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Palestine (from Template:Lang-la; Template:Lang-he Pleshet, פלשתינה Palestina; Template:Lang-ar Filastīn, Falastīn) is one of several names for the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River with various adjoining lands. Many different definitions of the region have been used in the past three millennia.

Other English names for this geographical region include: Canaan (Template:Lang-he), Land of Israel (Template:Lang-he Erets Yisrael), Judea (Template:Lang-he yehuda), Holy Land (Template:Lang-he; Template:Lang-la; Template:Lang-ar al-Ard al-Muqaddasah) and Cisjordan (not to be confused with the French term for the modern-day West Bank, Cisjordanie).

Boundaries and name

Ancient Egyptian texts call the entire levantine coastal area R-t-n-u (conventionally Retenu), which stretched along the Mediterranean coast in between modern Egypt and Turkey. It subdivided into three regions. Retenu's southern region (called Djahy) approximates modern Israel with the Palestinian territories, the central region Lebanon, and the northern region (called Amurru) the Syrian coast as far north as the Orontes River near Turkey.

During the Israelite Period (or Iron Age), the Kingdom of Israel of the United Monarchy may have reigned from Jerusalem over an area approximating modern Israel with the Palestinian Territories but extending farther westward and northward to cover much (but not all) of the greater Land of Israel, although archaeological evidence for this period is very rare and disputed. After the "split", the southern part became the city state of the Kingdom of Judah, centred on Jerusalem, and the northern part the larger, more powerful and more prosperous, but less stable Kingdom of Israel.

The term "Palestine" derives from the word Philistine, the name of a non-Semitic ethnic group, originating from Southern Greece,closely related to early Mycenaean civilization. They inhabited a smaller area on the southern coast, called Philistia, whose borders approximate the modern Gaza Strip. Philistia encompassed the five cities of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath. The Egyptian texts of the temple at Medinet Habu, record a people called the P-r-s-t (conventionally Peleset), one of the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign. This is considered very likely to be a reference to the Philistines. The Hebrew name Peleshet (Template:Lang-he Pəléshseth), usually translated as Philistia in English, is used in the Bible to denote their southern coastal region. The Assyrian emperor Sargon II called it the Palashtu in his Annals. The last Philistine cities were destroyed in ca. 604 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon, who exiled the remaining inhabitants to Mesopotamia. Thus ended the Philistines political history. People of Philistine origin (living in sites named after Gaza and Ashkelon) continue to live in Babylon until the mid-5th century BCE, but subsequently, there are no further mentions. It can be assumed that from the 5th century and onwards, they disappeared as a distinct cultural and ethnic unit as well. However the name of their land remained. During the Persian Period, the Greek form was first used in the 5th century BCE by Herodotus who wrote of a "district of Syria, called Palaistinêi" (whence Template:Lang-la, whence Template:Lang-en). The boundaries of the area he referred to were not explicitly stated, but Josephus used the name only for the smaller coastal area, Philistia. Ptolemy also used the term. In Latin, Pliny mentions a region of Syria that was "formerly called Palaestina" among the areas of the Eastern Mediterranean.

During the Roman period, the Iudaea Province (including Samaria) covered most of Israel and the Palestinian territories. But following the Bar Kokhba rebellion in the 2nd century, as part of a program of ethnic cleansing, the Romans tried to erase the Jewish connection to the land of Judea, and renamed it Syria Palaestina (Template:Lang-la) (including Judea) and Samaria.

During the Byzantine Period, this entire region (including Syria Palestine, Samaria, and Galilee) was renamed Palaestina and then subdivided into Diocese I and II. The Byzantines also renamed an area of land including the Negev, Sinai, and the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula as Palaestina Salutoris, sometimes called Palaestina III. Since the Byzantine Period, the Byzantine borders of Palaestina (I and II) have served as a name for the geographic area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Holy texts

The Hebrew Bible calls the region Canaan (Template:Lang-he) when referring to the pre-Israelite period and thereafter Israel (Yisrael). The name "Land of the Hebrews" (Template:Lang-he, Eretz Ha-Ivrim) is also found as well as several poetical names: "land flowing with milk and honey", "land that swore to your fathers to assign to you", "Holy Land", "Land of the Lord", and the "Promised Land". The Land of Canaan is given a precise description in (34:1 Numbers 34:1–12) as including all of Lebanon as well(13:5 Joshua 13:5). The wide area appears to be the habitat of the ancient ethnic Hebrews, albeit shared with other ethnic groups. The land of Canaan is part of the land given to the descendants of Abraham, which extends from the Nile to the Euphrates River (15:18 Genesis 15:18). This land is said to include an area called Aram Naharaim, which includes Haran in modern Turkey, from where Abraham the ancestor of the Israelites departed.

The events of the Four Gospels of the Christian Bible take place entirely in Israel.

