Palestine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the historical geographic region. For the sovereign state
(country), see State of Palestine. For the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, see
Palestinian territories.
For other uses, see Palestine (disambiguation).
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Palestine is located in Asia
Boundaries of Roman Syria Palaestina, where dashed green line shows the
boundary between Byzantine Palaestina Prima (later Jund Filastin) and
Palaestina Secunda (later Jund al-Urdunn), as well as Palaestina Salutaris
(later Jebel et-Tih and the Jifar)
Borders of Mandatory Palestine
Borders of the State of Palestine (West Bank and Gaza Strip)

Satellite image of the region of Palestine. [2003]

Palestine (Arabic: Filasn, Falasn, Filisn; Greek: ,
Palaistin; Latin: Palaestina; Hebrew: Palestina) is a geographic
region in Western Asia between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
It is sometimes considered to include adjoining territories. The name was
used by Ancient Greek writers, and was later used for the Roman province
Syria Palaestina, the Byzantine Palaestina Prima and the Umayyad and
Abbasid province of Jund Filastin. The region is also known as the Land of
Israel (Hebrew: Eretz-Yisra'el),[1] the Holy Land, the Southern
Levant,[2] Cisjordan, and historically has been known by other names
including Canaan, Southern Syria and Jerusalem.
Situated at a strategic location between Egypt, Syria and Arabia, and the
birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region has a long and tumultuous
history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. The
region has been controlled by numerous different peoples, including Ancient
Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ancient
Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, the Sunni Arab Caliphates, the Shia Fatimid
Caliphate, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mameluks, Ottomans, the British and
modern Israelis and Palestinians.
Boundaries of the region have changed throughout history, and were last
defined in modern times by the Franco-British boundary agreement (1920)
and the Transjordan memorandum of 16 September 1922, during the

mandate period.[3] Today, the region comprises the State of Israel and the
State of Palestine.[3]
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 History
2.1 Overview
2.2 Ancient period
2.3 Classical antiquity
2.4 Middle Ages
2.5 Modern period
3 Boundaries
4 Demographics
4.1 Early demographics
4.2 Late Ottoman and British Mandate periods
4.3 Current demographics
5 See also
6 References
7 Bibliography
7.1 Works written or compiled since 1945
7.2 Works written before 1918
8 Further reading
9 External links
9.1 Maps
Etymology

Further information: Definitions of Palestine and History of the name

Palestine
The term Peleset (transliterated from hieroglyphs as P-r-s-t) is found in
numerous Egyptian documents referring to a neighboring people or land
starting from c.1150 BCE during the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt. The first

mention is thought to be in texts of the temple at Medinet Habu, which

record a people called the Peleset among the Sea Peoples who invaded
Egypt in Ramesses III's reign,[4] followed later by an inscription on Padiiset's
Statue. The Assyrians called the same region Palashtu or Pilistu, beginning
with Adad-nirari III in the Nimrud Slab in c.800 BCE through to emperor
Sargon II, in his Annals approximately a century later.[5][6][7]
The first clear use of the term Palestine to refer to the entire area between
Phoenicia and Egypt was in 5th century BC Ancient Greece.[8] Herodotus
wrote of a 'district of Syria, called Palaistin" in The Histories, the first
historical work clearly defining the region, which included the Judean
mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley.[9][10][11][12] and formed part of the
5th Persian satrapy ().[13] Approximately a century later, Aristotle
used a similar definition in Meteorology, writing "Again if, as is fabled, there
is a lake () in Palestine, such that if you bind a man or beast and throw
it in it floats and does not sink, this would bear out what we have said. They
say that this lake is so bitter and salt that no fish live in it and that if you
soak clothes in it and shake them it cleans them," understood by scholars to
be a reference to the Dead Sea.[14] Later writers such as Polemon, and
Pausanias also used the term to refer to the same region. This usage was
followed by Roman writers such as Ovid, Tibullus, Pomponius Mela, Pliny the
Elder,[15] Statius, as well as Roman-era Greek writers such as Plutarch, Dio
Chrysostom and Roman-era Judean writers such as Philo of Alexandria[16]
and Josephus.[17] Other writers, such as Strabo, a prominent Roman-era
Greek geographer, referred to the region as Coele-Syria around 1020 CE.
[18][19] The term was first used to denote an official province of the Roman
Empire in c.135 CE, when the Roman authorities, following the suppression
of the Bar Kokhba Revolt, combined Iudaea Province with Galilee and other
surrounding cities such as Ashkelon to form "Syria Palaestina" (Syria
Palaestina), There is circumstantial evidence linking Hadrian with the name
change,[20] although the precise date is not certain,[20] and the
interpretation of some scholars that the name change may have been
intended "to complete the dissociation with Judaea"[21][22] is disputed.[23]
The Hebrew name Peleshet ( Plsheth) usually translated as Philistia
in English, is used in the Bible more than 250 times. The Greek word
Palaistin (, "Palaistine") is generally accepted to be a translation
of the Semitic name for Philistia; however another term land of the
Philistieim ( , transliteration from Hebrew ' Eretz
Plishtm, land of the Philistines) was used in the Septuagint, the second
century BCE Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, to refer to Philistia.[24]
In the Torah / Pentateuch, the term Philistia is used 10 times and its
boundaries are undefined. The later Historical books (see Deuteronomistic
history) include most of the biblical references, almost 200 of which are in
the Book of Judges and the Books of Samuel; in these cases, the word refers
to the lands around the several Philistine city-states along the
Mediterranean coast, west of the Judean mountains, from Gaza in the south
to Ekron in the north.[6][7][17][25]

