Israel:

70 Years Later (Part 1)

For a long time, the land of Israel has existed. Through controversies, wars, and the
developments of powerful civilizations, it is a land where a diversity of people has lived.
This new series about Israel shows its origins, its peoples, and the continued fight for
human justice. Israel today is in a crossroads. There are many people who want peace and
others who don’t. Therefore, we are in the right side of history that desires discrimination
to end, occupation to cease, and both Jewish people and non-Jewish people to live in the
region filled with justice and equality forevermore.

For thousands of years, human
beings have inhabited the land of
Israel. It has a history and culture
stepped in religious significance.
Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Druze,
the Baha’i faith, etc. all have a
relationship in Israel’s lands. Also,
it’s an area with a contentious,
sometimes violent history. In my
view, Israel has the most debated
history of every place that I have
researched in my life. Tons of
Jewish people live in Israel now.
From Sephardi, Yemeni, Lemba,
and the Ashkenazi Jewish ethnic
groups, Israel today is composed
mostly of Jewish citizens. To learn
about Israel is to learn about
empires, religions, wars, Judaism,
and an experience filled with ups
and downs. It is part of the world
history from the Balfour
Declaration to the Oslo Accords.
To be precisely fair, a Palestinian state and many Israelis
comprehensive history must be
shown. That means that the nation
of Israel must be shown and the
Palestinian human rights
movement must be outlined as
well. There is the war on terror
which has existed since 2001. With
the war on terror, crisis in the
Middle East has continued from
the Iraq War to the Syrian civil war
crisis. Now, after 70 years since the
nation of Israel was established, it
is time precisely to show the
thousands of years of the historical
and cultural development of that
region. Therefore, the issues of the
refugees, occupation, the
Crusades, the BDS movement,
nuclear weapons, and 1948 will be
A Long History
shown here in this work. Certainly,
President Trump wants Jerusalem
to be the city of the permanent
U.S. Embassy in Israel. The issue
with this policy is that both Israelis
and Palestinians haven't
negotiated fully about the issue of
Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a city
special to us. It's a city with great
religious history and spiritual
significance. Many people have
criticized Trump from EU factions
to others. Another issue is that we
have to see what will result in this
policy. Trump is allied with the Gulf
States (and they fight ISIS forces)
while many of these Gulf States
are pro-Palestinian.
The question is whether the Sunni
Gulf States will look the other way.
The Middle East has been
explosive for generations. Many
Palestinians want East Jerusalem
to be a future capital of a
want Jerusalem to be the total
capital of Israel. Trump's policy has
existed without a status agreement
among both sides. After the 1948
war, Israel got Jerusalem except
for East Jerusalem, which was
annexed by Jordan. Israel occupied
East Jerusalem after the 1967 Six
Day War. To this day, the
international community doesn't
recognize Jerusalem as Israel's
capital. Once again, violence
comes in the Middle East as a
product of Trump's reckless
policies. The Palestinians want
their equality and freedom from
Ramallah and Gaza. Therefore, we
are in support of any Jewish person
and Arabic person in that region
who desires true peace, an end to
occupation, and true fairness in
that region. The history of Israel
and Palestine is complicated.
Out of all of the histories that I
have studied, the histories of Israel
and Palestine receive some of the
most passionate responses among
both points of view. That is why I
advise anyone to study both points
of view of the Israeli/Palestinian
conflict (and make up their own
minds as independently thinking
human beings). We all agree that
the long term solution is for Israelis
and Palestinians to have equality,
peace, and justice excluding
terrorism and excluding
occupation. You can't have
freedom with occupation. It's as
simple as that. We want Israelis
and Palestinians to live in peace
filled with justice and equality. The
only way to do that is to respect
the humanities of both Palestinians
and Israelis, while condemning any
form of oppression plus injustice
(no matter who does it) at the
same time. For example, terrorists
who kill innocent Israelis should be
condemned along with a
militarized occupation of the West
Bank and Gaza too (which is wrong
as well. Netanyahu’s extremism is
being exposed too). Not to
mention that Ethiopian Jewish
people still experience racism,
police brutality, and discrimination
in Israel. That is wrong too. I
dreamed of writing about this issue
(on this time) for a long time. Now,
I’m blessed enough to do it at the
age of 34 years old (or 70 years
after 1948).
 In the Beginning

In the beginning, human beings traveled from Africa into the Levant (or territory encompassing Israel).
Researchers have found early humans in Israel dating to 1.5 million years ago in Ubeidiya near the Sea of
Galilee. Yiron is a place where flint tool artifacts were found. About 1.4 million years ago, there were groups
of people found in Gesher Not Yaakov, the Bizat Ruhama group, and the Old Acheulean industry. Many
scholars have found early human remains and remains of Neanderthal remains in the Carmel mountain
range at el-Tabun and Es Skhul. The Paleolithic period had caves like Qesem and Manot. In ca. 10,000 B.C.,
Israel had the Natufian culture. It included caves and the Nautifian peoples founded the location of Jericho,
which could be the oldest city in the world. It cultivated cereals like rye. They may be the ancestors of the
builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region. Neolithic is ta term that refers to the New Stone Age.
It is characterized by advancing farming and usage of domesticated animals by human beings.
 Ancient Times
By the 2nd millennium B.C, Canaan was (or the territory of Israel back then) was dominated by the New
Kingdom of Egypt from ca. 1550 B.C. to 1180 B.C. The Hebrews came about in the region of the Levant
during the Bronze Age. They were originally a Semitic, nomadic people. Some scholars believe that the
Egyptian term of the Shasu refer to the ancient Hebrews. Some link the YHWH to the Shasu too. Many
scholars reject the view that the Hyksos are the ancestors of the Hebrews since they constituted a different
group of people. The first recorded name of Israel has been found on the Merneptah stele. It was erected for
the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah (or the son of Ramses II) on ca. 1209 B.C. It mentioned that “Israel is laid
ꜣ
waste and his seed is not.” The word ysrỉ r is used for Israel in the script. William G. Dever is a researcher
who believes that “Israel” in the central highlands as a cultural and probably a political entity, more an ethnic
group rather than an organized state. The ancestors of the ancient Israelites included Semites in Canaan and
possibly the Sea Peoples. McNutt says, "It is probably safe to assume that sometime during Iron Age I a
population began to identify itself as 'Israelite'", differentiating itself from the Canaanites through such
markers as the prohibition of intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion. The
modern alphabet that we used today came from the Levant region of the Middle East thousands of years
ago. Many researchers believe that the use of grapheme based writing originated in the area (among
probably among Canaanite peoples resident in Egypt).

All modern alphabetical writing system came from this writing. Usage of Classical Hebrew existed from ca.
1,000 B.C. It was written using the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. Back then, villages have populations of up to 300
to 400 people. These places had farming and herding. Many of them were self-sufficient. Economic
interchange flourished. Writing was found back then for recording even in small sites. Archaeological
evidence has shown a society of village like centers with more limited resources and a small population.
Later, the era of Israel and Judah existed. The Hebrew Bible is explicit about the warfare among Jewish
people and other peoples like the Philistines (whose capital was in Gaza). The Bible stated that King David
created and founded a dynasty of kings (and his son built the Temple). Yigael Yadin’s excavations at Hazor,
Megiddo, Beit Shean, and Gezer discovered structures that he and others have argued date from his reign.
Others like Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman (who agree that Solomon was a historical king), argue that
they should be dated to the Omride period, more than a century after Solomon. The earliest references to
the “House of David” were found at two sites. One was the Tel Dan Stele and the other was the Mesha Stele,
which described an 840 B.C. Judean invasion of Moab. David and Solomon are mentioned in Jewish,
Christian, and Islamic texts. At ca. 930, B.C., after the death of Solomon, the kingdom of Israel was split into a
southern Kingdom of Judah and a northern Kingdom of Israel. The Bible's Books of Kings states that soon
after the split Pharaoh "Shishaq" invaded the country, plundering Jerusalem. An inscription over a gate at
Karnak in Egypt recounts such an invasion by Pharaoh Sheshonq I.

