Foreigners Who Ruled Over Palestine from 1st Century to 20th Century

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

For 1,878 years, from 70 to 1948 CE, the Land was ruled by foreign government and never by the people who lived in it.  Its frontier underwent changes, according to  the administrative interests of the ruling power.  Its name was also changed by successive rulers to suit their needs. Not all Jews left their homeland after 70 CE, so some remained.  Bedouins roamed through the land on camels, etc. Some Arabs owned lands during the Ottoman Empire days and many sold theirs to the Jews who were returning, especially during aliyahs starting in 1880.  Jewish groups bought land for their newcomers. Jewish children donated money for this project called Karenomein.  The land was desolate, full of mosquitoes and swamps.  It was waiting for the Jews to return and make it blossom once again.                                     

On the arch of Titus in Rome is this carving of Romans marching Jewish slaves to Rome carrying booty from the Temple they had burned down.

Romans ruled from 70 to 395 sought to obliterate the Jewish identity of the Land.  They changed its name to Palaestina in memory for the long-vanished Philistines, an Aegean Sea people.  The name of Jerusalem was changed to Aelia Capitolina.       

The Byzantine Empire ruled from 395 to 636.   Following the victory of Christian emperor Constantine in the Civil Wars of the Tetrarchy (306–324), the total Christianization of the Roman Empire began. Within a few months, the First Council of Nicaea (first worldwide Christian council) confirmed the status of Aelia (Jerusalem) as a patriarchate,  at which point the city is generally taken to have been renamed Jerusalem.

 Theodosius I declared Christianity the state religion of the empire in 380, and Palestine became part of the Eastern Roman Empire ("Byzantium") after the division of the Roman Empire into east and west (a fitful process that was not finalized until 395 CE) .

                                                 

            Byzantine map of the Land, 5th century

The Byzantines redrew the borders of Palestine. The various Roman provinces (Syria Palaestina, Samaria, Galilee, and Peraea) were reorganized into three diocese of Palaestina, reverting to the name first used by Greek historian Herodotus in the mid-5th century BCE: Palaestina Prima, Secunda, and Tertia or Salutaris (First, Second, and Third Palestine), part of the Diocese of the East. 

In 326, Constantine's mother.  Helena. visited Jerusalem and ordered the destruction of Hadrian's temple to Venus, which had been built on Calvary. Accompanied by Macarius of Jerusalem, the excavation reportedly discovered the True Cross, the Holy Tunic and the Holy Nails. The first Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the first Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the first Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives were all built during Constantine's reign.

Byzantine administration of Palestine was temporarily suspended during the Persian occupation of 614–28. In 613 CE, the Persian Sassanian Empire under Khosrau II had invaded the Levant led by General Shahrbaraz, taking Antioch and later Caesaria. Jews under Benjamin of Tiberias assisted the conquering Persians, revolting against the Byzantine Empire under Heraclius and hoping of controlling Jerusalem autonomously.

 In 614 CE, Persian-Jewish forces conquered Jerusalem, destroying most of the churches, taking Patriarch Zacharias prisoner, taking the True Cross and other relics to Ctesiphon, and massacring much of the Christian population. 

 The Jews of Jerusalem gained autonomy to some degree, but frustrated with its limitations and anticipating its loss offered to assist the Byzantines in return for amnesty for the revolt. In 617 CE, the Jewish governor Nehemiah ben Hushiel was killed by a mob of Christian citizens, three years after his appointment.    Byzantium lost control of the region during the Muslim conquest of the Levant, during which the empire's forces were decisively defeated at the Battle of Yarmouk in 636.

                                                                    

     Previously, Arabs from 636 to 1072 (436 years) did rule in the land. They had divided the land into 2 military districts on both sides of the Jordan River.  One was called Filastin (Palestine), the other Urdun (Jordan).   The Arab built the town of Ramla(Ramleh) now an Israeli town.  -the only town founded by them in the Land---as an administrative center and that was in 716 which became the capital of Palestine causing most people of nearby Lydda, the previous capital, to move to Ramlah. 

In the Middle Ages, Arabs, Samaritans and Persians lived here.  Ramlah suffered from Bedouin attacks in the 11th century and was nearly destroyed by earthquakes in 1016 and 1033.  the Seljuk Turks took it, then Crusaders, and then Mamelukes conquered it and finally the Turks. It was a good stopover when on the way to Jerusalem.  In 1990 the population was 44,500 including 7,500 Arabs.  

Seljuks ruled from 1072 to 1099. The House of Seljuk originated from the Kınık branch of the Oghuz Turks who resided on the periphery of the Muslim world, in the Yabgu Khaganate of the Oğuz confederacy, to the north of the Caspian and Aral Seas, in the 9th century..Turks from the Central Asia settled in Anatolia by the 11th century, through the conquests of the Seljuk Turks. The region then began to transform from a predominantly Greek Christian society into a Turkish Muslim one.                    

However, the Arabs lost the Land to the Crusaders who then ruled from 1099 to 1291(122 years).  The Land was named "The Kingdom of Jerusalem."                                                      

They in their turn, lost the land to the Mamluks who ruled from 1291 to 1516 ( 225 years) when the Ottoman Empire took it.  They also divided it but into 3 separately administered districts;  (Mamlaka"):  Safad, Gaza and Damascus.  The Mamluks had no name for the Land as a whole.  A Mamluk was a  slave soldier, a member of one of the armies of slaves established during the Abbasid era that later won political control of several Muslim states. Under the Ayyubid sultanate, Mamluk generals used their power to establish a dynasty that ruled Egypt and Syria from 1250 to 1517. The name is derived from an Arabic word for slave. 

Turkish people or the Turks (Turkish: Türkler), also known as Anatolian Turks (Turkish: Anadolu Türkleri), are a Turkic ethnic group and nation living mainly in Turkey and speaking Turkish, the most widely spoken Turkic language. They are the largest ethnic group in Turkey, as well as by far the largest ethnic group among the Turkic peoples. Ethnic Turkish minorities exist in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, a Turkish diaspora has been established with modern migration, particularly in Western Europe.

The Ottoman Empire came to rule much of the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East (excluding Iran), and North Africa over the course of several centuries. They ruled from 1516 to 1917 (400 years).  The Ottomans had no name for the Land as a whole.  Turks were not Arabs.

Today Turkey is the 7th largest Moslem country and is 99% Sunni/Shi'a They lost Palestine because they sided with the Germans in WWI and lost the war. The British took it over with a 30 year mandate through the League of Nations, an all nation of the world's decision.   

Reference:

facts about Israel, published by the Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem

Middle East Past and Present by Yahya Armajani and Thomas M. Ricks, textbook, Portland State U. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine