Palestine
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{{otheruses1|the geographical area|Palestine}}
[[Image:MiddleEast.A2003031.0820.250m.jpg|thumb|300px|A 2003 satellite image of the region, with national borders shown in light gray.]]
'''Palestine''' (from {{lang-el|Παλαιστίνη}}. Compare {{lang-la|Palaestina}}; {{lang-he|פלשתינה}} ''Palestina''; {{lang-ar|فلسطين}} {{Unicode|''Filasṭīn'', ''Falasṭīn'', ''Filisṭīn''}}) is a widely attested [[Western culture|Western]] and [[Near Eastern]] conventional name which is used, among others, to describe the geographic region between the [[Mediterranean Sea]] and the [[Jordan River]] and various adjoining lands.<ref name=PEF>{{cite web|title=The Palestine Exploration Fund|publisher=The [[Palestine Exploration Fund]]|url=http://www.pef.org.uk/Paldef.htm|accessdate=2008-04-04}}</ref>
As a geographical, apolitical term, in its broadest application, Palestine can be used to refer to 'ancient Palestine,' an area that includes contemporary [[Israel]] and the [[Palestinian territories]], as well as part of [[Jordan]], and some of both [[Lebanon]] and [[Syria]].<ref name=PEF/><ref name=George>{{cite web|title=Is Palestine a State?|author=Forji Amin George|date=June 2004|url=http://www.expertlaw.com/library/international_law/palestine.html|accessdate=2008-04-04|publisher=Expert Law}}</ref> In classical or contemporary terms, it can be used to refer to the area within the boundaries of what was once [[British Mandate Palestine]] (1920-1948),<ref name=George/> an area which included the [[Transjordan]] until the establishment of the Kingdom of [[Jordan]] in 1921.
Many Israelis, [[Jews]] and [[Christian Zionism|Christian Zionists]] use the term [[Land of Israel]], in [[Hebrew]], ארץ־ישראל, ''Eretz Yisrael'' and to refer to the same geographic region, both narrowly or broadly defined. Additional terms used to refer to same area include [[Canaan]] and the [[Holy Land]] (in Hebrew, ארץ הקודש).
Within the context of the [[Israeli-Palestinian]] conflict, the term Palestine takes on a more political connotation, the boundaries and terminology of which are subject to deep dispute. To the [[Palestinian people]], the boundaries of Palestine are those of the British Mandate excluding the [[Transjordan]], as described in the [[Palestinian National Charter]].<ref name=Said>Said and Hitchens, 2001, p. 199.</ref> Israel was established in three-quarters of this territory by the end of the [[1948 Arab-Israeli war]], and remaining quarter, comprising the [[Gaza Strip]], the [[West Bank]] and [[East Jerusalem]], were [[Occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt|occupied by Egypt]] and [[Occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem by Jordan|by Jordan]], and later [[Israeli-occupied territories|conquered by Israel]] during the [[Six-day war|1967 war]].
Today, Palestine can also be used to refer to the [[State of Palestine]] which enjoys diplomatic recognition from over 100 countries in the world, though its precise boundaries have yet to be determined, it has yet to secure full autonomy, and therefore deviates from the usual criteria governing the classic definition of a state.<ref name=George/>
==Name and boundaries==
The name and the borders of Palestine have varied throughout history, though Palestine has certain natural boundaries that justify its historical individuality.<ref> Jewish Encyclopedia [http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=31&letter=P&search=palestine]</ref> The term 'Palestine' is cognate with the word [[Philistine]],<ref>Greek {{lang|el|Παλαιστινη}} from {{lang|el|Φυλιστινος/Φυλιστιειμ}}, see e.g. [[Josephus]], [[Antiquities of the Jews|''Antiquities'']] I.136; cf. The Septuagint rendering of [[Genesis]], X.13.</ref> and the Philistine people dominated the region during its earliest recorded history (i.e. during the periods of Egyptian and Assyrian empire), dwelling in cities and controlling much of the coast. A smaller area on the southern coast, whose borders approximate the modern [[Gaza Strip]], was called [[Philistia]]. Philistia was a confederation of five city states: [[Gaza]], [[Ashkelon]] and [[Ashdod]] on the coast, and [[Ekron]] and [[Gath (city)|Gath]] inland.<ref name=ehrlich>Carl S. Ehrlich "Philistines" ''The Oxford Guide to People and Places of the Bible''. Ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan. Oxford University Press, 2001.</ref>
The ethnic affiliation of the Philistines is not clear. The Philistine names preserved on inscriptions appear to "contradict the notion that they were Greek-speakers."<ref>M.L. West, ''The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth,'' Clarendon Press, Oxford 1997 p. 38 n148</ref> Some scholars argue however that they were a non-Semitic group, with roots in Southern [[Greece]] dating back to the period of early [[Mycenaean]] civilization.<ref>Killebrew, 2005, p. 231.</ref> A link to the Anatolian people speaking the [[Palaic language]], on mere phonological similitude, seems difficult as hypothesis but not that impossible.
===Non-Biblical texts===
[[Ancient Egypt]]ian texts called the entire coastal area along the [[Mediterranean Sea]] between modern Egypt and Turkey ''R-t-n-u'' (conventionally ''[[Retjenu]]''). ''Retjenu'' was subdivided into three regions and the southern region, ''[[Djahy]]'', shared approximately the same boundaries as Canaan, or modern-day Israel and the [[Palestinian territories]], though including also [[Syria]].<ref>Sir [[Alan Gardiner]], ''Egypt of the Pharaohs'',Clarendon Press, Oxford (1961) 1964 pp.131, 199, 285, n.1</ref>
Early archeological textual reference to the territory of Palestine is found in the [[Merneptah Stele]], dated c. 1200 BCE, containing a recount of Egyptian king [[Merneptah]]'s victories in the land of [[Canaan]], mentioning place-names such as [[Gezer]], [[Ashkelon]] and Yanoam, along with Israel, which is mentioned using a hieroglyphic determinative that indicates a nomad people, rather than a state.<ref>Carol A. Redmount, 'Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt' in The Oxford History of the Biblical Word, ed: Michael D. Coogan, (Oxford University Press: 1999), p. 97</ref>
Egyptian texts of the temple at [[Medinet Habu (temple)|Medinet Habu]], record a people called the ''P-r-s-t'' (conventionally ''Peleset''), one of the [[Sea Peoples]] who invaded [[Egypt]] in [[Ramesses III]]'s reign. This is considered very likely to be a reference to the Philistines. The [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] name ''Peleshet'' ({{lang|he|פלשת}} ''Pəléshseth''), usually translated as ''Philistia'' in English, is used in the [[Bible]] to denote their southern coastal region.{{Fact|date=November 2007}}
The Assyrian emperor [[Sargon II]] called the region the ''Palashtu'' in his Annals. By the time of [[Assyrian]] rule in 722 BCE, the Philistines had become 'part and parcel of the local population',<ref name="Shahinp6">Shahin (2005), p. 6 {{Specify|date=February 2008}}</ref><ref name=Philistines>{{cite web|title=The Philistines|publisher=Jewish Virtual Library|url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Philistines.html|accessdate=2007-08-11}}</ref> and prospered under Assyrian rule during the seventh century despite occasional rebellions against their overlords.<ref name=ehrlich /> In 604 BCE, when Assyrian troops commanded by the [[Babylonian]] empire carried off significant numbers of the population into slavery, the distinctly Philistine character of the coastal cities dwindled away,<ref name="Shahinp6"/><ref>"Philistines" ''A Dictionary of the Bible''. W. R. F. Browning. Oxford University Press, 1997. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.</ref> and the history of the Philistine people effectively ended.<ref name=ehrlich />
In the 5th century BCE, the Greek historian and geographer [[Herodotus]] wrote in Greek of a "district of Syria, called {{lang|el|Παλαιστινη}} (''Palaistinê'')."<ref>[http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-097X%28199902%29313%3C65%3APAI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage Palestine and Israel David M. Jacobson Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 313 (Feb., 1999), pp. 65-74]</ref><ref>The Southern and Eastern Borders of Abar-Nahara
Steven S. Tuell
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 284 (Nov., 1991), pp. 51-57
</ref><ref>Herodotus' Description of the East Mediterranean Coast
Anson F. Rainey
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 321 (Feb., 2001), pp. 57-63</ref> Syria, at that time, referred rather imprecisely to the region lying between Asia Minor, Sinai, the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. The boundaries of the "district" of Palaistinê described by Herodotus are even more imprecise, as is the ethnic nature of its people; sometimes it denotes the coast north of [[Mount Carmel]], and elsewhere it seems to extend down all the coast from Phoenicia to Egypt, and as far east as the [[Jordan River]].<ref>Herodotus, ''The Histories'' Bk.7.89</ref>
During the Roman period, the province of [[Iudaea Province|Iudaea]] covered much of modern Palestine, although the [[Galilee]] and other northern areas remained distinct administratively. However, many writers continued to use the Greek name. For example, in the first century C.E., the Roman writer [[Pliny the Elder]] mentions a region of Syria that was "formerly called ''Palaestina''" among the areas of the Eastern Mediterranean.<ref>[[Pliny the Elder]], ''[[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]]'' V.66 and 68.</ref> The Jewish historian [[Josephus]], writing in Greek, used the name ''Palaistinê'' for the smaller coastal area which most of his contemporaries preferred to call ''Philistia''.<ref>e.g. [[Antiquities of the Jews|Antiquities]] 1.136.</ref> the Jewish writer [[Philo of Alexandria]], also writing in Greek, used the terms Palestine and Canaan interchangeably, noting that the region's Jewish population was larger than that of any other single country.<ref>Palestine and Israel
David M. Jacobson
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 313 (Feb., 1999), pp. 65-74</ref>
After the Jewish rebellions of the first and second centuries CE, the Romans merged the province of Iudaea with Galilee, Samaria and Idumaea, uniting the entire area in a new province bearing the Greco-Latin name, [[History of Palestine#Late Roman Period II 135–220 CE|Syria-Palaestina]].<ref name="Lehmann">{{cite web |url=http://www.usd.edu/erp/Palestine/history.htm#135-337 |title=Palestine: History: 135–337: Syria Palaestina and the Tetrarchy |accessdate=2006-07-19 |last=Lehmann |first=Clayton Miles |year=1998 |month=May-September |work=The On-line Encyclopedia of the Roman Provinces |publisher=University of South Dakota }}</ref><ref>''Palestine and Israel''
Jacobson, David M. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 313 (February 1999), pp. 65-74</ref>
During the [[Byzantine Empire|Byzantine Period]], this entire region (including Syria, Palestine, Samaria, and Galilee) was renamed ''Palaestina'' and then subdivided into Diocese I and II. The Byzantines also renamed an area of land including the [[Negev]], [[Sinai]], and the west coast of the [[Arabian Peninsula]] as ''Palaestina Salutoris'', sometimes called ''Palaestina III''. Since the Byzantine Period, the Byzantine borders of ''Palaestina'' (''I'' and ''II'') have served as a name for the geographic area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
===Biblical texts===
[[Image:1759 map Holy Land and 12 Tribes.jpg|thumb|''The Holy Land, or Palestine, showing not only the Ancient Kingdoms of Judah and Israel in which the 12 Tribes have been distinguished, but also their placement in different periods as indicated in the Holy Scriptures.'' Tobias Conrad [[Lotter]], [[Geographer]]. [[Augsburg]], [[Germany]], 1759'']]
In the Biblical account, the [[United Monarchy|United Kingdom of Israel and Judah]] ruled from [[Jerusalem]] a vast territory extending far west and north of Palestine for some 120 years. Archaeological evidence for this period is very rare, however, and its implications much disputed.<ref name="Thompson">{{cite book|title=The Mythic Past:How Writers Create the Past|author=Thomas L. Thompson|publisher=[[Basic Books]]|year=1999|isbn=0465006493|url=http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=QzOJ9nMlUJcC&oi=fnd&pg=RA1-PR11&dq=archaeological+evidence+israel+kingdom&ots=_oKqm0jKLs&sig=YC3ODVfVBBI2A4J69_l6wp4iy2g}}</ref><ref name=Finkelstein>{{cite web|title=The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts|author=Israel Finkelstein and Neil Ascher Silberman|publisher=Bible and Interpretation|date=2000|accessdate=2007-05-14|url=http://www.bibleinterp.om/commentary/Finkelstein_Silberman022001.htm}}</ref>
The [[Hebrew Bible]] calls the region ''[[Canaan]]'' ({{lang|he|כּנען}}) ({{bibleverse||Numbers|34:1–12|NIV}}), while the part of it occupied by Israelites is designated ''[[Land of Israel|Israel]]'' (''Yisrael''). The name "[[Hebrews|Land of the Hebrews]]" ({{lang|he|ארץ העברים}}, ''Eretz Ha-Ivrim'') is also found, as well as several poetical names: "land flowing with milk and honey", "land that [God] swore to your fathers to assign to you", "[[Holy Land]]", "Land of the Lord", and the "[[Promised Land]]".
The Land of Canaan is given a precise description in ({{Niv|Numbers|34:1–12|Numbers 34:1}}) as including all of Lebanon, as well ({{Niv|Joshua|13:5|Joshua 13:5}}). The wide area appears to have been the home of several small nations such as the Canaanites, Hebrews, [[Biblical Hittites|Hittites]], [[Amorrhites]], Pherezites, Hevites and [[Jebusites]].
According to Hebrew tradition, the land of Canaan is part of the land given to the descendants of [[Abraham]], which extends from the Nile to the Euphrates River ({{Niv|Genesis|15:18|Genesis 15:18}}). This land is said to include an area called [[Aram Naharaim]], which includes [[Ur Kasdim]] in modern Turkey, where Abraham's father was born.
In {{Kjv|Exodus|13:17|Exodus 13:17}}, "And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the [[Philistines]], although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to [[Egypt]]."