In the Qur'an, the term الأرض المقدسة ("Holy Land", Al-Ard Al-Muqaddasah) is mentioned at least seven times, once when Moses proclaims to the Children of Israel: "O my people! Enter the holy land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin." (Surah 5:21)

History

Main articles: History of Israel, History of Palestine

Ancient times

Main articles: Archaeology of Israel, History of ancient Israel and Judah

Bible period

During the ancient bible period, this region was referred to as Canaan and was the home of several small nations such as the Canaanites, the Hethites, the Amorrhites, the Pherezites, the Hevites and the Jebusites, who lived in the ancient cities of Jericho, Megiddo, Sidon and others. Later, most of this region was conquered from these small nations by the Hebrews who settled in the region and divided it among the 12 Israelite tribes, who later were merged into one united Kingdom of Israel. After 3 generations of kings, the kingdom was split in to 2 sister kingdoms: the northern kingdom of Israel, and the southern kingdom of Judah. After a few centuries the kingdoms were razed by invaders: The Assyrian Empire destroyed the northern kingdom and exiled its inhabitants (which became known as the Lost Tribes) at 721 BC, while the Babylonian Empire destroyed the southern kingdom (and the first Temple in Jerusalem) and exiled its inhabitants (who became known since as the Jews) at 586 BC. After approximately 50 years the Jewish exiles were allowed, by the Persian Empire, to return back to the Land of Israel, where they built the Second Temple in Jerusalem and were allowed autonomous rule.

Greek period

The Persian Empire soon fell under the Greek forces of Alexander the Great. After his death, with the absence of heirs, his conquests were divided amongst his generals, while the region of the Jews ("Judah" or Judea as it became known) was first part of the Ptolemaic dynasty and then part of the Seleucid Empire. The Jewish population in Judea was allowed to conduct a limited autonomy in religion and administration and Jerusalem became a spiritual center for all the Jews (who also held communities outside Judea, such as in Babylon and in Alexandria). But soon the ever growing Hellenistic influence which intended to spread by force its culture and ways upon all others, caused tensions between the Greek leaders and Jews in Judea. This led to the open revolt of the Jews under the leadership of the Hasmonean, and the construction of their kingdom. After approximately a century of independence, control of the kingdom fell to the Roman Empire under the Roman army of Pompey and became first a Roman client kingdom and then a Roman Province.

Roman time

As a result of the First Jewish-Roman War (66-73), Titus sacked Jerusalem destroying the Second Temple, leaving only supporting walls, including the Western Wall. In 135, following the fall of a Jewish revolt led by Bar Kokhba in 132–135, the Roman emperor Hadrian expelled most Jews from Judea on the pain of death, leaving large Jewish populations in Samaria and the Galilee. . In what was considered a form of psychological warfare, the Romans also tried to change the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, but that had less staying power. The Romans changed the name of Judea to Syria Palaestina the latter part of the name coming from the word Phillistine who were reknown enemies of the Hebrews before and during the First Temple period. Over time the name Syria Palaestina was shortened to Palaestina, which by then had become an administrative political unit within the Roman Empire.

Medieval time

Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire) period

In approximately 390, Palaestina was further organised into three units: Palaestina Prima, Secunda, and Tertia (First, Second, and Third Palestine). Palaestina Prima consisted of Judea, Samaria, the coast, and Peraea with the governor residing in Caesarea. Palaestina Secunda consisted of the Galilee, the lower Jezreel Valley, the regions east of Galilee, and the western part of the former Decapolis with the seat of government at Scythopolis. Palaestina Tertia included the Negev, southern Jordan — once part of Arabia — and most of Sinai with Petra the usual residence of the governor. Palestina Tertia was also known as Palaestina Salutaris. This reorganization reduced Arabia to the northern Jordan east of Peraea.

In 536 Justinian I promoted the governor at Caesarea to proconsul (anthypatos), giving him authority over the two remaining consulars. Justinian believed that the elevation of the governor was appropriate because he was responsible for "the province in which our Lord Jesus Christ... appeared on earth". This was also the principal factor explaining why Palestine prospered under the Christian Empire. The cities of Palestine, such as Caesarea Maritima, Jerusalem, Skythopolis, Neapolis, and Gaza reached their peak population in the late Roman period and produced notable Christian scholars in the disciplines of rhetoric, historiography, Eusebian ecclesiastical history, classicizing history and hagiography.

Byzantine administration of Palestine ended temporarily during the Persian occupation of 614–28, then permanently after the Muslims arrived in 634 and defeated the imperial forces decisively at the Battle of Yarmouk in 636. Jerusalem capitulated in 638 and Caesarea around 640 or 641/2. The Muslims abolished Palaestina III, but Palaestina I survived as the Jund Filastin and Palaestina II as the Jund al-Urdunn. Ramla, a new city, became the capital.

The Arab Caliphate period

The Arab Caliphate period includes the Umayyid, Abbasid and the Ayyubid.

