The origin of the State of Israel in maps

You likely have seen some version of the map below spreading across social media. It is crucial to understand that this map is entirely faked: There was no Arab nation of Palestine – not in 1946, not even in 1826.

As we will see, this entire region was controlled by European colonists, and Arab peoples themselves never knew of any nation called Palestine. More to the point, at this time in history it was in fact Jewish people who were often referred to as Palestinians.

We need to address this. History deniers are pernicious because they do know that atrocities existed. The only reason for misleading people about history is to create conditions for atrocities to happen again.

• Neo-Confederate slavery deniers deny/minimize slavery in the US precisely because they are racist.

• Holocaust deniers deny/minimize the Holocaust precisely because they are antisemitic.

• Armenian genocide deniers deny that genocide precisely because they are racist.

• People faking the existence of a pre-existing Palestinian Arab nation do so precisely because they want to exterminate the State of Israel.

Palestine is merely the Roman name for the land of Israel

Eretz Yisrael, אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל the land of Israel, is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people.

After the Roman conquest, Eretz Yisrael was occupied by the Roman Empire. They renamed this region Syria-Palestina.

Not only was there no connection to Arab peoples, the religion of Islam didn’t even exist at this time in history. During this era Arabs still lived in their homeland, the Arabian peninsula.

The population of Syria-Palestina at this time was Jewish people and occupying Romans.

wikipedia, File:Roman_Empire_with_provinces_in_210_AD.png

Starting in the late 3rd century, the Roman provincial administration changed land divisions.

Provinces were clustered into regional groups called dioceses. Syria Palaestina became part of Dioceses Orienties.

In the 4th century, Palestine and neighboring regions were reorganized into the provinces Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, and Palaestina Tertia or Palaestina Salutaris (First, Second, and Third Palestine).

Under Byzantine rule

All of these then became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire, after the split of the Roman Empire in 395.

During this era Jewish communities thrived along the edges of Judah, in northern Palestine, and in many poleis, including Caesarea and Scythopolis.

In 602 CE, the final war between the Byzantine Empire and its eastern rival the Persian Empire (Sasanid Empire) broke out.

Eventually the Roman emperor Heraclius began a counter-offensive. By 627 he was advancing into the Persian heartland. Persia returned contested territory to the Byzantine empire.

Lands conquered in Islamic Jihads

In the late 6th century, the Arab leader Muhammad founded a new monotheistic religion called Islam. His followers became known as Muslims. Muhammad united the Arabian tribes into a religious polity, a caliphate, ruled by caliphs. His successors created a vast empire through holy war, jihad

Between 632-661 CE Muslim armies attacked and occupied parts of north Africa, Eretz Yisrael/Palestine, and parts of the middle east (including what we today call Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Iraq.)

Society in the Islamic caliphate formed a pyramid with five layers: Arabs were at the top, followed by converts to Islam (mawali.) Below them stood dhimmis, Jews, Samaritans, and Christians. Non-Muslim men had to pay a special tax (jizya) and they had to be submissive to Muslims. This was followed by non-Muslim free men and slaves at the bottom.

During this era no Arabs considered Palestine their homeland, it was just one small administrative district in a much larger empire, see the next map:

Under the Ottomans 1516-1917

By 1516 the land of Israel was part of the Ottoman Empire.

At no time did any Palestinian people or nation exist in the Ottoman Empire.

What about in more modern times? This is a map showing the areas controlled by the Ottomon Empire on the eve of World War I.  This region was called southern Syria. No Arab historian at the time claimed that any nation of Palestine existed.

Here we see the administrative districts of the Ottoman Empire.

This map is from the United Nations; it is based on maps in Cmd. 5957, 1939.

Here we see the same region after World War I. There still is no Arab nation of Palestine. The entire region was occupied by European nations.

By 1920 the occupying European powers were realizing that they could no longer indefinitely occupy the middle east.  Many governments were considering how to eventually withdraw from the region, giving more autonomy or complete independence to the peoples of that region.

