All About Gaza That Most Gazans Don't Even Know

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                

The Palestinians of Gaza and the world population have lost sight of the history of who they are  and how they came to be living in Gaza.  Let me enlighten readers.  The land is warmer but lovely along the Mediterranean Sea, like Seaside in Oregon but a lot more crowded today.  Muslims here allow a man 4 wives and they have had many children. Through the years, it's become very crowded.  

Israelis also live in crowded areas.  Most Israelis also live in apartment buildings that are quite high.  The land they live in is 10% of what was originally promised, as most of it went to the West Bank and a good strip went to Gaza.  

                               Philistines, Israel's worst enemy 

 This is the ancient land where Philistines lived and founded Gaza city, Ascalon, Ashdod, Ekron and Gath, a fighting people by reputation.  They were there during Israel's period of the Judges-before having a king.  I'm going back almost 4,000 years ago. These were the enemies of King David and have been replaced by another people similar in reputation, but are not of the same line.  They were named by the Romans and used that name for the land-Palestine in 135 CE.  During the attacks happening during King Saul and King David, others attacking them were either obliterated or assimilated by the Israelites.  That includes the Canaanites, Horites, Hittites, and Arameans, some Sidonians.   Only the Hebrews have survived the centuries who are today's Jews; mainly of the tribe of Judah, with some of Benjamin and Simeon.  

                Gaza was under Egyptian rule going along Palestinian coast for 22 miles  with average width 8 miles, the result of the Egyptian advance into the Negev in May 1948 and Israel offensives of Oct -Dec 1948 which drove them out of the entire area except of the Gaza Strip.  By November 1956 it was captured by Israeli forces during SINAI OPERATION.    Israel returned the Gaza Strip in March 1957 when Egyptians resumed control with a UN emergency Force on the border.  In May 1967, UN secretary general U Thant obeyed Nasser's demand to withdraw the force and this started the 6 Day War.                                      

Jews entered the land from Egypt, led by a former  Prince of Egypt, Moses who led some 600,000 slaves to land they had once lived in 400 years previously before becoming slaves of Egypt.  They lived there for 3,000 years with their history recorded in the Bible, "The Torah" which is part of the Old Testament as the world calls it, the Tanakh in Hebrew. 

During last 400 years, the land was held by the Ottoman Empire (Turkey).  During that period, Russia held pogroms against Jews, attacks on their villages called Shtetles.  It was not safe for Jews.  It was also a time that people were immigrating to the USA.  In 1880, a large contingent of Jews made Aliyah (immigrated and settled) to Palestine and were able to live there.  About 5 aliyote occurred throughout the years of Jews moving to Palestine, their ancient homeland, the place Jews were told to live in according to the Bible, and needing a place where they felt safer, leaving anti-Semitism. Some Jews had found a haven in nearby Middle East Communities and found themselves treated a 2nd class people, Dhimmis, who were not free but under many rules to distinguish themselves as Jews, how high their buildings were allowed to be, etc, etc.  But the pogroms were rarer than in eastern Europe but did occur. Western trends crept into the Middle East.    

Palestine always had Jews living there since Old Testament days, becoming Palestine instead of Israel in 135 CE by the Romans.  They lived throughout the land, not a large number, but were there. Ever since 70 CE when the Romans burned down Jerusalem, there had been threats against Jews who tried to return.   The city of Safed where I lived on top of a mountain, moving there in 1980, was one of the places with a long Jewish history .  

Mark Twain, American writer, took a trip during that period to Palestine, an excursion to the Holy land, Egypt from Brooklyn, New York on February 1, 1867 etc, and his book,  "The Innocents Abroad", vetted the fact that there were very few Arabs  in the Holy Land.  They came following the Aliyote of the Jews, hoping for jobs, as the countries they came from had little work or way they could make a living.                     

