In The Beginning: Palestine and the Kingdom of Israel
As the war between Israel and Hamas enters its 11th month, many people in the U.S. are rightfully horrified by what is happening to the people of Gaza.
Gaza is governed by Hamas, an extremist Muslim entity whose stated goal is drive out every Jew “from the River to the Sea” (that is, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean). Their attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 was brutal, and most of the non-Muslim world’s sympathy was with Israel.
In under a month, those opinions had shifted.
Israel’s response seemed to many of us to be at least as brutal as the attack that started the war. This, despite the fact that over 240 Israelis - including infants, children and elderly people - were kidnapped by Hamas and were being held captive in Gaza. What turned the tide of public opinion was Israel’s apparent strategy of total annihilation.
Like many products of American education I knew little of the history of the Middle East. Where did this bone-deep animosity come from? What were the origins of this fight to the death between Jewish people and Muslims in the region? And who was there first?
In the Beginning
The area that spans from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River and from Lake Tiberius down to the Dead Sea was occupied by people known as the Canaanites as early as 2000 BCE (Before Current Era; formerly noted as “BC”).
Like many other peoples at the time, Canaanites were polytheistic: they believed in multiple gods or spirits. By 1000 BCE they had adopted belief in one god, and the land they occupied was known as “Judea” or “The Kingdom of Israel”. So the answer to “Who was there first?” is clear: Jewish people were the original inhabitants.
The Kingdom of Israel was a thriving civilization.
It had villages and towns that largely sustained themselves with the food they produced through farming and herding, temples in which they practiced a shared religion, and a system of government that ruled them. What they didn’t have was a unified military - unlike many of their predominantly Muslim neighbors (Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians and Greeks), who had been taking turns conquering and occupying the country.
In 597 BCE, when Babylon wrested control of Judea from Assyria, they did what none before them had done: they expelled Jews from their own country.
Roughly 60 years later, Babylon was defeated by Cyrus the Great, the ruler of what would later become Iran, and many Jews returned to the principal city of Jerusalem.
Two hundred years after that, the Greeks under Alexander the Great ruled the Kingdom of Israel. As was his custom, Alexander made no attempt to change the beliefs of people he conquered so Judea remained predominantly Jewish. Until, that is, Antiochus inherited the mantle in 176 BC.
All Hell Breaks Loose
Antiochus did insist that the Jewish people of Israel forsake their belief in the One God and worship the Greek pantheon. Many refused and took up arms to defend their faith. In 167 BC Judas Maccabeus led a revolt that resulted in the Jews retaking the Temple in Jerusalem. They removed all of the Greek statues and rededicated the Temple to their god. (This event was the origin of the Hannukah celebration still observed by Jews worldwide.)
So the Kingdom of Israel remained predominantly Jewish (estimated at 85% of the population), despite the fact that it was also the home of many Muslims from Greece and other countries. But then Rome captured Israel from the Greeks a scant two years later: the persecution of Jews under Roman rule has been well-documented, and resulted in the first Jewish diaspora.
Persia wrested control back from Rome in 614 CE (Common Era, so a little more than 1400 years ago). By then, only 10-15% of the population of Judea was Jewish. But that number dwindled even further when Assyria fought their way to power in 722 CE, and undertook another massive deportation of Jews from Israel.
Finally, the Ottoman Empire - another Muslim kingdom - moved in, and they held Judea for 400 years, until the end of WWI.
So we have the Canaanites, who evolved into Judeans (aka Israelites) being repeatedly conquered by successive “superpowers”. If you’re following along on a map, you’ll note that with the exception of Rome, all of those armies were from areas that are now known as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. Those countries were and are predominantly Muslim.
The Jewish Perspective
The Jewish people of Israel view the region currently known as Palestine and Israel as their ancient homeland. And the oppression of Jews by Muslims has been going on for over 4,000 years.
The Muslim Arab Perspective
Muslim Arabs, of course, have a different perspective, especially about events since WWI. I’ll share my understanding of that in a future essay.
It’s not my intent to advocate for either side, but to better understand current events through the eyes of history. And to answer the question - at least for myself - “what is behind the ferocity of Israel’s response to the October 7 attacks?”
Sources:
Anti-Defamation League. “Hamas In Its Own Words”. ADL Blog, 2024
Coogan, Michael D. “Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel”. Oxford University Press, 1998.
Dever, William. “Who Were the Ancient Israelites and Where Did They Come From?” Oxford University Press, 2003.
Malamat, Abraham. “A History of the Jewish People”. Harvard University Press, 1976.
