History of the Arab population in Palestine
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After the destruction of the Jewish Temple and the capture of Jerusalem by the Romans during the Jewish uprising in AD 70, Bedouins first moved to Palestine. When the Romans drove the Jews out of Jerusalem, they also let Arab nomads roam Palestine. They initially believed in the ancient Arabic religion. The Romans later also settled Arabs who settled in Palestine. With the beginning of the Christian mission also during the persecution of Christians by the Romans , Arabs adopted the Christian religion. With the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine in 311, the persecution of Christians ended. Christianity spread in the Roman Empire. During the division of the empire in 395, Palestine fell to the Byzantine Empire. From 637 the Arabs conquered Palestine and spread Islam. The area came under Arab rule by the caliphates. From the end of the 11th century to the end of the 13th century, crusaders ruled Palestine at times. Thereafter, Palestine was under the rule of the Egyptian Mamelukes . In 1517 the Ottoman Selim I conquered Palestine.
First Arabs in Palestine during Roman rule
After the destruction of the Jewish Temple by Roman troops under Emperor Titus and the capture of Jerusalem against Jewish insurgents in AD 70, the Romans drove the Jews out of Jerusalem. The last Jewish resistance was broken in the fortress Masada in 73/74. Except for a small minority, the Jews fled Palestine. In addition to the Greeks and Romans who settled there, nomadic Bedouins also immigrated to Palestine. The Romans tolerated them. They wandered around Palestine as nomads. They believed in the ancient Arabic religion with sun gods. After the conversion of the state of the Nabataeans , which was under Roman tribute rule, into a Roman province , the Roman occupiers settled various peoples as federates in Palestine. They settled Arabs who settled down. There was fertile land in the Jordan Depression and on the coast. in the Jewish Bar Kochba uprising , the Jews were defeated. Especially in the east of the Roman Empire under the Greeks and in Asia Minor and also in Palestine, many residents converted to Christianity. The persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire was first lifted by the Edict of Tolerance of Galerius and then finally with the Edict of Milan in 313. Emperor Constantine the Great had the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem built by decrees . Jerusalem became a Christian city. Around the year 325 Palestine was almost completely Christianized. Only a small Jewish and Samaritan minority still lived in Galilee. When the empire was partitioned in 395 , Palestine fell to the Byzantine Empire .
Arabs in Palestine under Byzantine and Persian rule
Arabs lived in Palestine even under Byzantine rule. They were mostly Christians. The Christians in the Byzantine Empire were subordinate to the Patriarchate of Constantinople , from which the Orthodox Churches emerged. The Persian Sassanids conquered Palestine in 614 ( conquest of Jerusalem (614) ) with Jewish support and ruled until 629. Then the Eastern Roman emperor Herakleios succeeded in recapturing Palestine.
Palestine as part of the Islamic Arab Empire
The Islamic expansion penetrated into the Levant in 637 . The Eastern Roman Jerusalem came into the possession of Caliph Omar after a siege of several months . The city was called al-Quds (the sanctuary) and the third holiest center of Islam after Mecca and Medina . Increasing numbers of Arabs immigrated. Islam spread. A small Jewish minority remained in Palestine. After the death of the caliph Alis in 661, the Omayad dynasty 661-750 ruled Damascus. Under the Omayad Caliph Abd al-Malik , the Dome of the Rock was built in 691 on Temple Square in Jerusalem, one of the most brilliant buildings in Islamic architecture . His son and successor Walid ibn al-Marwan built the al-Aqsa mosque in 710 . Jerusalem became the capital of the Filastin Province (Palestine). Since then, the Arab tribes living in Palestine have increasingly converted to Islam. Most of them belonged to the Sunnis. Some of the Arabs remained Christian. The Arabic language gradually supplanted Aramaic . During the 8th and 9th centuries, the four orthodox schools of Islam developed. Art and science flourished, Plato and Aristotle were translated into the Arabic language and the first works by Arabic philosophers ( al-Kindī ) were created in an intensive analysis of the Greek tradition. The Arabs traded. The Shiite Abbasid dynasty ruled as caliphate from 750 to 1258. In 762 they moved the residence to Baghdad. A central government emerged with a magnificent court and a well-developed administrative apparatus. Persian literature found its way into Islamic thought through translation and enriched it sustainably. The caliphate regulated the peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Christians and Jews, the owners of the scriptures, in protection treaties ( dhimma ). The dhimma guaranteed Christians and Jews freedom of movement, freedom of career choice and free trade. The inviolability of the cult and the places of worship and the church organization was also regulated. In return, the able-bodied Christian and Jewish men had to pay a poll tax ( Gizya ), which the Muslim community received as compensation for the protection granted. Abbasid power began to crumble towards the end of the 10th century. Local dynasties also emerged in Egypt and Syria, among others. They were independent and recognized the Baghdad Caliphate as their spiritual leader. In Baghdad, the Bujids seized secular power in 945 and the Bujid dynasty ruled as an emirate until 1055. The caliphs only had spiritual power. The Abbasid Caliphate had to place itself under the protection of the Islamic Turkic Seljuks under the leadership of Sultan Tughrul Beg in 1055 . The Byzantine Empire expanded its rule and threatened the northern areas of the Islamic Empire. In the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan defeated the Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV and took large parts of Asia Minor, and also Palestine with Jerusalem.