The muslim rulers divided the province of ash-Sham (Arabic for Greater Syria) into five districts. Jund Filastin (Arabic جند فلسطين, literally "the army of military district of Palestine") was a region extending from the Sinai to south of the plain of Acre. At times it reached down into the Sinai. Major towns included Rafah, Caesarea, Gaza, Jaffa, Nablus, Jericho and Ramla. Initially Ludd (Lydda) was the capital, but in 717 it was moved to the new city of ar-Ramlah (Ramla). Jund al-Urdunn (literally "Jordan") was a region to the north and east of Filastin. Major towns included Tiberias, Legio, Acre, Beisan and Tyre. The capital was at Tiberias. Various political upheavals led to readjustments of the boundaries several times. After the 10th century, the division into Junds began to break down and the Turkish invasions of the 1070s, followed by the first Crusade, completed that process.

See also the Mideastweb map of "Palestine Under the Caliphs", showing Jund boundaries (external link).

Crusader period

See the articles on the Crusades and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Mamluk period

After Muslim control over Palestine was reestablished in the 12th and 13th centuries, the division into districts was reinstated, with boundaries that were frequently redrawn. 1263/Jul 1291 the country was part of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.

Around the end of the 13th century, Palestine comprised several of nine emirates of Syria, namely the "Kingdoms" of Gaza (including Ascalon and Hebron), Karak (including Jaffa and Legio), Safad (including Safad, Acre, Sidon and Tyre) and parts of the Kingdom of Damascus (sometimes extending as far south as Jerusalem).

By the middle of the 14th century, Syria had again been divided into five districts, of which Filastin included Jerusalem (its capital), Ramla, Ascalon, Hebron and Nablus, while Hauran included Tiberias (its capital).

Ottoman period

After the Ottoman conquest, the name "Palestine" disappeared as the official name of an administrative unit, as the Turks often called their (sub)provinces after the capital. Since its 1516 incorporation in the Ottoman Empire, it was part of the vilayet (province) of Damascus-Syria until 1660, next of the vilayet of Saida (seat in Lebanon), briefly interrupted by the 7 March 1799 - July 1799 French occupation of Jaffa, Haifa, and Caesarea. On 10 May 1832 it was one of the Turkish provinces annexed by Muhammad Ali's shortly imperialistic Egypt (nominally still Ottoman), but in November 1840 direct Ottoman rule was restored.

Still the old name remained in popular and semi-official use. Many examples of its usage in the 16th and 17th centuries have survived. During the 19th century, the "Ottoman Government employed the term Arz-i Filistin (the 'Land of Palestine') in official correspondence, meaning for all intents and purposes the area to the west of the River Jordan which became 'Palestine' under the British in 1922". Amongst the educated Arab public, Filastin was a common concept, referring either to the whole of Palestine or to the Jerusalem sanjaq alone or just to the area around Ramle.

Ottoman rule over the region lasted until the Great War (World War I) when the Ottomans sided with Germany and the Central Powers. During World War I, the Ottomans were driven from much of the area by the United Kingdom during the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

The 19th and 20th centuries

In European usage up to World War I, "Palestine" was used informally for a region that extended in the north-south direction typically from Raphia (south-east of Gaza) to the Litani River (now in Lebanon). The western boundary was the sea, and the eastern boundary was the poorly-defined place where the Syrian desert began. In various European sources, the eastern boundary was placed anywhere from the Jordan River to slightly east of Amman. The Negev Desert was not included.

Under the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, it was envisioned that most of Palestine, when freed from Ottoman control, would become an international zone not under direct French or British colonial control. Shortly thereafter, British foreign minister Arthur Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which laid plans for a Jewish homeland to be established in Palestine eventually.

The British-led Egyptian Expeditionary Force, commanded by Edmund Allenby, captured Jerusalem on 9 December, 1917 and occupied the whole of the Levant following the defeat of Turkish forces in Palestine at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918.

British Mandate (1920–1948)

Formal use of the English word "Palestine" returned with the British Mandate. At the beginning of this period, the name "Eretz Yisrael" ("Land of Israel", Hebrew: ארץ ישראל) was inserted into use on a 1920 Postage Stamp by Herbert Samuel, the first British high-commissioner of Palestine 1920-1925. Foreign office officials questioned his action, but the issue was forgotten as responsibility for Palestine was passed from the foreign office to colonial office.

In April 1920 the Allied Supreme Council (the USA, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan) met at Sanremo and formal decisions were taken on the allocation of mandate territories. The United Kingdom accepted a mandate for Palestine, but the boundaries of the mandate and the conditions under which it was to be held were not decided. The Zionist Organization's representative at Sanremo, Chaim Weizmann, subsequently reported to his colleagues in London:

"There are still important details outstanding, such as the actual terms of the mandate and the question of the boundaries in Palestine. There is the delimitation of the boundary between French Syria and Palestine, which will constitute the northern frontier and the eastern line of demarcation, adjoining Arab Syria. The latter is not likely to be fixed until the Emir Feisal attends the Peace Conference, probably in Paris."