This is an image of Sennacherib.

It is possible that an alliance between Ahab of Israel and Ben Hadad II of Aram Damascus managed to
repulse the incursions of the Assyrians (with the victory of the Battle of Qarqar in 854 B.C.). Later, the
Kingdom of Israel was eventually destroyed by the Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser III in ca. 750 B.C. The
Philistine Kingdom was also destroyed. The Assyrians sent most of the northern Israelite kingdom into exile
(thus, creating the Lost Tribes of Israel. The Samaritans claimed to be descended from the survivors of the
Assyrian conquest). There was an Israelite revolt (in 724-722 B.C.). It was crushed after the siege and capture
of Samaria by the Assyrian king Sargon II. Sargon’s son, Sennacherib tried and failed to conquer Judah. The
Assyrian records said that he leveled 46 walled cities and besieged Jerusalem, leaving after receiving
extensive tribute. Modern scholars believe that the refugees from the destruction of Israel moved to Judah
during the rule of King Hezekiah (he was a ruler form 715-686 B.C.). This caused an expansion of Jerusalem
and caused the construction of the Siloam Tunnel, which provided water during a siege. The refugees also
brought new religious ideas which led under King Josiah (who ruled from 641-619 B.C.) to the organization
of the modern books of Deuteronomy, Joshua and to the accounts of the kingship of David and Solomon in
the book of Kings. The books are known as Deuteronomist and considered to be a major key step in the
emergence of Monotheism in Judah. They were written at a time when Assyria was weakened by the
emergence of Babylon and may be a committing to text of more ancient verbal traditions.

The Rule of Empires

Israel (from 586 to 135 B.C.) was dominated by Babylonian, Persian, Ptolemaic, and Seleucid empires. In 586
B.C., King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon conquered Judah. According to the Hebrew Bible, he destroyed
Solomon’s Temple and exiled the Jewish people to Babylon. The Babylonians recorded the defeat.
Babylonian and Biblical sources said that the Judean King Jehoiachin switched allegiances between the
Egyptians and the Babylonians. They mentioned that the Babylonians invaded Israel as punishment for Israel
allying with Babylon’s principal rival, Egypt. The exiled Jewish people may have been restricted to the elite.
Jehoiachin was later released by the Babylonians according to the Jehoiachin’s Rations Tablets. According to
the Bible and the Talmud, the Judean royal family (from the Davidic line) continued as head of the exile in
Babylon. In 538 B.C., Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon and took over its empire.

Cyrus issued a proclamation granting subjugated nations (including the people of Judah) religious freedom
(as found in the Cyrus Cylinder). According to the Hebrew Bible, 50,000 Judeans, led by Zerubbabel, returned
to Judah and rebuilt the temple. A second group of 5,000, who were led by Ezra and Nehemiah, returned to
Judah in 456 B.C. Although, non-Jewish people wrote to Cyrus to try to prevent their return, the Jewish
people came back to Israel. Modern scholars believe that the final Hebrew versions of the Torah and the
Book of Kings date from this period. The returning Israelites adopted an Aramaic script (or the Ashuri
alphabet), which they brought back from Babylon. This is the current Hebrew script. The Hebrew calendar
resembles closely the Babylonian calendar and probably dates from this period.
In 333 B.C, the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great defeated Persia and conquered the region. Afterwards,
the first translation of the Hebrew Bible existed or the Septuagint. It started to develop in Alexandria. The city
of Alexandria in Egypt would be a city where many ancient Jewish people would live at. After Alexander’s
death, his generals fought over territories that he had conquered. Judah was the frontier between the
Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Egypt, which eventually became part of the Seleucid Empire in 200 B.C. at
the Battle of Panium. By the 2nd century B.C., Seleucid ruler Antiochus VI Epiphanes tried to eradicate
Judaism in favor of the Hellenistic religion. This provoked the 174-135 B.C. Maccabean Revolt led by Judas
Maccabeus (whose victory is celebrated in the Jewish festival of Hanukkah). This is why Hanukkah is
celebrated worldwide. It's a remembrance of Jewish people thousands of years defeating imperialists and
fighting oppression. The Books of Maccabees describe the uprising and the end of the Greek rule. A Jewish
party called the Hasideans opposed both Hellenism and the revolt but eventually gave their support to the
Maccabees. Modern scholars interpreted this period as a civil war between Hellenized and orthodox forms of
Judaism.
 The Hasmonean dynasty
The Hasomenan dynasty lasted from 135 B.C. to 47 B.C. in Israel. It was made up of Jewish priest kings ruling
Judea with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes as the principal Jewish social movements. The Pharisees
was a social movement that used its views of theocracy to form the basis for Rabbinic Judaism. The Pharisees
favored Oral Law, the resurrection, and believed in spirits or angels. Pharisees rejected Hellenization while
the Sadducees endorsed Hellenization. The Sadducees according to Josephus was made up of the upper
social and economic echelon of Judean society. They maintained the Temple. They favored the written Torah
instead of oral law, they believed in free will, they believe that there is no afterlife (to them, there are no
spirits or angels), there are no rewards or penalties after death, and there is no fate (they believed in the
Sheol for those who had died).

The Essenes were small, but they followed the communal life in asceticism. Many of them had mystic,
eschatological, and messianic views. They lived in urban areas. Some believe that they wrote the Dead Sea
Scrolls (though, this is disputed). The Essences lived like monks in collective ownership, they didn’t swear
oaths, they didn’t sacrifice animals, and they worked on living a pure life. They believed in the immortality of
the soul. They used water purification rituals. So, the Pharisee leader Simeon ben Shetach formed the first
schools based around meeting house. This led into Rabbinical Judaism. Justice was administrated by the
Sanhedrin, which was a Rabbinical assembly and law court whose leader was known as the Nasi. The Nasi’s
religious authority gradually superseded that of the Temple’s high priest (under the Hasmoneans). The
Hasmoneans extended their control over much of the region. In 125 B.C., the Hasmonean enthnarch John
Hyrcanus subjugated Edom and forcibly converted the population to Judaism.

The Roman Empire

Roman rule came upon Israel for a long time from 64 B.C. to 390 A.D. By 64 B.C., the Roman general Pompey
conquered Syria and intervened in the Hasmonean civil war in Jerusalem. By the time of the siege of
Alexandria in 47 B.C., the lives of Julius Caesar and his protégé Cleopatra were saved by 3,000 Jewish troops
sent by King Hyrcanus II (and commanded by Antipater, whose descendants Caesar made kings of
Judea). The Herodian dynasty ruled Judea from 37 B.C. to 6 A.D. They were made up of Jewish-Roman client
kings who descended from Atipater. Herod the Great greatly enlarged the temple. It was one of the largest
religious structures in the world during the time. During this time, Rabbinical Judaism, led by Hillel the Elder
started to have popular prominence over the Temple priesthood. The Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was
granted special permission not to display an effigy of the emperor. It was the only religious structure in the
Roman Empire that didn’t do so. There was special dispensation for Jewish citizens of the Roman Empire to
pay a tax to the temple. By 6 A.D., Judea was made a Roman province. Over the decades, the society of
Judea had prosperity in many areas and it experienced tensions among Greco-Roman and Judean
populations.

