Palestine << PAL uh `STYN` >> is a small, historic land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. Two great religions—Judaism and Christianity—originated in Palestine. It is the Holy Land, the site of many events described in the Bible. Muslims, the followers of the Islamic religion, also consider Palestine a sacred place.
Palestine’s location between Egypt and southwest Asia has made it a center of conflict for thousands of years. Many peoples have invaded and taken control of the region. In the 400 years before World War I (1914-1918), Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. During the war, Palestine came under British control. Both the Arab and Jewish inhabitants of Palestine fought for control of the territory. Following a war in 1948 and 1949 between Arabs and Jews, Palestine was divided among Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Many of Palestine’s residents became refugees. Conflicts over Palestine continued between Arabs and Jews after the war. For details, see The continuing conflict and peace efforts section of this article.
Early history and settlement.
Amorites, Canaanites, and other Semitic peoples entered the area about 2000 B.C. The area became known as the Land of Canaan. Sometime between about 1800 and 1500 B.C., a Semitic people called Hebrews left Mesopotamia and settled in Canaan, where they became known as Israelites. Some of these Israelites later went to Egypt. In the 1200’s B.C., Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, and they returned to Canaan. The Israelites practiced a religion centered on the belief in one God. Other peoples in Canaan worshiped many gods. See Canaanites.
For about 200 years, the Israelites fought the other peoples of Canaan and the neighboring areas. One of their strongest enemies, the Philistines, controlled the southwestern coast of Canaan—called Philistia. See Philistines.
Until about 1025 B.C., the Israelites were loosely organized into 12 tribes. The constant warfare with neighboring peoples led the Israelites to choose a king, Saul, as their leader. Saul’s successor, David, unified the nation to form the Kingdom of Israel, about 1000 B.C. David established his capital in Jerusalem (see David). His son Solomon succeeded him as king and built the first Temple for the worship of God. Israel remained united until Solomon’s death about 928 B.C. (see Solomon). The northern tribes of Israel then split away from the tribes in the south. The northern state continued to be called Israel. The southern state, called Judah, kept Jerusalem as its capital. The word Jew, which came to be used for all Israelites, comes from the name Judah.
Invasions and conquests.
During the 700’s B.C., the Assyrians, a people who lived in what is now Iraq, extended their rule westward to the Mediterranean Sea. They conquered Israel in 722 or 721 B.C. After about 100 years, the Babylonians began to take over the Assyrian Empire. They conquered Judah in 587 or 586 B.C. and destroyed Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem. They enslaved many Jews and forced them to live in exile in Babylonia. About 50 years later, the Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylonia. Cyrus allowed a group of Jews from Babylonia to rebuild and settle in Jerusalem.
The Persians ruled most of the Middle East, including Palestine, from about 539 to 331 B.C. Alexander the Great then conquered the Persian Empire. After Alexander’s death in 323 B.C., his generals divided his empire. One of these generals, Seleucus, founded a dynasty (series of rulers) that gained control of much of Palestine about 200 B.C. At first, the new rulers, called Seleucids, allowed the practice of Judaism. But later, one of the kings, Antiochus IV, tried to prohibit it. In 167 B.C., the Jews revolted under the leadership of the Maccabeans and drove the Seleucids out of Palestine (see Judah Maccabee). The Jews reestablished an independent kingdom called Judah.
Roman rule.
In 63 B.C., Roman troops invaded Judah, and it came under Roman control. The Romans called the area Judea (see Judea). Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem in the early years of Roman rule. Roman rulers put down Jewish revolts in A.D. 66 and A.D. 132. In A.D. 135, the Romans drove the Jews out of Jerusalem. The Romans named the area Palaestina, for Philistia, at about this time. The name Palaestina became Palestine in English.
Most of the Jews fled from Palestine. But Jewish communities continued to exist in Galilee, the northernmost part of Palestine. Palestine was governed by the Roman Empire until the A.D. 300’s and then by the Byzantine Empire. In time, Christianity spread to most of Palestine.
Arab control.
During the A.D. 600’s, Muslim Arab armies moved north from Arabia to conquer most of the Middle East, including Palestine. Muslim powers controlled the region until the early 1900’s. The rulers allowed Christians and Jews to keep their religions. However, most of the local population gradually accepted Islam and the Arab-Islamic culture of their rulers.
