Israeli History – Then and Now
Israeli History is only 3,000 years young. Let’s consider it from the vantage of “ancient” and “modern”. Let’s consider “ancient” as the era beginning from Israel’s’ origins through to the Jewish encounter with the Romans c. A.D. 135. In some respects, it was at this time, that the chain of events in Israeli History began to run in the direction of the current day crises in the Mideast.
Abraham is credited as the man who became the founding father of the Jewish people and began the Israeli History. As the first Jew, he arrived in the land of Canaan around 1738 BC. The Jews have maintained a continuous presence in the land of Israel for the past 3,300 years. Abrahams’ descendants however, didn’t begin to form into a nation until after their exodus from Egypt, around 1300 B.C. After forty years of desert dwelling, Moses led them into the land of Canaan. Some 378 years after that King David conquered Jerusalem. Following the death of David’s son, Solomon, the kingdom was divided into the North and South- Israel and Judea respectively, which was around the year 922 B.C. This is how the nation of Israel began. A tumultuous situation between the peoples of that land continued for 865 years when Roman troops invaded Judea around 61 B.C. The region eventually came under total Roman rule and was renamed Palestine. Before that interim however, the region remained populated by the Amorites, Canaanites, and Semitic peoples. Eventually the Roman rule gave way to the Byzantine Empire in the fourth century A.D. Through it all, the Jews maintained a presence there, mostly in the northern reaches of Palestine.
Modern history for the Israeli Nation begins to take form at this point. It was not until the seventh century, around A.D. 600, that the Arabian conquers gained control of the region and the Muslim/Arab influence was established. By 638 A.D. Jerusalem had been conquered and the violent struggle between Christians and Islamists was well underway. During that time Arab peoples from the area of Egypt and Jewish peoples from Spain and other Mediterranean lands, began to populate the area of Palestine. By 1587 A.D. the Ottoman Empire had gained dominance in the land. In the nineteenth century a virulent anti-Jewish sentiment began in Europe which prompted the emigration of Jews to Palestine. In 1897 Christian Zionism was established in Europe. During World War One an Ottoman military government ruled in Palestine until the war’s end when British rule took prominence. There were almost 700,000 people living in Palestine by 1914. There were about 615,000 Arabs compared to about 100,000 Jews.
This is where the current situation in Israeli History began to gain momentum. After the war Britain and France wanted to divide the area of Palestine between their own interests. Revolts against the Ottoman Empire led to Arab independence in the Middle East at the time. By the time we get through the Second World War, governments from all parts of the globe become involved. After that war the U.S. favored Jewish immigration into Palestine. The United Nations recommended that Palestine be divided into an Arab state and a Jewish state. There were roughly about 600,000 Jews in Palestine and 1.2 million Arabs. Later the United States took a pro-Arab stance. The Arabs felt cheated out of Syria by the British. They also insisted that Palestine was included in their post-war holdings but the British denied this. The British created a mandate for Palestine in 1922 feeding the fires of the Arab revolts, spurring Jewish immigrations. These events led to more violence on a scale that eventually led to the involvement of all Arab countries.
Today’s events seem to be the offspring of this vicious cycle which is the struggle for dominance between the two peoples- the Jews and the Arabs- that have inhabited the same land for many centuries. Although all nations on this planet share a responsibility to each other, it is worth wondering if the Western involvement in Israeli History has hindered more than helped. Certainly both peoples of ancient Judea deserve independence and autonomy.
The agendas seemed to be as varied as the players. The problem is that the game is being played “for keeps” and the price is paid in human lives. For the people who have inhabited the land for over three millennia, it is not a game. These thoughts on Israeli History from the pen of Charles Krauthammer say it well- “It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago.” -Quote from Charles Krauthammer – The Weekly Standard, May 11, 1998.