Both parties had inhabited the land later called Palestine for a very long time

In the previous post on the Middle East, I tried to make 2 points. First, that both the Israelis and Palestinians (and others) had a long history of living in this area and thus both had at least SOME hereditary claim to the territory, and second, that this part of the world, throughout history, was often controlled by outside empires and not really the inhabitants themselves.

Although I admittedly don't have an emotional stake in the land myself, being neither Jew nor Arab, it seems to me, as a reader of history and a seeker of truth, that no one group of people had a claim to the land that was really superior to the claims of others, no matter what the flaming rhetoric says. So, it seemed to me, upon reading the history, that the only fair way to do it would be to do what King Solomon decided to do with the baby: cut the land up into pieces and give a piece to each claimant.

That is exactly what the new United Nations, the successor to the old League of Nations, did following WWII.

Between the two World Wars, the land that had been taken from the Ottoman Empire was placed (by the League of Nations) under the administration of the United Kingdom and France. The part of the Middle East in question in these posts was under the administration of the UK: the so-called "British Mandate."

Back then, everything was not rosy in the Middle East. It never had been and it wasn't hunky dory after WWII, either. Before we get to the part of how the land was broken up and parceled out, and who got what, we need to pause for just a bit and talk about the more specific histories of the Arabs and the Jews and how they got there.
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There were other peoples living in that land as well, but dealing only with Israel and the people who now call themselves Palestinians, let's take a look at their histories. Or some of their histories.

Even before we go into those histories, let me clear up one more thing. I have been referring to the Arabs as "the people who call themselves Palestinians today." That needs a little explanation. You see, during the time Palestine was a "real" country (1920-1948), both the Arabs and the Jews lived in that country. They owned land. They had houses and farms. They didn't fight as much, at least not compared to today. They were BOTH called Palestinians, because they BOTH lived in the country of Palestine.

Later, once the Jews were given a certain part of the old Palestine, and told to move into that area from where they were living before, they called that new land Israel and they became Israelis. The people who continued to live in the rest of Palestine, including those who had to move out of the new area called Israel, were still called Palestinians, of course. The Jews were no longer called Palestinians like they were before.
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I will make the necessary history speech as short as possible.

The Palestinians (the Arabs) have, as we have said, long roots of living in the area, even though they might not have actually been the masters of that land. They lived there for thousands of years. In Biblical times, they were called Philistines. According to the Bible, they came from Crete and settled the southern coastal plain of Canaan in the 12th century BC. Even then they were fighting with the neighboring Jews, who had come into that area also in the 12th century BC (coming from Egypt, led by Moses.)

But the Jews have a claim older than that, at least to the general Middle East. They were the descendants, according to history books (and the Bible - another book of history when collaborated by other historical records), since they were a nomadic people living in the area before they were enslaved in Egypt. At that time these nomadic people were called Hebrews.

Indeed, myth (a myth is an unverified explanation of the origin of something) tells us that the Hebrews, along with the Arab peoples, were on the land at almost the same time, both springing from a patriarch named Abraham. (The Hebrews were the descendants of one of Abraham's two sons; the Arabs were descended from the other of Abraham's sons.) This myth is passed down through both Hebrew and Arab historical writings, but, to my knowledge, is still a myth and not otherwise substantiated other than by religious writings of "history." But both the Jews and the Arabs agree on their origins from this patriarch named Abraham.

The name of Abraham's son who supposedly started the race of the present Palestinians, and other Arabs, was Ishmael. Ishmael was the son of Abraham and his wife's servant. Abraham was unable to have a child with his wife, and she told him to have a child with her servant, but later became jealous. Later on, she also finally had a son, though. His name was Isaac and he was the one who began the line of the Hebrews, the Israelis of today. Again, this is technically myth (pre-history), but both sides give the same oral and religious history of their origins.

You would think, since they supposedly sprang from half-brothers, they might get along a little better than they do.

The story continues that the servant girl, with her young son Ishmael was driven out into the desert by the jealous wife of Abraham, or Abraham himself sent them away under pressure from his jealous wife. Whichever, the servant girl and her son were about to perish in the desert when God (Allah to the Arabs) appeared and miraculously saved them. Ishmael went on to become the great Arab nations.

One might note that Ishmael was a bit older than Isaac, obviously. For what that is worth. It's worth a lot to the Arabs.

That's how the Arabs came to be on the land of the Middle East, so their claim is very old.

Tomorrow, the Israelis: Isaac and his son. (Hint: Isaac's son Jacob had his name changed to Israel and he had 12 sons - the "children of Israel".)

A brief history of the middle east

Everyone seems to have an opinion of the Middle East, and everyone seems to have an opinion about the seemingly everlasting Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the land in what has come to be known by many as the “Holy Land”. Of course the Middle East includes many other surrounding countries, but this post is a short history of what used to be a geographical area called Palestine.

I won’t attempt to go into great detail, but will do more in subsequent posts. This post is only an overview of the history of the area - a first step for readers who would like to know what is going on there and why.

First of all, both the Israelis and the Palestinians (and a lot of other historical inhabitants) have a “claim” to that land, but, in point of fact, it has seldom actually been “controlled” by any of the claimants for any length of time in history. By that I mean there has almost always been some outside “landlord” or “occupier” to whom the actual inhabitants were more or less subjugated.

Going far back in time, the Egyptians enjoyed great influence over a pretty vast area in that part of the world, but coming forward in time more recently, lest we spend too much time on the real early stuff, one might logically start with the Babylonians. They took over in 586 BC, although the Assyrians already held sway over parts.

50 years later, the Persian Empire was the owner of the moment, under Cyrus the Great, followed by Greek rule after being conquered by Alexander the Great. They were all “great” back then. Then the Egyptians again and then ancient Syria. In 63 BC came the Roman Empire, which eventually morphed into the Byzantine Empire in that area. In 638 AD began the long 1300-year rule of the Arab Conquest. In 1517, the Ottoman Turks conquered, and held the territory until the Ottoman Empire was defeated and broken up in World War One.

I don’t present the above to confuse you, only to illustrate that the long-term residents of the area (and there were more than just the present day Israelis and Palestinians) were, with few exceptions, seldom actual masters of their own domain. Even after World War I, the area was controlled by the French and the British.

I point all this out to remind you that the concept of sovereignty by the actual inhabitants is a fairly recent event, and simply because they and their ancestors lived there for a very long time does not mean they were the rightful controllers of the land over everyone else. To the contrary, all of the inhabitants of the area were almost always tenets of some occupier or another. That gives the lie to whether Israeli or Palestinian (or others) REALLY have a pure ancestral claim to the land any more than any other long-term inhabitant. There were indeed some short-term exceptions, but to put it bluntly, they were almost always the conquered people of this or that Empire.

Next: The British Mandate land area (which had been issued by the League of Nations following WWI) is broken up and apportioned by the United Nations.