Palestine under the Crusaders (1095–1291)
The Byzantine Emperor Alexios Komnenos called on the Pope for help after the advance of the Sunni-Islamic Seljuks. Thereupon Pope Urban II called in 1095 the Christians in a crusade call for war against the Seljuks. A crusade army was set up from various European countries. The 1st crusade took place in 1096-99. In the years 1098-99, four large crusader armies invaded Palestine while the Abbasid Empire split up inside. After a month-long siege , the Crusader army took Jerusalem in July 1099. The crusaders looted the city and murdered thousands of Muslim believers in the al-Aqsa mosque. Godfrey of Bouillon founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem as a Christian feudal state based on the French model. After his death the following year, his brother Baldwin I of Bouillon was crowned King of Jerusalem. With the crusaders, fabrics and spices and weapon techniques and new construction methods adopted by the Arabs came to Europe. The brutal treatment of the native population in Palestine during the conquest created deep rifts between the Muslims, the Jewish minority and the European crusaders. A fruitful cultural exchange did not take place. Numerous Arabs were Christianized. Some crusader castles have been preserved to this day.
In 1175 Saladin succeeded in unifying the quarreling Arab principalities. He ruled Egypt and Syria and quickly conquered the important Palestinian coastal cities. Saladin, victorious against the Crusaders in the Battle of Hattin in 1187, destroyed the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Pope then called for the 3rd Crusade (1189–92). The Roman-German Emperor Friedrich I , the English King Richard the Lionheart and the French King Philip II August took part. After three years of siege , Akkon was handed over to the crusader army in 1191. In 1192 the Crusaders signed an armistice with Saladin. Jerusalem was held by the Arabs. Only peaceful pilgrims were allowed to travel to Jerusalem. In the 5th Crusade 1228-29, the crusader army under the Roman-German Emperor Frederick II succeeded in taking Jerusalem. On February 18, 1229, Emperor Frederick II was awarded Jerusalem with Bethlehem and Nazareth by treaty with the Egyptian sultan al-Malik al-Kamil . The crusaders oppressed the Jews. In 1244 Jerusalem was finally lost to the Crusaders. After the siege of Acre (1291), the Egyptian Mameluks were able to take the last bases of the crusaders in Palestine. The other bases in Syria were evacuated by the crusaders. With this, all of Palestine and Syria came under the Egyptian rule of the Mameluks.
Palestine under Egyptian rule
With the devastating incursion of the Mongols into Baghdad in 1258 , the cultural and political center of the Abbasid Empire was destroyed. The Mongols eliminated the Baghdad Caliphate and the last great Arab dynasty was extinguished. The strongest power in the Islamic world became the Turkish Empire of the Ottomans. Palestine, Syria and Jordan came under the rule of the Egyptian Mameluks. The center of Islam shifted to Egypt. Most of the Arabs in Palestine belonged to Sunni Islam, a minority to mainly Orthodox Christianity.
Ottoman rule
In 1517, under Selim I, the Ottoman rule began in Egypt , including Syria and Palestine. The Ottoman Sultanate introduced the land law valid in the Ottoman Empire, which differentiated between private property, land in the hands of religious foundations and nationalized property, which made up the largest part of the land. At first the situation of the farmers improved. In the centralized administrative and tax system , the population was freed from excessive tax burdens by precisely defining the tax obligations. Agriculture and trade enjoyed an upswing. According to Islamic law, Christians and Jews were granted protected minority status. The entire population had access to appeal courts. The mountains around Jerusalem and Nablus, Galilee and the Gaza Strip were the population centers in Palestine between the 16th and 17th centuries. Crafts, agriculture and fishing were practiced. The textile and agricultural products were transported to Europe and Asia from the major trading centers of Gaza , Jaffa , Akko, Jerusalem, Nablus and Beersheba . Private foundations financed schools, hospitals and charitable institutions.