In July 1920, the French drove Faisal bin Husayn from Damascus ending his already negligible control over the region of Transjordan, where local chiefs traditionally resisted any central authority. The sheikhs, who had earlier pledged their loyalty to the Sharif, asked the British to undertake the region's administration. Herbert Samuel asked for the extension of the Palestine government's authority to Transjordan, but at meetings in Cairo and Jerusalem between Winston Churchill and Emir Abdullah in March 1921 it was agreed that Abdullah would administer the territory (initially for six months only) on behalf of the Palestine administration. In the summer of 1921 Transjordan was included within the Mandate, but excluded from the provisions for a Jewish National Home. On 24 July, 1922 the League of Nations approved the terms of the British Mandate over Palestine and Transjordan. On 16 September the League formally approved a memorandum from Lord Balfour confirming the exemption of Transjordan from the clauses of the mandate concerning the creation of a Jewish national home and from the mandate's responsibility to facilitate Jewish immigration and land settlement. With Transjordan coming under the administration of the British Mandate, the mandate's collective territory became constituted of 23% Palestine and 77% Transjordan. The British prevented Jewish immigration to Transjordan (See Entry of Jews into Transjordan). Transjordan was a very sparsely populated region (specially in comparison with Palestine proper) due to its relatively limited resources and largely desert environment. Transjordan was also home to mostly different sub-cultures (primarily Bedouin and Circassian tribes), which are culturally and to a large extent ancestrally different from the majority of Palestinians who are descendents of the Madani (urban) and fellahin (settled peasants) communities west of the river.

The award of the mandates was delayed as a result of the United States' suspicions regarding Britain's colonial ambitions and similar reservations held by Italy about France's intentions. France in turn refused to reach a settlement over Palestine until its own mandate in Syria became final. According to Louis,

Together with the American protests against the issuance of mandates these triangular quarrels between the Italians, French, and British explain why the A mandates did not come into force until nearly four years after the signing of the Peace Treaty.... The British documents clearly reveal that Balfour's patient and skilful diplomacy contributed greatly to the final issuance of the A mandates for Syria and Palestine on September 29, 1923.

Even before the Mandate came into legal effect in 1923 (text), British terminology sometimes used '"Palestine" for the part west of the Jordan River and "Trans-Jordan" (or Transjordania) for the part east of the Jordan River.

In the years following World War II, Britain's position in Palestine gradually worsened. This was caused by a combination of factors, including:

• The situation in Palestine itself rapidly deteriorated, due to the incessant attacks by Irgun and Lehi on British officials, armed forces, and strategic installations. This caused severe damage to British morale and prestige, as well as increasing opposition to the mandate in Britain itself, public opinion demanding to "bring the boys home".
• World public opinion turned against Britain as a result of the British policy of preventing the Jewish Zionist Holocaust survivors from reaching Palestine, sending them instead to refugee camps in Cyprus, or even back to Germany, as in the case of Exodus 1947.
• The costs of maintaining an army of over 100,000 men in Palestine weighed heavily on a British economy suffering from post-war depression, and was another cause for British public opinion to demand an end to the Mandate.

Finally in early 1947 the British Government announced their desire to terminate the Mandate, and passed the responsibility over Palestine to the United Nations.

UN partition

On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly, with a two-thirds majority international vote, passed the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181), a plan to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict by partitioning the territory into separate Jewish and Arab states, with the Greater Jerusalem area (encompassing Bethlehem) coming under international control. Jewish leaders (including the Jewish Agency), accepted the plan, while Palestinian Arab leaders rejected it and refused to negotiate. Neighboring Arab and Muslim states also rejected the partition plan. The Arab community reacted violently after the Arab Higher Committee declared a strike and burned many buildings and shops. As armed skirmishes between Arab and Jewish paramilitary forces in Palestine continued, the British mandate ended on May 15, 1948, the establishment of the State of Israel having been proclaimed the day before (see Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel). The neighboring Arab states and armies (Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Transjordan, Holy War Army, Arab Liberation Army, and local Arabs) immediately attacked Israel following its declaration of independence, and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War ensued. Consequently, the partition plan was never implemented.

Current status

Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and neighboring Arab states eliminated Palestine as a distinct territory. With the establishment of Israel, the remaining lands were divided amongst Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

In addition to the UN-partitioned area it was allotted, Israel captured 26 percent of the Mandate territory west of the Jordan river. Jordan captured and annexed about 21% of the Mandate territory, known today as the West Bank. Jerusalem was divided, with Jordan taking the eastern parts, including the Old City, and Israel taking the western parts. The Gaza Strip was captured by Egypt.

For a description of the massive population movements, Arab and Jewish, at the time of the 1948 war and over the following decades, see Palestinian exodus and Jewish exodus from Arab lands.

From the 1960s onward, the term "Palestine" was regularly used in political contexts. Various declarations, such as the 15 November 1988 proclamation of a State of Palestine by the PLO referred to a country called Palestine, defining its borders based on the U.N. Resolution 242 and 383 and the principle of Land for Peace. The Green Line was the 1967 border established by many UN resolutions including those mentioned above.

Demographics

Early demographics

Estimating the population of Palestine in antiquity relies on 2 methods - censuses and writings made at the times, and the scientific method based on excavations and statistical methods that consider the number of settlements at the particular age, area of each settlement, density factor for each settelment.