Joan Peters nee Friedman (1936-2015) , a journalist, did her own investigative work, feeling sympathy for the Palestinians, and what she uncovered put her in the camp of the Jews who deserved to live in their ancient homeland.  Her book, From Time Immemorial, that tells the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine"  was praised by our American president and others.  Jewish PhDs who hadn't done any work and had sided with Palestinians were poor examples of Jews.  They were jealous and have since then panned her work, which she has listed at the end of the book all the references she used;  I have her book, now falling apart from over-use, and am in awe of her determination to get at the truth.  It should be read by anyone thinking that Israel is Palestinian land.  They don't know what they are talking about.

Jews helped to win WWI.  So did Arabs.  They were both promised help from England, who held a 30 year mandate on the land, who were the responsible party, the police of the land after all the meetings.  It was up in June 1948.  They were told by Prime Minister Balfour that they would have their Jewish Homeland and then broke that promise as they quickly remembered their other promise to Arabs and gave them 80% of the promised land.  They were down to 20% and accepted the shortened deal.  Then the next thing they knew was 10% of that was taken away and given to the Arabs again, leaving them 10% of their own promised land they had worked so hard to gain back, a land empty, swampy, full of mosquitoes or sand; mostly desert land left for them that the Arabs didn't even want.  

    Husseini meeting all the Nazis, was with Hitler, below  

                                                 

Emir Feisal met with Chaim Weizmann in the 1920s ready to accept Jews in Palestine, hoping they'd help and teach his Arab population life-skills;  but then  the Brits had selected Amin al-Husseini to be the Sherif of Jerusalem and it went to his head, afraid of losing this title, he organized attacks against the Jews.  He was so skillful that Feisal changed his position being friendly with Jews.  Husseini was everything;  the Grand Mufti, and was holding more power.  

Tel Aviv was founded in 1909.  Arabs were workers then. Haifa came about at the same time.  As it developed, the Brits, holding all the cards now, wound up letting Arabs in the country and kept the majority of Jews out as they neared 1939 and the power of the Nazis.  Ships of escaping Jews from Germany were turned away to meet their deaths.  Even the USA in 1924 now waved rules limiting Jews into the USA with a long list of details needed before it happened.  Our Uncle from Germany made it out on the last ship in May 1939 (Germany went into Poland in June 1939) but the rule was he had to have an American spokesman take all financial responsibility which our family great uncle did.  One was saved that way, the son of a family that died in the gas chambers who was all they could get out.  Even that was most expensive and almost impossible for them to finalize to get a ticket out.

May 14, 1948 and 5 minutes after declaring their state, Israel was being  attacked-by Husseini's forces, by neighboring counties, actually starting 29 November 1947.  This was Israel's War of Independence.  Armistice agreements were finally signed in 1949.

The Arabs took a break, then attacked again 29 October to 5 November 1956 in what is called the Sinai War.  Another break was taken by the Arabs who got all their neighbors and friends to fight with them from 5th to 11th June 1967 in what we call The Six-Day War which was very decisive, when Israel won so miraculously after being attacked by so many and winning back land from Jordan that had originally was meant for Israel.  

Arabs lost this war they thought would be so easy with so many, and they were so angry that they went to Africa to a town called Khartoum in Sudan,  and had a joint meeting where they decided they were not finished; and would say no no no to all things meaning peace with the Jews.  They would drive them into the sea and take the land.  

Therefore, on 6 October, 1973, they attacked again on Israel's most holy day of the year, Yom Kippur, when the whole nation was to be in synagogues in a state of fasting for 25 hours, asking G-d for forgiveness for any sin committed during the year, and promising better from themselves for the next year, hoping to be including in the Book of Life. 

After their last try of war of 73, Intifadas began, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, beginning in 1987.

I never understood their complaint of occupation.  Jews were not living there but did hold some control that was their protection against being wiped out.  The West Bank and Gaza were hotbeds of terror, attacking Israel and needed to be under watch.  Israel has been providing all their needs, electricity for one-that they never pay for.  Mostly, they have been dependent on the monetary gifts from other Muslim countries.  

