ISRAEL

 In about 2000 BC, a small and unimportant tribe of Semitic shepherds lived in the land of Ur on the mouth of Euphrates and then migrated to different parts of Babylonia. They were driven away west by the King and searched around for a place to settle. These are the Hebrews or the Jews. After roaming for a long time finally they were given shelter in Egypt. They lived there for 500 years. When the Hyksos overran Egypt they helped the invaders and so were left undisturbed by them. When the Hyksos were defeated by the Egyptians, the Jews were hated and were made into slaves under the guard of the army.

Then Moses led them out of their slavery of their Egyptian masters. Moses evaded the Egyptian army sent against them and led them on to the plain at the foot of Mount Sinai. There he preached them the greatness of the god Jehova, and Jehova became the Supreme God of the Jews. The Jews followed Moses and he finally brought them to the land of Philistines known as Palestine. It is a pleasant and prosperous area. But the mainland Palestine was already inhabited by Canaanites which is another Semitic race. The Jews forced themselves into the valleys and constructed cities and a mighty temple in a town named Jerusalem. Moses already died after the mountains of Palestine are sighted. Moses led them into a new life and made them the world’s first nation to worship a single God. That happened sometime in 1400 BC.

The Jews formed 2 kingdoms in Palestine. The kingdom of Israel in the North and the kingdom of Judea in the South. Israel was conquered by the Assyrian Empire in around 700 BC and Judea by the Babylonian empire in around 600 BC. Jews were initially exiled to Babylon, when Babylon was defeated by Persia in 540 BC, many Jews returned to Jerusalem and built a 2^nd temple there. When Alexander conquered the Persian Empire around 330 BC, the Jewish areas were passed on to his empire. There were Roman Jewish wars between 66-136 and ultimately the Romans conquered Jewish areas in 136 AD. The Romans expelled most of the Jews from the area beginning the migration of Jews. After this, the Jews became a minority in most areas except in Galilee. Jewish settlements declined with time and finally in most areas Jews made up of just 10-15% of the population. The Persian Empire conquered the area in 614 AD. Finally the Muslim forces conquered the area from Persia in 638 AD.

One can see that in these travails, the Jews were never left at peace and were fugitives most of the time. No other people suffered like them. One is immediately led to the question why this had happened in the case of Jews. One can only pity them. Left without any physical moorings perhaps it is only natural that they yearned to have a country of other own. But their ancient land which they left in 140 AD after the Roman conquest was already peopled by Palestines who lived there for some 1800 years by then. Persecuted all over Europe and desperate to have a homeland, when the Jews migrated into that area, it is but natural that there would be strife. Ultimately they managed to establish themselves in that area by the might of their arms and the backing of the US.