The events of the [[Four Gospels]] of the [[Christian Bible]] take place almost entirely in this country, which in Christian tradition thereafter became known as The [[Holy Land]].
In the [[Qur'an]], the term {{lang|ar|'''الأرض المقدسة'''}} ("Holy Land", ''Al-Ard Al-Muqaddasah'') is mentioned at least seven times, once when [[Moses]] proclaims to the [[Children of Israel]]: "O my people! Enter the holy land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin." ([[wikisource:The Holy Qur'an/Al-Meada|Surah 5:21]])
==History==
{{Main|History of Israel|History of Palestine}}
[[Image:Jerycho8.jpg|thumb|left|A dwelling unearthed at Tell es-Sultan.]]
===Paleolithic and Neolithic periods (1 mya–5000 BCE)===
{{see also|Paleolithic|Neolithic}}
Human remains found at El-'Ubeidiya, 2 miles (3 km) south of [[Lake Tiberias]] date back as early as 500,000 years ago.<ref name = "Shahinp3">Shahin (2005), p. 3</ref><ref>Galilee, Sea of. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved [[August 12]], [[2007]], from [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9035871 Encyclopædia Britannica Online]</ref> The discovery of the [[Palestine Man]] in the Zuttiyeh Cave in Wadi Al-Amud near [[Safad]] in 1925 provided some clues to human development in the area.<ref name= "Shahinp3">Shahin (2005), p. 3</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Human Evolution and Neanderthal Man|publisher=Antiquity Journal|url=http://antiquity.ac.uk/Ant/034/0090/Ant0340090.pdf}}</ref><ref> Amud. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved [[August 12]], [[2007]], from [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9007286 Encyclopædia Britannica Online]</ref>
In the caves of [[Shuqba]] in [[Ramallah]] and Wadi Khareitun in [[Bethlehem]], stone, wood and animal bone tools were found and attributed to the [[Natufian]] culture (c. 12800–10300 BCE). Other remains from this era have been found at Tel Abu Hureura, Ein Mallaha, Beidha and [[Jericho]].<ref name= "Shahinp3" /><ref>Belfer-Cohen and Bar-Yosef, 2000, pp. 19–38.</ref>
Between 10000 and 5000 BCE, agricultural communities were established. Evidence of such settlements were found at Tell es-Sultan, Jericho and include mud-brick rounded and square dwellings, pottery shards, and fragments of woven fabrics.<ref name= "Shahinp4">Shahin (2005), page 4</ref><ref>Stearns, 2001, p. 13.</ref><ref>Harris, 1996, p. 253.</ref>
===Chalcolithic period (4500–3000 BCE) and Bronze Age (3000–1200 BCE)===
{{see also|Chalcolithic|Bronze Age}}
[[Image:CanaanMap.jpg|thumb|right|An 1882 rendering of Canaan, as divided among the [[Israelite|Twelve Tribes]], by the American Sunday-School Union of Philadelphia.]]
Along the Jericho-[[Dead Sea]]-[[Beersheva|Bir es-Saba]]-[[Gaza]]-[[Sinai]] route, a culture originating in [[Syria]], marked by the use of copper and stone tools, brought new migrant groups to the region contributing to an increasingly urban fabric.<ref name= "Shahinp4" /><ref>Rosen, 1997, pp. 159–161.</ref><ref>Neil Asher Silberman, Thomas E. Levy, Bonnie L. Wisthoff, Ron E. Tappy, John L. Meloy "Near East" ''The Oxford Companion to Archaeology''. Brian M. Fagan, ed., Oxford University Press 1996.</ref>
By the early Bronze Age (3000–2200 BCE) independent [[Canaanite]] city-states situated in plains and coastal regions and surrounded by mud-brick defensive walls were established and most of these cities relied on nearby agricultural hamlets for their food needs.<ref name= "Shahinp4" /><ref>Canaan. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved [[August 12]], [[2007]], from [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9019900 Encyclopædia Britannica Online].</ref>
Archaeological finds from the early Canaanite era have been found at [[Tel Megiddo]], Jericho, Tel al-Far'a (Gaza), [[Bet Shean|Bisan]], and [[Ai (Bible)|Ai]] ([[Deir Dibwan]]/[[Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate|Ramallah District), Tel an Nasbe ([[al-Bireh]]) and [[Jib (village)|Jib]] ([[Jerusalem]]).
The Canaanite city-states held trade and diplomatic relations with [[Egypt]] and [[Syria]]. Parts of the Canaanite urban civilization were destroyed around 2300 BCE, though there is no consensus as to why. Incursions by nomads from the east of the [[Jordan River]] who settled in the hills followed soon thereafter.<ref name="Shahinp4"/><ref>Mills, 1990, p. 439.</ref>
In the [[Middle Bronze Age]] (2200–1500 BCE), [[Canaan]] was influenced by the surrounding civilizations of Egypt, [[Mesopotamia]], [[Phoenicia]], and Syria. Diverse commercial ties and an agriculturally based economy led to the development of new pottery forms, the cultivation of grapes, and the extensive use of bronze.<ref name= "Shahinp4" /><ref name=MiddleBronzeAge>{{cite web|title=Palestine: Middle Bronze Age|publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica Online|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-45048/Palestine}}</ref> Burial customs from this time seemed to be influenced by a belief in the afterlife.<ref name= "Shahinp4" /><ref>Ember & Peregrine, 2002, p. 103.</ref>
Political, commercial and military events during the [[Late Bronze Age]] period (1450–1350 BCE) were recorded by ambassadors and Canaanite proxy rulers for Egypt in 379 cuneiform tablets known as the [[Amarna Letters]].<ref>William H. Propp "Amarna Letters" ''The Oxford Companion to the Bible''. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, eds. Oxford University Press Inc. 1993. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.</ref>
By c. 1190 BCE, the [[Philistines]] arrived and mingled with the local population, losing their separate identity over several generations.<ref name="Shahinp6">Shahin (2005), p. 6</ref><ref>Carl S. Ehrlich "Philistines" ''The Oxford Guide to People and Places of the Bible''. Ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.</ref>
===Iron Age (1200–330 BCE)===
{{see also|Iron Age}}
Pottery remains found in [[Ashkelon]], [[Ashdod]], [[Gat]], [[Ekron]] and Gaza decorated with stylized birds provided the first archaeological evidence for Philistine settlement in the region. The Philistines are credited with introducing iron weapons and chariots to the local population.<ref>Philistine. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved [[August 12]], [[2007]], from [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9059701 Encyclopædia Britannica Online]</ref>
Developments in Palestine between 1250 and 900 BCE have been the focus of debate between those who accept the Old Testament version on the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes, and those who reject it.<ref name=Ladislau>{{cite journal|title=Historiographic Views on the Settlement of the Jewish Tribes in Canaan|author=Gyémánt, Ladislau|publisher=Sacra Scripta|volume=1/2003|date=2003|url=http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/issuedetails.aspx?issueid=ed58f96d-8032-41bb-8d65-f34a8b8f2a36&articleId=835a199a-72a0-4b2d-ba9c-32b1347129f5|pages=26–30}}</ref> Niels Peter Lemche, of the [[The Copenhagen School (theology)|Copenhagen School]] of Biblical Studies, submits that the picture of ancient Israel "is contrary to any image of ancient Palestinian society that can be established on the basis of ancient sources from Palestine or referring to Palestine and that there is no way this image in the Bible can be reconciled with the historical past of the region."<ref name=LemcheJHS>{{cite web|title=On the Problems of Reconstructing Pre-Hellenistic Israelite (Palestinian) History|author=Niels Peter Lemche|publisher=Journal of Hebrew Scriptures|accessdate=2007-05-10|url=http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/JHS/Articles/article_13.htm}}</ref>
Others point to [[David's Palace]],<ref name=Moment>A magazine story of the site's discovery is available here: [http://www.momentmag.com/olam/Apr06/MOM-2006-04_mazar.html Eilat Mazar: Uncovering King David's Palace]</ref><ref name=nytimes>{{cite news|title=King David's Palace Is Found, Archaeologist Says |last=Erlanger |first=Steven |date=[[2005-08-05]] |accessdate=2007-05-24 |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/05/international/middleeast/05jerusalem.html?ex=1280894400&en=3c435bc7bd0cd531&ei=5088 |publisher=The New York Times}}</ref><ref name=sandiego>A San Diego Union Tribune article on the discovery: [http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050824/news_1c24david.html]</ref> the [[Mount Ebal|sacrificial site]] at [[Shechem]]<ref>Matthew Sturgis, ''It ain't necessarily so'', ISBN 0-7472-4510-X</ref> and the [[Merneptah Stele]],<ref>Carol A. Redmount, 'Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt' in The Oxford History of the Biblical Word, ed: Michael D. Coogan, (Oxford University Press: 1999)</ref><ref>Stager, Lawrence E., "Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel" in Michael Coogan ed. The Oxford History of the Biblical World, Oxford University Press, 2001. p.92</ref><ref>M. G. Hasel, "Israel in the Merneptah Stela", BASOR 296, 1994, pp.54 & 56, n.12.</ref> and [[Mesha Stele]]<ref>Baruch Margalit, "Studies in NWSemitic Inscriptions", ''Ugarit-Forschungen'' 26, p. 275</ref><ref>''[[Time (magazine)]]'', [[December 18]], [[1995]].</ref><ref>For a full but technical discussion, see Lawrence J. Mykytiuk, _Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200–539 BCE_, Academia Biblica series, no. 12 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), pp. 265–277.</ref> among others, as providing some archaeological evidence of a nation that bears a resemblance to the Biblical Israel.{{Fact|date=August 2007}}
====Hebrew Bible period====
[[Image:Levant 830.svg|thumb|right|272px|Map of the southern [[Levant]], c.830s BCE.
{{legend|#00ff00|Kingdom of Judah}}
{{legend|#008000|Kingdom of Israel}}
{{legend|#777777|Philistine city-states}}
{{legend|#3000ee|Phoenician states}}
{{legend|#7777ff|Kingdom of Ammon}}
{{legend|#ffff00|Kingdom of Edom}}
{{legend|#007777|Kingdom of Aram-Damascus}}
{{legend|#ffffff|Aramean tribes}}
{{legend|#800080|Arubu tribes}}
{{legend|#804020|Nabatu tribes}}
{{legend|#005fff|Assyrian Empire}}
{{legend|#808040|Kingdom of Moab}}]]
{{seealso|Archaeology of Israel|History of ancient Israel and Judah}}''
Though the Biblical tradition holds that the [[Israelite]]s arrived in Canaan from Egypt, archaeology provides strong evidence that they emerged from among the local population existent there at the time; these events are generally dated to between the 13th and 12th centuries BCE.<ref name=Ladislau>{{cite journal|title=Historiographic Views on the Settlement of the Jewish Tribes in Canaan|author=Gyémánt, Ladislau|publisher=Sacra Scripta|volume=1/2003|date=2003|url=http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/issuedetails.aspx?issueid=ed58f96d-8032-41bb-8d65-f34a8b8f2a36&articleId=835a199a-72a0-4b2d-ba9c-32b1347129f5|pages=26–30}}</ref> Archaeological evidence indicates that the late 13th, the 12th and the early 11th centuries BCE witnessed the foundation of perhaps hundreds of insignificant, unprotected village settlements, many in the mountains of Palestine.<ref name=LemcheJHS /> From around the 11th century BCE, there was a reduction in the number of villages, though this was counterbalanced by the rise of certain settlements to the status of fortified townships.<ref name=LemcheJHS />
According to Biblical tradition, the [[United Monarchy|United Kingdom of Israel]] was established by the Israelite tribes with [[Saul]] as its first king in 1020 BCE.<ref name=MFA>{{cite web|title=Facts about Israel:History|publisher=Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affaits|accessdate=2007-05-10|url=http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/History+of+Israel/Facts%20About%20Israel-%20History}}</ref> In 1000 BCE, [[Jerusalem]] was made the capital of King [[David]]'s kingdom and it is believed that the [[Temple in Jerusalem|First Temple]] was constructed in this period by [[Solomon|King Solomon]].<ref name=MFA/> By 930 BCE, the united kingdom split to form the northern [[Kingdom of Israel]], and the southern [[Kingdom of Judah]].<ref name=MFA/> These kingdoms co-existed with several more kingdoms in the greater Palestine area, including Philistine town states on the Southwestern Mediterranean coast, Edom, to the South of Judah, and Moab and Amon to the East of the river Jordan.<ref>Bienkowski, ''op.cit.''</ref>
There was an at least partial [[Egypt]]ian withdrawal from Palestine in this period, though it is likely that [[Bet Shean]] was an Egyptian garrison as late as the beginning of the 10th century BCE.<ref name=LemcheJHS /> The socio-political system was characterized by local patrons fighting other local patrons, lasting until around the mid-9th century BCE when some local chieftains were able to create large political structures that exceeded the boundaries of those present in the Late Bronze Age.<ref name=LemcheJHS/>
Archaeological findings from this era include, among others, the [[Mesha Stele]], from c. 850 BCE, which recounts the conquering of [[Moab]], located East of the [[Dead Sea]], by king [[Omri]], and the successful revolt of Moabian king [[Mesha]] against Omri's son, presumably [[King Ahab]]; and the [[Kurkh Monolith]], dated c. 835 BCE, describing King [[Shalmaneser III]] of Assyria's [[Battle of Qarqar]], where he fought alongside the contingents of several kings, among them [[King Ahab]] and King [[Gindibu]].