False charges of Israeli atrocities and instigation from the mosques played an important role in starting the intifada. On December 6, 1987, an Israeli was stabbed to death while shopping in Gaza. One day later, four residents of the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza were killed in a traffic accident. Rumors that the four had been killed by Israelis as a deliberate act of revenge began to spread among the Palestinians. Mass rioting broke out in Jabalya on the morning of December 9, in which a 17-year-old youth was killed by an Israeli soldier after throwing a Molotov cocktail at an army patrol. This soon sparked a wave of unrest that engulfed the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem.  Twenty years after the 1967 war, Palestinians had launched their first intifada, or uprising. It began in December 1987 after a traffic accident in which what they were only told about was that an Israeli truck crashed into a vehicle carrying Palestinian workers in Gaza's Jabalya refugee camp, killing four. Stone-throwing protests, strikes and shutdowns followed. 

Since then, there have been many more incidents, intifadas,  boggling my mind, but I lived in Safed from June 1980 to the end of 1985 with my husband.  We were English teachers; I in the junior high school and he in high school.  We talked the talk and walked the walk having our purse and pockets checked before entering any building, even school, going through bomb shelter drills, living during a window of safety, luckily, that I wrote about.  

Now, to read about this attack that started in Israel on October 7th 2023 with almost 3,000 Israelis slaughtered, not even attacked by an army,  is as shocking to us as it was to Israelis.  It is something no civilized civilization would have done, even Russia with their attacks on Ukraine-which is presided over by a Jewish president, by the way, that is not the reason for their attacking.  But the attack on Israel was for that reason;  Israel was created for Jews needing a country that would take them in by a people who have been wandering for 3,000 years on many levels.  They needed their own country and got it when it was being doled out to those needing it at the end of WWI through the League of Nations and again with UN at end of WWII.

Palestinians have lived there because Jews at the time begged them not to run and not to listen to their leaders who wanted them to leave as the Arabs were going to take over all the land, homes, etc, and promised the Palestinians they could return and live in the Jewish homes during the fight in 1948. They were all too greedy and looked forward to living in the Jewish homes.                                 

The movie, CAST A GIANT SHADOW, from 1966 with Kirk Douglas  dramatizes Israel's heroic 1947-48 struggle for independence.  It's both a realistic war story and a passionate romance, of course with the female stars, Angie Dickinson and Senta Berger, also starring Yul Brynner, John Wayne and Frank Sinatra in supporting roles.  I bought it as a DVD- history made to watch for 2 hours 18 minutes.  It cost me $13.49. Hope you can find it.

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Battleground-fact and fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz ($14.98) 

Myths and Facts, a concise record of the Arab-Israeli Conflict by PhDs Mitchell G. Bard and Joel Himelfarb.  ($5.95 in my day) by Near East Report's.  

Facts about Israel, 1973 by Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem 

Update:11/14/23  https://www.albert-tours-israel.com/single-post/history-of-gaza  

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/first-intifada

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

Book:  Letters From Israel by Nadene Goldfoot

     

      

Dealing with Palestinian Refugees

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                   

    UN Partition Plan that was turned down by the Arabs-1947

At the time, they didn't want their own state, only to drive out the Jews.  Otherwise, they would have accepted the plan.  Now, 74 years later, they say they want their own state.  But they refuse to comply with requirements of having peaceful intentions with Israel by bombing her every day from Gaza.  

Palestinians have accomplished one thing in my eyes:  The Christian world is in sympathy with them.  They are tired of the haggling.  Just at the point where there are Palestinians who are relenting in their hatred, the Christians want the problem finished.    They don't want to hear about the refugees any longer.  Church groups favor the Palestinians.  Israel is still the sacrificial lamb on the altar;  the scapegoat.  Europe wants a Palestine.  The USA is under pressure. No one is standing up and leading the way strongly saying, shape up or ship out.  Be decent to Israel and you'll have a life like everyone else. Make something of yourself instead of a tunnel digger or killer.  Well, any guy that stands up in this group gets shot down, literally! 
 

