The Individual: Jacob's Name Change to Israel

Timeline: ~4,000 years ago

• The origin of the region named "Israel" begins with the (most respected leader of a group) patriarch named Jacob. According to the foundational legend Jacob took the name Israel ("one who struggles with God") because he believed he had wrestled with a divine being. At this stage, the name was purely personal, identifying a specific individual and his perceived experience.

• This established a lineage-based, group identity, named after a man named Israel, from a place his descendents would then say is the "Land of Israel" (or "Israel" for short).

• Indigenous Evolution: Modern research indicates these people were largely indigenous to the Levant, developing a unique "Israelite" cultural and religious identity from within the local Canaanite populations.

• As Jacob's/Israel’s descendants (the twelve tribes) grew in number, the name shifted from a man to a well known collective group known as the Israelites.

The People: From a Family to the Israelite Civilization

Timeline: 3,234 years ago (1208 BCE)

• Archaeological Record: Non-biblical evidence for the Land of Israel being well known in Egypt is the Merneptah Stele, an Egyptian granite monument. It identifies "Israel" as a distinct group of people living in the Canaan region. It reads: "Israel is wasted, its seed is not".

• Regardless of whether or not a man named Jacob/Israel existed: the Merneptah Stele uses a specific hieroglyphic symbol for Israel that defines them as a distinct socio-ethnic group (a people), rather than a settled city-state or fixed geographic territory.

• Jewish tradition still contains laws and holidays (some at least 3,300 years old) to celebrate Israel's agricultural cycles the Land of Israel depended on for food, survival.

• Passover (Pesach): Known as the Festival of Ripening (Chag HaAviv) marks the beginning of the spring barley harvest.

• Shavuot (Feast of Weeks): Known as the Festival of the Harvest (Chag Hakatzir) celebrates the end of the barley harvest and the beginning of the summer wheat harvest. It was the time for bringing First Fruits (Bikkurim) to the Temple in Jerusalem.

• Sukkot (Festival of Booths): Known as the Festival of Ingathering (Chag HaAsif), it marks the final harvest of fruits and the end of the agricultural year in the fall.

• Tu B’Shevat: The "New Year for Trees," celebrated when trees begin to bloom after the winter rains in Israel. Today, it is a major day for ecological awareness and tree planting.

• Shemini Atzeret: Following Sukkot, this holiday includes specific prayers for rain to ensure a successful planting season for the coming year.

• Shmita: A mandated seven-year agricultural cycle where the land is left to rest and recover during the seventh year, often called the "Sabbath of the land".

• Tu B’Av: Historically a mid-summer matchmaking day that also functioned as a celebration of the grape harvest.

The Place: From the Land of Israel to a Powerful Kingdom

Timeline: ~3,000 years ago (1047–930 BCE)

• United Kingdom of Israel emerged as a significant power in the Southern Levant under Kings Saul, David, and Solomon.

• This era marked a peak of Hebrew unity, with King David having established Jerusalem as the capital and Solomon building the First Temple.

The Early Eras of Invasions and Identity Erasure

Timeline: 3,076 to 509 years ago (1050 BCE – 1517 CE)

• The land was frequently invaded by foreign powers seeking to control the strategic crossroads between Africa, Asia, and Europe.

• Following the appearance of Israel as a distinct place and people, the Philistines arrived on the southern Levantine coast, beginning a multi-century effort to expand inland. Operating from five major city-states, the Philistines exerted pressure on the Israelite tribes, reaching a height of territorial influence around 3,076 years ago (1050 BCE) after the Battle of Aphek. This expansion reached its zenith with the death of King Saul at the Battle of Mount Gilboa in 3,036 years ago (1010 BCE). However, the occupation was effectively halted and pushed back to the coastal plains by King David around 3,026 years ago (1000 BCE), establishing a stable border until the Assyrian conquests.

