History of the Region: Population, Control, and Violence

The land was inhabited by Canaanites, among other peoples, before the documented arrival of the Israelites (approximately 1200 BCE). The Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah are attested in multiple independent archaeological and textual sources — Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and the Hebrew Bible.

The Assyrian Empire conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel (722 BCE) and deported much of its population. The Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem (586 BCE), destroying the First Temple and exiling Jews to Babylon. Jews returned under Persian rule (538 BCE) and rebuilt the Temple.

The Hellenistic (Greek) and then Roman periods followed. The Romans suppressed the Jewish revolt (70 CE), destroying the Second Temple and Jerusalem. After the Bar Kokhba revolt (135 CE), the Romans expelled most of the Jewish population from Jerusalem, renamed the province Syria Palaestina (a Romanization of "Philistia," the Philistines) specifically to erase the Jewish connection to the land — the earliest use of the name "Palestine."

Jewish communities remained in the region throughout all subsequent periods, including in Galilee, Tiberias, Safed, Hebron, and Jerusalem itself — continuous presence through Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, Mamluk, and Ottoman periods.

Under Byzantine rule, the region was predominantly Christian, with a significant Jewish minority. Jews faced periodic legal restrictions on residence in Jerusalem but remained throughout the region.

In 638 CE, Arab Muslim forces under Caliph Umar conquered Jerusalem from the Byzantines. Over the following centuries, the population gradually Arabized and converted to Islam — a multi-generational process, not a sudden displacement. The indigenous population (previously Jewish, Samaritan, Christian Arab, and others) became predominantly Arab-speaking and Muslim over several centuries. This is the origin of the modern Arab Palestinian population: largely descended from the pre-Arab-conquest inhabitants of the land who converted and Arabized over time, with admixture from Arab settlers and migrants.

The Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid caliphates successively governed the region. Jerusalem was a holy city for all three Abrahamic religions; Jewish communities continued to exist, though with dhimmi (second-class) legal status.

The First Crusade captured Jerusalem (1099). Crusader kingdoms governed portions of the region for approximately 200 years. Both Jews and Muslims were massacred in the initial conquest. Saladin (Kurdish Muslim general, Ayyubid dynasty) recaptured Jerusalem in 1187.

The Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517) and then the Ottoman Empire (1517–1917) governed the region for a combined ~670 years. Under Ottoman rule, the region was sparsely populated and economically underdeveloped. By 1800, the total population of all of Ottoman Palestine was approximately 300,000 — less than the current population of Pittsburgh. The land was not densely settled; large areas were malarial swampland, arid steppe, or sparsely cultivated.

Jewish communities existed continuously in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias — the "Four Holy Cities" — throughout the Ottoman period. Jewish pilgrimage to Jerusalem and immigration was continuous, if small in scale.

Zionism — the movement for Jewish national self-determination in the historical homeland — emerged in the late 19th century primarily in response to European antisemitism and the failure of Jewish assimilation to provide safety. Theodor Herzl's Der Judenstaat (1896) articulated the case; the First Zionist Congress met in Basel in 1897.

Jewish immigration (Aliyot):

• First Aliyah (1882–1903): ~35,000 Jews, primarily fleeing Russian pogroms. Purchased land legally from Ottoman and absentee Arab landowners. Founded agricultural settlements including Rishon LeZion and Rehovot.
• Second Aliyah (1904–1914): ~35,000–40,000, predominantly young Russian socialists. Founded the kibbutz movement. Tel Aviv founded 1909.
• Third Aliyah (1919–1923): ~35,000, post-WWI.
• Fourth Aliyah (1924–1928): ~82,000, primarily Polish Jews fleeing new quotas and economic restrictions.
• Fifth Aliyah (1929–1939): ~250,000, primarily German Jews fleeing Nazism. The Arab population grew simultaneously through natural increase and immigration from surrounding Arab countries attracted by economic development.

Land purchases: Early Zionist settlers purchased land legally — through the Jewish National Fund and private purchase — from Ottoman landowners, often absentee Arab landlords living in Beirut, Damascus, or Cairo. The transactions are documented in Ottoman and British land registries. Jewish settlers bought land; they did not seize it. Palestinian Arabs who lost their land typically lost it because their landlords sold it.

British Mandate: After WWI, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate to govern the region, explicitly incorporating the Balfour Declaration (1917) — Britain's statement that it "view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." Britain also promised Arab leaders self-governance, creating conflicting commitments that produced the Mandate's central tension.

November 1947 — UN Partition Plan (Resolution 181): The United Nations proposed dividing Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, with Jerusalem under international administration. The Jewish Agency accepted. The Arab League and Palestinian Arab leadership rejected it — not because the borders were unfair, but because they rejected any Jewish state at all.

May 14, 1948 — Israeli Declaration of Independence. Britain withdrew. Israel declared statehood.

May 15, 1948 — Arab invasion: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon immediately attacked the new state. The Arab League's secretary-general Azzam Pasha announced: "This will be a war of extermination and momentous massacres."

The Nakba — Palestinian refugee crisis: During and after the war, approximately 700,000–750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from territories that became Israel. The causes were mixed:

• Some fled in fear of war, expecting to return after Arab victory
• Some were urged or ordered by Arab leaders to clear the field for military operations
• Some were expelled by Israeli forces, particularly in militarily strategic locations
• Arab radio broadcasts warned of atrocities and urged flight, contributing to panic

The refugees were not absorbed by Arab host countries (except partially by Jordan). They were kept in refugee camps — deliberately, as a political and military asset — to sustain the conflict. UNRWA was created specifically for Palestinian refugees and uniquely passes refugee status to descendants in perpetuity, a status not applied to any other refugee population in the world.