The Lord Jesus Christ was born during the last years of Herod’s rule. He was born (according to the New
Testament) in the Judean city of Bethlehem. He was more than a Galilean Jewish reformer and a rabbi who
loved Nazareth. He inspired the poor to fight for their rights. He refuted the religious hypocrites who were
Pharisees and Sadducees. He angered the political establishment of Rome with his words from the Sermon
on the Mount and his actions (like helping the sick and defending the rights of the oppressed). Yeshua ben
Yoseph (i.e. the Lord Jesus Christ) was a revolutionary rabbi who spoke ab out peace, love, and the Kingdom
of God. One of his most profound statements was that the Kingdom of God is within you. His followers were
called the apostles. Jesus Christ was executed in Jerusalem on the orders of the Roman governor Pontius
Pilate between 25 and 35 A.D. The Twelve Apostles (who were all Jewish people including Paul the Apostle)
grew in influence to promote the new religion of Christianity. They defined Jesus Christ as the Son of the
living God and the Messiah.
By 50 A.D., the Council of Jerusalem was led by Paul. He decided to abandon the Jewish requirement of
circumcision for Gentiles and he made the Torah laws in total to not be required by Gentiles to follow every
aspect of it. This caused Gentiles to have more access to the new religion, which was a cousin to Judaism as
Christianity has Jewish roots. Peter, another Jewish follower of Jesus, spread the Gospel in Israel and
throughout Europe. By 64 A.D., the Temple High Priest Joshua ben Gamala introduced a religious
requirement for Jewish boys to learn to read from the age of six. Over the next few hundred years this
requirement became steadily more ingrained in Jewish tradition. There were famous Jewish-Roman wars too.
In 66 A.D, Jewish people of Judea revolted against Rome. They named their new state Israel. The Jewish
leader and historian Josephus described the events from the defense of Jotapata, the siege of Jerusalem (69-
70 A.D.) and the desperate last stand at Masada under Eleazar ben Yair (72-73 A.D.). Josephus estimated that
over a million people died in the siege of Jerusalem. The Temple and most of Jerusalem were destroyed.
During the Jewish revolt, most Christians, at this time a close organization that came from Judaism, removed
themselves from Judea. The rabbinical/Pharisee movement led by Yochanan ben Zakai, who opposed the
Sadducee temple priesthood, made peace with Rome and survived. After the war, Jewish people continued
to be taxed in the Fiscus Judaicus, which was used to fund a temple to Jupiter. A victory arch erected in
Rome can still be seen today.

There were more tensions and attacks on Jewish people around the Roman Empire. This led to the massive
Jewish uprising against Rome from 115 to 117 A.D. Jewish people in Libya, Egypt, Cyprus, and Mesopotamia
fought against Rome. This conflict was accompanied by the large scale massacres of both sides. Cyprus was
so severely depopulated that new settlers were imported and Jewish people were banned from living there.
In 131, the Emperor Hadrian renamed Jerusalem “Aelia Capitolina” and formed a Temple of Jupiter on the
site of the former Jewish temple. To Jewish people, this is the utmost in disrespect since Judaism rejects
paganism in powerful terms. Jewish people were banned from living in Jerusalem itself (a ban that persisted
until the Arabic conquest of the area). The Roman leaders named the province in Israel as from Iudaea
Province to Palaestina. The names of “Palestine” in English and “Filistin” in Arabic are derived from this name
of Palaestina.
 The Events of Ancient Rome and Afterwards

The Final Era The Roman Constantinople The final The Fall of the
of the Roman Empire becomes the capital East/West divide Western Roman
Republic (32- Established (330 A.D.) of the Roman Empire (476 A.D.)
30 B.C.) (30 B.C.-2 Empire (395 A.D.)
B.C.)

Senātus Populusque Rōmānus

The Fourth Crusade The Reconquest of The Fall of The Fall of Trebizond
(1202-1204 A.D.) Constantinople (1261 Constantinople (May (August 15, 1461)
A.D.) 29, 1453 A.D.)

Facts of the Roman Empire

Population 56,800,000 people (est. 25 B.C.)
Area 1,900,000 square miles (in 117 A.D.)
Languages Latin, regional languages
Religion From imperial polytheism to Nicene Christianity
by 380 A.D.
From 132 to 136, the historic Jewish leader Simon Bar Kokhba led another major revolt against the Romans.
He renamed the country as Israel. The Bar-Kochba revolt caused more trouble for the Romans than the
revolt of 70 A.D. Many Christians refused to participate in the revolt and this was the age when many Jewish
people considered Christianity as a separate religion. The revolt was later crushed by Emperor Hadrian
himself. During the Bar Kokhba revolt, a rabbinical assembly decided which books could be regarded as part
of the Hebrew Bible. They excluded the Jewish apocrypha and Christian books. As a result of this, the original
texts of some Hebrew texts like the Books of Maccabees were lost (Greek translations survived). A rabbi of
this time named Simeon bar Yochai is said to be the author of the Zohar. The Zohar is the foundational text
for Kabbalistic thought. Yet, modern scholars believe that it was written in Medieval Spain.

After the Bar Kochba revolt was suppressed by the Romans, the Romans exiled the Jewish people of Judea,
but not of Galilee. They permitted a hereditary Rabbinical Patriarch (from the House of Hillel, based in
Galilee) to represent the Jewish people in dealing with the Romans. The most famous of the Rabbinical
Patriarch leaders was Judah haNasi. He was credited with compiling the final version of the Mishnah (which is
a massive body of Jewish religious texts that interpret the Bible). He strengthened the educational demands
of Judaism by requiring that illiterate Jewish people to be treated as outcasts, which was a big mistake. As a
result, many illiterate Jewish people may have converted to Christianity. Jewish seminaries like those at
Shefaram and Bet Shearim continued to produce scholars and the best of these became members of the
Sanhedrin. It or the Sanhedrin was located at Tzippori at first and later at Tiberias. Before the Bar-Kochba
uprising, an estimated 2/3 of the population of Galilee and 1/3 of the coastal region were Jewish. In Galilee,
many synagogues were dated from this period. However, persecution and the economic crisis that affected
the Roman Empire in the 3rd century led to further Jewish migration from Syria Palaestina to the more
tolerant Sassanid Empire. In that empire, a prosperous Jewish community with extensive seminaries existed
in the area of Babylon.

Early in the 4th century, the Emperor Constantine made Constantinople the capital of the East Roman Empire
and made Christianity the official religion. His mother, Helena made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (326-328) and
led the construction of the Church of the Nativity (Bethlehem), the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Jerusalem)
and other key churches that still exist. The name Jerusalem was restored to Aelia Capitolina and it became a
Christian city. Jewish people were still banned from living in Jerusalem, but were allowed to visit, and it is in
this period that the surviving Western Wall of the temple became sacred to Judaism. In 351–2, another
Jewish revolt in the Galilee erupted against a corrupt Roman governor. In 362, the last pagan Roman
Emperor, Julian the Apostate, announced plans to rebuild the Jewish Temple. He died while fighting the
Persians in 363 and the project was discontinued.