Israel's birth was  May 14, 1948.  By the next year, Egyptian Foreign Minister, Salah al Din said, "It is well-known and understood that the Arabs, in demanding the return of the refugees to Palestine, mean their return as masters of the Homeland, and not as slaves.  With a greater clarity, they mean the liquidation of Israel."  In other words, their return to land now a part of Israel is to destroy the Jewish hold on the land;  Israel.  

These Arabs had left at the advice of other Arab leaders that the united Arab army was going to attack and take over the land.  They should get out of the way.  When they finished killing off the Jews, they would be able to return and live in the homes of those Jews.  Where these Arabs found a spot to wait the attack out, became places of permanent refuge for them, as the Israelis managed to weather their attack and had fully established the Israel nation.  They had been deluded by their own leadership.  

There has never been a state of Palestine, only the Israelite land renamed by the Romans.  It was an expanse, according to Mark Twain, that was not very large by American standards, "being only 40 to 60 miles wide.  The state of Missouri could be split into 3 Palestines, and there would be enough material left for part of another---possibly a while one.  From Baltimore to San Francisco is several thousand miles, bur it will be only a 7 days' journey in the cars when I am 2 or 3 years older---(The railroad has been complete since the above was written)---if I live I shall necessarily have to go across the continent every now and then in those cars, but one journey from Dan to Beersheba will be sufficient, no doubt.  It must be the most trying of the two. " 

Arabs originated in Arabia.  The population did not leave until the death of Mohammad in 632 CE.  They struck out in a frenzy of converting populations to Islam.  In this 7th century, the Arab Rashiduns conquered the Levant; they were later succeeded by other Arabic-speaking Muslim dynasties, including the Umayyads, Abbasids and the Fatimids. Over time, much of the existing population of Palestine adopted Arab culture and language, and converted to Islam. 

                         Today's Bedouin boy on a camel

 Mostly, Bedouins were found migrating through Palestine at the time of the 1st Aliyah from Europe of Jews returning, escaping pogroms, attacks in Eastern Europe in 1880.  Others heard of their return and building projects, and they followed them, hoping to get jobs.  They came from all over the Levant, but mostly from Syria.  Many of their homes bore evidence of being owned by former Jews as etchings in the walls were found to be Hebrew.  The famous writer, Mark Twain, visited Palestine on a tour in February 1867,  He describes the Bedouins, saying they had attacked our camp last night, and he tells how they "traversed some miles of desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds--a silent, mournful expanse, wherein we saw only three persons--Arabs with nothing on but a long coarse shirt like the "tow-linen" shirts which used to form the only summer garment of little negro boys on Southern plantations.  Shepherds, they were--and they charmed their flocks with the traditional shepherd's pipe--a reed instrument..."

By July 15, 1957, only 8 years later than that honest statement of al Din's, the Arab Refugee Conference was held in Homs, Syria and passed a resolution stating: "Any discussion aimed at a solution of the Palestine problem which will not be based on assuring the refugees' right to annihilate Israel will be regarded as a desecration of the Arab people and an act of treason."                                  

Four years later on September 1,1961, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt's President, declared "If the refugees return to Israel, Israel will cease to exist.  

The Palestinian goal to return and live in Israel has been to destroy the Jewish state, so it is easy to understand why the Arab world has treated the 650,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants so miserably and not accept them into the 20 some Muslim surrounding states but keep them in these original refugee camps.  They have been used as pawns in a chess game to destroy Israel.  No other people have been so dependent on the UN for survival as these people.  It's been 74 years that they have maintained refugee status that originated from their ggreat grandparents.  The UN has been aiding and abetting their cause.  