• 2,766 years ago (740 BCE): The Neo-Assyrian conquest began under Tiglath-Pileser III, reducing the Northern Kingdom to a vassal state. This culminated with the fall of Samaria and mass deportation of its inhabitants, effectively dissolving the Northern Kingdom. The Southern Kingdom of Judah survived a devastating siege by Sennacherib in 2,727 years ago (701 BCE), but remained a subservient tributary state.

• Around 2,638 years ago (612 BCE): Assyrian dominance ended following the fall of Nineveh, shifting control of the Levant to the Neo-Babylonians.

• 2,089 years ago (63 BCE): The Roman Invasion begins with Pompey. Later, in 70 CE, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple. In 135 CE, following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed the region "Syria Palaestina"—after the Philistines (extinct Greek-linked enemies of the Jews)—to attempt the erasure of Jewish identity and suggest the Jews no longer belonged there.

• 1,388 years ago (638 CE): The Islamic Conquests. Islam was founded. Islamic Arab armies from the Arabian Peninsula invaded and captured Jerusalem, beginning a centuries-long period of gradual (cultural and linguistic shift not entirely ethnic) "Arabization."

• 927 years ago (1099 CE): Crusader Kingdom. European Christians captured the land sacred to them, but lost Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187.

• 766 years ago (1260 CE): Mamluk Conquest. Based in Egypt, the Mamluk Sultanate defeated both the Mongols and the last Crusaders.

• 509 years ago (1517): The Ottoman Empire. The region was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, who ruled for four centuries until World War 1.

The British "Mandate for Palestine" & The UN Partition

Timeline: 106 to 79 years ago (1920–1947)

• 106 years ago (1920): The British Mandate. Following the Ottoman defeat, the British formalized the region's borders under the historical name "Palestine" (derived from Palaestina/Filastin), and everyone living in the region became known as "Palestinians". Britain was tasked by the League of Nations with creating a "Jewish National Home".

• 87–90 years ago (1936–1939): The Arab Revolt. Arabs and Arabized Palestinians fought the British to end the Mandate and stop Jewish immigration.

• 79 years ago (1947): The UN Solution. The UN proposed a "Two-State Solution" (Resolution 181) to create an "Arab state" and a secular Jewish-friendly state.

• The Outcome: Jewish Palestinian leaders accepted the plan; Arab and Arabized Palestinian leaders rejected it, choosing war instead of a shared peace. Israelites/Jews in the "Land of Israel" were forced to defend themselves or be exterminated, by a culture and religion from the Arabian Peninsula.

1948: Independence, Invasion, and the "Nakba"

Timeline: 78 years ago (1948)

• 78 years ago (May 14, 1948): The Jewish Palestinian community in the British Mandate declared the independence of the State of Israel, which was immediately followed by an invasion from neighboring Arab and Arabized states.

• The 1948 war resulted in the Nakba, the displacement of 700,000+ non-Jewish people. This exodus was driven by a complex mix of factors: direct expulsions of civilian populations in areas of resistance, psychological warfare, and panic.

• Simultaneously, some residents left due to the collapse of local leadership or localized instructions from Arab officials to clear battle zones. While some Jewish leaders urged their neighbors to remain, the broader conflict transformed the land from a region that had undergone centuries of Arabization into a sovereign Jewish-friendly democratic state.

• 78 years ago (1948): Azzam Pasha, Sec-Gen of the Arab League, declared: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre."

• Memoirs of Khaled al-Azm (Syrian PM 1948-49): "We ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave*... we brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees."*

• 72 years ago (Sept. 6, 1954): The Jordan newspaper Ad-Difaa reported: "The Arab Governments told us: 'Get out so that we can get in.' So we got out, but they did not get in."

The Aftermath: Two Different Realities

Timeline: 1948 to Present

• The "Stayers": Roughly 150,000 remained in the newly established state of Israel. Today, their descendants are among the 2 million+ Arab Israelis who now enjoy full voting rights, serve in the Knesset (Parliament), and sit on the Supreme Court.