Byzantine rule

The Byzantine Empire was involved with Israel from 390 to 690 A.D. the Roman Empire was split by 390 A.D.
into a Western and Eastern sections. Israel was found in the Christian East Roman Empire or the Byzantine
Empire. Byzantine Christianity was mostly related to the (Greek) Eastern Orthodox Church. It had massive
land ownership back then and today. By the 5th century, the Western Empire collapsed. Many Christians
migrated into the Roman province of Palaestina Prima. There was a development of a Christian majority.
Jewish people numbered 10-15% of the population. They lived mostly in Galilee. Judaism was the only non-
Christian religion tolerated. Yet, there were restriction on Jewish people. It slowly increased. There was a ban
on building new places of worship, holding public office, and owning slaves. Slavery is completely wrong and
evil. In 425 A.D. (after the death of the last Nasi, whose name was Gamliel VI), the Sanhedrin was officially
abolished the title of Nasi was banned. Many Samaritan Revolts came about during this period. This caused
the decrease of the Samaritan community from about a million to near extinction. Sacred Jewish texts were
written in Palestine during this time including the Gamara (in 400), the Jerusalem Talmud (in 500), and the
Passover Haggadah.
In 611, Sassanid Persia invaded the Byzantine Empire. After a long
siege, Khosrau II captured Jerusalem in 614 with Jewish help (including
possibly the Jewish Himyarite Kingdom in Yemen). Jewish people were
left to govern Jerusalem when the Persians took over. The Byzantine
Empire Heraclius promised to restore Jewish rights and received Jewish
help in defeating the Persians. Yet, he lied and soon reneged on the
agreement after reconquering Palaestina Prima. He massacred the
Jewish people of Palestine. He issued an edict banning Judaism from
the Byzantine Empire. The Egyptian Coptic Christians took responsibility
for the broken pledge and fasted in penance. This structure is Kfar Bar'am, an
ancient Jewish village, abandoned
sometime between the 7th–13th
centuries AD.
 Islam and the Caliphates in Israel

The Muslim Caliphates ruled Israel from 634 to 1099. Muslim tradition said that in 620, Muhammad was
taken on a spiritual journey from Mecca to the “Farthest mosque.” This location is considered the Temple
Mount and returning the same night. In 634 to 636, Arabic people conquered Palaestina Prima. They
renamed it Jund Filastin. They ended the Byzantine ban on Jewish people living in Jerusalem. Over the next
few centuries, Islam replaced Christianity as the dominant religion of the region. From 636 until the
beginning of the Crusades, Jund Filastin was ruled first by the Medinah based Rashidun Caliphs and then by
the Damascus-based Umayyad Caliphate. Later, it was ruled by the Baghdad based Abbasid Caliphs. In 691,
Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik (685–705) constructed the Dome of the Rock shrine on the Temple Mount.
Jewish people consider it to contain the Foundation Stone (see also Holy of Holies), which is the holiest site
in Judaism. A second building, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, was also erected on the Temple Mount in 705. Between
the 7th and 11th centuries, Jewish scribes, called the Masoretes and located in Galilee and Jerusalem,
established the Masoretic Text, the final text of the Hebrew Bible.
 The man to the right is of course Saladin. He was a Sunni Muslim and a Kurdish man.

The Crusades
The Crusades happened from 1099 to 1291. In 1099 A.D., the first crusade occurred. European Catholic
forces took Jerusalem and formed a Catholic kingdom. It was known as the Kingdom of Jerusalem. During
the conquest, both Muslims and Jewish people were indiscriminately massacred or sold into slavery. The
murder of Jewish people by European Catholics started as the Crusaders traveled across Europe and
continued when they reached the Holy Land. Ashkenazi orthodox Jewish people still recite a prayer in
memory of the death and destruction caused by the Crusaders. In 1187, the Ayyubid Sultan Saladin defeated
the Crusades in the Battle of Hattlin (above Tiberias). Saladin took Jerusalem and most of the former
Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin’s court physician was Maimonides, who was buried in Tiberias. A Crusader
state centered around Acre. It survived in a weakened form for another century. From 1260 to 1291 the area
became the frontier between Mongol invaders (occasional Crusader allies) and the Mamluks of Egypt. The
conflict impoverished the country and severely reduced the population. Sultan Qutuz of Egypt eventually
defeated the Mongols in the Battle of Ain Jalut (near Ein Harod), and his successors eliminated the Crusader
states. The fall of the last one, the Kingdom of Acre, in 1291 ended the Crusades period in the region.
 Mamluk rule

The Mamluks ruled Israel from 1291 to 1517. The Egyptian Mamluk Sultan named Baibars (1260-1277)
conquered the region and the Mumluks ruled it until 1517. They viewed it as part of Syria. In Hebron, Baibars
banned Jewish people from worshiping at the Cave of the Patriarchs (the second holiest site in Judaism). The
ban remained in place until its conquest by Israel in about 700 years later. The Mamluks continued the policy
of the Ayyubids. They made the strategic decision to destroy the coastal area and to bring desolation to
many cities from Tyre in the north to Gaza in the south. Ports were destroyed and various materials were
dumped to make them inoperable. The goal was to prevent attacks from the sea. They fear the return of the
Crusaders. This had a long term effect on those areas. It caused them to be sparsely populated for centuries.
The activity in that time concentrated more inland. The Crusades collapsed. Later, there was increased
persecution and expulsions of Jewish people in Europe.

There were expulsions in England by 1290 and this was followed by France in 1306. In Spain, persecution was
highly integrated and successful Jewish communities started. Many of the Spanish massacred Jewish people
and made forced conversions. During the Black Death, many Jewish people were murdered after being
falsely collectively accused of poisoning wells. The completion of the Catholic reconquest of Spain led to the
expulsion of Jewish people from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1497. These were some of the wealthiest and
most integrated Jewish communities in Europe. Many Jewish people converted to Christianity and many also
secretly practiced Judaism. Prejudice against converts to Catholicism persisted. This caused many former
Judaism adherents to travel into the New World. Most of the expelled Jewish people traveled into North
Africa, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, and to the region of Bilad a-Sham, which roughly corresponds to the
ancient Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy). In Italy, Jewish people in the Papal States were required to live
in ghettos (which relates to the Cum nimis absurdum). The last compulsory Ghetto, in Rome, was abolished
in the 1880’s.

The Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire ruled Israel from 1517 to 1920. The Mamluks ruled an area of the province of Bilad a-
Sham (Syria). It was conquered by the Turkish Sultan Selim I in 1516-1517. It became part of the province of
Ottoman Syria for the next four centuries, first as the Damascus Eyalet and later as the Syria Vilayet
(following the Tanzimat reorganization of 1864). Between 1535 and 1538, Suleiman the Magnificent (or a
Turkish leader) built the current Walls of Jerusalem. Jerusalem had been without walls since the ancient
Roman times. The construction followed the historic area of the city but left out one section which had
previously been within the walls, which is now known as Silwan. From the Middle Ages on, there was small
scale individual Jewish migration to the Land of Israel, which tended to increase when persecution was bad
elsewhere. The Jewish population was concentrated in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias, known in
Jewish tradition as the Four Holy Cities. During the 16th century, following a wave of Spanish immigration,
Safed became a center for study of the Kabbalah. However economic decline and conflict between the Druze
and the Ottomans, led to the community's gradual decline by the mid-17th century. In 1660, a Druze revolt
led to the destruction of the major Old Yishuv cities of Safed and Tiberias. In 1663 Sabbatai Zevi settled in
Jerusalem, proclaiming himself to be the Jewish Messiah, which he wasn’t. He was false prophet and false
Messiah. He acquired a large number of followers before going to Istanbul in 1666, where the Sultan forced
him to convert to Islam. In the late 18th century a local Arabic sheikh Zahir al-Umar created a de facto
independent Emirate in the Galilee. Ottoman attempts to subdue the Sheikh failed, but after Zahir's death
the Ottomans restored their rule in the area.
In 1799, Napoleon briefly occupied Israel and planned a proclamation inviting Jewish people to create a
state. The proclamation was shelved following his defeat at Acre. In 1831, Muhammad Ali of Egypt
conquered Ottoman Syria and decided to revive and resettle much of its regions. His conscription policies
led to a popular Arabic revolt in 1834. Many causalities for the local Arabic peasants existed. There were
massacres of Christian and Jewish communities by the rebels. After the revolt, Muhammad Pasha, the son of
Muhammad Ali, expelled nearly 10,000 of the local peasants to Egypt, while bringing loyal Arabic peasants
from Egypt and discharged soldiers to settle the coastline of Ottoman Syria. Northern Jordan Valley was
settled by his Sudanese troops. In 1838, there was another revolt by the Druze. In 1839, Moses Montefiore
met with Muhammed Pasha in Egypt and signed an agreement to establish 100-200 Jewish villages in the
Damascus Eyalet of Ottoman Syria, but in 1840, the Egyptians withdrew before the deal was implemented,
returning the area to Ottoman governorship. In 1844, Jewish people constituted the largest population
group in Jerusalem and by 1890 an absolute majority in the city, but as a whole the Jewish population made
up far less than 10% of the country. In 1868, the Ottomans banished the Bahá'u'lláh, one of the founders of
the Bahá'í Faith, to Acre where he is buried, and the movement subsequently established its global
administrative center in nearby Haifa. In 1874, Ottoman reforms led to the area of Jerusalem gaining special
status as the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem.

During the 19th century, Jewish people in Western Europe were increasingly granted citizenship and equality
before the law. Yet, in Eastern Europe, they faced increased persecution and legal restrictions including
pogroms. Half of the world’s Jewish people lived in the Russian Empire. In that area, they were regarded by
the authorities as a separate national group and restricted to living in the Pale of Settlement. National
groups in the Empire (like the Poles, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians) were agitating for independence and
regarded the Jewish people as “aliens.” They or the Jewish people were usually the only non-Christian
minority and they spoke a distinct language called Yiddish.

An independent Jewish national movement first began to emerge in the Russian Empire and the millions of
Jewish people who were fleeing the country (mostly to the USA) carried the seeds of this nationalism
wherever they went. In 1870, an agricultural school, called the Mikveh Israel, was founded near Jaffa by the
Alliance Israelite Universelle (which was a French Jewish association). In 1878, Russian Jewish emigrants
established the village of Petah Tikva, followed by Rishon LeZion in 1882. Russian Jewish people established
the Bilu and the Hovevei Zion (“Love of Zion”) movements to assist settlers and these created additional
communities. These communities (unlike the traditional Ashkenazi-Jewish communities) sought to be self-
reliant rather than dependent on donations from abroad. Existing Ashkenazi Jewish communities were found
in the Four Holy Cities. They were very poor and tended to live on donations from Europe. The new migrants
avoided these communities and tended to create small agricultural settlements. In Jaffa, a vibrant
commercial community developed in which Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jewish peoples intermingled. Many
early migrants left due to the difficulty in finding work and the early settlements often remained dependent
on foreign donations. Despite the difficulties, more settlements arose and the community continued to grow.
According to Ottoman records, in 1878, there were 462,465 people of Jerusalem, Nablus, and Acre districts
(which were run by the Ottomans during that time period). In those places, there were 403,795 Muslims
(including Druze), 43,659 Christians, and 15,000 Jewish people.
The new migration was accompanied with the revival of the Hebrew language. That attracted Jewish people
of all kinds. Many religious, secular, nationalist, and left wing socialists came into Israel. Socialists wanted to
reclaim the land by becoming peasants or workers. They formed collectives. In Zionist history, the different
waves of Jewish settlement in Israel are called “Aliyah.” During the First Aliyah, between 1882 and 1903,
approximately 35,000 Jewish people moved into what is now Israel. The first wave coincided with a wave of
Jewish migration and Messianism among Yemenite Jewish people and Bukharan Jewish people. By 1890,
Jewish people were a majority in Jerusalem. This come in spite of the country as a whole was populated
mainly by Muslims (settled and nomad Bedouins) and Christian Arabic peoples. In 1896 Theodor Herzl
published Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), in which he asserted that the solution to growing antisemitism
in Europe (the so-called "Jewish Question") was to establish a Jewish state. In 1897, the Zionist Organization
was founded and the First Zionist Congress proclaimed its aim "to establish a home for the Jewish people in
Palestine secured under public law." However, Zionism was regarded with suspicion by the Ottoman rulers
and was unable to make major progress.

Between 1904 and 1914, around 40,000 Jews settled in the area now known as Israel (the Second Aliyah). In
1908 the Zionist Organization set up the Palestine Bureau (also known as the "Eretz Israel Office") in Jaffa
and began to adopt a systematic Jewish settlement policy. Migrants were mainly from Russia (which then
included part of Poland), escaping persecution. The first Kibbutz, Degania, was founded by nine Russian
socialists in 1909. In 1909 residents of Jaffa established the first entirely Hebrew-speaking city, Ahuzat Bayit
(later renamed Tel Aviv). Hebrew newspapers and books were published, Hebrew schools, Jewish political
parties and workers organizations were established.

During World War I, most Jewish people supported the Germans. The reason was that they were fighting the
Russians and the Jewish people viewed the Russians as their main enemy. In Britain, the government wanted
Jewish support for the war effort for many reasons (like an erroneous anti-Semitic perception of “Jewish
power” over the Ottoman Empire’s Young Turks movement and a desire to secure American Jewish support
for U.S. intervention on Britain’s behalf). There was already sympathy for the aims of Zionism in the British
government, including the Prime Minister Lloyd George. In late 1917, the British Army drove the Turks out of
Southern Syria, and the British foreign minister, Lord Balfour, sent a public letter to Lord Rothschild, a leading
member of his party and leader of the Jewish community. The letter subsequently became known as the
Balfour Declaration of 1917. It stated that the British Government "view[ed] with favour the establishment in
Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." The declaration provided the British government with a
pretext for claiming and governing the country. New Middle Eastern boundaries were decided by an
agreement between British and French bureaucrats. The agreement gave Britain control over what parties
would begin to call "Palestine."

A Jewish Legion composed largely of Zionist volunteers organized by Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor
participated in the British invasion. It also participated in the failed Gallipoli Campaign. A Zionist spy network
provided the British with details of Ottoman troops. It is no secret that the British forces back then wanted to
end the Ottoman Empire by any means necessary.