In the 1000’s, the Seljuks, a Turkish people, began to take over Palestine. They gained control of Jerusalem in 1071. Seljuk rule of Palestine lasted less than 30 years. Christian crusaders from Europe wanted to regain the land where their religion began. The Crusades started in 1096. The Christians captured Jerusalem in 1099. They held the city until 1187, when the Muslim ruler Saladin attacked Palestine and took control of Jerusalem. See Crusades.
In the mid-1200’s, Mamluks based in Egypt established an empire that in time included Palestine. Arab Muslims made up most of Palestine’s population. Beginning in the late 1300’s, Jews from Spain and other Mediterranean lands settled in Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine. The Ottoman Empire defeated the Mamluks in 1516, and Palestine became part of the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish population slowly increased, and by 1880, about 24,000 Jews were living in Palestine.
The Zionist movement.
Beginning in the late 1800’s, oppression of Jews in Eastern Europe set off a mass emigration of Jewish refugees. Some Jews formed a movement called Zionism, which sought to make Palestine an independent Jewish nation. The Zionists established farm colonies in Palestine. At the same time, Palestine’s Arab population grew rapidly. By 1914, the total population of Palestine stood at 700,000. About 615,000 people were Arabs, and 85,000 were Jews. See Zionism.
World War I and the Balfour Declaration.
During World War I (1914-1918), the Ottoman Empire joined Germany and Austria-Hungary against the Allies. An Ottoman military government ruled Palestine. The United Kingdom and some of the European Allies planned to divide the Ottoman Empire among themselves after the war. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 called for part of Palestine to be placed under a joint Allied government. The United Kingdom offered to back Arab demands for postwar independence from the Ottomans in return for Arab support for the Allies. In 1916, some Arabs revolted against the Ottomans in the belief that the United Kingdom would help establish Arab independence in the Middle East. The Arabs later claimed that Palestine was included in the area promised to them, but the British denied this.
In 1917, in an attempt to gain Jewish support for its war effort, the United Kingdom issued the Balfour Declaration. The declaration stated the United Kingdom’s support for the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, without violating the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities. See Balfour Declaration.
After the war, the League of Nations divided much of the Ottoman Empire into mandated territories (see Mandated territory). In 1920, the United Kingdom received a provisional mandate over Palestine, which would extend west and east of the Jordan River. The British were to help the Jews build a national home and promote the creation of self-governing institutions. In 1922, the League declared that the boundary of Palestine would be limited to the area west of the river. The area east of the river, called Transjordan (now Jordan), was made a separate British mandate. The two mandates took effect in 1923.
The terms of the Palestine mandate were not clear, and various parties interpreted it differently. Many Zionists believed that the United Kingdom did not do enough to promote a Jewish national home. They especially opposed restrictions set by the British on Jewish immigration and land purchases. The British hoped to establish self-governing institutions, as required by the mandate. But their proposals for such institutions were unacceptable to the Arabs, and so none were created.
The Arabs opposed the idea of a Jewish national home. They feared that the British were handing Palestine over to the Zionists by allowing too many Jews to immigrate to Palestine. During this period, a Palestinian Arab national movement first appeared. On several occasions, riots and demonstrations were mounted by the Arabs to protest British policies and Zionist activities.
In the early 1930’s, over 100,000 Jewish refugees came to Palestine from Nazi Germany and Poland (see Szold, Henrietta). This development alarmed the Palestinian Arabs. The Arabs organized a general uprising that almost paralyzed Palestine during the late 1930’s. In 1939, the British began to drastically limit Jewish immigration and land purchases for the next five years. Any Jewish immigration after that would depend on Arab approval.
World War II and the division of Palestine.
During World War II (1939-1945), many Palestinian Arabs and Jews joined the Allied forces. After the war, the Zionists used force to stop the United Kingdom from limiting Jewish immigration into Palestine. The Zionists wanted the British to allow immigration of several hundred thousand Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, the mass murder of European Jews and others by the Nazis.
The United Nations Special Commission on Palestine recommended that Palestine be divided into an Arab state and a Jewish state. The commission called for Jerusalem to be put under international control. The UN General Assembly adopted this plan on Nov. 29, 1947. The Jews accepted the UN decision, but the Arabs rejected it. Fighting broke out immediately.