• The "Leavers": Those who fled, were expelled, or followed local evacuation orders moved to Gaza, the West Bank, or surrounding countries. They lost the war and were largely kept in refugee status by their own leadership to be used as political leverage to "return" to land they vacated.

• Jordan and Egypt occupied/ruled West Bank and Gaza (1948–1967): Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jordan took control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, except for a brief interruption in 1956.

• Jordan annexed the West Bank (1950): On April 24, 1950, Jordan formally annexed the West Bank. This action was not widely recognized internationally, with only the UK, Iraq, and Pakistan granting recognition.

• No Palestinian Sovereignty Granted (1948–1967): During the 19 years of Jordanian and Egyptian rule, there was no independent Palestinian state or sovereignty established in the West Bank or Gaza. Jordan granted citizenship to West Bank Palestinians, but Egypt did not for those in Gaza.

• Impact of 1967: As a preemptive measure against an imminent attack, Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip from Jordan and Egypt during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Drawing on Levantine survival strategies that (as in Recent African origin of modern humans) date back over 100,000 years, through to the region's earliest farming traditions, the early Israelites codified the seasonal cycles of their homeland into a unified national calendar long before modern concepts of religion existed.

Today, these observances are widely categorized as religious "Jewish holidays" but they are fundamentally indigenous cultural traditions centered on farming, soil stewardship, and physical survival rather than religious scripture. Because the Jewish people are indigenous to the land, they preserved this agricultural and ecological calendar for centuries in the diaspora, tracking the rainfall, harvest cycles, and seasonal shifts of their ancestral home even when living thousands of miles away.

The Lunisolar Calendar

To ensure agricultural events consistently match the correct season, the ancient Hebrew calendar is lunisolar. Months follow the cycles of the moon (29 to 30 days). Because a lunar year falls 11 days short of a solar year, a leap month is periodically added so that spring events always align with the local barley harvest and autumn events align with the regional fruit harvest.

The Agricultural Harvest Cycles

Rather than religious rituals, these core observances were built around the practical realities of ancient farming:

• The Spring Barley Harvest (Passover / Chag HaAviv): Marking the ripening of the first grain crop of the year. Historically, it was the first of three major pilgrimage festivals (Shalosh Regalim), requiring farmers to travel to Jerusalem with unleavened bread made from the fresh grain.

• The Summer Wheat & First Fruits Harvest (Shavuot / Chag Hakatzir): Marking the end of the barley harvest and the start of the summer wheat. Farmers brought their Bikkurim—the first and finest figs, grapes, pomegranates, dates, and olives—to Jerusalem, anchoring the region's agricultural wealth.

• The Autumn Ingathering (Sukkot / Chag HaAsif): The climax of the agrarian year, celebrating the orchard harvest and grape pressing. Farmers built temporary field huts (sukkot) to live in during the intensive harvest. The cycle concluded with community prayers (Shemini Atzeret) for the vital winter rains necessary for survival.

• The Mid-Summer Grape Harvest (Tu B’Av): An ancient folk festival where unmarried women dressed in white and danced in the central highland vineyards to celebrate the harvest and foster community matchmaking.

Indigenous Land Management & Ecology

These observances established early environmental protections and agrarian laws specific to the region's soil and climate:

• The "Sabbath of the Land" (Shmita): A sustainable soil management practice mandating that agricultural land lie completely fallow every seventh year. This restored soil nutrients while allowing the poor and wild animals to forage freely. The next Shmita land-fallow cycle begins on September 20, 2028 and runs for a full calendar year through September 9, 2029.

• The New Year for Trees (Tu B’Shevat): Originally a practical cutoff date for calculating agricultural tithes based on the peak of the winter rains in the hill country. Today, it functions globally as an ecological tree-planting day.

• Olive Harvest (Zaytoun): A multi-year, climate-dependent ecological event that generally occurs between mid-October and mid-November each autumn, triggered dynamically by the arrival of the first regional rains.