The Architects of the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement

Mark Sykes Francois Georges-Picot Paul Cambon signed Edward Grey signed the
the Agreement for the Agreement for the
French. British

One large reason on why such tensions in the Middle East transpired was because of the actions of European
imperialists. These imperialists issued contradictory policies among Jewish and Arabic peoples in the region,
which exacerbated conflicts. One example was that Sir Henry McMahon made a secret correspondence with
Husayn ibn ‘Ali. He was the patriarch of the Hashemite family and the Ottoman governor of Mecca and
Medina. McMahon convinced Husayn to lead an Arabic revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Back during
World War I, the Ottomans allied with Germany against the British and the French. McMahon promised to
him that if the Arabic people supported Britain during the War, then the British government would support
the establishment of an independent Arabic state under Hashemite rule in the Arabic provinces of the
Ottoman Empire , including Palestine. Yet, the British organized the May 16, 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement.
This divided the Middle East under French, English, Russian, and Saudi influence.
On the left was Emir Faisal I (of the short lived Kingdom of Hedjaz) and the right was Chaim Weizmann. Both
men tried to bring peace among themselves during the early 20th century. This picture is from 1918. Both
men formed the historic Faisal-Weizmann Agreement of January 3, 1919. It was about them supporting the
Zionist movement and the support of an Arabic Kingdom and Jewish settlement in Palestine. It was short-
lived agreement. The agreement called for religious freedom, assistance to Arabic residents in Palestine and
wanting the boundaries of an Arabic state and Palestine to be worked out by a Commission after the Paris
Peace Conference. It is no secret that Arabic people and Jewish people have lived in the region side by side
for centuries and thousands of years. Tensions arose because of many issues.
THis map shows the Zones of French, British and Russian influence and control proposed in the Sykes–Picot
Agreement agreement from 1916. Green = Russian occupation; Dark blue = French occupation; Light blue =
Zone "A", French protectorate; Dark red = British occupation; Light red = Zone "B", British protectorate;
Purple = International zones (The early 21st century borders shown for reference).

The era of the British Mandate of Palestine

The British Mandate of Palestine era lasted from 1920 to 1948. The British Mandate was about the British rule
of Palestine. It included the Balfour Declaration too. This plan was confirmed by the League of Nations in
1922. It came into effect in 1923. The boundaries of Palestine at first included modern Jordan, which was
removed from the territory by Churchill a few years later. Britain signed a treaty with America (which did not
join the League of Nations) in which the United States endorsed the terms of the Mandate. Between 1919
and 1923, about 40,000 Jewish people arrived in Palestine. Most of them escaped the post-revolutionary
chaos of Russia. This was the Third Aliyah. During this time, over 100,000 Jewish people were massacred in
this period in Ukraine and Russia. Many of these immigrants became known as “pioneers” (halutzim)
experienced or trained in agriculture and capable of establishing self-sustaining economies. The Jezreel
Valley and the Hefer Plain marshes were drained and converted to agricultural use. Land was brought by the
Jewish National Fund or a Zionist charity. This charity collected money abroad for the reason of using land. A
mainly socialist underground Jewish militia named Haganah (“Defense”) was established to defend outlying
Jewish settlements. The French victory over the Arabic Kingdom of Syria and the Balfour Declaration led to
the emergence of Palestinian Nationalism and Arabic rioting in 1920 and 1921. In response, the British
authorities imposed immigration quotas for Jewish people.
The exceptions were made for Jewish people with over 1,000 pounds in cash (or about 100,000 pounds at
the year 2000 rates) or Jewish professionals with over 500 pounds. The Jewish Agency issued the British entry
permits and distributed funds donated by Jewish people abroad. Between 1924 and 1929, 82,000 more
Jewish people arrived (Fourth Aliyah). They fled antisemitism in Poland and Hungary. The United States
Immigration Act of 1924 kept Jewish people out. The new arrivals were made up of many middle class
families. They moved into towns and formed small businesses and workshops. Their lack of economic
opportunities meant that approximately a quarter later left. The first electricity generator was built in Tel Aviv
in 1923 under the guidance of Pinhas Rutenberg, a former Commissar of St Petersburg in Russia's pre-
Bolshevik Kerensky Government. In 1925 the Jewish Agency established the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
and the Technion (technological university) in Haifa.

By 1928, there was the democratically elected Va’ad Leumi (or the Jewish National Council or JNC). It became
the main institution of the Palestine Jewish community ("Yishuv") and included non-Zionist Jewish people. As
the Yishuv grew, the JNC adopted more government-type functions, such as education, health care and
security. With British permission, the Va'ad raised its own taxes and ran independent services for the Jewish
population. From 1929 its leadership was elected by Jews from 26 countries. In 1929 tensions grew over the
Kotel (Wailing Wall), a narrow alleyway where Jewish people were banned from using chairs or any furniture
(many of the worshipers were elderly). The Mufti claimed it was Muslim property and that the Jewish people
were seeking control of the Temple Mount. This (and general animosity) led to the August 1929 Palestine
riots. The main victims were the ancient Jewish community at Hebron, which came to an end. The riots led to
right-wing Zionists establishing their own militia in 1931, the Irgun Tzvai Leumi (National Military
Organization, known in Hebrew by its acronym "Etzel").

Zionist political parties provided private education and health care: the General Zionists, the Mizrahi and the
Socialist Zionists, each established independent health and education services and operated sports
organizations funded by local taxes, donations and fees (the British administration did not invest in public
services). During the whole interwar period, the British, appealing to the terms of the Mandate, rejected the
principle of majority rule or any other measure that would give the Arabic population, who formed the
majority of the population, control over Palestinian territory.
In 1933, the Jewish Agency and the Nazis negotiated the Ha’avara Agreement (or the treasonous transfer
agreement). It was about planning to send 50,000 Jewish people into Palestine. The Jewish people’s
possessions were confiscated and in return the Nazis allowed the Ha’avara organization to purchase 14
million pounds worth of German goods for export to Palestine (which was used to compensate the
immigration). The Nazis didn’t normally allow Jewish people to leave with any money or take more than 2
suitcases. The agreement was very controversial and the Labour Zionist leader who negotiated the
agreement, Haim Arlosoroff, was assassinated in Tel Aviv in 1933. The assassination was a long source of
anger between the Zionist left and the Zionist right. Arlosoroff was associated with Magda Ritschel some
years before she married Joseph Goebbels. There was speculation that how was assassinated by the Nazis in
order to hide the connection, which only emerged recently but there is no evidence for it.

Haim Arlosoroff was part of the Zionist left. He even wanted peaceful coexistence between Jewish people
and Arabic people (especially after the Jaffa riots of 1921. His friend was Chaim Weizmann), which caused
resentment among both right wing Zionists (like some radicals in the Revisionist movement) and some
Arabic people who wanted no peace. He organized the historic April 8, 1933 event at King David Hotel. It
had many Jewish and Arabic leaders of Transjordan. He promoted Jewish and Arabic collaboration to solve
the problems in the Middle East. The meeting had Chaim Weizmann, Moshe Shertok, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, and
sheik Mithqal al-Faiz or the chief of the Beni Sakhr. In Palestine, Jewish immigration (and the Ha'avara goods)
helped the economy to flourish. A port and oil refineries were built at Haifa and there was a growth of
industrialization in the predominantly agricultural Palestinian economy.