Between 722 and 720 BCE, the northern [[Kingdom of Israel]] was destroyed by the [[Assyrian Empire]] and the Israelite tribes - thereafter known as the [[Lost Tribes]] - were exiled.<ref name=MFA/> The most important finding from the southern Kingdom of Judah is the [[Siloam Inscription]], dated c. 700 BCE, which celebrates the successful encounter of diggers, digging from both sides of the Jerusalem wall to create the [[Hezekiah's Tunnel|Hezekiah water tunnel]] and water pool, mentioned in the [[Bible]], in {{bibleverse||2Kings|20:20|KJV}}.{{Fact|date=December 2007}} In 586 BCE, [[Kingdom of Judah|Judah]] was conquered by the [[Babylonian Empire|Babylonians]] and Jerusalem and the [[First Temple]] destroyed.<ref name=MFA/> Most of the surviving [[Jew]]s, and much of the other local population, were [[Babylonian captivity|deported to Babylonia]].<ref name="Shahinp6" /><ref>"Babylon" ''A Dictionary of the Bible''. W. R. F. Browning. Oxford University Press, 1997. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.</ref>
====Persian rule (538 BCE)====
After the [[Persian Empire]] was established, Jews were allowed to return to what their holy books had termed the [[Land of Israel]], and having been granted some autonomy by the Persian administration, it was during this period that the [[Second Temple]] in Jerusalem was built.<ref name="Shahinp6" /><ref name=Edelman>{{cite web|title=Redating the Building of the Second Temple|author=Diana Edelman|date=November 2005|url=http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/Edelman_Redating_Second_Temple.htm}}</ref> [[Samaria#Sebastia|Sebastia]], near [[Nablus]], was the northernmost province of the Persian administration in Palestine, and its southern borders were drawn at [[Hebron]].<ref name="Shahinp6" /><ref name=palestineeb>Palestine. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved [[August 12]], [[2007]], from [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-45053 Encyclopædia Britannica Online].</ref> Some of the local population served as soldiers and lay people in the Persian administration, while others continued to agriculture. In 400 BCE, the [[Nabataeans]] made inroads into southern Palestine and built a separate civilization in the [[Negev]] that lasted until 160 BCE.<ref name="Shahinp6" /><ref name=Avdat>{{cite web|title=Avdat: A Nabatean City in the Negev|publisher=Jewish Virtual Library|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Archaeology/Avdat.html}}</ref>
===Classical antiquity===
{{see also|Classical antiquity}}
====Hellenistic rule (333 BCE)====
[[Image:First century palestine.gif|right|272px|thumb|Roman [[Iudaea Province]] in the 1st century CE as based on Robert W. Funk's ''The Acts of Jesus'', Michael Grant's's ''Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels'' and John P. Meier's ''A Marginal Jew''.]]
The [[Persian Empire]] fell to Greek forces of the [[Ancient Macedonians|Macedonian]] general [[Alexander the Great]].<ref name = "Shahinp7">Shahin (2005), p. 7</ref><ref name=Hooker>{{cite web|title=Hellenistic Greece:Alexander the Great|publisher=Washington State University|date=1996|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/ALEX.HTM}}</ref> After his death, with the absence of heirs, his conquests were divided amongst his generals, while the region of the Jews ("Judah" or [[Judea]] as it became known) was first part of the [[Ptolemaic dynasty]] and then part of the [[Seleucid Empire]].<ref name=Pastor>Pastor, 1997, p. 41.</ref>
The landscape during this period was markedly changed by extensive growth and development that included urban planning and the establishment of well-built fortified cities.<ref name=Shahinp7 /><ref name=palestineeb/> [[Hellenistic]] [[pottery]] was produced that absorbed Philistine traditions. Trade and commerce flourished, particularly in the most Hellenized areas, such as [[Ascalon]], Jaffa,<ref>{{cite web|title=Palestine|publisher=Britannica|accessdate=2007-08-14|url=http://www.britannica.com/oscar/print?articleId=108522&fullArticle=true&tocId=45078 }}</ref> Jerusalem,<ref>{{cite web|title=''The Reluctant Parting: How the New Testament's Jewish Writers Created a Christian Book''|author=Julie Galambush|publisher=HarperCollins.ca|date=2006|accessdate=2007-08-20|url=http://www.harpercollins.ca/global_scripts/product_catalog/book_xml.asp?isbn=0060872012&tc=cx}}</ref> Gaza,<ref>{{cite web|title=Gaza:Contested Crossroads|author=Dick Doughty|publisher=SaudiAramcoWorld|date=September-October 1994|accessdate=2007-08-20|url=http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199405/gaza-contested.crossroads.htm}}</ref> and ancient Nablus (Tell Balatah).<ref>{{cite web|title=Tell Balatah (Shechem or Ancient Nablus)|publisher=World Monuments Watch:100 Most Endangered Sites 2006|accessdate=2007-08-20|url=http://wmf.org/resources/sitepages/palestinian_territories_tell_balatah.html}}</ref><ref name=Shahinp7 />
The Jewish population in Judea was allowed limited autonomy in religion and administration.<ref>Hayes & Mandell, 1998, p. 41.</ref>
====Hasmonean dynasty (140 BCE)====
An independent Jewish kingdom under the Hasmonean Dynasty existed from 140–37 BCE.
In the second century BCE fascination in Jerusalem for Greek culture resulted in a movement to break down the separation of Jew and Gentile and some people even tried to disguise the marks of their circumcision.<ref name=Johnston186>Johnston, 2004, p. 186.</ref> Disputes between the leaders of the reform movement, [[Jason (high priest)|Jason]] and [[Menelaus (High Priest)|Menelaus]], eventually led to civil war and the intervention of [[Antiochus IV Epiphanes]].<ref name=Johnston186/> Subsequent persecution of the Jews led to the [[Maccabees|Maccabean Revolt]] under the leadership of the [[Hasmonean]]s, and the construction of a native Jewish kingship under the Hasmonean Dynasty.<ref name=Johnston186/> After approximately a century of independence disputes between the Hasmonean rivals [[Aristobulus II|Aristobulus]] and [[Hyrcanus II|Hyrcanus]] led to control of the kingdom by the Roman army of [[Pompey]]. The territory then became first a [[Roman Empire|Roman]] [[client kingdom]] under Hyrcanus and then, in 70CE, a Roman Province administered by the governor of Syria.<ref>Chancey, 2005, p. 44.</ref>
====Roman rule (63 BCE)====
[[Image:Palestine in the time of Christ.jpg|thumb|272px|Palestine in the Time of Christ as rendered by as B.W. Johnson (1891) in ''The People's New Testament''.]]
Though General Pompey arrived in 63 BCE, Roman rule was solidified when [[Herod the Great|Herod]], whose dynasty was of [[Idumean]] ancestry, was appointed as king.<ref name=Shahinp7 /><ref name=Britannica>{{cite web|title=Herod|publisher=Concise Encyclopedia Britannica|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9040191/Herod}}</ref> Urban planning under the Romans was characterized by cities designed around the Forum - the central intersection of two main streets - the [[Cardo]], running north-south and the [[Decumanus Maximus|Decumanus]] running east-west.<ref name=UNESCO>{{cite web|title=Introducing Young People to the Protection of Heritage Sites and Historic Cities|publisher=UNESCO|date=2003|accessdate=2007-08-14|url=http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:2NfvwatBy4oJ:www.iccrom.org/eng/02info_en/02_04pdf-pubs_en/ICCROM_doc09_ManualSchoolTeachers_en.pdf }}</ref> Cities were connected by an extensive road network developed for economic and military purposes. Among the most notable archaeological remnants from this era are [[Herodium]] (Tel al-Fureidis) to the south of Bethlehem<ref name=Herodium>{{cite web|title=HERODIUM (Jebel Fureidis) Jordan/Israel|publisher=The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://icarus.umkc.edu/sandbox/perseus/pecs/page.1979.a.php}}</ref> and [[Caesarea]].<ref name=Shahinp7 /><ref name=Caesarea>{{cite web|title= publisher=The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://icarus.umkc.edu/sandbox/perseus/pecs/page.887.a.php}}</ref>
Around the time associated with the birth of [[Jesus]], Roman Palestine was in a state of disarray and direct Roman rule was re-established.<ref name=Shahinp7 /><ref name=UNRV>{{cite web|title=Judaea-Palestine|publisher=UNRV History: Roman Empire|accessdate=2007-08-14|url=http://www.unrv.com/provinces/judaea.php}}</ref> The early Christians were oppressed and while most inhabitants became Romanized, others, particularly Jews, found Roman rule to be unbearable.<ref name=Shahinp7 /><ref name=UNRV />
As a result of the [[First Jewish-Roman War]] (66-73), [[Titus]] [[Siege of Jerusalem (70)|sacked Jerusalem]] destroying the [[Second Temple]], leaving only supporting walls, including the [[Western Wall]]. In 135, following the fall of a [[Bar Kokhba's revolt|Jewish revolt]] led by [[Bar Kokhba]] in 132–135, the Roman emperor [[Hadrian]] attempted the expulsion of Jews from Judea. His attempt was as unsuccessful as were most of Rome's many attempts to alter the demography of the Empire; this is demonstrated by the continued existence of the rabbinical academy of [[Lydda]] in Judea, and in any case large Jewish populations remained in Samaria and the Galilee.<ref name = "Lehmann" /> Tiberias became the headquarters of [[Sanhedrin#The Dissolution of the Classical Sanhedrin|exiled Jewish patriarchs]]. The Romans joined the province of Judea (which already included Samaria) together with Galilee to form a new province, called Syria Palaestina, to complete the disassociation with Judaea.<ref name = "Lehmann" />. Notwithstanding the oppression, some two hundred Jewish communities remained. Gradually, certain religious freedoms were restored to the Jewish population, such as exemption from the imperial cult and internal self-administration. The Romans made no such concession to the Samaritans, to whom religious liberties were denied, while their sanctuary on Mt.[[Gerizim]] was defiled by a pagan temple, as part of measures were taken to suppress the resurgence of Samaritan nationalism<ref name = "Lehmann" />.
The Emperor [[Hadrian]] (132 CE) renamed Jerusalem "[[Aelia Capitolina]]" and built temples there to honor [[Jupiter (mythology)|Jupiter]]. Christianity was practiced in secret and the [[Hellenization]] of Palestine continued under [[Septimius Severus]] (193–211 CE).<ref name=Shahinp7 /> New pagan cities were founded in Judea at [[Eleutheropolis]] (Beit Jibrin), Diopolis ([[Lod|Lydd]]), and [[Nicopolis]] ([[Emmaus]]).<ref name=Shahinp7 /><ref name=palestineeb/>
====Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire) rule (330–640 CE)====
[[Image:Israel Byzantine 5c.jpg|right|272px|thumb|5th century CE: Byzantine Diocese of ''Palaestina I'' (Philistia, Judea and Samaria) and ''Palaestina II'' (Galilee and Perea)]]
Emperor [[Constantine I and Christianity|Constantine's conversion to Christianity]] around 330 CE made Christianity the official religion of Palaestina.<ref name="Shahinp8">Shahin (2005), page 8</ref><ref name=Cohen>{{cite web|title=Legitimization Under Constantine|author=Shaye I.D. Cohen|publisher=PBS|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/why/legitimization.html}}</ref> After his mother Empress Helena identified the spot she believed to be where Christ was crucified, the [[Church of the Holy Sepulcher]] was built in Jerusalem.<ref name=Shahinp8 /> The [[Church of the Nativity]] in Bethlehem and the [[Church of the Ascension]] in Jerusalem were also built during Constantine's reign.<ref name=Shahinp8 />. This was the period of its greatest prosperity in antiquity. Urbanization increased, large new areas were put under cultivation, monasteries proliferated, synagogues were restored, and the population West of the Jordan may have reached as many as one million.<ref name = "Lehmann" />.
Palestine thus became a center for pilgrims and [[ascetic]] life for men and women from all over the world.<ref name=Shahinp8 /><ref name=palestineeb/> Many monasteries were built including the [[Saint George Monastery, Judea|Saint George Monastery]] in [[Wadi al-Qelt]], Deir [[Qarantal]] and Deir [[Hijle]] near [[Jericho]], and Deir [[Mar Saba]] and Deir [[Theodosius]] east of Bethlehem.<Ref name=Shahinp8 />
In 352 CE, a [[War against Gallus|Jewish revolt against Byzantine rule]] in Tiberias and other parts of the [[Galilee]] was brutally suppressed. Imperial patronage for Christian cults and immigration was strong, and a significant wave of immigration from Rome, especially to the area about Aelia Capitolina and Bethlehem, took place after that city was [[Sack of Rome (410)|sacked]] in 410.<ref name = "Lehmann" />.
