History of Israel

The Land of Israel (Hebrew: אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל), also referred to as the Holy Land or as Palestine, is the birthplace of the Jewish people and Judaism. It is where the Hebrews and Israelites established and developed Israel and Judah, and is also thought to be the region of development for the completed form of the Hebrew Bible; Jews, alongside the Samaritan people, are accredited as ethnic groups originating from the Israelites. Through the influence of Jewish prophets, many of whom were based in the Land of Israel, Jewish traditions came to serve as the basis of the Abrahamic religions. In the 1st century, the Land of Israel also became the birthplace of Christianity, the world's most widespread religion, based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Throughout the course of human history, the Land of Israel has come under the sway or control of various polities, and as a result, it has historically hosted a wide variety of ethnic groups. In addition to the region's core significance to Judaism and Samaritanism, it is regarded with an especially high degree of holiness in Christianity, Islam, Druzism, the Baháʼí Faith, and a variety of other religious movements whose fundamental theological values trace back to Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch.

Canaan, as the region was known during the Bronze Age, was characterized by city-states that ultimately came under the rule of Egypt. Two Israelite kingdoms—Judah and Israel—emerged during the Iron Age, alongside a Philistine polity. In the following centuries, the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian Empires conquered the region. The Ptolemies and the Seleucids vied for control over the region during the Hellenistic period. However, with the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty, the local populace of the Land of Israel maintained independence for a century before being incorporated into the Roman Republic. As a result of the Jewish-Roman Wars in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, many Jews were killed, displaced or sold into slavery. Following the advent of Christianity, which was adopted by the Greco-Roman world under the influence of the Roman Empire, the region's demographics shifted towards newfound Christians, who replaced Jews as the majority of the population by the 4th century. However, shortly after Islam was consolidated across the Arabian Peninsula under Muhammad, Byzantine Christian rule over the Land of Israel was superseded by the Arab conquest of the Levant in the 7th century. From the 11th century to the 13th century, the Land of Israel became the centre for intermittent religious wars between Christian and Muslim armies as part of the Crusades. In the 13th century, the Land of Israel became subject to the Mongol invasions and conquests, though these were locally routed by the Mamluk Sultanate, under whose rule it remained until the 16th century. The Mamluks were eventually defeated by the Ottoman Empire, and the region became an Ottoman province until the 20th century.

The late 19th century saw the widespread consolidation of a Jewish nationalist movement known as Zionism, as part of which aliyah (Jewish return to the Land of Israel from the diaspora) increased. By 1910 there were nearly 560,000 Jews in the Holy Land, mainly concentrated along the coast, Judea, and Galilee.