Jewish refugees from Arab countries: Between 1948 and 1972, approximately 700,000–900,000 Jews were expelled from or forced to flee Arab countries — Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Morocco, Yemen, and others — following the establishment of Israel. They were stripped of citizenship, property, and assets. Most were absorbed by Israel; others went to France and elsewhere. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they received no UNRWA, no international advocacy, and little media coverage. They are rarely mentioned in Western coverage of the conflict.

After the 1948 war, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) was controlled and then annexed by Jordan. Gaza was controlled by Egypt as a military administration. No Palestinian state was created, and no Palestinian state was proposed by the Arab governments who controlled these territories from 1948 to 1967.

Jordan granted West Bank Palestinians citizenship (unique among Arab states). Egypt did not — Gaza Palestinians remained stateless under military administration. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt were not offered citizenship or integration. The "Palestinian people" as a distinct national identity — as opposed to Arab residents of Palestine — crystallized largely in this period, shaped by the refugee experience and the political instrumentalization of Palestinian displacement by Arab governments.

During the 1948–1967 Jordanian control of the West Bank, no international body described it as an "occupation." The word "occupation" entered the political vocabulary specifically after Israel took control in 1967 — a terminological asymmetry that IHRA's working definition of antisemitism identifies as a double standard.

Jewish holy sites in East Jerusalem — including the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City — were under Jordanian control from 1948 to 1967. Jordan barred Jews from accessing them. The Jewish Quarter was ethnically cleansed; its synagogues were destroyed. When Israel took control in 1967, it opened all religious sites to all faiths.

In May 1967, Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran (an act of war under international law, cutting off Israel's southern port), massed 100,000 troops in Sinai, expelled UN peacekeepers, and signed mutual defense treaties with Jordan and Syria. Arab leaders made explicit public statements about the coming destruction of Israel.

Israel launched a preemptive strike on June 5. In six days, Israel destroyed Egypt's air force, defeated the Egyptian army in Sinai, repelled Jordan's attack and captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and seized the Golan Heights from Syria, from which Syrian forces had been shelling Israeli farming communities for years.

Israel's capture of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem in a defensive war created the modern "occupation" issue. UN Resolution 242 (November 1967) called for Israeli withdrawal from "territories" (not "all territories" — the omission was deliberate) in exchange for peace and recognized boundaries. No Arab state accepted this at the time.

Israel offered to return the Sinai, Gaza, and the West Bank in exchange for peace. The Arab League's Khartoum Summit (September 1967) responded with the Three Noes: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.

October 1973 — Yom Kippur War: Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack on Israel's holiest day. Israel was nearly overwhelmed before counterattacking. The war ended with a ceasefire. It led directly to the Egypt-Israel peace process.

1978 Camp David Accords / 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty: Egypt became the first Arab country to recognize Israel. Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. Anwar Sadat (Egypt) and Menachem Begin (Israel) received the Nobel Peace Prize. Sadat was assassinated by Islamists in 1981 for making peace with Israel.

1987–1993 — First Intifada: Popular Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza, beginning with spontaneous protests and becoming organized by the PLO. Hamas was founded in 1987 as an Islamist alternative to the secular PLO, with the explicit goal of Israel's destruction rather than a negotiated settlement.

1993 — Oslo Accords: Secret negotiations between Israel and the PLO, mediated by Norway, produced mutual recognition and the framework for Palestinian self-governance. The Palestinian Authority was established (1994). Yasser Arafat returned from exile in Tunisia. Yitzhak Rabin (Israel) and Arafat shared the Nobel Peace Prize. Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist opposed to the peace process.

July 2000 — Camp David Summit: U.S. President Clinton convened Israeli PM Barak and Arafat. Barak offered approximately 94–96% of the West Bank, all of Gaza, a capital in East Jerusalem, and a partial right of return for refugees. Arafat refused and made no counter-offer. President Clinton publicly blamed Arafat for the failure of the negotiations.

2000–2005 — Second Intifada: Following Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount (used as a pretext; violence had been planned), a wave of suicide bombings struck Israeli cities. Over 1,000 Israelis were killed. Attacks included the Sbarro pizza restaurant bombing (August 2001, 15 killed), the Passover Seder massacre at the Park Hotel in Netanya (March 2002, 30 killed), and dozens of bus bombings.

2005 — Gaza Disengagement: Sharon unilaterally withdrew all Israeli soldiers and settlers from Gaza. 8,000 Israeli settlers were removed from 21 settlements by the Israeli military, at enormous political cost to Sharon. Israel left behind functioning greenhouses worth $14 million (paid for by international donors including American Jewish philanthropists) to give Gaza's population an agricultural economic base. They were destroyed by Palestinian mobs within days of the Israeli withdrawal.

January 2006 — Hamas wins Palestinian elections with a parliamentary majority in elections certified as free and fair by EU observers. The international community refused to recognize the result.

June 2007 — Hamas seizes Gaza: Hamas violently overthrows Fatah in Gaza, throwing Fatah officials from rooftops, executing prisoners, and seizing complete control. Gaza has been governed by Hamas since, with no elections.

2008–2021 — Recurring Gaza conflicts: Operation Cast Lead (2008–9), Operation Pillar of Defense (2012), Operation Protective Edge (2014, 50 days, 2,251 Palestinian and 73 Israeli deaths), May 2021 conflict. In each case Hamas began or escalated rocket fire; Israel responded militarily; international pressure produced ceasefire; Hamas rearmed.

October 7, 2023: Hamas launched the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust — 1,200 killed, 251 taken hostage. Israel declared war. The ongoing conflict as of this writing continues.