During all of this time there was a continuous Jewish presence in what is now called Israel.

At the same time, for the last two centuries, Jewish refugees from around the world were being forced out of the nations in which they were living. Jews from Russia and Ukraine, from Arab speaking nations of North Africa, and from other places in the middle east, were returning to their ancestral homeland.

1920 Map for the Palestine Mandate from the San Remo conference

1922 In this map we see the terrible damage done to the Middle East by the United Kingdom. Three quarters of the British Mandate for Palestine, the section here shown in yellow, was separated from the original mandate as given as a gift to one family, that of Emir Abdullah I of Jordan.

Three quarters of the Palestine mandate, effectively 3/4 of the area claimed as homeland by Palestinians, was given to one family, and the entire run was run as a personal fiefdom. Even today the Palestinian Muslim Arabs who live in Jordan are not allowed to be citizens.

Most of the Palestinian refugee problem comes from the fact that Palestinian Arabs are held as non-citizens by their own Arab brethren.

First map, on the left. In 1949. Middle map, Israel after Egypt attacked it. In the subsequent military campaign Israel took over the Sinai desert. Map on the right is from 1957. Israel unilaterally withdraws all of its forces and hands back all of the Sinai and Gaza to Egypt.

On the left we see the result of the Six Day War in 1967. At that time Egypt, Jordan, and Syrian made a surprise attack on Israel, and attempted to exterminate it. Their motto was “Push the Jews into the sea.” This was literally a second attempt at a Holocaust.

The Jews of Israel not only repelled the attack, but gained territory in Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the entire Sinai peninsula.

The middle map is from 1973 showing the boundaries of Israel right after the Yom Kippur War.

The map on the right is from 1979. Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel and in return Israel returned the entire Sinai peninsula. Egypt refused to take back Gaza.

For more details about these maps see Border Changes As Arabs Initiate Wars of Aggression

Arabs Israeli conflict: David vs Goliath?

The geographical context in this next map shows you what most news media and social media tries to hide from you. In the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Jewish people have always been outnumbered:

There are 350 million Arabs in the Arab League nations. There are only a little more than 6.9 million Jews in Israel. Arabs outnumber Israel Jews fifty to one.

In terms of land, Arab nations have more than 100 times the area of Israel.

Now that we know all this, we can show you an actual map showing loss of land in this region of the world:

End of Arab Israeli conflict is within grasp

Readers should be aware that in many ways the Arab-Israeli conflict is disappearing. Increasingly Arab Muslim nations across the middle east are making full peace with Israel.

The list below isn’t even complete – Jordan and Egypt have full peace treaties with tourism, trade. Saudia Arabia is not only effectively at peace with Israel, they are the major regional player behind these four other Arab nations recently signing peace treaties.

Supporting the right of the State of Israel to exist does not, in any way, mean that one is against Arabs or Islam.

Zionism certainly doesn’t mean always agreeing with the Prime Minister or government of Israel. It doesn’t mean supporting any particular Israeli political party. Zionism merely means that one supports the right of Jewish people to safely live in their ancestral homeland, Eretz Yisrael, אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל the land of Israel.

Many people aren’t aware that many Arabs are Zionists! Many Arab Christians and Arab Muslims are proud Israeli citizens, and many serve in the IDF, Israel Defense Forces. Israeli in fact is one of the only nations in the middle east where Muslims are free. Zionists can be Jewish, Arab, Bahai, Druze, Bedouin, or anyone from any group: This is what a Zionist looks like

Related articles

Zionism is a form of social justice

Antisemitism on college campuses

How to Criticize Israel Without Being Anti-Semitic

The Quran and early Arab thought on Israel/Palestine

_________________

Thanks for reading! Join us at Coffeehouse Torah Talk, our Facebook havurah (study fellowship.) While you’re here read about Jewish ethics, Halakhah, holidays, Kashrut (keeping kosher) , Lifecycle events, Mishnah and Talmud study, philosophy & theology, Tefila (prayer), Torah study, Tanakh (bible) and Zionism.