During the Byzantine period, the entire region (Syria Palestine, Samaria, and
the Galilee) was named Palaestina, subdivided into provinces Palaestina I
and II.[26] The Byzantines also renamed an area of land including the
Negev, Sinai, and the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula as Palaestina
Salutaris, sometimes called Palaestina III.[26] The Arabic word for Palestine
is ( commonly transcribed in English as Filistin, Filastin, or Falastin).[27]
Moshe Sharon writes that when the Arabs took over Greater Syria in the 7th
century, place names that were in use by the Byzantine administration
before them, generally continued to be used. Hence, he traces the
emergence of the Arabic form Filastin to this adoption, with Arabic inflection,
of Roman and Hebrew (Semitic) names.[6] Jacob Lassner and Selwyn Ilan
Troen offer a different view, writing that Jund Filastin, the full name for the
administrative province under the rule of the Arab caliphates, was traced by
Muslim geographers back to the Philistines of the Bible.[28] The use of the
name "Palestine" in English became more common after the European
renaissance.[29] It was officially revived by the British after the fall of the
Ottoman Empire and applied to the territory that was placed under The
Palestine Mandate.
Some other terms that have been used to refer to all or part of this land
include Canaan, Greater Israel, Greater Syria, the Holy Land, Iudaea
Province, Judea,[30] Israel, "Israel HaShlema", Kingdom of Israel, Kingdom of
Jerusalem, Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael or Ha'aretz),[1] Zion, Retenu (Ancient
Egyptian), Southern Syria, Southern Levant[2] and Syria Palestina.
History

Main article: History of Palestine

Further information: Time periods in the region of Palestine
Overview
Situated at a strategic location between Egypt, Syria and Arabia, and the
birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region has a long and tumultuous
history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. The
region has been controlled by numerous different peoples, including Ancient
Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Ancient
Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, the Sunni Arab Caliphates, the Shia Fatimid
Caliphate, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mameluks, Ottomans, the British and
modern Israelis and Palestinians. Modern archaeologists and historians of
the region refer to their field of study as Syro-Palestinian archaeology.

Ancient period

Depiction of Biblical Palestine in c.1020 BCE according to George Adam

Smith's 1915 Atlas of the Historical Geography of the Holy Land. Smith's
book was used as a reference by Lloyd George during the negotiations for
the British Mandate for Palestine.[31]
The region was among the earliest in the world to see human habitation,
agricultural communities and civilization. During the Bronze Age,
independent Canaanite city-states were established, and were influenced by
the surrounding civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia,
Minoan Crete, and Syria. Between 15501400 BCE, the Canaanite cities
became vassals to the Egyptian New Kingdom who held power until the
1178 BCE Battle of Djahy (Canaan) during the wider Bronze Age collapse.
The Philistines arrived and mingled with the local population, and according
to Biblical tradition, the United Kingdom of Israel was established in 1020
BCE and split within a century to form the northern Kingdom of Israel, and
the southern Kingdom of Judah. Modern archaeologists dispute parts of the
Biblical tradition, the latest thinking being that the Israelites emerged from a
dramatic social transformation that took place in the people of the central
hill country of Canaan around 1200 BCE, with no signs of violent invasion or
even of peaceful infiltration of a clearly defined ethnic group from
elsewhere.[32]
The region became part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from c.740 BCE, which
was itself replaced by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in c.627 BCE. According to
the Bible, a war with Egypt culminated in 586 BCE when Jerusalem was
destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II and the local leaders of
the region of Judea were deported to Babylonia. In 539 BCE, the Babylonian
empire was replaced by the Achaemenid Empire. According to the Bible and
implications from the Cyrus Cylinder, the exiled population of Judea was
allowed to return to Jerusalem.
Classical antiquity