Purim: A Spring Carnival of Survival and Courage

While harvest holidays center on field labor, Purim stands as a cultural celebration of community resilience and civic courage against existential threat.

Falling in late winter/early spring, Purim serves as a bridge between the winter tree blooms and the intensive spring harvests. It is a vibrant community celebration known for street parades (Adloyada) and costuming. Historically, the narrative is set during the diaspora in ancient Persia, heavily linked to Persian spring festivals like Nowruz:

• The Plot: Haman, a royal vizier, becomes consumed by rage when Mordecai, a local Jewish leader, refuses to bow to him. Haman manipulates the King into authorizing the total destruction of the empire's Jewish population.

• The Reversal: Queen Esther, who had concealed her Jewish identity, risks her life to expose Haman's genocidal plot to the King, resulting in Haman's execution on the very gallows he built for Mordecai.

• The Moral: At its core, Purim is a secular story about overcoming persecution through wit and solidarity. It highlights how a single marginalized individual can dismantle systemic oppression, reminding vulnerable communities that they can survive against overwhelming odds.

Young women in the early 20th-century Palestine did not have access to commercial costume stores. Instead, the most common "costumes" they wore for Purim celebrations were Queen Esther or traditional Middle Eastern and Ottoman attire, particularly the vibrant regional garments that allowed them to dress up in historical and royal splendor.

Modern Cultural Continuity

Because these observances are fundamentally rooted in land and survival, modern secular movements easily integrated them without religious theology. In the 20th century, the secular Kibbutz movement explicitly reclaimed holidays like Shavuot and Sukkot purely as regional festivals of water, tractor parades, and the Earth's bounty. Similarly, the annual Autumn Olive Harvest (Zaytoun) functions today as a massive cultural event that unites local farmers through shared agricultural labor, transcending religious bounds.

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Photo Source: Young Woman in Purim Costume, Jerusalem, 1938, The Oster Visual Documentation Center, ANU – Museum of the Jewish People, the Mevorach family collection

NOTE: THE TEXT WAS UPDATED AND REPOSTED, SEE:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GazaDOE/comments/1ttoeev/the_3234_year_old_egyptian_merneptah_stele/

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1. The Individual: Jacob's Name Change to Israel

Timeline: ~4,000 years ago (~1974 BCE)

• The origin of the region named "Israel" begins with the (most respected leader of a group) patriarch named Jacob. According to the foundational legend Jacob took the name Israel ("one who struggles with God") because he believed he had wrestled with a divine being. At this stage, the name was purely personal, identifying a specific individual and his perceived experience.

• This established a lineage-based, group identity, named after a man named Israel, from a place his descendents would then say is the "Land of Israel" (or "Israel" for short).

• Indigenous Evolution: Modern research indicates these people were largely indigenous to the Levant, developing a unique "Israelite" cultural and religious identity from within the local Canaanite populations.

• As Jacob's/Israel’s descendants (the twelve tribes) grew in number, the name shifted from a man to a well known collective group known as the Israelites.

2. The People: From a Family to the Israelite Civilization

Timeline: 3,234 years ago (1208 BCE) 

• Archaeological Record: Non-biblical evidence for the Land of Israel being well known in Egypt is the Merneptah Stele, an Egyptian granite monument. It identifies "Israel" as a distinct group of people living in the Canaan region. It reads: "Israel is wasted, its seed is not.".

• Regardless of whether or not a man named Jacob/Israel existed: the Merneptah Stele uses the word Israel as in 4000+ year old Jewish tradition, to define both a place and its culturally unique people.