In approximately 390 CE, Palaestina was further organised into three units: ''Palaestina Prima'', ''Secunda'', and ''Tertia'' (First, Second, and Third Palestine).<ref name=Shahinp8 /><ref name=NYTimes>{{cite web|title=Weathered by Miracles: A History of Palestine From Bonaparte and Muhammad Ali to Ben-Gurion and the Mufti|author=Thomas A. Idniopulos|date=1998|accessdate=2007-08-11|url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/i/idinopulos-miracles.html}}</ref> ''Palaestina Prima'' consisted of Judea, [[Samaria]], the coast, and [[Perea (Holy Land)|Peraea]] with the governor residing in [[Caesarea Palaestina|Caesarea]]. ''Palaestina Secunda'' consisted of the Galilee, the lower [[Jezreel Valley]], the regions east of Galilee, and the western part of the former [[Decapolis]] with the seat of government at [[Scythopolis]]. ''Palaestina Tertia'' included the [[Negev]], southern [[Jordan]] — once part of Arabia — and most of [[Sinai Peninsula|Sinai]] with [[Petra]] as the usual residence of the governor. Palestina Tertia was also known as Palaestina Salutaris.<ref name=Shahinp8 /><ref name=Salutaris>{{cite web|title=Roman Arabia|publisher=Encyclopedia Britannica|accessdate=2007-08-11|url= http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-439113/Palaestina-Salutaris}}</ref>
In 536 CE, [[Justinian I]] promoted the governor at [[Caesarea]] to [[proconsul]] (anthypatos), giving him authority over the two remaining consulars. Justinian believed that the elevation of the governor was appropriate because he was responsible for "the province in which our Lord [[Jesus Christ]]... appeared on earth".<ref name=Holum>Kenneth G. Holum "Palestine" ''The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium.'' Ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan. Oxford University Press 1991.</ref> This was also the principal factor explaining why Palestine prospered under the Christian Empire. The cities of Palestine, such as [[Caesarea Maritima]], Jerusalem, Scythopolis, [[Neapolis]], and Gaza reached their peak population in the late Roman period and produced notable Christian scholars in the disciplines of [[rhetoric]], [[historiography]], [[Eusebius of Caesarea|Eusebian ecclesiastical history]], classicizing history and [[hagiography]].<ref name=Holum/>
Byzantine administration of Palestine was temporarily suspended during the Persian occupation of 614–28, and then permanently after the Muslims arrived in 634 CE, defeating the empire's forces decisively at the [[Battle of Yarmouk]] in 636 CE. Jerusalem capitulated in 638 CE and Caesarea between 640 CE and 642 CE.<ref name=Holum/>
===Arab Caliphate rule (638–1099 CE)===
[[Image:Medieval Arab Palestine.jpg|right|thumb|272px|An 1890 map of Palestine as described by medieval Arab geographers, with [[Jund Filastin]] administrative area]]
In 638 CE, Caliph [[Umar|Omar Ibn al-Khattab]] and [[Sophronius|Safforonius]], the Byzantine governor of Jerusalem, signed ''Al-Uhda al-'Omariyya'' ([[The Umariyya Covenant]]), an agreement that stipulated the rights and obligations of all non-Muslims in Palestine.<ref name="Shahinp8">Shahin (2005), page 8</ref> Jews were permitted to return to Palestine for the first time since the 500-year ban enacted by the Romans and maintained by Byzantine rulers.<ref name="Shahinp10">Shahin (2005), page 10</ref><ref name=palestineeb/>
Omar Ibn al-Khattab was the first conqueror of Jerusalem to enter the city on foot, and when visiting the site that now houses the [[Haram al-Sharif]], he declared it a sacred place of prayer.<ref>[http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/umar.html CALIPH UMAR'S ADDRESS AFTER JERUSALEM]</ref><ref>The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City By Dore Gold, pg. 97</ref> Cities that accepted the new rulers, as recorded in registrars from the time, were: Jerusalem, Nablus, [[Jenin]], [[Acre]], Tiberias, [[Bet Shean|Bisan]], Caesarea, Lajjun, [[Lod|Lydd]], [[Jaffa]], [[Imwas]], [[Beit Jibrin]], Gaza, [[Rafah]], [[Hebron]], [[Yubna]], [[Haifa]], [[Safad]] and Ashkelon.<ref name="Shahinp10" />
====Umayyad rule (661–750 CE)====
Under [[Umayyad]] rule, the Byzantine province of Palaestina Prima became the administrative and military sub-province (''jund'') of [[Jund Filastin|Filastin]] - the Arabic name for Palestine from that point forward.<ref name=WKhalidi27>{{cite book|title=Before Their Diaspora|author=Walid Khalidi|publisher=Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington DC|date=1984|page=27 - 28}}</ref> It formed part of the larger province of ''ash-Sham'' (Arabic for [[Bilad ash-Sham|Greater Syria]]).<ref name=Gerber>{{cite journal|title="Zionism, Orientalism, and the Palestinians"|author=Haim Gerber|publisher=''Journal of Palestine Studies''|date=Fall 2003|volume=Vol. 33, No. 1|pages=23–41|url=http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/jps.2003.33.1.23?cookieSet=1&journalCode=jps|journal=Journal of Palestine Studies|doi=10.1525/jps.2003.33.1.23 <!--Retrieved from URL by DOI bot-->}}</ref> ''[[Jund Filastin]]'' (Arabic جند فلسطين, literally "the army of Palestine") was a region extending from the Sinai to the plain of [[Acre]]. Major towns included [[Rafah]], [[Caesarea]], [[Gaza]], [[Jaffa]], [[Nablus]] and [[Jericho]].<ref name=Parkes>{{cite web|title=Palestine Under the Caliphs|author=James Parkes|publisher=MidEastWeb|accessdate=2007-08-20|url=http://www.mideastweb.org/palcaliph1.htm}}</ref> ''Jund al-Urdunn'' (literally "the army of Jordan") was a region to the north and east of Filastin which included the cities of [[Acre, Israel|Acre]], [[Beit She'an|Bisan]] and [[Tiberias]].<ref name=Parkes/>
In 691, Caliph [[Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan]] ordered that the [[Dome of the Rock]] be built on the site where the Islamic prophet [[Muhammad]] is believed by Muslims to have begun his nocturnal journey to heaven, on the [[Temple Mount]]. About a decade afterward, Caliph [[Al-Walid I]] had the [[Al-Aqsa Mosque]] built.<ref name=Faizer>{{cite web|title=The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem|author=Rizwi Faizer|publisher=Rizwi's Bibliography for Medieval Islam|date=1998|accessdate=2007-07-14|url=http://us.geocities.com/rfaizer/reviews/book9.html}}</ref>
It was under Umayyad rule that Christians and Jews were granted the official title of "[[Peoples of the Book]]" to underline the common monotheistic roots they shared with Islam.<ref name="Shahinp10" /><ref>Ahl al-Kitab. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved [[August 12]], [[2007]], from [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9004124 Encyclopædia Britannica Online]</ref>
====Abbasid rule (750–969 CE)====
The [[Baghdad]]-based [[Abbasid]] Caliphs renovated and visited the holy shrines and sanctuaries in Jerusalem<ref name=Talhami>{{cite journal|title=The Modern History of Islamic Jerusalem: Academic Myths and Propaganda|author=Ghada Hashem Talhami|publisher=Middle East Policy Council|volume=Volume VII, No. 2|date=February 2000|accessdate=2007-08-20|url=http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol7/0002_talhami.asp}}</ref> and continued to build up Ramle.<ref name="Shahinp10" /><ref name=Lev>{{cite journal|title=The Ethics and Practice of Islamic Medieval Charity|author=Yaacov Lev|publisher=History Compass|volume=5, Issue 2|pages=603–618|date=2007}}</ref> Coastal areas were fortified and developed and port cities like Acre, [[Haifa]], Caesarea, [[Arsuf]], Jaffa and [[Ashkelon]] received monies from the state treasury.<ref name="Shahinp11">Shahin (2005), p. 11</ref>{{Fact|date=August 2007}}
A trade fair took place in Jerusalem every year on [[September 15]] where merchants from [[Pisa]], [[Genoa]], [[Venice]] and [[Marseilles]] converged to acquire spices, soaps, silks, olive oil, sugar and glassware in exchange for European products.<ref name="Shahinp11" />{{Fact|date=August 2007}} European Christian pilgrims visited and made generous donations to Christian holy places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.<ref name="Shahinp11" />{{Fact|date=August 2007}} Harun al-Rashid (786-809) established the Christian Pilgrims' Inn in Jerusalem, fulfilling Umar's pledge to Bishop Sophronious to allow freedom of religion and access to Jerusalem for Christian pilgrims.<ref name=MEI>{{cite web|title=Islamic Civilization: An Overview|author=M. Cherif Bassiouni|publisher=Middle East Institute: The George Camp Keiser Library|date=2004|accessdate=2007-08-14|url=http://www.mideasti.org/indepth/islam/civilization.html}}</ref>
====Fatimid rule (969–1099 CE)====
From their base in [[Tunisia]], the [[Fatimid]]s, who claimed to be descendants of Muhammad through his daughter [[Fatima]], conquered Palestine by way of Egypt in 969 CE.<ref name="Shahinp11" /><ref name=Arabnet>{{cite web|title=Egypt: The Fatimid Period 969 - 1771|publisher=Arab Net|date=2002|accessdate=2007-08-14|url=http://www.arab.net/egypt/et_fatimid.htm}}</ref> Jerusalem, Nablus, and Askalan were expanded and renovated under their rule.<ref name="Shahinp11" />{{Fact|date=August 2007}}
After the 10th century, the division into ''Junds'' began to break down. In 1071, the [[Isfahan]]-based [[Seljuk]] [[Turkish people|Turks]] captured Jerusalem only to hand it back in 1098.<ref name="Shahinp11" />
: ''See also the [http://www.mideastweb.org/palcaliph1.htm Mideastweb map of "Palestine Under the Caliphs"], showing Jund boundaries (external link).''
===Crusader rule (1099–1187 CE)===
{{seealso|Crusade|Kingdom of Jerusalem}}
Under the European rule, fortifications, castles, towers and fortified villages were built, rebuilt and renovated across Palestine largely in rural areas.<ref name=Shahinp11 /><ref name=Nicolle>{{cite book|title=Crusader Castles in the Holy Land 1192-1302|author=[[David Nicolle]]|publisher=Osprey|isbn=9781841768274|date=July 2005|url=http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=S8278~per=41}}</ref> A notable urban remnant of the Crusader architecture of this era is found in Acre's old city.<ref name=Shahinp11 /><ref name=IsraelAntiquities>{{cite web|title=Projects:The Old City of Akko (Acre)|publisher=Israeli Antiquities Authority|accessdate=2007-08-14|url=http://www.iaa-conservation.org.il/Projects_Item_eng.asp?subject_id=11&site_id=5&id=22}}</ref>
In July 1187, the [[Cairo]]-based [[Kurdistan|Kurdish]] General Saladin commanded his troops to victory in the [[Battle of Hattin]].<ref name=Setton>Kenneth Setton, ed. ''[http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/History.CrusOne A History of the Crusades, vol. I.]'' [[University of Pennsylvania]] Press, 1958</ref><ref name="Shahinp12">Shahin (2005), page 12.</ref> Saladin went on to take Jerusalem. An agreement granting special status to the Crusaders allowed them to continue to stay in Palestine and In 1229, [[Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor|Frederick II]] negotiated a 10-year treaty that placed Jerusalem, [[Nazareth]] and Bethlehem once again under Crusader rule.<ref name=Setton/>
In 1270, Sultan [[Baibars]] expelled the Crusaders from most of the country, though they maintained a base at Acre until 1291.<ref name=Setton/> Thereafter, any remaining Europeans either went home or merged with the local population.<ref name=Shahinp12 />{{Fact|date=August 2007}}
===Mamluk rule (1270–1516 CE)===
Palestine formed a part of the [[Damascus]] [[Wilayah]] (district) under the rule of the [[Mamluk Sultanate]] of Egypt and was divided into three smaller [[Sanjak]]s (subdivisions) with capitals in Jerusalem, Gaza, and Safad.<ref name=Shahinp12 />{{Fact|date=August 2007}} Celebrated by Arab and Muslim writers of the time as the "blessed land of the Prophets and Islam's revered leaders,"<ref name=Shahinp12 /> Muslim sanctuaries were "rediscovered" and received many pilgrims.<ref name=WKhalidi28>{{cite book|title=Before Their Diaspora|author=Walid Khalidi|publisher=Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington DC|date=1984|page=28 - 29}}</ref>
While the first half of the Mamluk era (1270-1382) saw the construction of many schools, lodgings for travellers ([[Caravanserai|khans]]) and the renovation of mosques neglected or destroyed during the Crusader period,<ref name=WKhalidi28 /> the second half (1382-1517) was a period of decline as the Mamluks were engaged in battles with the [[Mongols]] in areas outside Palestine.<ref name=Shahinp12 /><ref name=Islamicity>{{cite web|title= Islam and Islamic History in Arabia
and The Middle East: The Mongols and the Mamluks|publisher=Islamicity|accessdate=2007-08-14|url=http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/ihame/Sec11.htm}}</ref>
In 1486, hostilities broke out between the Mamluks and the [[Ottoman Turks]] in a battle for control over western Asia. The Mamluk armies were eventually defeated by the forces of the Ottoman Sultan, [[Selim I]], and lost control of Palestine after the 1516 battle of [[Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri|Marj Dabiq]].<ref name=Shahinp12 /><ref>Chase, 2003, pp. 104-105.</ref>
===Ottoman rule (1516–1831 CE)===
[[Image:OttomanEmpireIn1683.png|thumb|right|Territory of the [[Ottoman Empire]] in 1683]]
After the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] conquest, the name "Palestine" disappeared as the official name of an administrative unit, as the Turks often called their (sub)provinces after the capital. Following its 1516 incorporation in the Ottoman Empire, it was part of the'' [[vilayet]]'' ([[Subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire|province]]) of Damascus-Syria until 1660. It then became part of the ''vilayet'' of [[Sidon|Saida]] (Sidon), briefly interrupted by the 7 March 1799 - July 1799 French occupation of Jaffa, Haifa, and Caesarea. During the [[Siege of Acre (1799)|Siege of Acre]] in 1799, [[Napoleon]] prepared a proclamation declaring a Jewish state in Palestine.
===Egyptian rule (1831-1841)===
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On 10 May 1832 the territories of modern Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Territories were conquered and annexed by [[Muhammad Ali of Egypt|Muhammad Ali]]'s expansionist Egypt (nominally still Ottoman) in the [[1831 Egyptian-Ottoman War]]. Britain sent the navy to shell Beirut and an Anglo-Ottoman expeditionary force landed, causing local uprisings against the Egyptian occupiers. A British naval squadron anchored off Alexandria. The Egyptian army retreated to Egypt. Muhammad Ali signed the Treaty of 1841. Britain returned control of the Levant to the Ottomans.