Palestine in c.100CE according to Ptolemy (map by Claude Reignier Conder

of the Palestine Exploration Fund)
In the 330s BCE, Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great conquered the
region, which changed hands several times during the wars of the Diadochi
and later Syrian Wars. It ultimately fell to the Seleucid Empire between 219
200 BCE. In 116 BCE, a Seleucid civil war resulted in the independence of
certain regions including the Hasmonean principality in the Judean
Mountains. From 110 BCE, the Hasmoneans extended their authority over

much of Palestine, creating a Judean-Samaritan-Idumaean-Ituraean-Galilean

alliance. The Judean (Jewish, see Ioudaioi) control over the wider region
resulted in it also becoming known as Judaea, a term that had previously
only referred to the smaller region of the Judean Mountains.[33][34]
Between 7363 BCE, the Roman Republic extended its influence into the
region in the Third Mithridatic War, conquering Judea in 63 BCE, and splitting
the former Hasmonean Kingdom into five districts. The three-year Ministry of
Jesus, culminating in his crucifixion, is estimated to have occurred from 28
30 CE, although the historicity of Jesus is disputed by a minority of scholars.
[35] In 70 CE, Titus sacked Jerusalem, resulting in the dispersal of the city's
Jews and Christians to Yavne and Pella. In 132 CE, Hadrian joined the
province of Iudaea with Galilee to form new province of Syria Palaestina, and
Jerusalem was renamed "Aelia Capitolina". Between 259272, the region fell
under the rule of Odaenathus as King of the Palmyrene Empire. Following
the victory of Christian emperor Constantine in the Civil Wars of the
Tetrarchy, the Christianization of the Roman Empire began, and in 326,
Constantine's mother Saint Helena visited Jerusalem and began the
construction of churches and shrines. Palestine became a center of
Christianity, attracting numerous monks and religious scholars. The
Samaritan Revolts during this period caused their near extinction. In 614 CE,
Palestine was annexed by another Persian dynasty; the Sassanids, until
returning to Byzantine control in 628 CE.[36]
Middle Ages

The Dome of the Rock, the world's first great work of Islamic architecture,
constructed in 691.

Minaret of the White Mosque in Ramla, constructed in 1318

Architecture in Palestine in the Middle Ages
Palestine was conquered by the Islamic Empire, beginning in 634 CE. In 636
CE, the Battle of Yarmouk during the Muslim conquest of Syria symbolized
the complete Muslim takeover of the region, which was regarded as Bilad aSham (Greater Syria). The word 'Arab' at the time referred to Bedouin
nomads with an Arabian ancestry. The local population engaged in farming,
which was considered demeaning, were called Naba, referring to Aramaicspeaking villagers. A adth, brought in the name of a Muslim freedman who
settled in Palestine ordered them not to settle in the villages, for he who
abides in villages it is as if he abides in graves.'[37] In 661 CE, with the
assassination of Ali, Muawiyah I became the uncontested Caliph of the
Islamic World after being crowned in Jerusalem. The Dome of the Rock,
completed in 691, was the world's first great work of Islamic architecture.
[38] The Umayyad were replaced by the Abbasids in 750. Ramla, the major
city, became the administrative centre for the following centuries. Tiberias

