Ancient History

July 22, 2006 (Press Release) -- Thickly literary, packed full of household names, and always tumultuous, Israel's history seeps from the past into the present, in a country where everyday interactions are shaped by thousand-year-old conflicts. It all began around 1800 BC when Abraham led a group of nomads from Mesopotamia and settled in the mountains of Canaan. By 1023 BC the Israelites had formed a kingdom, led by Saul and then David, who captured Jerusalem and made it his capital. In around 950 BC, David's son Solomon built one of Judaism's most important sites, the First Temple of Jerusalem. The Temple was destroyed in 586 BC by the invading Babylonians, but was eventually rebuilt. The unstoppable Roman Empire took Israel in 63 BC and placed it under the control of a series of consuls, including Herod the Great and Pontius Pilate. This is when Jesus is believed to have lived and preached in Israel. The increasing insanity of the Empire under Caligula prompted a Jewish uprising, which lasted four years but was finally crushed when the Temple was again destroyed. After a second revolt, Jerusalem itself was razed, a new city (Aelia Capitolina) built on its ruins, and the province of Palestine decreed. This defeat marked the end of the Jewish state and the beginning of the Diaspora, the scattering of the Jewish people. In 331 AD Emperor Constantine became a Christian and gave his official stamp of approval to the previously illegal religion. Suddenly everyone wanted to know about the Holy Land, and a rash of buildings, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, sprang up all over Israel to mark sites of religious importance. But Christianity's hold over the country was not to last long - in 638 AD Jerusalem fell to Caliph Omar and was declared a Holy City of Islam, on the grounds that the Prophet Mohammed had ascended to heaven from atop the Temple Mount. Christians around the world raised their hackles at this desecration, and by 1099 they'd scrounged an army together and occupied Jerusalem, murdering everyone they could get their hands on and beginning nearly 100 years of Christian rule. But by 1187 the Muslims again had the upper hand - after decades of Christian/Muslim scuffling, the Islamic Mamluks knocked over the last Crusader stronghold in 1291. The next 500 years were some of the quietest Israel has seen. Empires rose and fell, and control of the country changed hands with monotonous regularity, but very little of the fighting took place on Israeli soil - for the average Israelite, it was business as usual. The only blip occurred in the 16th century, when the Ottoman Empire took over the reins and Suleyman the Magnificent rebuilt Jerusalem's city walls. By the mid-19th century the Ottomans were losing their grip and world interest once again focused on Israel. Britain opened a consulate in Jerusalem, and in 1839 Sir Moses Montefiore, a British Jew, began promoting the idea of a Jewish state. In 1878 the first Jewish colony was founded, and before long the first Aliyah, or wave of immigrants, had started. At the same time, the Arab population of Palestine was becoming strongly nationalistic and anti-European, which did not bode well for the new arrivals.


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