When the Isreali-Palestinian war will end

The U.S. Senator, Bernie Sanders, said “I believe absolutely, not only in the right of Israel to exist, but the right to exist in peace and security….But what I also believe is, the Palestinian people have a right to live in peace and security as well.”

The land of Israel
From Biblical narratives, God entered into covenant with Abraham and gave him the land of Canaan. Abraham lived out the rest of his life in Canaan. His son Isaac also lived in Canaan. In the lifetime of Jacob, famine came and the entire family of Jacob (also known as Israel) moved to Egypt where they were eventually subjected to slavery. Four hundred years later, God delivered them from the hands of Pharaoh, in Egypt, and took them through the long journey and resettled them in the same land He promised their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Geographies given to the Israelites by God include: land from the border of Egypt to the River Euphrates, including the lands of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, the Jebusites and the Hivites. (Genesis 15:18-21; Exodus 23:23). A collection of the settlements above were called land of Israel (Matthew 2: 20-21). It spanned from Dan to Beersheba. The land of Israel is God-given inheritance of the Jews. The Israelites earned title to the land by divine order.
The land of Palestine

According to Britannica, the word Palestine derives from Philistia, the name given by Greek writers to the land of Philistines who occupied a small pocket of land consisting of Joppa, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Gaza. Philistia, then was a small piece of land by the coast of Mediterranean Sea. Wars and conquests took place in the ancient times that redefined the territories referred to as Palestine. There were delimitations named as Syria Palaestina, Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Salutaris. Palestine of historic era had no well-fined boundaries.

Splitted territory
The kingdom of Israel had their headquarters in Jerusalem as chosen by King David. Britannica attempted to adduce reason why King David situated the headquarters of Israel in Jerusalem. It was argued that he selected Jerusalem because it was neutral: adversary from the north or south will unlikely impact Jerusalem directly. Theologians have, however, proffered more germane reasons. After King Solomon died, the Kingdom of Israel divided into two (1 Kings 11:31-35; 1 Kings 12:16-19). The northern territory consisting of ten tribes retained the name Israel and had their headquarter in Samaria. The southern territory consisting of two tribes retained Jerusalem as their headquarters. The southern territory assumed the name Judah, being the predominant tribe.

Israelites fought many wars in their history. They won so many. Those they lost resulted in annexation of their territories and dispersion of the population. At different points in their history they were ruled by imperial powers such as Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans and Turks. There were the Jewish-Roman wars that chiefly devastated the Jews, and witnessed destruction of the Jerusalem and expelling many Jews from their home land. When Judah was conquered by the Romans, it became a Roman Province and as a colony it was renamed Syria Palaestina. It is the colonisation of the land of Israel and Judah that led to the seeming disappearance of the proper name of those cities and replacement of same with ‘Palestine’.

The British mandate
As at when Britain captured Jerusalem in 1917, the entire territory currently occupied by both Israel and Palestine had already assumed the name “Palestine”. Britain met inhabitants of that location answering Palestinians. However, the inhabitants were composed of Jews and Arabs and the land prior to British control was under the control of Ottoman empire.

In the Balfore Declaration, Britain, through a letter issued by Arthur James Balfore, the British foreign secretary, in November 1917, assured of “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. The declaration went ahead to state that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

World War I ended and Britain wanted the League of Nations to validate their continued occupation of parts of the Middle East under their control. The Ottoman empire had lost in the first world war. The Syrian provinces that were under Ottoman control were Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. In April 1920, the League of Nations mandated France to administer Lebanon and Syria while Great Britain was mandated to administer Palestine.

When World War II ended, there was global economic depression. Britain was planning to withdraw from India and as well cut cost of her military presence in Palestine. Based on recommendation of Great Britain, the UN, in resolution 181, in November 1947, proffered a two-state solution for partitioning of Palestine into Arab and Jewish States. Whereas the Jews accepted the partitioning and two-state solution, the Arabs rejected it in toto. Britain terminated the mandate on 14th May 1948 and Israel declared independence same day. Since the Arab Palestinians rejected partitioning of Mandatory Palestine, they teamed up with neighbouring Arab states namely, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq and engaged the newly formed State of Israel in a war that is referred to as the first Arab-Israeli war that lasted 10 months.

The meandering journey to sovereignty
In the ancient times, Israel was a sovereign nation, and a powerful one that was of great envy to many other powerful nations. Israel (Jacob) and his family members were 70 in all when they left Canaan and migrated to Egypt on invitation of one of their own, Joseph, and in pursuit of their destiny. As they were departing Egypt, back to the promise land, Canaan, their population was 600,000 men, excluding women and children. The ancient Israelites lost their sovereignty, significant land mass and boundaries when they were conquered by other powerful nations. In the sequel, they also witnessed their oppressors changing their names from Judah (in the southern part, with capital in Jerusalem) and Israel (in the northern part, with capital in Samaria) to Palestine.

God commanded the Israelites to completely obliterate the inhabitants of the seven nations making up the land being given to them (Deuteronomy 7:1-2; 20:17). The Israelites carried out the destruction order as they were instructed and took possession of their God-given heritage (Joshua 11:23). They then divided the whole land into 12 portions, one for each tribe. The land they took possession of included west of Jordan (Joshua 10:40; 12:7-8).

The origin of Arab members of Palestine is something that should be of interest. How did coexistence in the same location begin? Co-location history in the disputed land deserves some attention.

A closer look reveals that some of the inhabitants intended to be driven out or obliterated were allowed to stay. A few were left in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod (Joshua 11:22). Jebusites living in Jerusalem were spared (Judges 1:8; 1:21; and 2:21-23). Since 1967, the conflict between Israel and Palestine has centred around dynamics of ownership, possession and control of Gaza Strip and West Bank. These are the two regions where original inhabitants were spared when Israelites returned from exile and slavery in Egypt. West Bank is a hilly region lying on the west of River Jordan. Western part of Jerusalem is inhabited by Jews while Eastern Jerusalem is predominantly inhabited by Arabs. There are two possibilities that might have played out.

It is either the few who were spared in that historical era have grown in population to become the critical mass of the modern era. It could also be that in the intervening period, other Arabs of neighbouring nations migrated to live together with their tribesmen having been attracted by a flourishing economy of land of Canaan. The land of Canaan was known to be a land flowing with milk and honey. Hence, there is a likelihood that there were immigrant Arabs that make up the Arab Palestinians. History has it that Jerusalem was conquered 44 times, counting from ancient era.

Jews fled their land to other countries in all the occasions they were defeated by the various imperial powers. Names such as Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, Jerusalem, etc, are symbolic names of traditional homes of Israelites history can never forget but as at 1947 were disputed to be Arab Palestinian settlements.

To be continued tomorrow
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