became a thriving centre of Muslim scholarship.[39] From 878, Palestine was

ruled from Egypt by semi-autonomous rulers for almost a century, beginning
with the Turkish freeman Ahmad ibn Tulun, for whom both Jews and
Christians prayed when he lay dying[40] and ending with the Ikhshidid
rulers, characterized by persecution of Christians as the threat from
Byzantium grew.[41] The Fatimids, with a predominantly Berber army,
invaded the region in 970, a date that marks the beginning of a period of
unceasing warfare between numerous enemies, which destroyed Palestine,
and in particular devastating its Jewish population.[42] In 1073, Palestine
was captured by the Great Seljuq Empire, only to be recaptured by the
Fatimids in 1098, who then lost the region to the Crusaders in 1099. Their
control of Jerusalem and most of Palestine lasted almost a century until
defeat by Saladin's forces in 1187, after which most of Palestine was
controlled by the Ayyubids. A rump crusader state in the northern coastal
cities survived for another century, but, despite seven further crusades, the
crusaders were no longer a significant power in the region. The Fourth
Crusade led directly to the decline of the Byzantine Empire, dramatically
reducing Christian influence throughout the region.
The Mamluk Sultanate was indirectly created in Egypt as a result of the
Seventh Crusade. The Mongol Empire reached Palestine for the first time in
1260, beginning with the Mongol raids into Palestine under Nestorian
Christian general Kitbuqa, and reaching an apex at the pivotal Battle of Ain
Jalut. In 1486, hostilities broke out between the Mamluks and the Ottoman
Turks in a battle for control over western Asia, and the Ottomans captured
Palestine in 1516.
Modern period

The new era in Palestine. The arrival of Herbert Samuel as the first High
Commissioner for Palestine in 1920. Samuel had promoted Zionism within
the British Cabinet, beginning with his 1915 memorandum entitled The
Future of Palestine. Beside him are Lawrence of Arabia, Emir Abdullah, Air
Marshal Salmond and Wyndham Deedes.
Further information: History of Zionism, British Mandate for Palestine,
History of Israel, and Sinai and Palestine Campaign

Palestine passport and Palestine coin from Mandatory Palestine

In 1830, on the eve of Muhammad Ali's invasion, the Ottoman Porte
transferred control of the sanjaks of Jerusalem and Nablus to Abdullah

Pasha, the governor of Acre. According to Silverburg, in regional and cultural

terms this move was important for creating an Arab Palestine detached from
Syria (bilad al-Shams). According to Pappe, it was an attempt to reinforce
the Syrian front in face of Muhammad Ali's invasion.[43][44] Two years later,
in 1832, Palestine was conquered by Muhammad Ali's Egypt, but in 1840,
Britain intervened and returned control of the Levant to the Ottomans in
return for further capitulations. The end of the 19th century saw the
beginning of Zionist immigration and the Revival of the Hebrew language.
The movement was publicly supported by Great Britain during World War I
with the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
The British began their Sinai and Palestine Campaign in 1915. The war
reached southern Palestine in 1917, progressing to Gaza and around
Jerusalem by the end of the year.
The British secured Jerusalem in December 1917. The British moved into the
Jordan valley in 1918 and a campaign by the Entente into northern Palestine
led to victory at Megiddo in September.
The British were formally awarded the mandate to govern the region in
1922. The non-Jewish Palestinians revolted in 1920, 1929 and 1936. In 1947,
following World War II and the Holocaust, the British Government announced
its desire to terminate the Mandate, and the United Nations General
Assembly adopted a resolution recommending partition into an Arab state, a
Jewish state and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem.
The Jewish leadership accepted the proposal, but the Arab Higher
Committee rejected it; a civil war began immediately, and the establishment
of the State of Israel was declared in 1948.
Following what is known as the 1948 Palestinian exodus, the 700,000
Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes were unable to return
following the Lausanne Conference, 1949. In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War,
Israel captured and incorporated a further 26% of the Mandate territory,
Jordan captured the region today known as the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip was captured by Egypt. In the course of the Six Day War in June 1967,
Israel captured the rest of Mandate Palestine from Jordan and Egypt, and
began a policy of Israeli settlements. From 1987 to 1993, the First
Palestinian Intifada against Israel took place, which included the Declaration
of the State of Palestine in 1988 and ended with the 1993 Oslo Peace
Accords. In 2000, the Second or Al-Aqsa Intifada began, and Israel built a
security barrier. Following Israel's unilateral disengagement plan of 2004, it
withdrew all settlers and most of the military presence from the Gaza strip,
but maintained control of the air space and coast. In 2012, the State of
Palestine replaced the PLO as UN observer following United Nations General
Assembly resolution 67/19.[45]
Evolution of Mandate Palestine and modern Palestinian Territories v t e

1916-22 Proposals: Three proposals for the post World War I administration
of Palestine. The red line is the "International Administration" proposed in
the 1916 SykesPicot Agreement, the dashed blue line is the 1919 Zionist
Organization proposal at the Paris Peace Conference, and the thin blue line
refers to the final borders of the 1923-48 Mandatory Palestine.

1947 (Actual): Mandatory Palestine, showing Jewish-owned regions in

Palestine as of 1947 in blue, constituting 6% of the total land area, of which
more than half was held by the JNF and PICA. The Jewish population had
increased from 83,790 in 1922 to 608,000 in 1946.