According to Joseph Jacobs, writing in the Jewish Encyclopedia (1901-1906) , the Pentateuch contains a number of statements as to the number of Jews that left Egypt, the descendants of the seventy sons and grandsons of Jacob who took up their residence in that country. Altogether, including Levites, there were 611,730 males over twenty years of age, and therefore capable of bearing arms; this would imply a population of about 3,154,000. The Census of David is said to have recorded 1,300,000 males over twenty years of age, which would imply a population of over 5,000,000. The number of exiles who returned from Babylon is given at 42,360. Tacitus declares that Jerusalem at its fall contained 600,000 persons; Josephus, that there were as many as 1,100,000.

According to excavational studies by Magen Borshi of The Israel Museum in Jerusalem:

"We have sought here to demonstrate in two alternate, independent ways that the population of Palestine in antiquity did not exceed a million persons. It can also be shown, moreover, that this was more or less the size of the population in the peak period--the late Byzantine period, around A.D. 600"

Similarly, a study by Yigal Shiloh of The Hebrew University suggests that the population of Palestine in the Iron Age could have never exceeded a million. He writes:

"As we have seen above, the population of the country in the Roman-Byzantine period greatly exceeded that in the Iron Age...If we accept Broshi's population estimates, which appear to be confirmed by the results of recent research, it follows that the estimates for the population during the Iron Age must be set at a lower figure."

The table below represents estimates of the first century population of Palestine as adapted from Byatt (1973).

There is no consensus on the population of Palestine in the first century of the Christian Era; estimates range from under 1 million to 6 million.

Demographics in the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods

In the middle of the first century of the Ottoman rule, i.e. 1550 A.D., Bernard Lewis in a study of Ottoman registers of the early Ottoman Rule of Palestine reports

"From the mass of detail in the registers, it is possible to extract something like a general picture of the economic life of the country in that period. Out of a total population of about 300,000 souls, between a fifth and a quarter lived in the six towns of Jerusalem, Gaza, Safed, Nabulus, Ramle, and Hebron. The remainder consisted mainly of peasants, living in villages of varying size, and engaged in agriculture. Their main food-crops were wheat and barley in that order, supplemented by leguminous pulses, olives, fruit, and vegetables. In and around most of the towns there was a considerable number of vineyards, orchards, and vegetable gardens."

By Volney's estimates in 1785, there were no more than 200,000 people in the country.

In his paper 'Demography in Israel/Palestine: Trends, Prospects and Policy Implications' Sergio DellaPergola, drawing on the work of Bachi (1975), provides rough estimates of the population of Palestine west of the River Jordan by religion groups from the first century onwards summarised in the table below.

Figures in thousands. The total includes Druzes and other small religious minorities.

According to Scholch, the population of Palestine in 1850 had about 350,000 inhabitants, 30% of whom lived in 13 towns; roughly 85% were Muslims, 11% were Christians and 4% Jews

Figures from Ben-Arieh, in Scholch 1985, p. 388.

According to Ottoman statistics studied by Justin McCarthy, the population of Palestine in the early 19th century was 350,000, in 1860 it was 411,000 and in 1900 Palestine had a population of about 600,000 of which 94% were Arabs. In 1914 Palestine had a population of 657,000 Muslim Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs, and 59,000 Jews.

Alphonse de Lamartine visited Palestine in 1835:

"Outside the gates of Jerusalem we saw indeed no living object, heard no living sound, we found the same void, the same silence ... as we should have expected before the entombed gates of Pompeii or Herculaneam a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, on the highways, in the country ... the tomb of a whole people."

Mark Twain visited Palestine in 1867 and wrote in Innocents Abroad:

"Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Palestine is desolate and unlovely -- Palestine is no more of this workday world. It is sacred to poetry and tradition, it is dreamland." "There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country". "A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tabor safely. We never saw a human being on the whole route". "There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent – not for thirty miles in either direction. ...One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings." ...these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness..."

Kathleen Christison was critical of Twain and noted that Twain described the Samaritans of Nablus at length without mentioning the large Arab population at all. The Arab population at the time was about 20,000.

During the nineteenth century, many residents and visitors attempted to estimate the population without recourse to official data, and came up with a large number of different values. Estimates that are reasonably reliable are only available for the final third of the century, from which period Ottoman population and taxation registers have been preserved.

After a visit to Palestine in 1891, Ahad Ha'am wrote:

From abroad, we are accustomed to believe that Eretz Israel is presently almost totally desolate, an uncultivated desert, and that anyone wishing to buy land there can come and buy all he wants. But in truth it is not so. In the entire land, it is hard to find tillable land that is not already tilled; only sandy fields or stony hills, suitable at best for planting trees or vines and, even that after considerable work and expense in clearing and preparing them- only these remain unworked. ... Many of our people who came to buy land have been in Eretz Israel for months, and have toured its length and width, without finding what they seek.

In 1920, the League of Nations "Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine states that there were 700,000 people living in Palestine.

"Of these 235,000 live in the larger towns, 465,000 in the smaller towns and villages. Four-fifths of the whole population are Moslems. A small proportion of these are Bedouin Arabs; the remainder, although they speak Arabic and are termed Arabs, are largely of mixed race. Some 77,000 of the population are Christians, in large majority belonging to the Orthodox Church, and speaking Arabic. The minority are members of the Latin or of the Uniate Greek Catholic Church, or--a small number--are Protestants.