Between 1929 and 1938, 250,000 Jews arrived in Palestine (Fifth Aliyah). 174,000 arrived between 1933 and
1936, after which the British increasingly restricted immigration. The influx contributed to the 1933 Palestine
riots. Migration was mostly from Europe and included professionals, doctors, lawyers and professors from
Germany. As a consequence German architects of the Bauhaus school made Tel-Aviv the world's only city
with purely Bauhaus neighborhoods and Palestine had the highest per-capita percentage of doctors in the
world. As fascist regimes existed in Europe, persecution of Jewish people massively increased. Jewish people
reverted to being non-citizens deprived of civil and economic rights. They were experiencing arbitrary
persecution. Anti-Semitic governments came to power in Poland (the government increasingly boycotted
Jewish people and by 1937 had totally excluded all Jewish people), Hungary, Romania, and the Nazi created
states of Croatia and Slovakia. Germany annexed Austria and the Czech territories.

Jewish immigration and Nazi propaganda contributed to the large scale 1936-1939 Arabic revolt in Palestine.
This was a largely nationalist uprising that wanted to end British rule. The head of the Jewish Agency was
Ben-Gurion. He responded to the Arabic revolt with the policy of “Havlagah” or self-restraint and a refusal to
be provoked by Arabic attacks in order to prevent polarization. The Etzel group broke off from the Haganah
in opposition to this policy. The British responded to the revolt with the Peel Commission (1936–37), a public
inquiry that recommended that an exclusively Jewish territory be created in the Galilee and western coast
(including the population transfer of 225,000 Arabic people); the rest becoming an exclusively Arabic area.
The two main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, had convinced the Zionist Congress
to approve equivocally the Peel recommendations as a basis for more negotiation. The plan was rejected
outright by the Palestinian Arabic leadership and they renewed the revolt, which caused the British to
appease the Arabic people, and to abandon the plan as unworkable.

Testifying before the Peel Commission, Weizmann said "There are in Europe 6,000,000 people ... for whom
the world is divided into places where they cannot live and places where they cannot enter." In 1938, the US
called an international conference to address the question of the vast numbers of Jews trying to escape
Europe. Britain made its attendance contingent on Palestine being kept out of the discussion. No Jewish
representatives were invited. The Nazis proposed their own solution: that the Jewish people of Europe are to
be shipped to Madagascar (the Madagascar Plan).

With millions of Jews trying to leave Europe and every country in the world closed to Jewish migration, the
British decided to close Palestine. The White Paper of 1939, recommended that an independent Palestine,
governed jointly by Arabic and Jewish people, be established within 10 years. The White Paper agreed to
allow 75,000 Jewish immigrants into Palestine over the period 1940–44, after which migration would require
Arab approval. Both the Arabic and Jewish leadership rejected the White Paper. In March 1940 the British
High Commissioner for Palestine issued an edict banning Jewish people from purchasing land in 95% of
Palestine. Jewish people now resorted to illegal immigration: (Aliyah Bet or "Ha'apalah"), often organized by
the Mossad Le'aliyah Bet and the Irgun. Very few Jewish people managed to escape Europe between 1939
and 1945. Those caught by the British were mostly sent to Mauritius.

World War II and the Holocaust

During World War II, the Jewish Agency worked to form a Jewish army. They wanted to fight alongside the
British forces. Churchill supported the plan. Yet, the British Military and government opposition led to its
rejection. The British demanded that the number of Jewish recruits match the number of Arabic recruits. Yet,
few Arabic people would fight for Britain. The Palestinian leader or the Mufti of Jerusalem joined the Nazis in
Europe. In May of 1941, the Palmach was established to defend the Yishuv against the planned Axis invasion
through North Africa. The British refused to provide arms to the Jewish people even when Rommel’s forces
were advancing through Egypt in June 1942 (with the intent on occupying Palestine). The 1939 White Paper
led to the emergence of a Zionist leadership in Palestine that believed that conflict with Britain was
inevitable. Despite this, the Jewish Agency called on Palestine’s Jewish youth to volunteer for the British
Army (both men and women).

30,000 Palestinian Jewish people and 6,000 Palestinian Arabic people enlisted in the British armed forces
during the Second World War. In June of 1944, the British agreed to create a Jewish Brigade that would fight
in Italy. About 1.5 million Jewish people in the world served in every branch of the allied armies. They were
mostly in Soviet and U.S. Armies. 200,000 Jewish people died serving in the Soviet army alone. Many of these
war veterans later volunteered to fight for Israel or were active in its support. There was a small group of
about 200 activists who were dedicated to resist the British administration in Palestine. This group broke
away from the Etzel (which advocated support for Britain during the war) and they formed the “Lehi” or the
Stern Gang. The Stern Gang was led by Avraham Stern. In 1943, the USSR released the Revisionist Zionist
leader Menachem Begin from the Gulag. He went into Palestine and took command of the Etzel organization
with a policy of increased conflict against the British. This was the time when Yitzhak Shamir escaped from
the camp in Eritrea where the British were holding him.

These pictures are self-explanatory. The Nazis were a scourge and their ideologies deserve criticism and a
total rebuke. Anyone allying with Nazis back then and today deserves no respect period. The man with the
cap on his head working the Nazis is the evil male and anti-Semite Mohammed Amin al-Husseini. He met
Hitler on November 28, 1941

Many Lehi activists were held there too without trial. He or Shamir took command of the Lehi or the Stern
Gang. Jewish people in the Middle East were also affected by the war. Most of North Africa came under Nazi
control and many Jewish people were used as slaves. The 1941 pro-Axis coup in Iraq was accompanied by
massacres of Jewish people. The Jewish Agency put together plans for a last stand in the event of Rommel
invading Palestine (the Nazis planned to exterminate Palestine's Jewish human beings). Between 1939 and
1945, the Nazis, aided by local forces, led systematic efforts to kill every person of Jewish descent in Europe.
The Holocaust caused the deaths of approximately 6 million Jewish people. One quarter of those killed were
children. The Polish and German Jewish communities (which played an important role in defining the pre-
1945 Jewish world) mostly ceased to exist. In America and Palestine, Jewish people of European origin
became disconnected from their families and roots. Sephardi and Mizrahi Jewish people, who had been a
minority, became a much more significant factor in the Jewish people. Those Jewish people, who survived
central Europe, were displacing persons or refugees. An Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry was formed
to examine the Palestine issue. They surveyed the Jewish people’s ambitions and found that over 95% of
them wanted to migrate to Palestine. In the Zionist movement, the moderate Pro-British (and British citizen)
Chaim Weizmann, who son died flying in the RAF was undermined by Britain’s anti-Zionist policies.
Leadership of the movement passed to the Jewish Agency in Palestine. This was led by the anti-British
Socialist-Zionist party (Mapai) and led by David Ben-Gurion. In the diaspora, U.S. Jewish people now
dominated the Zionist movement.
 This picture is of the King David Hotel terrorist bombing.

More Immigration
After the Second World War, the British Empire was weakened severely. In the Middle East, the war had
made Britain more conscious on its dependence on Arabic nations’ oil. That is why British firms controlled
Iraqi oil and Britain ruled Kuwait, Bahrain, and the Emirates. Shortly after VE Day, the Labour Party won the
general election in Britain. Although the Labour Party conferences had for years called for the establishment
of a Jewish state in Palestine, the Labour government now decided to maintain the 1939 White Paper
policies. Undocumented migration into Israel was called Aliyah Bet. It was the main form of Jewish entry into
Palestine after WWII. Across Europe Bricha ("flight"), an organization of former partisans and ghetto fighters,
smuggled Holocaust survivors from Eastern Europe to Mediterranean ports, where small boats tried to
breach the British blockade of Palestine. Meanwhile, Jewish people from Arabic countries began moving into
Palestine overland. Despite British efforts to curb immigration, during the 14 years of the Aliyah Bet, over
110,000 Jewish people entered Palestine. By the end of World War II, the Jewish population of Palestine had
increased to 33% of the total population. Zionists waged a guerilla war against the British in order for them
to get independence. The main underground Jewish militia group called the Haganah did something. They
formed an alliance called the Jewish Resistance Movement with Etzel and Stern Gang to fight the British. In
June 1946, following instances of Jewish sabotage, the British launched Operation Agatha, arresting 2700
Jewish people, including the leadership of the Jewish Agency, whose headquarters were raided. Those
arrested were held without trial.