On May 14, 1948, the Jews proclaimed the independent state of Israel, and the British withdrew from Palestine. The next day, neighboring Arab countries attacked Israel. When the fighting ended in 1949, Israel held territories beyond the boundaries set by the UN plan. The rest of the area assigned to the Arab state was occupied by Egypt and Jordan. Egypt held the Gaza Strip and Jordan held the West Bank. More than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were driven out of Israel and became refugees in neighboring Arab countries.
The continuing conflict and peace efforts.
The UN arranged a series of cease-fires between the Arabs and the Jews in 1948 and 1949. Full-scale wars broke out again in 1956 and 1967. By the time a UN cease-fire ended the 1967 war, Israel had occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Israel also held Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights. In October 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a war against Israel. Cease-fires ended most of the fighting within a month.
The 1967 war brought approximately a million Palestinian Arabs under Israeli rule. After the war, the fate of the Palestinians came to play a large role in the Arab-Israeli struggle. In time, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) became recognized by all the Arab states as the representative of the Palestinian people. The PLO pledged to liberate Palestine. Israel strongly opposed the PLO because of its terrorist acts against Jews. See Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
In 1978, Egypt and Israel signed the Camp David Accords, an agreement designed to settle their disputes. Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula in 1982. The agreement included provisions for a five-year period of self-government for the residents of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. This period was to be followed by a decision about the future status of these territories. But no arrangement for such self-government was made following the agreement.
Beginning in 1987, protests by Palestinians swept through the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. These actions became known as the intifada, which means uprising in Arabic. Israeli troops killed a number of protesters. In the 1990’s, Israel and the PLO signed agreements that led to the withdrawal of Israeli troops from most of the Gaza Strip and many cities and towns of the West Bank. As the Israelis withdrew, Palestinians took control of these areas. In 1996, Palestinians in these areas elected a legislature and president for a government called the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders continued in 2000, but the two sides could not agree on key issues. That year, Palestinians began a second intifada. Violence between Israelis and Palestinians increased, killing thousands of people. In 2002, Israel reoccupied most West Bank cities.
In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank cities. In 2006, Hamas, a radical Islamic organization originally opposed to the PA, ran in PA legislative elections as a political party. Hamas won the elections.
In June 2006, Palestinian militant groups captured an Israeli soldier. The groups demanded that Israel release Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the soldier. Fighting between the two sides increased. Israel bombed parts of the Gaza Strip, and militants fired rockets into Israel. Israeli troops entered the Gaza Strip, and fighting there killed over 300 people. In November, both sides agreed to a cease-fire.
In June 2007, Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip by force. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the Hamas-led government and declared a state of emergency. Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza, restricting the movement of people and goods into and out of the territory.
Since the Hamas takeover and Gaza border closure, violence between Palestinians and Israeli forces—most notably in 2008, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2018, 2021, and 2023-2024—has claimed thousands of lives, most of them Palestinian. Violence has also occurred in the West Bank, where the Israeli government has permitted Israelis to establish and expand settlements. Over the years, the blockade of Gaza and continued cross-border violence has resulted in a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as Palestinians lost access to medical care and educational and economic opportunities.
In 2017, United States President Donald J. Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. In early 2020, Trump announced a Middle East peace plan. The plan proposed that Israel be allowed to annex its settlements in the West Bank, as well as the area’s major water source, the Jordan Valley. Israel would maintain military authority over the territory. A unified Jerusalem would serve as Israel’s capital. The Palestinians would receive some land near Gaza in exchange, and establish a capital northeast of Jerusalem. Israel would agree to freeze for four years its expansion of West Bank settlements. The Israeli government supported the plan. However, the Palestinians, who had no role in drafting the plan, rejected it.
Violence between Palestinians and Israeli forces erupted again in 2021. More than 260 people—most of them Palestinians—were killed. In October 2023, Hamas launched a large-scale surprise invasion of Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing about 1,200 people and taking more than 200 hostages to Gaza. In response, Israel launched counterattacks against the invading Hamas militants and against many targets in Gaza. Thousands of people died in the conflict and thousands more were wounded, including many civilians on both sides.