The Jewish element of the population numbers 76,000. Almost all have entered Palestine during the last 40 years. Prior to 1850 there were in the country only a handful of Jews. In the following 30 years a few hundreds came to Palestine. Most of them were animated by religious motives; they came to pray and to die in the Holy Land, and to be buried in its soil. After the persecutions in Russia forty years ago, the movement of the Jews to Palestine assumed larger proportions.

"

By 1948, the population had risen to 1,900,000, of whom 68% were Arabs, and 32% were Jews (UNSCOP report, including bedouin).

Genetic analyses of regional populations

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According to various genetic studies, Jewish and Samaritan populations and various Palestinian populations overlap genetically because they share some of the same Neolithic ancestors.

Beduins are an ancient population originating from the outlands around the Syro-Jordanian border. Palestinian Muslims carry genetic components that derive from Beduin populations and from Arab populations of the Arabian Peninsula, but are rare in Jews and Samaritans. Conversely, Jews and Samaritans carry components that derive from ancient populations around the Syro-Turkish border (compare Abraham) and from aboriginal Canaanite populations, but are rare in Palestinian Muslims. Jewish communities around the world also have low levels of admixture from local populations. Palestinian Christians have not yet been studied systematically, but are thought to descend mostly from ancient Beduins (Nabataeans), partly from Christian pilgrims from elsewhere, and to some degree from ancient Jews who founded Christianity. Druz carry a component that derives from South Asia that is rare in the Mideast.

Geneticists generally agree there was mixing in Middle East populations in prehistoric times. Nebel et al. (2000) doing Y-chromosome haplotype analysis for patrilineal ancestry of Jews and Palestinian Muslims "revealed a common gene pool for a large portion of Y chromosomes, suggesting a relatively recent common ancestry". The two modal haplotypes that comprise the Palestinian Arab clade were very infrequent among Jews, "reflecting divergence and/or admixture from other populations". Nebel et al. regard their findings in good agreement with historical evidence that suggest that "Part, or perhaps the majority, of the Muslim Arabs in this country descended from local inhabitants, mainly Christians and Jews, who had converted after the Islamic conquest in the seventh century AD... These local inhabitants, in turn, were descendants of the core population that had lived in the area for several centuries, some even since prehistoric times.

A subsequent study aimed at determining the genetic relationship among three Jewish communities (Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Kurdish) by the same group described two Y-chromosomal haplotype groups, Eu9 and Eu10, that represent a major part of Middle East ancestry. Eu9 appears to originate from the northern Fertile Crescent, while Eu10 appears to come from the southern part of it. Jewish and Muslim Kurdish populations have high-frequency of Eu9 but generally lack Eu10, which is prevalent in Palestinian Muslims. The study proposes that

...the Y chromosomes in Palestinian Arabs and Bedouin represent, to a large extent, early lineages derived from the Neolithic inhabitants of the area and additional lineages from more-recent population movements. The early lineages are part of the common chromosome pool shared with Jews. According to our working model, the more-recent migrations were mostly from the Arabian Peninsula, as is seen in the Arab-specific Eu 10 chromosomes that include the modal haplotypes observed in Palestinians and Bedouin... The study demonstrates that the Y chromosome pool of Jews is an integral part of the genetic landscape of the region and, in particular, that Jews exhibit a high degree of genetic affinity to populations living in the north of the Fertile Crescent.

Arnaiz-Villena, et al. (2001) compared the genetic profile of Palestinians with that of other Mediterranean populations, and argue that:

"Archaeologic and genetic data support that both Jews and Palestinians came from the ancient Canaanites, who extensively mixed with Egyptians, Mesopotamian and Anatolian peoples in ancient times."

However, the study also says that Palestinians are closely related to Egyptians, Lebanese, Iranians, Cretans, Ancient Macedonians and Sardinians, Turks, Armenians and also to Algerians, Spaniards, French, Italians and Basques. It therefore doesn't answer the question of immigration.

Arnaiz-Villena was later sacked from the journal's editorial board and the article retracted. The journal claimed the article was politically biased and was written using inappropriate remarks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The question of late Arab immigration to Palestine

Whether there was significant Arab immigration into Palestine after the beginning of Jewish settlement there in the late 19th century has been a matter of some controversy.

Demographer Uziel Schmelz, in his analysis of Ottoman registration data for 1905 populations of Jerusalem and Hebron kazas, found that most Ottoman citizens living in these areas, comprising about one quarter of the population of Palestine, were living at the place where they were born. Specifically, of Muslims, 93.1% were born in their current locality of residence, 5.2% were born elsewhere in Palestine, and 1.6% were born outside Palestine. Of Christians, 93.4% were born in their current locality, 3.0% were born elsewhere in Palestine, and 3.6% were born outside Palestine. Of Jews (excluding the large fraction who were not Ottoman citizens), 59.0% were born in their current locality, 1.9% were born elsewhere in Palestine, and 39.0% were born outside Palestine.

