What Is Palestine and Who Created It and How Were Jews Involved? Part I

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                    

Since 721 BCE, Israel was attacked and 27,290 Israelites, many of it's best men, were led into captivity by Sargon and taken to Assyria.  Israel had begun with King Saul, then David and Solomon who reigned from 961 to 920 BCE.   Jeroboam's reign ended in 912 BCE, and the 18th king after him was Hoshea who reigned from 730 to 721 BCE, ending with the Assyrian attack. Assyrians had brought their unwanted Syrian and Babylonian slaves and deposited them in place of the stolen Israelis.   

Judah, the southern tribal land, was ravaged in 700 BCE when Sennacherib took Ascalon and Joppa and sacked Lachish, but king Hezekiah of Judah was able to hold out and took moderate terms by paying tribute and had to also cede some territory.  The land was still called Israel.  

After Solomon had died, Israel was involved in its own Civil War with its southern state of Judah.  Judah was separated from the whole of Israel with  the son of Solomon, Rehoboam taking the throne and ruling from 933 to 917 BCE.  

Destruction of 2nd Temple in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar

The 19th king was Zedekiah who ruled from  597 to 586 BCE, when the Babylonians attacked and took away many of its citizens and destroyed the Temple, but quite a few of them were able to return by 538 BCE and start the rebuilding.  The land was still called Judah. Solomon's Temple had stood for 423 years before being destroyed. 

By 70 CE, the Romans had occupied Judah for about 133 years from the time of the 2nd Jewish Revolt in 63 BCE and had then burned down the Jews' 2nd Temple of Solomon in 70 CE that was rebuilt starting in 538 BCE and destroyed the whole city of Jerusalem, taking prisoners to be used as slaves. It has stood almost for 608 years.   By 132, the Jewish general, Bar Kokhba, had amassed an army and returned, attacking the Romans and holding Jerusalem for 3 years, losing it again by 135.  Romans with the reputation as being the strongest in the world, were so angry that they renamed the land as Palestine after the worst enemy the Jews had ever had, the Philistines.  So from 135 onward, the land was called Palestine, just land made of swamps and weeds, untended, wild, and unloved.  

Judaism had existed for about 1,031 years with their first and second Temple as its center. Our history and our belief system are a part of each other.  Our DNA is touched by both.   

The Mosque of Omar, also called the Dome of the Rock, was built in the center of the Temple area in Jerusalem by Caliph Abd al-Malik in 738 to replace the temporary structure set up by Calilph Omar a century earlier.  It is situated on the traditional site of Mt. Moriah on the Temple Mount.  Mt. Moriah was where Abraham prepared to offer Isaac.  (Muslims story has Ishmael being offered).  This is the site of the threshing floor of Araunah, the Jebusite that was purchased by David on which to build an altar.  Later, of course, the 1st Temple of Solomon was built on this site.  The original hill was enlarged in the course of time by embanking.  

During the siege of Jerusalem during the Roman war, the 2nd Temple of Solomon served as a center of military activity and was destroyed by the conquering Romans in the 70 CE destruction.  A Roman Temple was later built on the site, and since the Moslem Period, a mosque has stood  there which is the Mosque of Omar.  

Meanwhile, Mohammad, the prophet of Islam,  died in 632 in Arabia, causing an Arab conquest of Palestine in 634 CE by Umar which went on till 644, taking the land from Byzantine defenders who had been invaders. The Umayyads, a Muslim dynasty, had taken over. The Umayyad dynasty or Umayyads were the ruling family of the Caliphate between 661 and 750 and later of Al-Andalus between 756 and 1031. In the pre-Islamic period, they were a prominent clan of the Meccan tribe of Quraysh, descended from Umayya ibn Abd Shams. Their goal was to spread Islam.  They converted people with  their swords.   Then the Abbasid Empire took over.  The Abbasid Caliphate was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from the prophet's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib, from whom the dynasty takes its name. 

Islam expanded under the orthodox caliphs from 632 to 661 CE,,

Islam expanded under the Umayyads from 661 to 750 CE

Islam expanded under the Abbasids from 750 to 800 CE.  

