Here it says “Eretz Israel”, there “From the River to the sea, (Palestine will be free)”. Geographically, this means exactly the same thing: the area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Politically, however, the fighting terms are irreconcilable. On the one hand, national religious Jews demand a “Greater Israel” that is based on the area described in the Bible. On the other hand, the Palestinians claim essentially the same piece of land for themselves – also with reference to history.
Some call the part of the Levant “the beaten path of history,” which, depending on the era and perspective, is called Canaan, southern Syria, the Holy Land or today Palestine. Almost the entire Middle East conflict is based on the dispute over who owns which areas, who is allowed to settle where and how the claims are justified. But that’s how it is with trails: everyone has been on it and no sign prevents anyone from using it too. In other words: in the history of settlement, almost a dozen peoples, empires and armies have attacked Palestine over many thousands of years.
The area has been inhabited since there have been humans, or at least since they moved out of Africa into the world. Located on the edge of the Fertile Crescent and thus in the hotspot of modernity at the time (agriculture, sedentarism), the great empires such as the Egyptians, Hittites and Persians found favor in today’s Palestine. One of the first peoples in the Levant were the Phoenicians, traders from the Mediterranean. They founded cities such as Beirut and Byblos in the 2nd millennium BC, and are considered to be the first to produce the color purple. They were called Canaanites by their neighbors.
According to the Tanach, the Jewish Bible, which for Christians corresponds to the Old Testament, God commanded the Israelites to conquer the land of the Canaanites, today’s West Bank. According to tradition, this is the original home of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The return was successful. However, whether it happened peacefully through settlement or through war is controversial. The so-called conquest of the land in the 15th century BC is considered one of the most important milestones in the history of Israel.
Places that still exist such as Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashdod already played a role as trading centers for the ruling Egyptians. From 1200 BC onwards they were replaced by the Philistines, who fought with the Israelites for power in the interior of the country for a long time. The Romans followed them. They executed a Jewish revolutionary named Jesus Christ in Jerusalem around the year 30. 600 years later, Muslims conquered the region, but were briefly driven out again by the Christian Crusaders. They in turn had to give way to the Mamluks, non-Muslim, unfree soldiers.
In 1516, Palestine became part of the Ottoman Empire and remained so until the end of the First World War, which also began or rather continued part of the current conflict. Even under the Ottomans, humanity’s once flourishing main transport route withered away. At that time, an estimated 750,000 people lived there, including 600,000 Muslims, 80,000 Jews, Christians and Druze. The British mandate caused today’s confusion with two contradictory promises. The Arabs were to be given land for helping in a revolt against the Ottomans and Jews were to be given land for establishing a “national home”. Later, of course, Nazi Germany got involved and the pendulum of the world swung in favor of the Arabs.
So who owns the Holy Land, which has not wanted to and been unable to settle down for decades? After World War II, the United Nations decided that Jews and Arabs should share the small patch. The north, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and a part on the edge of Sinai were to go to the Arab population, who only over the years were called Palestinians. While the Jews welcomed the plan, the Arab not-yet-neighbors rejected it. Almost at the moment the State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria began attacking the young country.
The fighting raged for almost a year, and Israel was clearly the winner. The West Bank was occupied by Jordan, the Gaza Strip by Egypt, and the Jewish state was able to expand its territory. All three states have now signed peace treaties with each other. Nevertheless, the Middle East continues to descend into wars. There have been around ten violent conflicts between Israel and its neighbors since the founding of the state. Until the 1960s, it was the Arabs who tried to wipe Israel off the map – without success. The Jewish troops then attacked Lebanon twice and the Gaza Strip four times.
So “Eretz Israel” or “From the River to the sea”? The demands of the ultra-nationalists on both sides are historically untenable and will hardly make any contribution to resolving the conflict – if only because they make the existence of the other (state) impossible. But things can hardly continue as they are now.