American economist Gottheil argues that there likely was significant Arab immigration:

There is every reason to believe that consequential immigration of Arabs into and within Palestine occurred during the Ottoman and British mandatory periods. Among the most compelling arguments in support of such immigration is the universally acknowledged and practiced linkage between regional economic disparities and migratory impulses. The precise magnitude of Arab immigration into and within Palestine is, as Bachi noted, unknown. Lack of completeness in Ottoman registration lists and British Mandatory censuses, and the immeasurable illegal, unreported, and undetected immigration during both periods make any estimate a bold venture into creative analysis. In most cases, those venturing into the realm of Palestinian demography—or other demographic analyses based on very crude data—acknowledge its limitations and the tentativeness of the conclusions that may be drawn.

Yehoshua Porath believes that the notion of "large-scale immigration of Arabs from the neighboring countries" is a myth "proposed by Zionist writers". He writes:

As all the research by historian Fares Abdul Rahim and geographers of modern Palestine shows, the Arab population began to grow again in the middle of the nineteenth century. That growth resulted from a new factor: the demographic revolution. Until the 1850s there was no "natural" increase of the population, but this began to change when modern medical treatment was introduced and modern hospitals were established, both by the Ottoman authorities and by the foreign Christian missionaries. The number of births remained steady but infant mortality decreased. This was the main reason for Arab population growth. ... No one would doubt that some migrant workers came to Palestine from Syria and Trans-Jordan and remained there. But one has to add to this that there were migrations in the opposite direction as well. For example, a tradition developed in Hebron to go to study and work in Cairo, with the result that a permanent community of Hebronites had been living in Cairo since the fifteenth century. Trans-Jordan exported unskilled casual labor to Palestine; but before 1948 its civil service attracted a good many educated Palestinian Arabs who did not find work in Palestine itself. Demographically speaking, however, neither movement of population was significant in comparison to the decisive factor of natural increase.

Daniel Pipes responds to Porath by saying that the argument that "substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century is supported by an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by anyone, including Professor Porath."

Current demographics

According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, as of May 2006, of Israel's 7 million people, 77% were Jews, 18.5% Arabs, and 4.3% "others". Among Jews, 68% were Sabras (Israeli-born), mostly second- or third-generation Israelis, and the rest are olim — 22% from Europe and the Americas, and 10% from Asia and Africa, including the Arab countries.

According to Palestinian evaluations, The West Bank is inhabited by approximately 2.4 million Palestinians and the Gaza Strip by another 1.4 million. According to a study presented at The Sixth Herzliya Conference on The Balance of Israel's National Security there are 1.4 million Palestinians in the West Bank. This study was criticised by demographer Sergio DellaPergola, who estimated 3.33 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip combined at the end of 2005.

According to these Israeli and Palestinian estimates, the population in the region of Palestine stands at 9.8 - 10.8 millions.

According to Jordanian statistics, there are almost six million inhabitants of Jordan, the majority of them being Palestinians but exact Palestinian percentage in the society is disputed and not encouraged to be researched by the government. Estimates of the proportion of Palestinians in Jordan have ranged between 45 % and 90 %.

See also

• Arab-Israeli conflict
• Conflict: Middle East Political Simulator
• Greater Israel
• Greater Syria
• History of Fatah/Hamas tensions
• History of Palestine
• State of Israel
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Land of Israel covers roughly the same region, with a different focus
• Mandate for Palestine
• Names of the Levant
• Occupation of Palestine
• Palestinian people
• State of Palestine

External links

• The Hope Simpson Report (London, 1930)
• Palestine Royal Commission Report (the Peel Report) (London, 1937)
• Report to the Council of the League of Nations (1928)
• Report to the Council of the League of Nations (1929)
• Report to the Council of the League of Nations (1934)
• Report to the Council of the League of Nations (1935)
• www.mideastweb.org - A website with a wealth of statistics regarding population in Palestine
• Coins and Banknotes of Palestine under the British Mandate
• WorldStatesmen- Maps, flags, chronology, see Israel and Palestinian National Authority
• hWeb - Israel-Palestine in Maps
• Palestine Fact Sheet from the Common Language Project

Maps

• Sykes-Picot Agreement, 1916
• 1947 UN Partition Plan
• 1949 Armisitice Lines
• Israel After 1949 Armistice Agreements