===Ottoman rule (1841-1917)===
In the reorganisation of 1873, which established the administrative boundaries that remained in place until 1914, Palestine was split between three major administrative units. The northern part, above a line connecting Jaffa to north Jericho and the Jordan, was assigned to the ''vilayet'' of Beirut, subdivided into the ''[[sanjak]]s'' (districts) of Acre, Beirut and Nablus. The southern part, from Jaffa downwards, was part of the special district of Jerusalem. Its southern boundaries were unclear but petered out in the eastern Sinai Peninsula and northern Negev Desert. Most of the central and southern Negev was assigned to the ''vilayet'' of Hijaz, which also included the Sinai Peninsula and the western part of Arabia.<ref name="boundaries">Gideon Biger, ''The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840-1947'', pp. 13-15. Routledge, 2004. ISBN 0714656542</ref>
Nonetheless, the old name remained in popular and semi-official use. Many examples of its usage in the 16th and 17th centuries have survived.<ref>Gerber, 1998.</ref> During the 19th century, the Ottoman Government employed the term ''Arz-i Filistin'' (the 'Land of Palestine') in official correspondence, meaning for all intents and purposes the area to the west of the River Jordan which became 'Palestine' under the British in 1922".<ref>Mandel, 1976, p. ''xx''.</ref> However, the Ottomans regarded "Palestine" as an abstract description of a general region but not as a specific administrative unit with clearly defined borders. This meant that they did not consistently apply the name to a clearly defined area.<ref name="boundaries" /> Ottoman court records, for instance, used the term to describe a geographical area that did not include the ''sanjaks'' of Jerusalem, Hebron and Nablus, although these had certainly been part of historical Palestine.<ref>Judith Mendelsohn Rood, ''Sacred Law in the Holy City'', p. 46. Brill Publishers, 2004.</ref><ref>Bernard Lewis, "Palestine: On the History and Geography of a Name", ''International History Review'' 11 (1980): 1-12</ref> Amongst the educated Arab public, ''Filastin'' was a common concept, referring either to the whole of Palestine or to the Jerusalem ''sanjak'' alone<ref>Porath, 1974, pp. 8-9.</ref> or just to the area around Ramle.<ref>Haim Gerber (1998) referring to [[fatwa]]s by two [[Hanafite]] Syrian jurists.</ref>
Ottoman rule over the eastern Mediterranean lasted until [[World War I]] when the Ottomans [[World War I#Ottoman Empire|sided]] with [[Germany]] and the [[Central Powers]]. During [[World War I]], the Ottomans were driven from much of the region by the [[United Kingdom]] during the [[dissolution of the Ottoman Empire]].
===The 20th century===
[[Image:Palestine south 1924.jpg|thumb|right|Palestine in British map 1924 the map now in the National Library of Scotland]]
In European usage up to [[World War I]], "Palestine" was used informally for a region that extended in the north-south direction typically from [[Raphia]] (south-east of [[Gaza]]) to the [[Litani River]] (now in Lebanon). The western boundary was the sea, and the eastern boundary was the poorly-defined place where the Syrian desert began. In various European sources, the eastern boundary was placed anywhere from the Jordan River to slightly east of [[Amman]]. The [[Negev Desert]] was not included.<ref>[Biger]</ref>
Under the [[Sykes-Picot Agreement]] of 1916, it was envisioned that most of Palestine, when freed from Ottoman control, would become an international zone not under direct French or British colonial control. Shortly thereafter, British foreign minister [[Arthur Balfour]] issued the [[Balfour Declaration of 1917]], which laid plans for a Jewish homeland to be established in Palestine eventually.
The British-led [[Egyptian Expeditionary Force]], commanded by [[Edmund Allenby, 1st Viscount Allenby|Edmund Allenby]], captured Jerusalem on [[9 December]] [[1917]] and occupied the whole of the Levant following the defeat of Turkish forces in Palestine at the [[Battle of Megiddo (1918)|Battle of Megiddo]] in September 1918 and the capitulation of Turkey on [[31 October]].<ref>Hughes, 1999, p. 17; p. 97.</ref>
====British Mandate (1920–1948)====
{{main|British Mandate of Palestine}}
[[Image:BritishMandatePalestine1920.png|thumb|right|Palestine and [[Transjordan]] were incorporated (under different legal and administrative arrangements) into the Mandate for Palestine issued by the [[League of Nations]] to [[Great Britain]] on [[29 September]] [[1923]]]]
[[Image:Samuelarrival.jpg|thumb|left|The new era in Palestine. The arrival of Sir Herbert Samuel, H.B.M. high commissioner, etc. with Col. Lawrence, Emir Abdullah, Air Marshal [[Geoffrey Salmond|Salmond]] and Sir Wyndham Deedes.]]
The [[British Mandate of Palestine|British Mandate]] enacted English, [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] and [[Arabic]] as its three official languages. The land designated by the mandate was called Palestine in English, Falastin (فلسطين) in [[Arabic]], and in Hebrew ''Palestina or [[Land of Israel|Eretz Yisrael]]'' ({{lang|he|(פלשתינה (א"י}}).
In April 1920 the Allied Supreme Council (the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan) met at [[San Remo conference|Sanremo]] and formal decisions were taken on the allocation of mandate territories. The United Kingdom accepted a mandate for Palestine, but the boundaries of the mandate and the conditions under which it was to be held were not decided. The Zionist Organization's representative at Sanremo, [[Chaim Weizmann]], subsequently reported to his colleagues in London:
<blockquote>There are still important details outstanding, such as the actual terms of the mandate and the question of the boundaries in Palestine. There is the delimitation of the boundary between French Syria and Palestine, which will constitute the northern frontier and the eastern line of demarcation, adjoining Arab Syria. The latter is not likely to be fixed until the Emir Feisal attends the Peace Conference, probably in Paris.<ref>'Zionist Aspirations: Dr Weizmann on the Future of Palestine', ''The Times'', Saturday, [[8 May]], 1920; p. 15.</ref></blockquote>
[[Image:Churchillabdullah.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Churchill and Abdullah (with Herbert Samuel and T. E. Lawrence) during their neogtiations in Jerusalem, March 1921.]]
In July 1920, the French drove [[Faisal I of Iraq|Faisal bin Husayn]] from [[Damascus]] ending his already negligible control over the region of Transjordan, where local chiefs traditionally resisted any central authority. The sheikhs, who had earlier pledged their loyalty to the [[Sharif of Mecca]], asked the British to undertake the region's administration. [[Herbert Samuel]] asked for the extension of the Palestine government's authority to Transjordan, but at meetings in Cairo and Jerusalem between [[Winston Churchill]] and [[Abdullah I of Jordan|Emir Abdullah]] in March 1921 it was agreed that Abdullah would administer the territory (initially for six months only) on behalf of the Palestine administration. In the summer of 1921 Transjordan was included within the Mandate, but excluded from the provisions for a [[Jewish National Home]].<ref>Gelber, 1997, pp. 6-15.</ref> On [[24 July]], 1922 the League of Nations approved the terms of the British Mandate over Palestine and Transjordan. On [[16 September]] the League formally approved a memorandum from [[Arthur Balfour|Lord Balfour]] confirming the exemption of Transjordan from the clauses of the mandate concerning the creation of a Jewish national home and from the mandate's responsibility to ''facilitate'' Jewish immigration and land settlement.<ref>Sicker, 1999, p. 164.</ref> With Transjordan coming under the administration of the British Mandate, the mandate's collective territory became constituted of 23% Palestine and 77% Transjordan. The British prevented Jewish immigration to Transjordan.{{Fact|date=July 2008}} Transjordan was a very sparsely populated region (specially in comparison with Palestine proper) due to its relatively limited resources and largely desert environment.
The award of the mandates was delayed as a result of the United States' suspicions regarding Britain's colonial ambitions and similar reservations held by Italy about France's intentions. France in turn refused to reach a settlement over Palestine until its own mandate in Syria became final. According to Louis:
<blockquote>Together with the American protests against the issuance of mandates these triangular quarrels between the Italians, French, and British explain why the A mandates did not come into force until nearly four years after the signing of the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Peace Treaty]].... The British documents clearly reveal that Balfour's patient and skillful diplomacy contributed greatly to the final issuance of the A mandates for Syria and Palestine on [[September 29]], 1923.<ref>Louis, 1969, p. 90.</ref></blockquote>
Even before the Mandate came into legal effect in 1923 ([[1922 Text: League of Nations Palestine Mandate|text]]), British terminology sometimes used '"Palestine" for the part west of the Jordan River and "Trans-Jordan" (or ''Transjordania'') for the part east of the Jordan River.<ref>Ingrams, 1972</ref><ref>
{{cite web | url = http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/349b02280a930813052565e90048ed1c | title = Mandate for Palestine - Interim report of the Mandatory to the LoN/Balfour Declaration text | accessdate = 2007-03-08 | date = 1921-07-30 | publisher = League of Nations | language = English}}</ref>
[[Image:Palestine stamp.jpg|thumb|right|[[Rachel's Tomb]] on a 1927 British Mandate stamp. "Palestine" is shown in English, Arabic (فلسطين), and Hebrew, the latter includes the acronym א״י for ''[[Eretz Yisrael]]'']]
The first reference to the Palestinians, without qualifying them as Arabs, is to be found in a document of the Permanent Executive Committee, composed of Muslims and Christians, presenting a series of formal complaints to the British authorities on 26 July 1928.<ref> Henry Laurens, ''La Question de Palestine'', Fayard, Paris 2002 vol.2 p.101</ref>
In the years following [[World War II]], Britain's control over Palestine became increasingly tenuous. This was caused by a combination of factors, including:
*Rapid deterioration due to the attacks by the [[Irgun]] and [[Lehi (group)|Lehi]] on British officials, armed forces, and strategic installations. This caused severe damage to British morale and prestige, as well as increasing opposition to the mandate in Britain itself, public opinion demanding to "bring the boys home".<ref>Colonel Archer-Cust, Chief Secretary of the British Government in Palestine, said in a lecture to the Royal Empire Society that "The hanging of the two British Sergeants [an Irgun retaliation to British executions] did more than anything to get us out [of Palestine]". (The United Empire Journal, November-December 1949, taken from ''The Revolt'', by Menachem Begin)</ref>
*World public opinion turned against Britain as a result of the British policy of preventing [[Holocaust]] survivors from reaching Palestine, sending them instead to [[Cyprus internment camps]], or even back to [[Germany]], as in the case of [[Exodus (ship)|Exodus 1947]].
*The costs of maintaining an army of over 100,000 men in Palestine weighed heavily on a British economy suffering from post-war depression, and was another cause for British public opinion to demand an end to the Mandate.
*US Congress was delaying a loan necessary to prevent British bankruptcy. The delays were in response to the British refusal to fulfill a promise given to Truman that 100,000 Holocaust survivors would be allowed to migrate to Palestine.
Finally in early 1947 the British Government announced their desire to terminate the Mandate, and passed the responsibility over Palestine to the [[United Nations]].
====UN partition====
{{main|United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine}}
[[Image:UN Partition Plan Palestine.png|right|thumb|132px|UN partition plan, 1947]]
On [[29 November]] [[1947]], the [[United Nations]] [[UN General Assembly|General Assembly]], with a two-thirds majority international vote, passed the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181), a plan to resolve the [[Arab-Israeli conflict|Arab-Jewish conflict]] by partitioning the territory into separate [[Jew]]ish and [[Arab]] states, with the Greater [[Jerusalem]] area (encompassing [[Bethlehem]]) coming under international control. Jewish leaders (including the [[Jewish Agency]]), accepted the plan, while Palestinian Arab leaders rejected it and refused to negotiate. Neighboring Arab and Muslim states also rejected the partition plan. The Arab community reacted violently after the [[Arab Higher Committee]] declared a [[1947 Jerusalem riots|strike and burned many buildings and shops]]. As armed skirmishes between Arab and Jewish paramilitary forces in Palestine continued, the British mandate ended on [[May 15]], [[1948]], the establishment of the [[State of Israel]] having been proclaimed the day before (see [[Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel]]). The neighboring Arab states and armies ([[Lebanon]], [[Syria]], [[Iraq]], [[Egypt]], [[Transjordan]], [[Holy War Army]], [[Arab Liberation Army]], and local [[Arab]]s) immediately attacked Israel following its declaration of independence, and the [[1948 Arab-Israeli War]] ensued. Consequently, the partition plan was never implemented.
===Current status===
Following the [[1948 Arab-Israeli War]], the [[1949 Armistice Agreements]] between Israel and neighboring Arab states eliminated Palestine as a distinct territory. With the establishment of Israel, the remaining lands were divided amongst Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The Arab governments at this point refused to set up a State of Palestine.
[[Image:Is-wb-gs-gh v3.png|thumb|The region as of today: Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the [[Golan Heights]]]]
In addition to the UN-partitioned area it was allotted, Israel captured 26% of the Mandate territory west of the Jordan river. Jordan captured and annexed about 21% of the Mandate territory, known today as the [[West Bank]]. Jerusalem was divided, with Jordan taking the eastern parts, including the [[Jerusalem's Old City walls|Old City]], and Israel taking the western parts. The [[Gaza Strip]] was captured by [[Egypt]].
For a description of the massive population movements, Arab and Jewish, at the time of the 1948 war and over the following decades, see [[Palestinian exodus]] and [[Jewish exodus from Arab lands]].
[[Image:West Bank & Gaza Map 2007 (Settlements).gif|left|thumb|250px|Map of the [[West Bank]] and the [[Gaza Strip]], 2007]]
From the 1960s onward, the term "Palestine" was regularly used in political contexts. Various declarations, such as the 15 November 1988 proclamation of a [[State of Palestine]] by the [[Palestine Liberation Organization|PLO]] referred to a country called Palestine, defining its borders based on the U.N. Resolution [[U.N. Resolution 242|242]] and 383 and the principle of land for peace. The [[Green Line (Israel)|Green Line]] was the 1967 border established by many UN resolutions including those mentioned above.
In the course of the [[Six Day War]] in June 1967, Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt.
According to the [[CIA World Factbook]],<ref>
Population data calculated from three pages of the online CIA World Factbook
[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/is.html]
[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/we.html]
[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gz.html] </ref> of the ten million people living between Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, about five million (49%) identify as [[Palestinian]], [[Arab]], [[Bedouin]] and/or [[Druze]]. One million of those are [[Arab citizens of Israel|citizens of Israel]]. The other four million are residents of the West Bank and Gaza, which are under the jurisdiction of the [[Palestinian National Authority]].