The Abbasid era lasted from the 10th to 12th centuries of Fatimids and Saljuqs.  They even held land that was contested between the Byzantines and the Seljuks.

The Mamluks who were slaves, ruled Egypt from 1250 to 1517.  They had driven out the Crusaders from Europe. In 1291, Khalil captured Acre, the last major Crusader fortress in Palestine and thus Mamluk rule extended across the entirety of Syria.

The Mongols of Mongolia had overrun the Iranian plateau in 1224.  They came, they looted, they killed, they burned, and they left by 1300. Some even assimilated into the Iranian culture.   Mongol raids into Palestine took place towards the end of the Crusades, following the temporarily successful Mongol invasions of Syria, primarily in 1260 and 1300.  However, the Mongols appeared to have had no intention, on either occasion, of integrating Palestine into the Mongol administrative system, and a few months after the Syrian invasions, Mamluk forces returned from Egypt and reoccupied the region with little resistance.                          

Yet, rumors and innuendos remained for a long time.  The conquest of Jerusalem by the Mongols was "confirmed" because they are documented to have removed the Golden Gate of the Dome of the Rock in 1300, to transfer it to Damascus. That was based on an account from the 14th century priest Niccolo of Poggibonsi, who gave a detailed architectural description of Jerusalem and mentioned the acts of the Mongols on the gate. Another scholar, Denys Pringle, described Poggibonsi's account as saying that the Mongols tried to destroy, undermine, burn or remove the gate but without success, and when the Mamluks returned, they had the gate walled up.  

 The Ottoman Empire captured the region in 1516 and ruled it until Egypt took it in 1832. Their crusade has started in 1299 with their first sultan.   Eight years later, the United Kingdom intervened and returned the region to the Ottomans. They held it for 400 years, losing it by losing in World War I.  They had teamed up with the Axis, the Germans, who lost the war.  

Jews lived in Asia Minor when the Ottoman Empire was established there.  A synagogue was authorized in the old capital of Brusa in 1326.  Later, as a result of conquest, many other important Jewish communities were incorporated in Turkey.  The climax came with the capture of Salonica in 1430, and of Constantinople in 1453. After 1492 (Spanish Inquisition), the Sultans opened the gates of the Ottoman Empire generously to the refugees from Spain, then Portugal and other lands, and the Turkish Jewish community, now mainly made of Sephardim Jews, became of great importance, being great traders.  

The Ottomans were in an almost continuous struggle between the Muslim caliphate and the Byzantine Empire, and the Turkish soldiers proved to be an effective advance guard for Islam. The Turkish tribes who came into contact with Islam accepted the Sunni faith and were fanatically loyal to its tenets and institutions .                     

        Ottoman Palestine

These empires only taxed people who managed to live on the land.  There never was a country of Palestine with a ruler and all. It was a commodity, a chunk of land,  owned by some king or ruler who lived far way from it.  They kept it as a Monopoly holding, showing their strength, someplace to collect tribute from.   Throughout all the hands holding the land, Jews were still living on the land whose ancestors had never left.  During the Ottoman days, some even started returning.  Jews in the Ottoman Empire living in Turkey by 1900 numbered 350,000.  They were the 3rd largest Jewish group after Russia and Austro-Hungary.  Palestinians themselves were the Jews and Arabs who happened to live on the land.  Arabs referred to themselves as the Syrian Palestinians.  

Resource

https://www.britannica.com/event/Siege-of-Jerusalem-70

https://www.britannica.com/place/Palestine/Roman-Palestine

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Textbook: Middle East Past & Present by Yahya Armajani, Thomas M. Ricks

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Umayyad-dynasty-Islamic-history

https://www.worldhistory.org/Abbasid_Dynasty/#:~:text=The%20Abbasids%20were%20an%20Arabic,as%20caliphs%20until%201258%20CE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine#:~:text=The%20Ottoman%20Empire%20captured%20the,the%20region%20to%20the%20Ottomans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk_Sultanate#:~:text=In%201291%2C%20Khalil%20captured%20Acre,across%20the%20entirety%20of%20Syria.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25212151

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