Since the end of WWII, there have been over 50 million refugees from dozens of countries, the overwhelming majority of whom have been successfully resettled.  This number includes the almost 800,000 Jewish refugees that were expelled from  Arab countries in 1948.  Naturally Israel was offered as their homeland, but if they had other ideas, were helped to get to the USA, etc.  It was world Jewry that made sure that every one of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries were given a place to live, money to begin a new life, and citizenship in the country to which he or she fled.  Israel received 586,000 into Israel in that period. 

Only Jordan allowed Palestinian refugees to become citizens.  They had their major problems with them, too with the Black September attack of Palestinians trying to take over the government in 1970-71.  But the king married a Palestinian girl, (copying King Solomon's moves) and things calmed down.  

Driven by hatred of Israel and the Jews, the Arab world had a policy of keeping these people homeless in refugee camps.  Dr. Elfan Rees, adviser on refugees to the World Council of Churches, noted  ,"The Arab refugee problem is by far the easiest post-war refugee problem.  By faith, by language, by race, and by social organization,, they are  indistinguishable from their fellows or the host country."

                              Faisal II, king of Iraq in 1958.  

UN Rep, Ralph Garroway, former director of UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, said in August 1958, "The Arab states....want to keep the refugee problem in an open sore, as an affront to the UN and as a weapon against Israel.  Arab leaders don't give a damn whether the refugees live or die. " 

I may add that the culture of Muslims allows them to have 4 wives at a time.  Most must not have birth control since their numbers multiply quickly with 4 wives, 4 times faster than the Jews who maintain one, at least at a time, like the rest of the world.  

Israel has even offered to help resolve the refugees' plight in cooperation with Palestinian and Arab committees, which have refused to explore a solution.  In a 1967 editorial, the New York times noted the naivete of an argument stating that Israel should allow the return of all refugees. "The readmission of the refugees would be the equivalent to the admission to the United States of nearly 70,000,000 sworn enemies of the nation. " They try to keep even one out.

      This could also be in California where they had these detention camps.  

  Remember, they even took all their Japanese citizens during WWII and placed them in locked up places, like in areas meant for cattle.  From May to November 1942, Nyssa [pronounced NISS-a], Eastern Oregon, served as the site of the first farm labor camp organized during the wartime Japanese American experience.  It was a detention facility.  The fear was that they would help the Japanese enemy.   

The federal government leased the 43-acre property from the Pacific International Association and Pacific International Livestock Exposition, Inc. for $27,000 a year. Built in the 1920s, the complex had served as a livestock exhibition center and rodeo venue in the '20s and '30s. The residential area of the camp was in a series of buildings covering 460,000 square feet (about eleven acres). This indoor space included a concourse building that also housed the Henry Thiele Restaurant, two other halls, an arena and show ring, and various animal pavilions, including dairy, beef, swine, horse, sheep, and an area used for dog shows. The stalls and pens for the animals were removed, and the U.S. Army Engineers built small family quarters out of plywood to house Japanese American families. As in other assembly centers, the walls went only about eight feet high, leaving a large open area above—the roof of the pavilion was twenty to thirty feet high—that allowed sounds and smells to carry freely between units. The entire complex was surrounded by barbed wire fences with machine gun nest equipped sentry towers at the corners. The facility was also right across from Jantzen Beach, and former inmates recalled being able to hear the sounds of the amusement park located there. This was right in Portland, Oregon.  

I wouldn't want to remain in a refugee camp.  It's horrible to raise people to hate Jews, and that's what is happening to those in such camps, but they cannot be allowed to live in Israel, who already is made up of 20% Muslim Arabs.  It's going to, must, be a Jewish country, a refuge for Jews, the only one in the world.  Those Arabs alive today have no roots in Israel, and can move to any of the other more than 48 Muslim majority states in the world, or even other European states that are secular.   

Resource:

Why the Jews? by Dennis Prager & Joseph Telushkin

from Mitchell g. Bard PhD, Al-Misri, October 11, 1949 (Egypt's foreign minister, Salah al Din) statement.  