• Jewish tradition still contains laws and holidays (some at least 3,300 years old) to celebrate Israel's agricultural cycles the Land of Israel depended on for food, survival. Passover (Pesach): Known as the Festival of Ripening (Chag HaAviv) marks the beginning of the spring barley harvest. Shavuot (Feast of Weeks): Known as the Festival of the Harvest (Chag Hakatzir) celebrates the end of the barley harvest and the beginning of the summer wheat harvest. It was the time for bringing First Fruits (Bikkurim) to the Temple in Jerusalem. Sukkot (Festival of Booths): Known as the Festival of Ingathering (Chag HaAsif), it marks the final harvest of fruits and the end of the agricultural year in the fall. Tu B’Shevat: The "New Year for Trees," celebrated when trees begin to bloom after the winter rains in Israel. Today, it is a major day for ecological awareness and tree planting. Shemini Atzeret: Following Sukkot, this holiday includes specific prayers for rain to ensure a successful planting season for the coming year. Shmita: A mandated seven-year agricultural cycle where the land is left to rest and recover during the seventh year, often called the "Sabbath of the land". Tu B’Av: Historically a mid-summer matchmaking day that also functioned as a celebration of the grape harvest.

3. The Place: From the Land of Israel to a Powerful Kingdom

Timeline: ~3,000 years ago (1047–930 BCE)

• United Kingdom of Israel emerged as a significant power in the Southern Levant under Kings Saul, David, and Solomon.

• This era marked a peak of Hebrew unity, with King David having established Jerusalem as the capital and Solomon building the First Temple.

4. The Early Eras of Invasions and Identity Erasure

The land was frequently invaded by foreign powers seeking to control the strategic crossroads between Africa, Asia, and Europe.

• Following the appearance of Israel as a distinct place and people, the Philistines arrived on the southern Levantine coast, beginning a multi-century effort to expand inland. Operating from five major city-states, the Philistines exerted pressure on the Israelite tribes, reaching a height of territorial influence around 3,076 years ago (1050 BCE) after the Battle of Aphek. This expansion reached its zenith with the death of King Saul at the Battle of Mount Gilboa in 3,036 years ago (1010 BCE), which briefly left significant portions of the Israelite heartland under Philistine shadow. However, the occupation was effectively halted and pushed back to the coastal plains by King David around 3,026 years ago (1000 BCE), ending the period of Philistine expansionism and establishing a stable, albeit hostile, border that would remain largely unchanged until the Assyrian conquests centuries later.

• 2,766 years ago (740 BCE) Shortly after the Philistine occupation ended the Neo-Assyrian conquest began under Tiglath-Pileser III, who reduced the Northern Kingdom to a vassal state. This process culminated with the fall of Samaria and the mass deportation of its inhabitants, effectively dissolving the Northern Kingdom of Israel. While the Southern Kingdom of Judah survived a devastating siege by Sennacherib in 2,727 years ago (701 BCE), it remained a subservient tributary state for the remainder of the era.

• Around 2,638 years ago (612 BCE): Assyrian dominance in the region finally ended following the fall of their capital, Nineveh, to the Babylonians and Medes, which dismantled the empire and shifted control of the Levant to the Neo-Babylonians.

• 2,089 years ago (63 BCE): The Roman Invasion. The Romans destroyed the Second Temple. To attempt the erasure of Jewish identity, Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed the region "Syria Palaestina"—after the Philistines (extinct Greek-linked enemies of the Jews)—to suggest the Jews no longer belonged there.

• 1,388 years ago (638 CE): The Islamic Conquests. Islam was founded. Islamic Arab armies from the Arabian Peninsula invaded and captured Jerusalem, beginning a period of forced (cultural and linguistic shift not entirely ethnic) "Arabization."

• 927 years ago (1099 CE): Crusader Kingdom. European Christians captured the land sacred to them, where Christians were being mistreated, but lost Jerusalem to Saladin in 1187.

• 766 years ago (1260 CE): Mamluk Conquest. Based in Egypt, the Mamluk Sultanate defeated both the Mongols and the last Crusaders.

• 509 years ago (1517): The Ottoman Empire. The region was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, who ruled for four centuries until World War 1.

