. David inaugurated a series of campaigns, which lifted the Philistine yoke from Hebrew necks and brought Edom, Moab and Ammon under his region. He also conquered Aramaean Hollow Syria and reached as far as the state of Hamah. His victories marked through the streets of Damascus, and the kingdom became the most powerful.12

David who came to be known as “the man of war”, encouraged the literature work during his kingship. The Mazkir (remembrance) was appointed to maintain the records of royal annals as his official duty. He wrote in the script borrowed from Phoenicians. The priests, thereafter, prepared parallel books of the official record. This becomes the richest and the noblest legacy of the ancient record for the present times. Thus, the history of the early monarchs was drawn from these records and was incorporated in the Old Testament. The authors of the records have presented the facts in a most vivid and in a completely objective way. He describes David as a contemporary man rather than a king. The first two chapters are written in prose form describing the biographies of David in Samuel. David was a great poet himself. He composed numbers of psalms that are timeless and have a universal appeal of mankind.13

Solomon

It was David’s successor, his son Solomon (963–923 BC), under whom the Hebrew Monarchy reached sparkling heights of glamour and pageantry. After Solomon’s death about 923 BC, his son, Rehoboam, was anointed king by the representatives of the twelve tribes who met at Shechem, but ten out of twelve tribes refused to accept Rehoboam as their king and elected Jeroboam of Ephraim as their king.14

Its two fragments became rivals and, at times, fell into the complex of political and belligerent developments that plagued the area. In its two-century existence, Israel experienced nine dynastic changes.

In the year 745 BC, at the time when the long and happy reigns of kings Ussia and Jeroboam II came to an end in Judah and Israel with the death of these monarchs, Tiglath-Pileser III came to the throne in Assyria. Thus Tiglath-Pileser immediately took firm steps to incorporate substantial parts of Syria and Palestine in the Assyrian Empire and to establish Assyrian sovereignty over the whole of Syria and Palestine.15

In 721 BC, the Kingdom of Judah, although devastated by Sennacherib (Sargon’s successor), survived until 587 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, destroyed Jerusalem and annexed Palestine. Both the Assyrians and the Babylonians deported thousands of Jews from Palestine, transferring most of them to live in Mesopotamia. A majority, but not all of these Jewish exiles, returned to Palestine some 50 years later under the rule of Persians.

Persian Empire

Cyrus founded the Persian Empire and conquered Palestine and Babylonia in 539 BC. The Persians reigned for two centuries and Jews dwelt under them with considerable freedom.

The temple and, eventually, the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt by Nehemiah. The Mosaic Law was restored but it alienated the Samari...