In the West Bank, 360,000 [[Israeli settler]]s live in a hundred scattered settlements with connecting corridors. The 2.5 million West Bank Palestinians live in four blocs centered in Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus, and Jericho. In 2005, all the Israeli settlers were evacuated from the [[Gaza Strip]] in keeping with [[Ariel Sharon]]'s plan for unilateral disengagement, and control over the area was transferred to the Palestinian Authority.
==Demographics==
===Early demographics===
Estimating the population of Palestine in antiquity relies on 2 methods - censuses and writings made at the times, and the scientific method based on excavations and statistical methods that consider the number of settlements at the particular age, area of each settlement, density factor for each settlement.
According to [[Joseph Jacobs]], writing in the ''[[Jewish Encyclopedia]]''<ref>[http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1044&letter=S Statistics], accessed [[21 May]], 2007.</ref> (1901-1906), the [[Pentateuch]] contains a number of statements as to the number of Jews that left [[Egypt]], the descendants of the seventy sons and grandsons of [[Jacob]] who took up their residence in that country. Altogether, including [[Levite]]s, there were 611,730 males over twenty years of age, and therefore capable of bearing arms; this would imply a population of about 3,154,000. The Census of [[David]] is said to have recorded 1,300,000 males over twenty years of age, which would imply a population of over 5,000,000. The number of exiles who returned from [[Babylon]] is given at 42,360. [[Tacitus]] declares that [[Jerusalem]] at its fall contained 600,000 persons; [[Josephus]], that there were as many as 1,100,000. According to Israeli archeologist Magen Broshi, "... the population of Palestine in antiquity did not exceed a million persons. It can also be shown, moreover, that this was more or less the size of the population in the peak period--the late [[Byzantine]] period, around AD 600"<ref> Magen Broshi, The Population of Western Palestine in the Roman-Byzantine Period, ''Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research'', No. 236, p.7, 1979.</ref> Similarly, a study by Yigal Shiloh of [[The Hebrew University]] suggests that the population of Palestine in the Iron Age could have never exceeded a million. He writes: "... the population of the country in the Roman-Byzantine period greatly exceeded that in the Iron Age...If we accept Broshi's population estimates, which appear to be confirmed by the results of recent research, it follows that the estimates for the population during the Iron Age must be set at a lower figure."<ref>Yigal Shiloh, The Population of Iron Age Palestine in the Light of a Sample Analysis of Urban Plans, Areas, and Population Density, ''Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research'', No. 239, p.33, 1980.</ref>
[[Shmuel Katz]] writes:<ref>Katz, p.113-115 {{he icon}}</ref>
<blockquote>
When Jewish independence came to an end in the year 70, the population numbered, at a conservative estimate, some 5 million people. (By [[Josephus]]' figures, there were nearer 7 million.) Even sixty years after the destruction of the Temple, at the outbreak of the revolt led by Bar Kochba in 132, when large numbers had fled or been deported, the Jewish population of the country must have numbered at least 3 million, according to [[Dio Cassius]]' figures. Sixteen centuries later, when the practical possibility of the return to Zion appeared on the horizon, Palestine was a denuded, derelict, and depopulated country. The writings of travellers who visited Palestine in the late eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century are filled with descriptions of its emptiness, its desolation. In 1738, [[Thomas Shaw]] wrote of the absence of people to fill - Palestine's fertile soil. In 1785, [[Constantin-François Chassebœuf|Constantine Francois Volney]] described the "rained" and "desolate" country. He had not seen the worst. Pilgrims and travellers continued to report in heartrending terms on its condition. Almost sixty years later, [[Alexander Keith]], recalling Volney's description, wrote: "In his day the land had not fully reached its last degree of desolation and depopulation.<ref>Tomas Shaw, Travels and Observations Relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant (London, 1767), p. 331ff.; Constantine Francois Volney, Travels Through Syria and Egypt in the Years 1783, 1784 and 1785 (London, 1787); Alexander Keith, The Land of Israel (Edinburgh, 1944), P. 465.</ref></blockquote>
The table below represents estimates of the first century population of Palestine (as adapted from Byatt, 1973).
<center>
{| class="sortable wikitable"
! Authority
! Jews
! Total population<sup>1</sup>
|-
| Condor, C R<ref>''Hastings Bible Dictionary'', Vol. 3, 646.</ref>
| -
| 6 million
|-
| Juster, J<ref>''Les Juifs dans l'empire romain'' (1914), 1, 209f.</ref>
| 5 million
| >5 million
|-
| Mazar, Benjamin<ref>Referred to by W C Lowdermilk, ''Palestine, Land of Promise'',(1944), p. 47.</ref>
| -
| >4 million
|-
| Klausner, Joseph<ref>''From Jesus to Paul'' (1944), 33.</ref>
| 3 million
| 3.5 million
|-
| Grant, Michael<ref>''Herod the Great'' (1971), 165.</ref>
| 3 million
| not given
|-
| Baron, Salo W<ref>A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2nd ed. (1952), Vol. 1, 168, 370-2.</ref>
| 2-2.5 million
| 2.5-3 million
|-
| Socin, A<ref>''Encyc. Biblica'' column 3550.</ref>
| -
| 2.5-3 million
|-
| Lowdermilk, W C<ref>Referred to by W C Lowdermilk, ''Palestine, Land of Promise'' (1944), 47.</ref>
| -
| 3 million
|-
| Avi-Yonah, M<ref>''The Holy Land'' (1966), 220, 221.</ref>
| -
| 2.8 million
|-
| Glueck, N<ref>Letter of 16 December 1941 reported by Lowdermilk, ibid, 47.</ref>
| -
| 2.5 million
|-
| Beloch, K J<ref>''Die Bevolkerung der griechischromischen Welt'' (1886), 242-9.</ref>
| 2 million
| not given
|-
| Grant, F C<ref>''Economic Background of the Gospels'' (1926), 83.</ref>
| -
| 1.5-2.5 million
|-
| Byatt, A<ref>Byatt, 1973.</ref>
| -
| 2.265 million
|-
| Daniel-Rops, H<ref>''Daily Life in Palestine at the Time of Christ'' (1962), 43.</ref>
| 1.5 million
| 2 million
|-
| Derwacter, F M<ref>''Preparing the Way for Paul'' (1930), 115.</ref>
| 1 million
| 1.5 million
|-
| Pfeiffer, R H<ref>''History of New Testament Times'' (1949), 189.</ref>
| 1 million
| not given
|-
| Harnack, A<ref>''Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums'' (1915), 1, 10.</ref>
| 500,000
| not given
|-
| Jeremias, J<ref>''Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus'' (1969), 205.</ref>
| 500,000-600,000
| not given
|-
| McCown, C C<ref>The Density of Population in Ancient Palestine, ''Journal of Biblical Literature'', Vol 66 (1947), 425-36.</ref>
| <500,000
| <1 million
|}</center>
<sup>'''1.'''</sup> There is no consensus on the population of Palestine in the first century of the Common Era; estimates range from under 1 million to 6 million.
===Demographics in the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods===
In the middle of the first century of the Ottoman rule, i.e. 1550 CE, [[Bernard Lewis]] in a study of Ottoman registers of the early Ottoman Rule of Palestine reports:<ref>Bernard Lewis, Studies in the Ottoman Archives--I, ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'', University of London, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 469-501, 1954</ref>
<blockquote>From the mass of detail in the registers, it is possible to extract something like a general picture of the economic life of the country in that period. Out of a total population of about 300,000 souls, between a fifth and a quarter lived in the six towns of [[Jerusalem]], [[Gaza]], [[Safed]], [[Nablus]], [[Ramla|Ramle]], and [[Hebron]]. The remainder consisted mainly of peasants, living in villages of varying size, and engaged in agriculture. Their main food-crops were wheat and barley in that order, supplemented by leguminous pulses, olives, fruit, and vegetables. In and around most of the towns there was a considerable number of vineyards, orchards, and vegetable gardens.
</blockquote>
By [[Constantin-François Chassebœuf|Volney's]] estimates in 1785, there were no more than 200,000 people in the country.<ref>Katz, 115 citing C.F.C Conte de Volney: Travels through Syria & Egypt in the years 1783, 1784, 1785 (London, 1798). Vol II p. 219 </ref>
In his paper 'Demography in Israel/Palestine: Trends, Prospects and Policy Implications'<ref>DellaPergola, 2001, p. 5.</ref> Sergio DellaPergola, drawing on the work of Bachi (1975), provides rough estimates of the population of Palestine west of the River Jordan by religion groups from the first century onwards summarised in the table below.
<center>
{| class="sortable wikitable"
! Year
! Jews
! Christians
! Muslims
! Total<sup>1</sup>
|-
| First half 1st century CE
| Majority
| -
| -
| ~2,500²
|-
| 5th century
| Minority
| Majority
| -
| >1st century
|-
| End 12th century
| Minority
| Minority
| Majority
| >225
|-
| 14th cent. before [[Black Death]]
| Minority
| Minority
| Majority
| 225
|-
| 14th cent. after Black Death
| Minority
| Minority
| Majority
| 150
|-
| 1533-1539
| 5
| 6
| 145
| 157
|-
| 1690-1691
| 2
| 11
| 219
| 232
|-
| 1800
| 7
| 22
| 246
| 275
|-
| 1890
| 43
| 57
| 432
| 532
|-
| 1914
| 94
| 70
| 525
| 689
|-
| 1922
| 84
| 71
| 589
| 752
|-
| 1931
| 175
| 89
| 760
| 1,033
|-
| 1947
| 630
| 143
| 1,181
| 1,970
|}</center>
<sup>'''1.'''</sup> Figures in thousands. The total includes Druzes and other small religious minorities.<br>
<sup>'''2.'''</sup> There is no consensus on the population of Palestine in the first century of the Common Era; estimates range from under 1 million to 6 million.
According to [[Alexander Scholch]], the population of Palestine in 1850 had about 350,000 inhabitants, 30% of whom lived in 13 towns; roughly 85% were Muslims, 11% were Christians and 4% Jews<ref>[http://www.jstor.org/view/00207438/ap010071/01a00050/0 Scholch], 1985, p. 503.</ref>
<center>
{| class="sortable wikitable" style="text-align:right; margin-right:60px"
|-
!rowspan=2|
!rowspan=2 align=center |Qazas
!rowspan=2| <small> Number of <br>Towns and <br>Villages</small>
! colspan=4 rowspan=1 |<center>Number of Households</center>
|-
!rowspan=1|<small>Muslims</small>
!rowspan=1|<small>Christians</small>
!rowspan=1|<small>Jews</small>
!rowspan=1|<small>Total</small>
|-
| 1 ||align=left | '''Jerusalem'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Jerusalem</small>|| 1 || 1,025 ||738 ||630||2,393
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 116 || 6,118 ||1,202 ||<center>-</center> || 7,320
|-
|-
| 2 ||align=left | '''Hebron'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Hebron</small>|| 1 || 2,800||<center>-</center> ||200||3,000
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 52 || 2,820||<center>-</center>||<center>-</center> || 2,820
|-
|-
| 3 ||align=left | '''Gaza'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Gaza</small>|| 1 || 2,690||65 ||<center>-</center>||2,755
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 55 || 6,417|| <center>-</center> || <center>-</center> || 6,417
|-
|-
| 3 ||align=left | '''Jaffa'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Jaffa</small>|| 3 || 865||266||<center>-</center>||1,131
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Ludd</small>|| . || 700||207||<center>-</center> || 907
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Ramla</small>|| . || 675||250||<center>-</center> || 925
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 61 || 3,439||<center>-</center>||<center>-</center> || 3,439
|-
|-
| 4||align=left | '''Nablus'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Nablus</small>|| 1 || 1,356||108 ||14||1,478
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 176 || 13,022|| 202 ||<center>-</center> || 13,224
|-
|-
| 5 ||align=left | '''Jinin'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Jinin</small>|| 1 || 656||16 ||<center>-</center>||672
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 39 || 2,120|| 17 || <center>-</center> || 2,137
|-
|-
| 6 ||align=left | '''Ajlun'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 97 || 1,599|| 137 || <center>-</center> || 1,736
|-
|-
| 7 ||align=left | '''Salt'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Salt</small>|| 1 || 500||250 ||<center>-</center>||750
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 12 || 685|| <center>-</center> || <center>-</center> || 685
|-
|-
| 8 ||align=left | '''Akka'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Gaza</small>|| 1 || 547||210 || 6 ||763
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 34 || 1,768|| 1,021 || <center>-</center> || 2,789
|-
|-
| 9 ||align=left | '''Haifa'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Haifa</small>|| 1 || 224||228 ||8 ||460
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 41 || 2,011|| 161 || <center>-</center> || 2,171
|-
|-
| 10 ||align=left | '''Nazareth'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Nazareth</small>|| 1 || 275||1,073 ||<center>-</center>||1,348
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 38 || 1,606|| 544 || <center>-</center> || 2,150
|-
|-
| 11 ||align=left | '''Tiberias'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Tiberias</small>|| 1 || 159||66 || 400 ||625
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 7 || 507|| <center>-</center> || <center>-</center> || 507
|-
|-
| 12 ||align=left | '''Safad'''
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Safad</small>|| 1 || 1,295||3 || 1,197 ||2,495
|-
| ||align=left | <small>Countryside</small>|| 38 || 1,117|| 616 || <center>-</center> || 1,733
|-
|}</center>
Figures from Ben-Arieh, in Scholch 1985, p. 388.