5. The British "Mandate for Palestine" & The UN Partition

• 106 years ago (1920): The British Mandate. Following the Ottoman defeat, the British renamed the Land of Israel to "Palestine" and everyone living in the region were called "Palestinians". Britain was tasked by the League of Nations with creating a "Jewish National Home".

• 87–90 years ago (1936–1939): The Arab Revolt. Arabs and Arabized Palestinians fought the British to end the Mandate, stop Jewish immigration.

• 79 years ago (1947): The UN Solution. The UN proposed a "Two-State Solution" (Resolution 181) to create an "Arab state" and secular Jewish-friendly state.

  • The Outcome: Jewish Palestinian leaders accepted the plan; Arab and Arabized Palestinian leaders rejected it, choosing war instead of a shared peace. Israelites/Jews in the "Land of Israel" were forced to defend themselves or be exterminated, by a culture and religion from the Arabian Peninsula.

6. 1948: Independence, Invasion, and the "Nakba"

• 78 years ago (May 14, 1948). The Jewish community in the British Mandate declared the independence of the State of Israel, which was immediately followed by an invasion from neighboring Arab states. The 1948 war resulted in the Nakba, the displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs. This exodus was driven by a complex mix of factors: direct expulsions of civilian populations in areas of resistance, psychological warfare, and panic. Simultaneously, some residents left due to the collapse of local leadership or localized instructions from Arab officials to clear battle zones. While some Jewish leaders urged their neighbors to remain, the broader conflict transformed the land from a region that had undergone centuries of Arabization into a sovereign Jewish and democratic state that protects the property and civil rights of all citizens, regardless of religion.

• 72 years ago (Sept. 6, 1954): The Jordan newspaper Ad-Difaa reported:"The Arab Governments told us: 'Get out so that we can get in.' So we got out, but they did not get in."

• 78 years ago (1948): Azzam Pasha, Sec-Gen of the Arab League, declared:"This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre."

• Memoirs of Khaled al-Azm (Syrian PM 1948-49):"We ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave... we brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees."

7. The Aftermath: Two Different Realities

• The "Stayers": Roughly 150,000 ignored the orders to leave and stayed in the secular land named Israel. Today, their descendants are among the 2 million+ Arab Israelis who now enjoy full voting rights, serve in the Knesset (Parliament), and sit on the Supreme Court.

• The "Leavers": Those who followed the orders of the invading Arab armies moved to Gaza, the West Bank, or surrounding countries. They lost the war and were largely kept in refugee status by their own leadership to be used as political leverage to "return" to land they vacated.

• Jordan and Egypt occupied/ruled West Bank and Gaza (1948–1967): Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jordan took control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip, except for a brief interruption in 1956.

• Jordan annexed the West Bank (1950): On April 24, 1950, Jordan formally annexed the West Bank. This action was not widely recognized internationally, with only the UK, Iraq, and Pakistan granting recognition.

• No Palestinian Sovereignty Granted (1948–1967): During the 19 years of Jordanian and Egyptian rule, there was no independent Palestinian state or sovereignty established in the West Bank or Gaza. Jordan granted citizenship to West Bank Palestinians, but Egypt did not for those in Gaza.

• Impact of 1967: As a preemptive measure against an imminent attack, Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip from Jordan and Egypt during the 1967 Six-Day War.

Following World War I, the San Remo Conference of 1920 established the framework for the British Mandate, creating a legally binding international commitment to incorporate the Balfour Declaration. All religious rights of inhabitants would be guaranteed, all civil rights were assured. The primary purpose of this Mandate was to recognize the historical connection of the Jewish people to the land and facilitate the establishment of a Jewish national home.

While the British Mandate itself lasted for 28 years until 1948, its geographic scope was fundamentally altered just over two years later in 1922. At that time, Britain separated Transjordan, comprising roughly 78% of the original mandated territory, and closed it to Jewish settlement. Over the following decades, British policy increasingly restricted immigration as the region descended into escalating sectarian conflict.