Towards the end of the 17th century, the power of the Ottoman Empire gradually fell. Since the relocation of trade routes through the discovery of America in 1492 , but especially after the defeat in the Turkish War 1683–1699 against an alliance of European states and the unsuccessful Second Siege of Vienna in 1683, the Ottoman Empire lost its importance. The mismanagement and corruption made it possible for the European powers to penetrate the Ottoman Empire and its vassal states. Napoleon Bonaparte led a campaign to Egypt and Palestine in 1798/99 . The French wanted to liberate the two areas from Ottoman rule. The French expeditionary army landed in Egypt. In the sea battle at Abukir on 1/2. August 1798 the British Admiral Nelson destroyed the French fleet with his fleet off Egypt. The French army landed in Syria in February 1799 and advanced against the Ottoman army. The French won the battles at al-Arish , Gaza, Jaffa , Hebron and Mount Tabor and besieged the city of Akko from March 20 to May 1799. The siege of Akko failed due to British resistance. After the capture of Jaffa, the French carried out a massacre. Napoleon returned to France in 1799 and overthrew the French government in the coup d'état of November 9, 1799 . The French stayed in Egypt and Palestine until 1802, when they withdrew. In the Treaty of Amiens on March 27, 1802 with Great Britain, the withdrawal from Egypt and Palestine was agreed. Ottoman rule was restored but remained increasingly unstable. In 1831, Muhammad Ali Pasha liberated Egypt and Palestine from Ottoman rule. In an uprising a few years later in Palestine against Egyptian rule, insurgent Arabs asked the Ottoman leadership for help. The Ottoman forces supported the rebellious Arabs and threw down the Egyptian forces. In 1840 Egypt had to recognize the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire.
When Sultan Mahmud II decided to reform the administrative and military system in 1839 and the Tanzimat period began, this could no longer stop the political and economic decline of the Ottoman Empire. The European powers Great Britain, France, Russia, Austria and Prussia and later from 1871 the German Empire secured direct influence on the Sublime Porte by acquiring economic and trade monopolies . More and more peoples broke out of Turkish domination and revolts against the Ottoman Empire broke out. For the Arab peoples in the Middle East, their social and economic situation deteriorated significantly. In the course of the reforms, state land and collective property were converted into private property and the power of disposal of the peasants was withdrawn. The system of "absent landlords", who wanted to make the greatest possible profit from the land, aggravated the situation of the peasants and drove them into poverty. The sanjak Jerusalem , which was separated from the Vilayet Syria in 1841 and was directly subordinate to Constantinople, is a sign of political fragmentation .
At the end of the 19th century, more and more Jews from Eastern Europe immigrated to Palestine to escape persecution. The Jews strove to found a Jewish nation-state. In 1897, Theodor Herzl founded the Zionist movement at the first Zionist Congress in Basel , which called for the establishment of a public home for Jews in Palestine.
At the end of the 19th century, the idea of pan-Islamism emerged from the Islamic umma . This was soon replaced by pan-Arabism . The Arab-speaking peoples of the Middle East, who were under Ottoman rule, strived for independence and turned against Ottoman rule. Tensions grew between the Arabs living in Palestine and the immigrant Jews. Railway lines were built in Palestine, such as the Hejaz Railway and its branch lines, and during the First World War the Sinai Railway , the Ottoman Military Railway in Palestine and British Military Railway in Palestine , which became the Palestine Railways after the end of the war in 1920 .
The system of Ottoman land law had disastrous consequences for Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century. The poverty of the peasants was exacerbated by the conversion of state land and collective property into private property. With the increased immigration of Jews into Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century, the Zionists encouraged the settlement of Jewish farmers, artisans and traders. Jewish farmers bought land. Tel Aviv was the first Jewish city to be re-established in 1909, and the first kibbutzim emerged as agricultural settlements. During World War I, in which the Ottoman Empire, as an ally of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, fought against Russia, the United Kingdom and France in November 1914, the British supported the Pan-Arab Movement. In 1915, the British government promised Sherif Hussein of Mecca independence after defeating the Ottoman Empire. However, Great Britain agreed with France in the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement to divide the Middle East into British and French spheres of influence. The British troops supported the Arab revolt under Lawrence of Arabia against the Ottomans since 1916 .
In the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour assured the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. British forces invaded Palestine from Egypt in 1917 and captured Jerusalem in December 1917. In September 1918 the Ottoman front collapsed in Palestine. The British army took all of Palestine. In the course of the Ottoman genocide against the Armenians since April 1915, many Christian Armenians fled to Palestine and settled in the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem's old town . On October 30, 1918, the Ottoman Empire concluded the Moudros armistice with the Entente powers.