1947 (Proposal): Proposal per the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine
(UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (II), 1947), prior to the 1948 Arab
Israeli War. The proposal included a Corpus Separatum for Jerusalem,
extraterritorial crossroads between the non-contiguous areas, and Jaffa as
an Arab exclave.

1948-67 (Actual): The Jordanian occupied West Bank and Egyptian-occupied

Gaza Strip (note the dotted lines between the territories and Jordan / Egypt),
after the 1948 ArabIsraeli War, showing 1949 armistice lines.

1993-Current: Extant region administered by the Palestinian National

Authority (under Oslo 2).
Boundaries

The boundaries of Palestine have varied throughout history.[46][47] The

Jordan Rift Valley (comprising Wadi Arabah, the Dead Sea and River Jordan)
has at times formed a political and administrative frontier, even within
empires that have controlled both territories. At other times, such as during
certain periods during the Hasmonean and Crusader states for example, as
well as during the biblical period, territories on both sides of the river
formed part of the same administrative unit. During the Arab Caliphate
period, parts of southern Lebanon and the northern highland areas of
Palestine and Jordan were administered as Jund al-Urdun, while the southern
parts of the latter two formed part of Jund Dimashq, which during the ninth
century was attached to the administrative unit of Jund Filasteen (Arabic:
).[48]
The boundaries of the area and the ethnic nature of the people referred to
by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE as Palaestina vary according to

context. Sometimes, he uses it to refer to the coast north of Mount Carmel.

Elsewhere, distinguishing the Syrians in Palestine from the Phoenicians, he
refers to their land as extending down all the coast from Phoenicia to Egypt.
[49] Pliny, writing in Latin in the 1st century CE, describes a region of Syria
that was "formerly called Palaestina" among the areas of the Eastern
Mediterranean.[50]
Since the Byzantine Period, the Byzantine borders of Palaestina (I and II, also
known as Palaestina Prima, "First Palestine", and Palaestina Secunda,
"Second Palestine"), have served as a name for the geographic area
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Under Arab rule,
Filastin (or Jund Filastin) was used administratively to refer to what was
under the Byzantines Palaestina Secunda (comprising Judaea and Samaria),
while Palaestina Prima (comprising the Galilee region) was renamed Urdunn
("Jordan" or Jund al-Urdunn).[6]
Nineteenth-century sources refer to Palestine as extending from the sea to
the caravan route, presumably the Hejaz-Damascus route east of the Jordan
River valley. Others refer to it as extending from the sea to the desert. Prior
to the Allied Powers victory in World War I and the Partitioning of the
Ottoman Empire, which created the British mandate in the Levant, most of
the northern area of what is today Jordan formed part of the Ottoman
Vilayet of Damascus (Syria), while the southern part of Jordan was part of
the Vilayet of Hejaz. What later became part of British Mandate Palestine
was in Ottoman times divided between the Vilayet of Beirut (Lebanon) and
the Sanjak of Jerusalem.[51]
The Zionist Organization provided its definition of the boundaries of
Palestine in a statement to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.[52][53] On
the basis of a League of Nations mandate, the British administered Palestine
after World War I, promising to establish a Jewish homeland.[54]
To the Palestinian people, its boundaries are those of Mandate Palestine
excluding the Transjordan, as described in the Palestinian National Charter.
[55]
Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Palestine

Early demographics
Estimating the population of Palestine in antiquity relies on two methods
censuses and writings made at the times, and the scientific method based
on excavations and statistical methods that consider the number of
settlements at the particular age, area of each settlement, density factor for
each settlement.