The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, p 203

From Time Immemorial-the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine by Joan Peters.

http://cojs.org/41979-2/

https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/japanese_internment/#.YxdzbXbMKUk

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/map-of-the-un-partition-plan

"From Dan to Beersheba of 1867", Mark Twain's Favorite Comment About Palestine

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

                                                                         

                   What Mark Twain talked about  as Palestine-on his trip in 1867.  

   Palestine April 24,, 1920  At the northern tip is Lake Hula.  

Restored Bronze Age gate at Tel Dan:  Mark Twain took an excursion trip to the Holy Land and Egypt along with other places on a first-class steamer ship in February 1867 and wrote about this trip as only Mark Twain could do. What he saw:  Some of is shocking to our ears today. 

Dan (Hebrew: דן) is an ancient city mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, described as the northernmost city of the Kingdom of Israel, and belonging to the tribe of Dan.  The city is identified with a tell located in the modern Golan Heights, known as Tel Dan (תל דן‎; "Mound of Dan") in Hebrew.  The American naval officer William F. Lynch was the first to identify Tell el-Qadi as the site of the ancient city of Dan in 1849. Three years later, Rev. Edward Robinson made the same identification, and this identification is now securely accepted. 

Robinson, biblical scholar,  was born in Southington, Connecticut, and raised on a farm. His father was a minister in the Congregational Church of the town for four decades. Robinson traveled to Palestine in 1838 in the company of Rev. Eli Smith.

Tel Dan is the modern Israeli name for the site, based on the original Biblical name

The Tel Dan Nature Reserve was first declared on 39 hectares surrounding the tel in 1974. 9 hectares were added to the reserve in 1989. The Dan River is one of the three water sources of the Jordan River which meet in the northern part of the Hula Valley. Notable points of interest include Paradise Springs, the Abraham or Canaanite Gate and the Israelite Gate.                                

                        Tel Dan, site of the Biblical city.  

Dan was the northern and Beersheba the southern limit of Palestine.  It's like the American saying of "from Maine to Texas."

                                              

                   Israelite outer gate

      Mark Twain's excursion was made on the ship, Quaker City."

 He had thought of Palestine as large as the USA when young, and said he now had to unlearn such ideas as its size and about kings.  Here in Ain Mellahah (a village This site is located in northern Israel, 25 kilometres (16 mi) north of the Sea of Galilee, and is in an area surrounded by hills and located by an ancient lake, Lake Huleh. At the time of its Natufian inhabitance, the area was heavily forested in oak, almond, and pistachio trees.,) after coming through Syria, and after  serious study to the character and customs of the country, all this "kings" loses its grandeur.  It suggests only a parcel of petty chiefs-ill-clad and ill conditioned savages much like our Indians, who lived in full sight of each other and whose "kingdoms" were large when they were 5 miles square and contained 2,000 souls.  The combined monarchies of the 30 "kings" destroyed by Joshua on one of his famous campaigns, only covered an area about equal to 4 of our counties  of ordinary size. 

The poor old sheik we saw at Cesarea Philippi  (is one of several names under which an ancient city located at the southwestern base of Mount Hermon was known during the Roman period, after being previously known during the Hellenistic period as Paneas.with his ragged band of  100 followers, would have been called a "king")  in those ancient times.....Alas, there is no dew here, nor flowers, nor birds, nor trees.  there is a plain and an unshaded lake and beyond them some barren mountains.  the tents are tumbling, the Arabs are quarreling like dogs and cats, as usual, the campground is strewn with packages and bundles, the labor of packing them upon the backs of the mules is progressing with great activity, the horses are saddles, the umbrellas are out, and in 10 minutes, we shall mount and the long procession will move again.  The white city of the Mellahah, (Mallaha (Arabic: ملاّحة) was a Palestinian Arab village, located 16 kilometers (9.9 mi) northeast of Safed, on the highway between the latter and Tiberias. 'Ain Mallaha is the local Arabic name for a spring that served as the water source for the village inhabitants throughout the ages. It is also one of the names used in English to refer to the ancient Natufian era settlement at the site.) resurrected for a moment out of the dead centuries, will have disappeared again and left no sign.                           