Palestine after the 1st World War
At the end of World War I with the Moudros armistice on October 30, 1918, all of Palestine was controlled by the British Army. British leaders continued their conflicting goals for Palestine after the war. On the one hand, it supported the establishment of a national homeland for Jews in Palestine and, on the other hand, the establishment of an Arab state. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 , the Crown Prince of the Sherif of Mecca, Faisal of the Hashemites, and the chairman of the World Zionist Congress, Chaim Weizmann , signed the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement on January 3, 1919 , in which the Arabs and Jews help found a Arab state cooperation agreed. The Arabs recognize the establishment of a national homeland for Jews in Palestine and the Jews recognize the establishment of an Arab state. Parts of Syria had been occupied by the British since 1918. On March 7, 1920, the Syrian National Congress, made up of representatives from Syrians, Lebanese, Arabs from Palestine and Jordanians, proclaimed the Arab Kingdom of Syria in Damascus . A government was formed on March 9, 1920 and on April 20, Faisal , son of the sheriff of Mecca, was crowned king. They raised an Arab army from the auxiliary troops who had fought on the British side against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. At the Sanremo Conference in April 1920, the victorious powers of World War I agreed to divide the Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire as mandate areas for Great Britain and France. Palestine with the East Bank and Mesopotamia became a British mandate, Syria including Lebanon a French mandate . The British troops withdrew from Syria. French troops fought against Arab insurgents in Syria and defeated them on July 23 at the Battle of Maysalun .
On July 24, 1920, the French army took Damascus and forced King Faisal to abdicate. Syria including Lebanon became the French mandate of the League of Nations, Palestine including the East Bank and Mesopotamia as Iraq became British mandates. The Faisal-Weizmann Agreement never came into force. In the Sevres peace treaty between the victorious powers and Turkey of August 10, 1920, Turkey recognized the mandate areas of Palestine, Syria and Iraq. The Turkish parliament and the Turkish government under Mustafa Kemal did not recognize the Sevres peace treaty. The victorious powers Great Britain, France, Italy and Greece then occupied Turkey. The Greco-Turkish War lasted from 1920 to 1922 . In the Lausanne Peace Treaty of July 24, 1923, Turkey renounced the Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire. In 1923 Great Britain separated Transjordan from the Hashemites as a mandate under Emir Abdullah . The homeland for the Jews was to be built in the remaining mandate of Palestine. The vast majority of the population were Arabs.
Palestinian refugee problem
The Palestinian refugee problem is part of the Middle East conflict in connection with the displaced and displaced Arab Palestine refugees and their descendants in the paternal line. The United Nations Aid for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA) speaks of around 5 million registered Arab Palestine refugees at the moment.
According to estimates by the United Nations , the Palestinian War between June 1, 1946 and May 15, 1948 originally resulted in around 750,000 Arabs and Jews from Palestine becoming refugees through flight and displacement . They and their descendants now live in Israel , Gaza Strip , West Bank , Jordan , Lebanon and other Arab countries.
In the Six Day War of 1967, around 300,000 more people in the Palestine region became refugees. The expulsion of the Palestinians from Kuwait in 1991 again forced almost half a million people to flee. In addition, the support of the Gulf States for the PLO came to a standstill. Even Muammar Gaddafi pointed out tens of thousands of Palestinian guest workers from Libya in the 1990s.
literature
- Der Große Ploetz, Verlag Herder GmbH & Co. KG Licensed edition for Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen, 35th edition 2008 ISBN 978-3-525-32008-2
- Gudrun Krämer : History of Palestine. From the Ottoman conquest to the establishment of the State of Israel. Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-47601-5
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Der Große Ploetz , Palestine under Roman rule, p. 323 ff.
- ↑ Der Große Ploetz, The emergence of Islam (around 570 - 661), p. 657 ff.
- ↑ Der Große Ploetz, Das Kalifenreich (661 - 1258), pp. 659 ff.
- ↑ Der Große Ploetz, Die Kreuzzüge (1095 - 1291), p. 423 ff.
- ↑ Der Große Ploetz, Die Mamluken, p. 668f
- ↑ Der Große Ploetz, Das Ottmanische Reich in der Neuzeit, pp. 1169 ff.
- ↑ The Great Ploetz: The Arab Provinces of the Ottoman Empire up to the Peace of Lausanne (1923), p. 1185
- ↑ Der Große Ploetz, Palestine (1918 - 1942/45), p. 1188 ff.
- ↑ a b Palestine refugees . United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
- ↑ United Nations: General Progress Report and supplementary report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, UNCCP, A / 1367 / Rev.1, October 23, 1950.
- ↑ Fritz Edlinger (Ed.): Libyen , Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-85371-330-3 , p. 21