According to Magen Broshi, an Israeli archaeologist "... the population of

Palestine in antiquity did not exceed a million persons. It can also be shown,
moreover, that this was more or less the size of the population in the peak
periodthe late Byzantine period, around AD 600"[56] Similarly, a study by
Yigal Shiloh of The Hebrew University suggests that the population of
Palestine in the Iron Age could have never exceeded a million. He writes: "...
the population of the country in the Roman-Byzantine period greatly
exceeded that in the Iron Age...If we accept Broshi's population estimates,
which appear to be confirmed by the results of recent research, it follows
that the estimates for the population during the Iron Age must be set at a
lower figure."[57]
Late Ottoman and British Mandate periods
In the middle of the 1st century of the Ottoman rule, i.e. 1550 AD, Bernard
Lewis in a study of Ottoman registers of the early Ottoman Rule of Palestine
reports:[58]
From the mass of detail in the registers, it is possible to extract something
like a general picture of the economic life of the country in that period. Out
of a total population of about 300,000 souls, between a fifth and a quarter
lived in the six towns of Jerusalem, Gaza, Safed, Nablus, Ramle, and Hebron.
The remainder consisted mainly of peasants, living in villages of varying
size, and engaged in agriculture. Their main food-crops were wheat and
barley in that order, supplemented by leguminous pulses, olives, fruit, and
vegetables. In and around most of the towns there was a considerable
number of vineyards, orchards, and vegetable gardens.
According to Alexander Scholch, the population of Palestine in 1850 was
about 350,000 inhabitants, 30% of whom lived in 13 towns; roughly 85%
were Muslims, 11% were Christians and 4% Jews[59]
According to Ottoman statistics studied by Justin McCarthy,[60] the
population of Palestine in the early 19th century was 350,000, in 1860 it was
411,000 and in 1900 about 600,000 of whom 94% were Arabs. In 1914
Palestine had a population of 657,000 Muslim Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs,
and 59,000 Jews.[61] McCarthy estimates the non-Jewish population of
Palestine at 452,789 in 1882; 737,389 in 1914; 725,507 in 1922; 880,746 in
1931; and 1,339,763 in 1946.[62]
In 1920, the League of Nations' Interim Report on the Civil Administration of
Palestine stated that there were 700,000 people living in Palestine:
Of these, 235,000 live in the larger towns, 465,000 in the smaller towns and
villages. Four-fifths of the whole population are Moslems. A small proportion
of these are Bedouin Arabs; the remainder, although they speak Arabic and
are termed Arabs, are largely of mixed race. Some 77,000 of the population
are Christians, in large majority belonging to the Orthodox Church, and
speaking Arabic. The minority are members of the Latin or of the Uniate
Greek Catholic Church, ora small numberare Protestants. The Jewish

element of the population numbers 76,000. Almost all have entered

Palestine during the last 40 years. Prior to 1850, there were in the country
only a handful of Jews. In the following 30 years, a few hundreds came to
Palestine. Most of them were animated by religious motives; they came to
pray and to die in the Holy Land, and to be buried in its soil. After the
persecutions in Russia forty years ago, the movement of the Jews to
Palestine assumed larger proportions.
[63]
By 1948, the population had risen to 1,900,000, of whom 68% were Arabs,
and 32% were Jews (UNSCOP report, including bedouin).
Current demographics
See also: Demographics of Israel, Demographics of the Palestinian
territories, and Demographics of Jordan
According to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, as of May 2006, of Israel's
7 million people, 77% were Jews, 18.5% Arabs, and 4.3% "others".[64]
Among Jews, 68% were Sabras (Israeli-born), mostly second- or thirdgeneration Israelis, and the rest are olim (immigrants) 22% from
Europe,the former Soviet republics, Russia, and the Americas, and 10% from
Asia and Africa, including the Arab countries.[65]
Of Israel's 7 million citizens, 516,569 Jewish ones live in enclaves referred to
as Israeli settlements and outposts in various lands adjacent to the state of
Israel occupied by Israel during the Six Day War.[66][67][68]
According to Palestinian evaluations, the West Bank is inhabited by
approximately 2.4 million Palestinians and the Gaza Strip by another 1.4
million. According to a study presented at The Sixth Herzliya Conference on
The Balance of Israel's National Security,[69] there are 1.4 million
Palestinians in the West Bank. This study was criticised by demographer
Sergio DellaPergola, who estimated 3.33 million Palestinians in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip combined at the end of 2005.[70]
According to these Israeli and Palestinian estimates, the total population in
Israel and the Palestinian Territories stands between 9.8 and 10.8 million.
Jordan has a population of around 6,000,000 (2007 estimate).[71][72] Long
term Palestinian war refugees constitute approximately half of this number.
[73]
A report was released by the UN in August 2012 and Maxwell Gaylard, the
UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian
territory, explained at the launch of the publication: Gaza will have half a
million more people by 2020 while its economy will grow only slowly. In
consequence, the people of Gaza will have an even harder time getting
enough drinking water and electricity, or sending their children to school.

Gaylard present alongside Jean Gough, of the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF),

and Robert Turner, of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian
Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The report projects that Gazas
population will increase from 1.6 million people to 2.1 million people in
2020, leading to a density of more than 5,800 people per square kilometre.
[74]