We traversed some miles of desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent, mournful expanse, wherein we saw only 3 persons-Arabs, with nothing on but a long coarse shirt like the "tow-linen" shirts which used to form the only summer garment of little negro boys on Southern plantations.  Shepherds they were...

      Today's Hula Lake Nature Reserve , Hula Valley in Israel 

                             Waters of Meron                                            

        Jordan River                                                                    

     Sea of Galilee taken in 1900

"At noon we took a swim in the Sea of Galilee-- a blessed privilege in this roasting climate--and then lunched under a neglected old fig-tree at the fountain they call ain-etTin, a hundred yards from ruined Capernaum.  Every rivulet that gurgles out of the rocks and sands of this part of the world is dubbed with the title of "fountain," and people familiar with the Hudson, the great lakes and the Mississippi fall into transports of admiration over them,.."..

"We had hardly begun to appreciate yet that we were standing upon any different sort of earth than that we had always been used to, and see how the historic names began already to cluster!  Dan-Bashan-Lake Huleh-the sources of Jordan-the Sea of Galilee.  They were all in sight but the last, and it was not far away.  The little township of Bashan was once the kingdom so famous in  Scripture for its bulls and its oaks.  Lake Huleh is the Biblical "Waters of Meron."  

It took Mark Twain and others about an hour's ride over a rough rocky road, half flooded with water and through a forest of oaks of Bashan that brought them to Dan.  

He described a little mound in the plain that issued a broad stream of limpid water, forming a large shallow pool and then rushing onward, as a puddle.  He said that the puddle was an important source of the Jordan River.  It's banks and those of the brook were adorned with blooming oleanders.  Evidently he had read Syrian books of  travel which said that such beauty would throw a well-balanced man into convulsions, which he thought to be so untrue.  

Tiberias:  We were camped...just within the city walls of Tiberias.  We went into the town before nightfall and looked at its people---we cared nothing about its houses.  Its people are best examined at a distance.  They are particularly uncomely Jews, Arabs, and negroes.  Squalor and poverty are the pride of Tiberias.  The young women wear their dower strung upon a strong wire of silver coins which they have raked together or inherited....They say that the long-nosed, lanky, dyspeptic-looking body-snatchers, with the indescribable hats on, and the long curl dangling down in front of each ear, ae the old, familiar, self-righteous Pharisees we read of in the Scriptures.  Verily, they look it, judging merely by their general style, and without other evidence, one might easily suspect that self-righteousness was their specialty." 

 Today's Tiberias, Israel:  August 25, 2022  is 100/75.  I imagine this is F,  The weather in Tiberias in August is very hot. The average temperatures are between 73°F and 93°F, drinking water regularly is advisable.   There shouldn't be any rainy days in in Tiberias during August. Having said that, the days are very hot in August so hanging out outside is more recommended during the afternoons and evening time.  Our weather forecast can give you a great sense of what weather to expect in Tiberias in August 2022.

   Beersheva, 1901, mostly an Arab town.  

Beersheva aerial view in 1917. Photo courtesy of American Colony - Matson Archive/US Library of Congress   Beersheba is located on the northern edge of the Negev desert 115 kilometres (71 mi) south-east of Tel Aviv and 120 kilometres (75 mi) south-west of Jerusalem.   In summer, the temperatures are high in daytime and nighttime with an average high of 34.7 °C (94 °F) and an average low of 21.4 °C (71 °F). Winters have an average high of 17.7 °C (64 °F) and average low of 7.1 °C (45 °F). Snow is very rare; a snowfall on February 20, 2015, was the first such occurrence in the city since 2000.                                      

Resource:

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1787272385367494897/6715434749954466520  weather

The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_(ancient_city)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Robinson_(scholar)

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