Nadene Goldfoot
Canaan, son of Ham, grandson of NoahThe first known people living in Israel were the Canaanites of which the land was named for from 3,000 BCE to 2500 BCE. They were Semitic-speaking,, used bronze tools and developed small cities. 7 tribes dominated the country.
The fighting CanaanitesWhen enumerated separately, one of the seven nations is called Canaanites, while the others are called the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Jebusites and the Perizzites. The seven tribes are all descendants of Canaan, son of Ham and grandson of Noah, from whom they derive their collective name Canaanites. (Deut 7:1-2), (Deut 20:16–18)), Rashi on Exodus 13:5). This country had been fought over by the Southern people who were the Egyptians and the Northern people who were the Assyrians. They dominated it all down to the 19th century BCE. The country was divided into large numbers of warring city-states ruled over by petty "kings."
At this point, Abraham enters the history from Ur of the Chaldees. The Torah explains that Abraham heard the voice of G-d telling him that this land was his and his descendants. This land was to be their home.
The Tel El Amarna Letters, an Arabic name of the site of the capital of Pharaoh Amenhotep (Akh-en-Aton) IV in Middle Egypt, explain a lot on the conditions in Canaan in the 15th century BCE and on the conquests of the Semitic "Habiri"newcomers, perhaps denoting or comprising incursions by the Israelite tribes. The Habiri or Ivrim-speaking people (Jewish invasion) gave the country of the land of Israel its amity and historic significance. Cuneiform tablets were found in 1887. Some were from kings in Asia Minor from the archives of Amenhotep III (1413-1377 BCE) and Amenhotep IV (1377-1361 BCE). Others were found later. Several letters were from vassal kings in Canaan, like the kings of Ascalon, Acre, Jerusalem, Megiddo, Sidon, Gebal, and others.
These letters complained of the disorder prevailing in the country following the incursion of the Habiru "Hebrews" and the frequent wars among Pharaoh's vassal kings, and request Egyptian assistance. Almost all the letters are written in Akkadian; a few in Hurrian and Hittite, and some have glosses in Canaanite.
The Israelites' invasion was a slow and difficult process. They first established themselves in the plains and only gradually got control of the hill-country. The process was completed with the capture by David of Jerusalem in 1000 BCE. David was king from 1010 to 970 BCE.
Deborah, a judge, roused the Israelite tribes to revolt under Barak against the Canaanite king Jabin of Hazor and Sisera, his ally and commander.At this point, the 12 Israelite tribes were rather disunited and sometimes warring, ruled over by regional judges, such as Samuel, Deborah, Othniel, Ehud, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson, and also Shamgar, Tola, Jair, Ibran, Elon, and Abdon and were the prey of other invaders from the North and East. The most dangerous were the Philistines, sea-invaders from the Aegean Sea who got a firm control of the Maritime Plain in the 12th century BCE and pushed inland.
This threat forced a union on the Israelite tribes at last, largely through the spiritual dominance of Samuel and the military genius of King Saul, their 1st king.
Saul's work was completed by his son-in-law, King David who finally crushed the Philistine menace and extended the boundaries of the state in all directions. That wouldn't have happened had the Philistines not attacked them constantly.
David's son, King Solomon(961-920 BCE) , raised the kingdom to a great pitch of magnificence by his maritime enterprises, his lavish court, and his ambitious buildings,, including a Temple at Jerusalem to serve as a religious center. The heavy taxation which all this necessitated resulted in widespread discontent, and after Solomon's death, the northern tribes revolted.
Thus, the Land of Israel was divided for many years into 2 rival and sometimes warring states---- the smaller kingdom of Judah in the South, and the larger, more luxurious and more powerful kingdom of Israel-also called Samaria because the capital of the north was the city of Samaria, founded in 880 BCE by King Omri, Israel's 6th king with the first being Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim, the superintendent of forced labor for King Solomon of the North. Solomon's son and heir, king Rehoboam, a true Judean, had remained as king for the northern people of Judah. Jerusalem was in their sector.
The Northern tribes, weakened b internal dissensions between rival dynasties and recurrent wars with the kingdoms of Syria (Damascus) succumbed in 721 BCE to the Assyrians, who deported the Israelite people and replaced them with new settlers.
The kingdom of Judah, more secluded geographically and more staunch spiritually and politically, for the moment escaped but were overwhelmed by 586 by the Babylonians. Jerusalem was destroyed after existing for 414 years since David's days. Large numbers of the people were also deported, and the monarchy was abolished.
An attempt to renew organized political life in subordination to Babylonia under Gedaliah, a member of the old royal house, was ended by his assassination in 582 BCE. Ishmael, father of the Arabs, however, with encouragement from the king of Ammon, along with ten men, assassinated Gedaliah and others that were with him at Mizpah.
On the overthrow of the Babylonian Empire, the Persian King Cyrus permitted the children of the exiles who had continued to cherish the recollection of their former land, to return and rebuild the Temple and set up an autonomous center in the former territory in 539 BCE.
Ezra Nehemiah
Reestablishment proved to be a long and painful process, and the center became, to some extent, firmly established only with the advent from the Persian court of Ezra and Nehemiah, Jews holding prominent positions in the court.
The mixed population of the Northern country with the added people brought in by Assyrians that were not related to them, such as the Samaritans (descended from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh with an admixture of non-Israelite colonists), were excluded from participation in the southern colony, which, it was feared, they would contaminate, even dominate.
Judah of the Southern section was turned into a semiautonomous Persian vassal state, administered by the high priest of the Jerusalem Temple, while the Northern Samaritans had their center on Mt. Gerizim.
The invasions of Alexander the Great, which replaced Persia by Greek-dominance, resulted in the establishment of Greek colonies along the coastal plain and around the Jordan Valley and in giving the entire country a European rather than Asiatic orientation.
The general political circumstances were, however, unchanged under the alternate control of the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria. This continued until in the 2nd century BCE the attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria to hellenize the country by force, religiously as well as culturally, which led to the Hasmonean Revolt in 165 BCE and the reestablishment for the 1st time since 586 BCE of full independence under the Hasmonean House in 142 BCE, which converted into a monarchy by 104 BCE.
Successive wars of conquest, particularly under John Hyrcanus (135-104 BCE) extended its rule over the whole of historic Palestine. Henceforth, though the Greeks were strong on the coastal plain, etc, and the Samaritans in the central hill country, almost all of Palestine was Jewish. The Galilee in particular, being now was a center of patriotic sentiment. 
In 63 BCE, the expansion of the Romans in the Middle East brought Palestine into their political orbit. For a period of many centuries, it was part of the Roman Empire, whether administered nominally by members of the Hasmonean dynasty, or the House of Herod, or directly by the Roman Procurators and proconsuls. There was an interlude from 55 to 49 BCE when it was under Parthian control.
Jewish Revolt starting in 66 CE
Temple destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans
General Bar Kokhba, born a generation later after the destruction of Jerusalem, a revolutionary leader against Emperor Hadrian, nephew of Rabbi Eleazar of Modiin and of the Davidic descent. He was proclaimed the Messiah by Rabbi Akiva.
During the 2 Great Jewish Revolts of 66-70 CE and Bar Kokhba's 132-135 CE. when he held Jerusalem for 3 years, came another interlude. The Samaritans did not participate in the 66 revolt. These resulted in the depopulation of great parts of the country, non-Jewish settlers being introduced and many districts, particularly in the South, losing their Jewish character.
Nevertheless, a solid Jewish life continued to maintain itself after 135 when General Bar Kokhba was killed by the Romans, principally in the Galilee. The people continued their agriculture and were growingly controlled by their intellectual leaders and their Patriarchs, the presidents of the Sanhedrin, whose authority was in the course recognized by the Roman government, too. This was the period of the intense intellectual life reflected in the Mishnah, Palestinian Talmud and Midrash. 
But the increasing areas of the country now had a distinctly pagan impact. An example was the new administrative center on the coast, Caesarea. Here, the Jews were a minority. It was one of the hubs of Roman-Greek intellectual life, and some cities of the Decapolis in the North were centers of philosophical study.
The Christianization of the Roman Empire in the 4th century was very strongly practiced. There was moral pressure and waves of violence which succeeded it and the anti-Jewish legislation from then on adopted by the emperors resulted in the complete undermining of the position of Jews in Palestine, now a focus of Christian piety. The abolition of the Patriarchate in 425 inflected as well as stimulated this process.
Gamaliel VI (c. 370–425) was the last nasi of the ancient Sanhedrin.
Gamaliel came into office around the year 400. On October 20, 415, an edict issued by the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius II stripped Gamaliel of his rank of honorary prefect. This decree also banned him from building new synagogues, adjudicating disputes between Jews and Christians, converting non-Jews to Judaism, and owning Christian slaves.
Gamaliel probably died in 425, as the Codex Theodosianus mentions an edict from the year 426, which transformed the patriarch's tax into an imperial tax after the death of the patriarch. Theodosius did not allow the appointment of a successor and in 429 terminated the Jewish patriarchate. Gamliel appears to have been a physician. Marcellus Empiricus, a medical writer of the fifth century, mentioned that "for the spleen there is a special remedy which was recently demonstrated by the patriarch Gamaliel on the basis of approved experiments."
David Blatt top row, left; Orna Guralnik, Avi Loeb, and possibly Inna Braverman,
large square on bottom row is Gal Gadot of Wonder Woman, 2nd row left is Michaela Bercu. The rest I cannot tell but are noted Israelis. Gal Gadot-Varsano is an Israeli actress and model. At age 18, she was crowned Miss Israel 2004. She then served two years in the Israel Defense Forces as a soldier, whereafter she began studying at the IDC Herzliya college, while building her modeling and acting careers. Gadot portrayed Wonder Woman in the superhero film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). Gadot received swordsmanship, Kung Fu, kickboxing, capoeira and Brazilian jiu-jitsu training in preparation for the role. Gadot's performance as the superhero, which was the character's first appearance in film, was singled out as one of the best parts of the film.
Although the Jewish element in the population remained strong and there was considerable intellectual activity evidenced in the development of poetry, the Midrash, and the Masorah (body of traditions). Jews were now a minority in the country. In most respects, Jews were indistinguishable from any other Roman or later Byzantine province, just as we are today. Today, Jews are the majority of Israel. This is who it was created for once again on May 14, 1948; Jews; people who had to go without their country for too long.
Resource:
Tanakh, Stone Edition
The News Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.fromthegrapevine.com/lifestyle/most-inspiring-israelis-we-met-decade-2010-2019