Footnotes

1. Surah 5:21
2. ^ Lehmann, Clayton Miles (1998). "Palestine: History: 135–337: Syria Palaestina and the Tetrarchy". The On-line Encyclopedia of the Roman Provinces. University of South Dakota. Retrieved 2006-07-19. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
3. Kenneth G. Holum "Palestine" The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan. Oxford University Press 1991.
4. Gerber, 1998.
5. Mandel, 1976, p. xx.
6. Porath, 1974, pp. 8-9.
7. Haim Gerber (1998) referring to fatwas by two Hanafite Syrian jurists.
9. Hughes, 1999, p. 17; p. 97.
10. See
11. 'Zionist Aspirations: Dr Weizmann on the Future of Palestine', The Times, Saturday, 8 May, 1920; p. 15.
12. Gelber, 1997, pp. 6-15.
13. Sicker, 1999, p. 164.
14. Louis, 1969, p. 90.
15. Ingrams, 1972
16. "Mandate for Palestine - Interim report of the Mandatory to the LoN/Balfour Declaration text". League of Nations. 1921-07-30. Retrieved 2007-03-08.
17. Colonel Archer-Cust, Chief Secretary of the British Government in Palestine, said in a lecture to the Royal Empire Society that "The hanging of the two British Sergeants did more than anything to get us out ". (The United Empire Journal, November-December 1949, taken from The Revolt, by Menachem Begin)
18. Magen Broshi, The Population of Western PAlestine in the Roman-Byzantine Period, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 236, p.7, 1979.
19. Yigal Shiloh, The Population of Iron Age Palestine in the Light of a Sample Analysis of Urban Plans, Areas, and Population Density, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 239, p.33, 1980.
20. Hastings Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3, 646.
21. Les Juifs dans l'empire romain (1914), 1, 209f.
22. Referred to by W C Lowdermilk, Palestine, Land of Promise,(1944), p. 47.
23. From Jesus to Paul (1944), 33.
24. Herod the Great (1971), 165.
25. A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 2nd ed. (1952), Vol. 1, 168, 370-2.
26. Encyc. Biblica column 3550.
27. Referred to by W C Lowdermilk, Palestine, Land of Promise (1944), 47.
28. The Holy Land (1966), 220, 221.
29. Letter of 16 Dec. 1941 reported by Lowdermilk, ibid, 47.
30. Die Bevolkerung der griechischromischen Welt (1886), 242-9.
31. Economic Background of the Gospels (1926), 83.
32. Byatt, 1973.
33. Daily Life in Palestine at the Time of Christ (1962), 43.
34. Preparing the Way for Paul (1930), 115.
35. History of New Testament Times (1949), 189.
36. Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums (1915), 1, 10.
37. Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (1969), 205.
38. The Density of Population in Ancient Palestine, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol 66 (1947), 425-36.
39. Bernard Lewis, Studies in the Ottoman Archives--I, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 16, NO. 3, pp. 469-501, 1954
40. C.F.C Conte de Volney: Travels through Syria & Egypt in the years 1783, 1784, 1785 (London, 1798). Vol II p. 219
41. Katz, 115
42. DellaPergola, 2001, p. 5.
43. Scholch 1985, p. 503
44. McCarthy, 1990, p.26.
45. McCarthy, 1990.
46. Katz, 114
47. Alphonse de Lamartine, Recollections of the East, Vol. I (London, 1845), pp. 268, 308.
48. Twain, 358
49. Twain, 294
50. Mark Twain: Innocents Abroad (New York, 1911) p.216 ,253
51. K. Christison, Perceptions of Palestine: Their Influence on U.S. Middle East Policy, Univ. of California Press, 1999; p20.
52. B. B. Doumani, The political economy of population counts in Ottoman Palestine: Nablus, Circa 1950, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol 26 (1994) 1-17.
53. J. McCarthy, The population of Ottoman Syria and Iraq, 1878-1914, Asian and African Studies, vol. 15 (1981) 3-44. K. H. Karpat, Ottoman population 1830-1914 (Univ. Wisconsin Press, 1985).
54. Alan Dowty, Much Ado about Little: Ahad Ha'am's "Truth from Eretz Yisrael," Zionism, and the Arabs, Israel Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Fall 2000) 154-181.
55. Almut Nebel, Dvora Filon, Deborah A. Weiss, Michael Weale, Marina Faerman, Ariella Oppenheim, Mark G. Thomas. 2000 "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Arabs reveal geographic substructure and substantial overlap with haplotypes of Jews". Human Genetics 107(6): 630-641.
56. Almut Nebel, Dvora Filon, Bernd Brinkmann, Partha P. Majumder, Marina Faerman, Ariella Oppenheim. 2001. "The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East". American Journal of Human Genetics 69(5): 1095–1112.
57. Arnaiz-Villena, Antonio et. al. (2001), The Origin of Palestinians and Their Genetic Relatedness With Other Mediterranean Populations, Human Immunology Vol 62, 889-900
58. p.897.
59. p. 889.
60. Schmelz, 1990, pp. 15-67.
61. Gottheil, 2003.
62. Porath, Y. (1986). . New York Review of Books. 16 January, 32(21 & 22).
63. Central Bureau of Statistics, Government of Israel. "Population, by religion and population group" (PDF). Retrieved 2006-04-08.
64. Central Bureau of Statistics, Government of Israel. "Jews and others, by origin, continent of birth and period of immigration" (PDF). Retrieved 2006-04-08.
65. Bennett Zimmerman & Roberta Seid (January 23, 2006). "Arab Population in the West Bank & Gaza: The Million Person Gap". American-Israel Demographic Research Group. Retrieved 2006-09-27.
66. Sergio DellaPergola (Winter 2007, No. 27). "Letter to the Editor". Azure. Retrieved 2007-01-11. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

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