In Poland, there was the Kieclce Pogrom on July 1946. This led a wave of Holocaust survivors fleeing Europe
for Palestine. Between 1945 and 1948, 100,000-120,000 Jewish people left Poland. Their departure was
organized largely by Zionist activists in Poland under the umbrella of the semi-clandestine organization
Berihah (or “Flight”). Berihah was also responsible for the organized emigration of Jewish people from
Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, totaling 250,000 (including Poland) Holocaust survivors.
The British imprisoned the Jewish people trying to enter Palestine in the Atlit detainee camp and Cyprus
internment camps. Those held were mainly Holocaust survivors, including large numbers of children and
orphans. In response to Cypriot fears that the Jewish people would never leave (since they lacked a state or
documentation) and because the 75,000 quota established by the 1939 White Paper had never been filled,
the British allowed the refugees to enter Palestine at a rate of 750 per month.

The unified Jewish resistance movement broke up in July 1946, after Etzel bombed the British Military
Headquarters in the King David Hotel killing 91 people. In the days following the bombing, Tel Aviv was
placed under curfew and over 120,000 Jewish people, nearly 20% of the Jewish population of Palestine, were
questioned by the police. In the U.S., Congress criticized British handling of the situation and delayed loans
that were vital to British post-war recovery. By 1947 the Labour Government was ready to refer the Palestine
problem to the newly created United Nations.

The United Nations Partition Plan

On April 2, 1947, the United Kingdom requested that the question of Palestine be handled by the General
Assembly of the UN. The General Assembly created a committee, United Nations Special Committee on
Palestine (UNSCOP) to report on the “question of Palestine.” In July 1947, the UNSCOP visited Palestine and
met with Jewish and Zionist delegations. The Arab Higher Committee boycotted the meetings. During the
visit, the British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin ordered an illegal immigrant ship called the Exodus 1947, to
be sent back to Europe. The migrants on the ships were forcibly removed by British troops at Hamburg. The
principal non-Zionist Orthodox Jewish (or Haredi) party, Agudat Israel, recommended to UNSCOP that a
Jewish state be set up after reaching a religious status quo agreement with Ben-Gurion regarding the future
Jewish state. The agreement would grant exemption to a quota of yeshiva (religious seminary) students and
to all orthodox women from military service would make the Sabbath the national weekend, promised
kosher food in government institutions and would allow them to maintain a separate education system.
The majority report of UNSCOP proposed "an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and
the City of Jerusalem" ..., the last to be under "an International Trusteeship System.” On 29 November 1947,
in Resolution 181 (II), the General Assembly adopted the majority report of UNSCOP, but with slight
modifications. The Plan also called for the British to allow "substantial" Jewish migration by 1 February 1948.

Neither Britain nor the UN Security Council took any action to implement the resolution and Britain
continued detaining Jews attempting to enter Palestine. Concerned that partition would severely damage
Anglo-Arab relations, Britain denied UN representatives access to Palestine during the period between the
adoption of Resolution 181 (II) and the termination of the British Mandate. The British withdrawal was finally
completed in May 1948. However, Britain continued to hold Jews of "fighting age" and their families on
Cyprus until March 1949.

The image on the right shows Arabic refugees traveling into Lebanon.

Civil War (from 1947-1948)

The General Assembly’s voted caused joy in the Jewish community. The Arabic community of course
opposed the decision. Violence happened among all sides. Then, the civil war happened. On January 1948,
the operations were more militarized with the intervention of a number of Arabic Liberation Army regiments
inside Palestine. Each one was active in many sectors around the different coastal towns. They consolidated
their presence in Galilee and Samaria. Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni came from Egypt with several hundred men
of the Army of the Holy War. Having recruited a few thousand volunteers, he organized the blockade of the
100,000 Jewish residents of Jerusalem. The Yishuv tried to supply the city using convoys of up to 100
armored vehicles, but largely failed. By March, almost all Haganah's armored vehicles had been destroyed,
the blockade was in full operation, and hundreds of Haganah members who had tried to bring supplies into
the city were killed. Up to 100,000 Arabs, from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and
Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centers eastwards. This situation caused
the U.S. to withdraw their support for the Partition plan, thus encouraging the Arab League to believe that
the Palestinian Arabic human beings, reinforced by the Arab Liberation Army, could put an end to the plan
for partition. The British, on the other hand, decided on February 7, 1948 to support the annexation of the
Arab part of Palestine by Transjordan.

David Ben-Gurion reorganized the Haganah and made conscription obligatory. Every Jewish man and
woman in the country had to receive military training. Thanks to funds raised by Golda Meir from
sympathizers in the United States, and Stalin's decision to support the Zionist cause, the Jewish
representatives of Palestine were able to purchase important arms in Eastern Europe. Ben-Gurion gave Yigael
Yadin the responsibility to plan for the announced intervention of the Arabic states. The result of his analysis
was Plan Dalet, in which Haganah passed from the defensive to the offensive. The plan sought to establish
Jewish territorial continuity by conquering mixed zones. Tiberias, Haifa, Safed, Beisan, Jaffa and Acre fell,
resulting in the flight of more than 250,000 Palestinian Arabic people. The situation pushed the leaders of
the neighboring Arab states to intervene. One of the most tragic injustices that transpired in the Middle East
was the Deir Yassin Massacre. It happened on April 9, 1948. It was when 120 fighters from the Zionist
paramilitary groups of the Irgun and Lehi attacked the Palestinian Arabic village of Deir Yassin. It had about
600 people near Jerusalem. 107 Palestinians including women and children were shot and killed. According
to Morris, many Arabic people were raped and militated. Even the Haganah or the Jewish community’s main
paramilitary force condemned the evil acts of brutality against Arabic peoples in Deir Yassin. After the
massacre, more Palestinians left their homes in fear of invasion and brutality. Even today, Israel adamantly
refuses to acknowledge the principle of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
That is a total shame as the Palestinians (who still experience racism and discrimination in the region)
deserve liberation just like anyone else.

The Start of Modern Day Israel

On 14 May 1948, on the day the last British forces left from Haifa, the Jewish People's Council gathered at
the Tel Aviv Museum and proclaimed the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the
State of Israel. The second part of this series will exist in the Spring of 2018. It will show information about
Israel from 1948 to 1980 and the third part will exist to describe information from 1980 to the present (or in
2018).
By Timothy

We all believe
‫כולנו מאמינים‬
in justice and
‫בצדק ובחירות‬
liberty to flourish .‫לפרוח בעולם‬
globally.

We believe in ‫  ء‬

ending all injustices  ‫آ" ا‬
and oppression. ‫ا‬$‫ وه‬. ‫وا‬
That means that we ()* +‫ أ‬-+.)
‫ل‬012‫إء أي ا‬
want any
.ً
6)‫أ‬
occupation to end
too.