According to [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] statistics studied by [[Justin McCarthy (American historian)|Justin McCarthy]],<ref>McCarthy, 1990, p.26.</ref> the population of Palestine in the early 19th century was 350,000, in 1860 it was 411,000 and in 1900 about 600,000 of which 94% were [[Arabs]]. In 1914 Palestine had a population of 657,000 Muslim Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs, and 59,000 Jews.<ref>McCarthy, 1990.</ref>
According to [[Howard Sachar]], the Arab population of Palestine was about 260,000 in 1882. This number had doubled by 1914 and reached 600,000 by 1920 and 840,000 by 1931. Thus, between 1922 and 1946 the Arab population of Palestine increased by 118 percent, the highest rate of population growth among all Arab lands except [[Egypt]].<ref name=Sachar">Sachar, p. 167.</ref> McCarthy estimates the non-Jewish population of Palestine at 452,789 in 1882, 737,389 in 1914, 725,507 in 1922, 880,746 in 1931 and 1,339,763 in 1946.<ref>McCarthy, 1990, pp. 37-38.</ref>
====Travelers' impressions of 19th century Palestine====
[[Alphonse de Lamartine]] visited Palestine in 1835, "Outside the gates of Jerusalem we saw indeed no living object, heard no living sound, we found the same void, the same silence ... as we should have expected before the entombed gates of Pompeii or Herculaneam a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, on the highways, in the country ... the tomb of a whole people.<ref> Katz, 114 citing Alphonse de Lamartine, ''Recollections of the East'', Vol. I (London, 1845), pp. 268, 308. </ref>
The satirist [[Mark Twain]] wrote a humorous account of his visit to Palestine in 1867, and wrote in chapters 46,49,52 and 56 of ''[[Innocents Abroad]]'': "Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Palestine is desolate and unlovely -- Palestine is no more of this workday world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition, it is dreamland."(Chapter 56)<ref> [http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=TwaInno.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=56&division=div1 Chapter 56].</ref> "There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country". (Chapter 52)<ref> [http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=TwaInno.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=52&division=div1 Chapter 52].</ref> "A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tabor safely. We never saw a human being on the whole route". (Chapter 49)<ref>[http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=TwaInno.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=49&division=div1 Chapter 49].</ref> "There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent – not for thirty miles in either direction. ...One may ride ten miles (16 km) hereabouts and not see ten human beings." ...these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness..."(Chapter 46)<ref>[http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=TwaInno.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=46&division=div1 Chapter 46].</ref>
[[Kathleen Christison]], an American author who spent sixteen years as an analyst for the CIA, was critical of attempts to use Twain's humorous writing as a literal description of Palestine at that time. She writes that "Twain's descriptions are high in Israeli government press handouts that present a case for Israel's redemption of a land that had previously been empty and barren. His gross characterizations of the land and the people in the time before mass Jewish immigration are also often used by US propagandists for Israel."<ref>K. Christison, Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy, Univ. of California Press, 1999; p16.</ref> For example she noted that Twain described the Samaritans of Nablus at length without mentioning the much larger Arab population at all.<ref>K. Christison, Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on US Middle East Policy, Univ. of California Press, 1999; p. 20.</ref> The Arab population of Nablus at the time was about 20,000.<ref>B. B. Doumani, The political economy of population counts in Ottoman Palestine: Nablus, Circa 1950, ''International Journal of Middle East Studies'', Vol 26 (1994) 1-17.</ref>
During the nineteenth century, many residents and visitors attempted to estimate the population without recourse to official data, and came up with a large number of different values. Estimates that are reasonably reliable are only available for the final third of the century, from which period Ottoman population and taxation registers have been preserved.<ref>J. McCarthy, The population of Ottoman Syria and Iraq, 1878-1914, ''Asian and African Studies'', vol. 15 (1981) pp. 3-44. K. H. Karpat, Ottoman population 1830-1914 (Univ. Wisconsin Press, 1985).</ref>
After a visit to Palestine in 1891, [[Ahad Ha'am]] wrote:
<blockquote>
From abroad, we are accustomed to believe that Eretz Israel is presently almost totally desolate, an uncultivated desert, and that anyone wishing to buy land there can come and buy all he wants. But in truth it is not so. In the entire land, it is hard to find tillable land that is not already tilled; only sandy fields or stony hills, suitable at best for planting trees or vines and, even that after considerable work and expense in clearing and preparing them- only these remain unworked. ... Many of our people who came to buy land have been in Eretz Israel for months, and have toured its length and width, without finding what they seek.<ref> Alan Dowty, Much Ado about Little: Ahad Ha'am's "Truth from Eretz Yisrael", Zionism, and the Arabs, ''Israel Studies'', Vol. 5, No. 2 (Fall 2000) 154-181.</ref>
</blockquote>
In 1852 the [[United States of America|American]] [[writer]] [[Bayard Taylor]] travelled across the [[Jezreel Valley]], which he described in his 1854 book ''The Lands of the Saracen; or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily and Spain'' as: "one of the richest districts in the world."<ref>[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10924/10924-h/10924-h.htm The Lands of the Saracen, by Bayard Taylor<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>, while [[Laurence Oliphant (1829-1888)|Lawrence Oliphant]], who visited Palestine in 1887, wrote that Palestine's [[Jezreel Valley|Valley of Esdraelon]] was "a huge green lake of waving wheat, with its village-crowned mounds rising from it like islands; and it presents one of the most striking pictures of luxuriant fertility which it is possible to conceive."<ref>Abu-Lughod, 1971, p. 126.</ref>
The Dutch scholar and cartographer [[Adriaan Reland]] visited Palestine in 1695, made a population census, and came to the conclusion that Palestine was mostly empty with several existing communities of Jews and Christians.<ref>RELANDI HADRIANI Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata.
Trajecti Batavorum, Guilielmi, 1714., pages 648-649</ref>
According to Paul Masson, a French economic historian, "wheat shipments from the Palestinian port of Acre had helped to save southern France from famine on numerous occasions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."<ref>Marwan R. Beheiry, "The Agricultural Exports of Southern Palestine, 1885-1 9 14", ''Journal of Palestine Studies'', volume 10, No. 4, 198 1, p. 67.</ref>
Walter C. Lowdermilk, Assistant Chief of the United States Soil Conservation Service has compared Palestine favorably to California:
<blockquote>
The similarity of Southern California and Palestine is so close in climate, topography, soils and vegetation that the present condition of similarly placed areas in California is a reliable index of the early condition of the land of Palestine. Vegetation varied from desert scrub on lower slopes of the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea, to luxuriant forests of Cedars of Lebanon on the flanks of Mount Hermon, similar to the desert vegetation from Coachella Valley below sea level in Southern California to pine and fir forests on lower slopes of Mt. Baldy (10,000 ft) in the San Gabriel Range. Rainfall favours Palestine, for Jaffa gets more rain 2 1.5 inches) per annum than Los Angeles (15.2 inches), and the Mt. Hermon mountain land mass gets up to {{convert|70|in|mm}} of rain while Mt. Baldy only {{convert|50|in|mm}}. Other comparisons are striking. The region of the Jordan River, including Palestine and Trans-Jordan and the maritime slopes, is quite similar to California, but has an added advantage of its limestone country rock. The climates are alike, the natural vegetation, the physiographic features, except for the great limestone springs in Palestine. Similar crops may be grown. Differences are that soils of Palestine were uniformly better, that uplands have been badly eroded from misuse, and that slopes of Palestine favoured tree crops and were terraced where surface rock was ready at hand..".<ref>''Palestine's Economic Future: A Review of Progress and Prospects'' (London: Percy Lund Humphries and Co., Ltd., 1946), pp. 19-23.</ref>
</blockquote>
Researcher Abelson writes:<ref> Palestine: The Original Sin , Meir Abelson [http://www.acpr.org.il/ENGLISH-NATIV/issue1/Abelson-1.htm] </ref>{{quotation|In 1898, German [[Kaiser Wilhelm II]] also visited Palestine. He was appalled at the condition of the country. The Ottomans had stripped the forests for lumber and firewood. The Palestinian Arabs had let an old Roman aqueduct fall into ruin. The ultimate ecological curse was the ubiquitous herds of black goats. For nearly 2,000 years after the dispersion of the Jews, Arabs had allowed their goats to graze unfenced across Palestine. They had eaten the grass down to its roots, and the topsoil had eroded and blown away. The biblical land of milk and honey had become a dust bowl.|Palestine: The Original Sin|Meir Abelson}}
====Official reports====
The Report of the Palestine Royal Commission contains a description of Palestine's coastal plain in 1913: "The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts...No orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached [the Jewish village of] Yabna [Yavne]...Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen...The ploughs used were of wood...The yields were very poor...The sanitary conditions in the village were horrible. Schools did not exist...The western part, towards the sea, was almost a desert...The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants."<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Arabs_in_Palestine.html Jewish Virtual Library: Arabs in Palestine]</ref>
In 1920, the League of Nations' ''Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine'' stated that there were 700,000 people living in Palestine:
<blockquote>
Of these 235,000 live in the larger towns, 465,000 in the smaller towns and villages. Four-fifths of the whole population are Moslems. A small proportion of these are Bedouin Arabs; the remainder, although they speak Arabic and are termed Arabs, are largely of mixed race. Some 77,000 of the population are Christians, in large majority belonging to the Orthodox Church, and speaking Arabic. The minority are members of the Latin or of the Uniate Greek Catholic Church, or--a small number--are Protestants.
The Jewish element of the population numbers 76,000. Almost all have entered Palestine during the last 40 years. Prior to 1850 there were in the country only a handful of Jews. In the following 30 years a few hundreds came to Palestine. Most of them were animated by religious motives; they came to pray and to die in the Holy Land, and to be buried in its soil. After the persecutions in Russia forty years ago, the movement of the Jews to Palestine assumed larger proportions.<ref>
[http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/349b02280a930813052565e90048ed1c!OpenDocument Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine]</ref></blockquote>
By 1948, the population had risen to 1,900,000, of whom 68% were [[Arabs]], and 32% were [[Jews]] ([[UNSCOP]] report, including [[bedouin]]).
===Genetic analyses of regional populations===
[[Image:Y-chromosome haplotype.jpg|thumb|Regions of the Y chromosome used in staining]]
According to various genetic studies, [[Jew]]ish and [[Samaritan]] populations and various Palestinian populations overlap genetically because they share some of the same Neolithic ancestors.
Geneticists generally agree there was mixing in Middle East populations in prehistoric times. Nebel et al. (2000) doing [[Y-chromosome]] [[haplotype]] analysis for patrilineal ancestry of Jews and Palestinian Muslims "revealed a common gene pool for a large portion of Y chromosomes, suggesting a relatively recent common ancestry". The two modal haplotypes that comprise the Palestinian Arab [[clade]] were very infrequent among Jews, "reflecting divergence and/or admixture from other populations". Nebel et al. regard their findings in good agreement with historical evidence that suggest that "Part, or perhaps the majority, of the Muslim Arabs in this country descended from local inhabitants, mainly Christians and Jews, who had converted after the Islamic conquest in the seventh century AD... These local inhabitants, in turn, were descendants of the core population that had lived in the area for several centuries, some even since prehistoric times.<ref> [http://www.springerlink.com/content/4b9fltx6cnc9l18q/ Journal Abstract:] Almut Nebel, Dvora Filon, Deborah A. Weiss, Michael Weale, Marina Faerman, Ariella Oppenheim, Mark G. Thomas. 2000 "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews". ''Human Genetics'' 107(6): 630-641.</ref>
A subsequent study aimed at determining the genetic relationship among three Jewish communities (Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Kurdish) by the same group described two Y-chromosomal haplotype groups, Eu9 and Eu10, that represent a major part of Middle East ancestry. Eu9 appears to originate from the northern [[Fertile Crescent]], while Eu10 appears to come from the southern part of it. Jewish and Muslim Kurdish populations have high-frequency of Eu9 but generally lack Eu10, which is prevalent in Palestinian Muslims. The study proposes that <blockquote>...the Y chromosomes in Palestinian Arabs and Bedouin represent, to a large extent, early lineages derived from the Neolithic inhabitants of the area and additional lineages from more-recent population movements. The early lineages are part of the common chromosome pool shared with Jews. According to our working model, the more-recent migrations were mostly from the Arabian Peninsula, as is seen in the Arab-specific Eu 10 chromosomes that include the modal haplotypes observed in Palestinians and Bedouin... The study demonstrates that the Y chromosome pool of Jews is an integral part of the genetic landscape of the region and, in particular, that Jews exhibit a high degree of genetic affinity to populations living in the north of the Fertile Crescent.<ref>[http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=11573163 Journal Article:] Almut Nebel, Dvora Filon, Bernd Brinkmann, Partha P. Majumder, Marina Faerman, Ariella Oppenheim. 2001. "The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East". ''American Journal of Human Genetics'' 69(5): 1095–1112.</ref>
</blockquote>
===The question of late Arab immigration to Palestine===
Whether there was significant Arab immigration into Palestine after the beginning of Jewish settlement there in the late 19th century has been a matter of some controversy.
