The history of the area is complex due to the many tribes and (later) nations that settled, conquered and ruled, traded there or moved through: Canaanites, Philistines, Samaritans, Nabataeans, Greeks, Romans, Muslims and Christians.

In pre-Biblical times, the area was known as the Land of Canaan and had been a collection of city-states, tributary to the Egyptian Pharoah, as attested to in the Tel-El Amarna tablets. The breakup of the Egyptian empire beginning about 1500 BC made possible the invasion of the Israelites. According to Jewish tradition, twelve tribes entered Canaan from Egypt and conquered it, led by Moses approximately 1240-1200 BC. Historical evidence from the Amarna tablets suggests that there were already 'apiru' (Hebrews) among the Canaanites in the time of Egyptian rule.

During the final years of the Late Bronze Age, the Philistines also invaded Canaan (1500 - 1200 BC). Other evidence suggests that around 1200 BC, semi-nomads from the desert fringes to the east, joined by elements from Anatolia, the Aegean, and the south, possibly including Egypt, began to settle in the hill country of Canaan. A large proportion - probably a majority of this population - were refugees from the Canaanite city states, destroyed by the Egyptians in one of their periodic invasions.

The Biblical account continues with the rise of an Israelite kingdom, first under Saul and then under David at about 1000 BC, the date of David's conquest of Jerusalem.

The biblical accounts have not been confirmed by archeology and the exact dividing line between myth, legend, and history remains unknown. Generally the historical record begins with the destruction of the northern Israelite capital at Samaria in 772 BC by Assyrians, and the conquering of Judah's (southern Israelites) capital at Jerusalem in 586 BC by Babylonians who destroyed the First Temple

When did the Jews go to Palestine?

 

The Israelite invasion of Canaan around 1200 BC, following the Exodus from Egypt as described in the Bible, is the traditional account. This date has not been confirmed by archeology and some scholars argue that the Biblical version is mere legend (although the Merneptah Stela implies Israel was well established by the end of the 13th century BC. In particular, it is not clear if the early Israelite conquering of this land was an invasion from without (coming from Egypt) or more of an internal struggle between groups that inhabited the area. That is, the early Israelites may have been entirely or partially indigenous to Canaan.

Confirmed historical dates and a continuous Jewish historical record in Palestine begin with the Second Temple period, starting with the return of exiled Jews from Babylonia (roughly today's southern Iraq) in 538 BC.

What is the Arab history in Palestine?

 

Arabs are not a singular people. Origins are complex and intermingled with many peoples and lines. According to tradition, true Arabs are descendants of Abraham and his son Ishmael and prior to the 20th century, "Arab" designated the Bedouin, tribal-based society of the Arabian desert, which is the birthplace of Arabic. Other Arabs are ethnic groups that have been extant in their lands of origin for millennia. Modern Arab nationalism is a product of 19th- and 20th-century developments and has no prior historical basis. Before the rise of nationalism, most Arabic-speakers identified themselves as members of a particular family or tribe; as residents of a village, town, or region; as Muslims, Christians, or Jews; or as subjects of large political entities such as the Ottoman empire.

Historians generally agree that the ancient Semitic peoples (Assyrians, Aramaeans, Canaanites (including the Phoenicians and Hebrews) and, later, the Arabs themselves) migrated into the area of the Fertile Crescent. Arab invasions came after successive crises of overpopulation in the Arabian Peninsula beginning in the third millennium BC and ending with the Muslim conquests of the 7th century AD. These peoples spoke languages based on similar linguistic structures, and the modern Semitic languages of Arabic, Hebrew, and Amharic (the language of Ethiopia) maintain important similarities.

In approx. 1200 BC, the Petra area (in modern Jordan, about 80 kilometers south of the Dead Sea) was populated by Edomites, descended from Esau according to the Bible, and was known as Edom ("red"). Before the Israelites arrived in Canaan and repeatedly battled with them, the Edomites controlled the fertile valleys from the Red Sea at Elath to the Dead Sea, and hence the trade routes from Arabia in the south to Damascus in the north.

Subsequently, the Nabataeans, one of many Arab tribes, migrated into Edom, forcing the Edomites to move into southern Palestine. By 312 BC the Nabataeans occupied Petra and made it the capital of their kingdom. The Edomites were later forcibly converted into Judaism by John Hyrcanus (died 105 BC), and then became an active part of the Jewish people. Petra prospered as the principal city of the Nabataean empire from 400 BC to AD 106 when it was absorbed by the Romans. The Nabataeans flourished in the spice trade and engineered an impressive hydraulic engineering system of pipes, tunnels, and channels that carried drinking water into the city and reduced the chance of flash floods.

After the Roman conquest of Judea, the Nabataeans and others, "Palastina" became a province of the pagan Roman Empire and then of the Christian Byzantine Empire, and very briefly of the Zoroastrian Persian Empire. In 638 AD, an Arab-Muslim Caliph took Palastina away from the Byzantine Empire and made it part of an Arab-Muslim Empire. The Arabs, who had no name of their own for this region, adopted the Greco-Roman name Palastina, that they pronounced "Falastin".

In 1099, Christian Crusaders from Europe conquered Palestine and took Jerusalem. After 1099, it was never again under Arab rule. The Christian Crusader kingdom lasted less than 100 years. Thereafter, Palestine was joined to Syria as a subject province first of the Egyptian Mameluks, and then of the Ottoman Turks, whose capital was in Istanbul.

Arabs began a series of conquests in the 7th century AD under the leadership of the Prophet Muhammad during the rise of Islam. Muhammad was born in Makkah (Mecca) in the western part of the Arabian Peninsula, a city on the trade routes connecting Yemen to the south, the Mediterranean to the north, the Persian Gulf to the east, and Africa through the Red Sea port of Jeddah to the west. Muhammad delivered a spiritual and social message based on the unity and oneness of God, derived from Jewish and Christian concepts already well established in Arabia. In 622, Muhammad founded the first Muslim community in Medina. His immensely popular message confronted the weakness of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires and led to the success of a series of dramatic conquests. Within 20 years of Muhammad’s death in 632, Muslim Arabs ruled a territory extending from Egypt deep into Iran.

Palestine was invaded by Muslim Arab armies during this period, capped by the capture of Jerusalem in 638 AD. The invasion was bloody for the long-established Christian and Jewish inhabitants and the countryside was devastated. This was the start of 1300 years of Muslim presence in what the Arabs called Filastin, an Arabic rendition of the name Palaestina assigned by the Romans. Mohammed originally designated that his followers must face Jerusalem when praying, a gesture designed to win support from Arabian Jews. Later, Muslims switched to praying toward Mecca, and the Koran does not mention Jerusalem. In 715 AD, the site from which the prophet was believed to have ascended to Heaven on a night journey was arbitrarily associated with Jerusalem where the Dome of the Rock had been built in 687 AD by Caliph Abd al-Malik. Based on this association, the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built at the same site and the city became, after Makkah and Medina, the third holiest city of Islam.

The Muslim Arabs ruled Palestine under the system of dhimmitude, the rules that apply to non-Muslim populations conquered by jihad. There is a myth that the time of Islamic rule was a "golden age" for Jews and that they were better treated by the Muslims than by the Christians. This myth has been shattered by scholarship that shows continuous persecution of Jews and Christians under Islamic rule.

More early history to come...