[[Howard Sachar]] estimates the number of Arabs who immigrated to Palestine between 1922 and 1946 at 100,000.<ref name="Sachar167">Sachar, p. 167.</ref> He argues that
<blockquote>
The influx could be traced in some measure to the orderly government provided by the British; but far more, certainly, to the economic opportunities provided by Jewish settlement. The rise of the Yishuv benefited Arab life indirectly, by disproportionate Jewish contributions to the government revenue, and thereby to increase the mandatory expenditures on the Arab sector; and directly, by opening new markets for Arab produce and (until the civil war of 1936) new employment opportunities for the Arab labor. It was significant, for example, that the movement of Arabs within Palestine itself was largely to regions of Jewish concentration. Thus, Arab population increase during the 1930s was 87 percent in [[Haifa]], 61 percent in [[Jaffa]], 37 percent in Jerusalem. A similar growth was registered in Arab towns located near Jewish agricultural villages. The 25 percent rise in of Arab participation in industry could be traced exclusively to the needs of the large Jewish immigration.<ref>Sachar, pp. 167–168</ref>
</blockquote>
According to [[Martin Gilbert]], 50,000 Arabs immigrated to Palestine from the neighboring lands between 1919 and 1939 "attracted by the improving agricultural conditions and growing job opportunities, most of them created by the Jews".<ref>Gilbert, 2005, p. 16.</ref>
American economist [http://www.meforum.org/article/522/ Fred Gottheil] argues that there likely was significant Arab immigration:
<blockquote>
There is every reason to believe that consequential immigration of Arabs into and within Palestine occurred during the Ottoman and British mandatory periods. Among the most compelling arguments in support of such immigration is the universally acknowledged and practiced linkage between regional economic disparities and migratory impulses. The precise magnitude of Arab immigration into and within Palestine is, as Bachi noted, unknown. Lack of completeness in Ottoman registration lists and British Mandatory censuses, and the immeasurable illegal, unreported, and undetected immigration during both periods make any estimate a bold venture into creative analysis. In most cases, those venturing into the realm of Palestinian demography—or other demographic analyses based on very crude data—acknowledge its limitations and the tentativeness of the conclusions that may be drawn.<ref>Gottheil, 2003.</ref>
</blockquote>
[[Roberto Bachi]] has concluded that there was a small but significant unrecorded Muslim immigration into Palestine estimated at around 900 people per year or approximately 13,500 in total between 1931 and 1945.<ref name = "McCarthy-p33"/>
McCarthy explains, "... evidence for Muslim immigration into Palestine is minimal. Because no Ottoman records of that immigration have yet been discovered, one is thrown back on demographic analysis to evaluate Muslim migration."<ref name = "McCarthy-p16">McCarthy, 1990, p. 16.</ref> <ref name = "McCarthy-p33">McCarthy, 1990, p. 33.</ref> McCarthy argues that there is no significant Arab immigration into mandatory Palestine:
<blockquote>
From analyses of rates of increase of the Muslim population of the three Palestinian sanjaks, one can say with certainty that Muslim immigration after the 1870s was small. Had there been a large group of Muslim immigrants their numbers would have caused an unusual increase in the population and this would have appeared in the calculated rate of increase from one registration list to another... Such an increase would have been easily noticed; it was not there.<ref name = "McCarthy-p16"/>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
The argument that Arab immigration somehow made up a large part of the Palestinian Arab population is thus statistically untenable. The vast majority of the Palestinian Arabs resident in 1947 were the sons and daughters of Arabs who were living in Palestine before modern Jewish immigration began. There is no reason to believe that they were not the sons and daughters of Arabs who had been in Palestine for many centuries.<ref>McCarthy, 1990, p. 38.</ref>
</blockquote>
McCarthy also concludes that there was no significant internal migration to Jewish areas attributable to better economic conditions:
<blockquote>
Some areas of Palestine did experience greater population growth than others, but the explanation for this is simple. Radical economic change was occurring all over the Mediterranean Basin at the time. Improved transportation, greater mercantile activity, and greater industry had increased the chances for employment in cities, especially coastal cities... Differential population increase was occurring all over the Eastern Mediterranean, not just in Palestine... The increase in Muslim population had little or nothing to do with Jewish immigration. In fact the province that experienced the greatest Jewish population growth (by .035 annually), Jerusalem Sanjak, was the province with the lowest rate of growth of Muslim population (.009).<ref>McCarthy, 1990, pp. 16-17.</ref>
</blockquote>
Gad Gilbar has also concluded that the prosperity of the Palestine in the 45-50 years before World War I was a result of the modernization and growth of the economy owing to its integration with the world economy and especially with the economies of Europe. Although the reasons for growth were exogenous to Palestine the bearers were not waves of Jewish immigration, foreign intervention nor Ottoman reforms but "primarily local Arab Muslims and Christians."<ref>Gilbar, 1986, p. 188.</ref>
Demographer [[Uziel Schmelz]], in his analysis of Ottoman registration data for 1905 populations of Jerusalem and Hebron ''[[kazas]]'', found that most Ottoman citizens living in these areas, comprising about one quarter of the population of Palestine, were living at the place where they were born. Specifically, of Muslims, 93.1% were born in their current locality of residence, 5.2% were born elsewhere in Palestine, and 1.6% were born outside Palestine. Of Christians, 93.4% were born in their current locality, 3.0% were born elsewhere in Palestine, and 3.6% were born outside Palestine. Of Jews (excluding the large fraction who were not Ottoman citizens), 59.0% were born in their current locality, 1.9% were born elsewhere in Palestine, and 39.0% were born outside Palestine.<ref>Schmelz, 1990, pp. 15-67.</ref>
[[Yehoshua Porath]] believes that the notion of "large-scale immigration of Arabs from the neighboring countries" is a myth "proposed by Zionist writers". He writes:
<blockquote>
As all the research by historian Fares Abdul Rahim and geographers of modern Palestine shows, the Arab population began to grow again in the middle of the nineteenth century. That growth resulted from a new factor: the demographic revolution. Until the 1850s there was no "natural" increase of the population, but this began to change when modern medical treatment was introduced and modern hospitals were established, both by the Ottoman authorities and by the foreign Christian missionaries. The number of births remained steady but infant mortality decreased. This was the main reason for Arab population growth. ... No one would doubt that some migrant workers came to Palestine from Syria and Trans-Jordan and remained there. But one has to add to this that there were migrations in the opposite direction as well. For example, a tradition developed in Hebron to go to study and work in Cairo, with the result that a permanent community of Hebronites had been living in Cairo since the fifteenth century. Trans-Jordan exported unskilled casual labor to Palestine; but before 1948 its civil service attracted a good many educated Palestinian Arabs who did not find work in Palestine itself. Demographically speaking, however, neither movement of population was significant in comparison to the decisive factor of natural increase.<ref>Porath, Y. (1986). [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5249 Mrs. Peters's Palestine]. ''New York Review of Books''. [[16 January]], 32 (21 & 22).</ref>
</blockquote>
[[Daniel Pipes]] responds to Porath by saying that the argument that 'substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century is supported by an array of [[demography|demographic]] statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by anyone. Professor Porath replied with an array of data culled from expert demographers to confirm his position.'<ref>[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/5172 Mrs. Peters's Palestine: An Exchange], ''The New York Review of Books'', Volume 33, Number 5, [[March 27]], 1986.</ref>
===Current demographics===
{{seealso|Demographics of Israel|Demographics of the Palestinian territories|Demographics of Jordan}}
According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, as of May 2006, of Israel's 7 million people, 77% were [[Jew]]s, 18.5% [[Arab]]s, and 4.3% "others".<ref name="pdf2">{{cite web| url= http://www1.cbs.gov.il/shnaton56/st02_01.pdf| title=Population, by religion and population group| accessdate=2006-04-08| first =Government of Israel| last =Central Bureau of Statistics |format=PDF}} </ref> Among Jews, 68% were [[Sabra (person)|Sabras]] (Israeli-born), mostly second- or third-generation Israelis, and the rest are [[oleh|olim]] — 22% from Europe and the [[Americas]], and 10% from Asia and Africa, including the [[Arab world|Arab countries]].<ref name="pdf3">{{cite web| url= http://www1.cbs.gov.il/shnaton56/st02_24.pdf| title=Jews and others, by origin, continent of birth and period of immigration| accessdate=2006-04-08| first =Government of Israel| last =Central Bureau of Statistics |format=PDF}} </ref>
According to Palestinian evaluations, The [[West Bank]] is inhabited by approximately 2.4 million [[Palestinian]]s and the [[Gaza Strip]] by another 1.4 million. According to a study presented at The Sixth Herzliya Conference on The Balance of Israel's National Security<ref name=Herzliya>{{cite web
|title = Arab Population in the West Bank & Gaza: The Million Person Gap
|author = Bennett Zimmerman & Roberta Seid
|publisher = American-Israel Demographic Research Group
|date = [[January 23]], [[2006]]
|url = http://www.pademographics.com
|accessdate = 2006-09-27
}}</ref> there are 1.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank. This study was criticised by demographer Sergio DellaPergola, who estimated 3.33 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip combined at the end of 2005.<ref>{{cite web|title=Letter to the Editor|publisher = ''Azure''|date = Winter 2007, No. 27 |author = Sergio DellaPergola|url = http://www.azure.org.il/magazine/magazine.asp?id=356|accessdate=2007-01-11}}</ref>
According to these Israeli and Palestinian estimates, the population in Israel and the Palestinian Territories stands at 9.8-10.8 million.
Jordan has a population of around 6,000,000 (2007 estimate).<ref>[http://encarta.msn.com/fact_631504791/Jordan_Facts_and_Figures.html Jordan: Facts & Figures], accessed [[22 May]], 2007.</ref><ref>[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/jo.html CIA World Factbook], accessed [[22 May]], 2007.</ref> Palestinians constitute approximately half of this number.<ref>[http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/assessment.asp?groupId=66302 Assessment for Palestinians in Jordan], Minorities at Risk, accessed [[22 May]], 2007.</ref>
==See also==
{{commonscat|Maps of the history of the Middle East}}
{{wikiquote}}
*[[Arab-Israeli conflict]]
*[[British Mandate of Palestine]]
*[[Greater Israel]]
*[[Greater Syria]]
*[[History of Palestine]]
*[[Israeli-Palestinian conflict]]
*[[Land of Israel]] covers roughly the same region, with a different focus
*[[Names of the Levant]]
*[[Palestinian Authority]]
*[[Palestinian people]]
*[[Israel|State of Israel]]
*[[State of Palestine]]
==References==
{{Reflist|2}}
==External links==
*The Hope Simpson Report (London, 1930) [http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/e3ed8720f8707c9385256d19004f057c!OpenDocument]
*Palestine Royal Commission Report (the Peel Report) (London, 1937) [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/peel1.html]
*Report to the Council of the League of Nations (1928) [http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/3d14c9e5cdaa296d85256cbf005aa3eb/a212ce7d6edb27c6052565d4005af973!OpenDocument]
*Report to the Council of the League of Nations (1929) [http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/38bed104db074b49052565e70054eb22!OpenDocument]
*Report to the Council of the League of Nations (1934) [http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/3d14c9e5cdaa296d85256cbf005aa3eb/a212ce7d6edb27c6052565d4005af973!OpenDocument]
*Report to the Council of the League of Nations (1935) [http://domino.un.org/UNISPAl.NSF/3d14c9e5cdaa296d85256cbf005aa3eb/b672dc87b2d50447052565d4005173df!OpenDocument]
*[http://www.mideastweb.org/palpop.htm www.mideastweb.org - A website with a wealth of statistics regarding population in Palestine]
*[http://www.drberlin.com/palestine/ Coins and Banknotes of Palestine under the British Mandate]
*[http://www.worldstatesmen.org WorldStatesmen- Maps, flags, chronology, see Israel and Palestinian National Authority]
*[http://www.hweb.org.uk/content/view/69/3/ hWeb - Israel-Palestine in Maps]
*[http://www.commonlanguageproject.net/?page_id=41#Palestine Palestine Fact Sheet] from the Common Language Project
*[http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Palestine 1911 Encyclopedia description of Palestine]
*[http://www.ldfp.eu Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine]
*[http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/ngo/history.html History of the Palestine Problem, UN website]
===Maps===
*[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gov46/sykes-picot-1916.gif Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916]
*[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/images/israel04.jpg 1947 UN Partition Plan]
*[http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/images/israel05.jpg 1949 Armisitice Lines]
*[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gov46/israel-post-armstice-1949.gif Israel After 1949 Armistice Agreements]
*[http://www.ldfp.eu/Maps.html Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine]
==Bibliography==
{{col-begin}}
{{col-2}}
*Abu-Lughod, Ibrahim (1971). (Ed)., ''The Transformation of Palestine''. Illinois: Northwestern Press.
*Avneri, Arieh (1984), The Claim of Dispossession, Tel Aviv: Hidekel Press
*Bachi, Roberto (1974), The Population of Israel, Jerusalem: Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University
*Belfer-Cohen, Anna and Bar-Yosef, Ofer (2000). Early Sedentism in the Near East. A Bumpy Ride to Village Life. In Ian Kuijt (Ed.). ''Life in Neolithic Farming Communities: Social Organization, Identity, and Differentiation''. Springer. ISBN 0306461226
*Biger, Gideon (1981). Where was Palestine? Pre-World War I perception, ''AREA'' (Journal of the Institute of British Geographers) Vol 13, No. 2, pp. 153-160.
*Broshi, Magen (1979). The Population of Western Palestine in the Roman-Byzantine Period, ''Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research'', No. 236, p.7, 1979.
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{{col-2}}
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[[Category:Palestine| ]]
[[Category:Regions of Asia]]
[[Category:Divided regions]]
[[Category:Disputed territories]]
[[Category:Zionism]]
[[Category:Titular Sees of the Coptic Orthodox Church]]
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[[ar:فلسطين]]
[[an:Palestina]]
[[arc:ܦܠܣܛܝܢ]]
[[ast:Palestina]]
[[az:Fələstin]]
[[zh-min-nan:Filastiniyya]]
[[be-x-old:Палестына]]
[[bg:Палестина]]
[[ca:Palestina]]
[[cv:Палестина]]
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[[es:Palestina (región)]]
[[eo:Palestino]]
[[eu:Palestina]]
[[fa:فلسطین]]
[[fr:Palestine]]
[[ga:An Phalaistín]]
[[gl:Palestina - فلسطين]]
[[ko:팔레스타인]]
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[[hi:फ़िलस्तीन]]
[[hr:Palestina]]
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[[is:Palestína]]
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[[he:ארץ ישראל]]
[[ks:फिलिस्तीन]]
[[la:Palaestina]]
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[[mk:Палестина]]
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[[ru:Палестина]]
[[scn:Palistina]]
[[simple:Palestine]]
[[sk:Palestína (územie)]]
[[sl:Palestina]]
[[sr:Палестина]]
[[fi:Palestiina]]
[[sv:Palestina]]
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[[uk:Палестина]]
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[[zh-yue:巴勒斯坦]]
[[zh:巴勒斯坦]]