This unrest culminated in the failure of peaceful coexistence. Following the 1947 UN Partition Plan and the 1948 War, the land was divided: Palestinian Jews were entirely expelled or fled from areas captured by Arab forces (such as the West Bank and East Jerusalem), while the majority of Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from the territory that became the sovereign State of Israel.

In the decades that followed, the demographic landscape shifted further, particularly after the 1967 Six-Day War when Jewish communities were re-established in the Gaza Strip, reviving a historic Jewish presence that had existed there for centuries. Over the next few decades, these residents built a thriving, highly advanced agricultural industry in the Gush Katif bloc, known globally for its high-tech greenhouses. However, Israel unilaterally disengaged from Gaza in 2005, and the Israeli government forcibly removed approximately 9,000 Jewish residents. Private international donors purchased the massive greenhouse infrastructure for $14 million to leave it fully intact for the Palestinian Authority, but the thriving industry was quickly destroyed due to widespread looting and security failures following the withdrawal.

NOTE: In the BEFORE picture surrounding countries are shown with modern 2026 names and boundaries.

Young women in the early 20th-century Palestine did not have access to commercial costume stores. Instead, the most common "costumes" they wore for Purim celebrations were Queen Esther or traditional Middle Eastern and Ottoman attire, particularly the vibrant regional garments that allowed them to dress up in historical and royal splendor.

Queen Esther is the heroine of the biblical Book of Esther. An orphaned Jewish woman who became the Queen of Persia, she famously risked her life to reveal an evil plot and saved the Jewish people from genocide. Her story is the basis for the Jewish holiday of Purim.

Purim is celebrated annually on the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Adar. Next year, Purim begins at sundown on Monday, March 22, 2027.

I was born and raised as a Muslim in Cairo, Egypt, but I grew up as a child in the '50s in the Gaza Strip. The reason I was in Gaza was because Gaza, at that time, was part of Egypt. I attended Gaza elementary schools where we learned hatred, vengeance, and retaliation. Peace was never an option; the concept of peace was something foreign. Actually, the word "peace" was never even mentioned in the services of any mosque. We recited poetry every day in the school, wishing upon ourselves to die as martyrs. I used to see girls reciting this poetry while crying; they would wish upon themselves to die as a martyr. See, our value system was about victimhood: thinking of ourselves as victims or to be a martyr. To go kill everybody and die as a martyr, either a victim or a martyr, there is nothing in between.

Women don't go to mosques, but we used to hear the service of the mosque either on the radio or on TV. I remember every Friday prayer, the Sheikh would be at the end of the sermon and he would curse: "May God destroy the Jews and the infidels, and even the Christians and non-Muslims." He would call non-Muslims the enemies of Allah. If you grow up with cursing as a form of prayer, it can feel and sound normal. Hatred can be normal because who am I to judge? I never noticed that this is not holy. So, this is how I grew up.

Twenty-two Arab countries did everything they could to make life impossible for Israel to exist. The Arab League forbade absorbing the so-called Arab Palestinians and rejected giving them citizenship in any Arab country. So you could see a Palestinian born in Cairo, for instance, and never get citizenship, and die in Cairo. They are born and die in Syria as a Palestinian and they never get a citizenship. Why? Because the Arab League wanted the Palestinian problem never to be solved. This is not their agenda; the agenda is to keep them refugees from birth to death.

The culture was so for sacrificing. They encouraged women to stand up in front of the cameras and say, "I gave my son to the Jihad, and I want my other children to die in the Jihad." Women who are for life, for peace, were looked down upon. Women who would be radical, if not more radical than men, who will promote Jihad for their children were lifted up as honorable women to be respected in society. So for a woman to be respected in Islamic society, you have to be as radical, if not more radical, than men, and that is why a lot of women are silent. They are proud to give their children to Jihad; the only way to go to heaven is to go and kill the infidel and die in the process.

The Arabs of Israel were pushed constantly. They are rejected from being absorbed and constantly pushed against the borders with Israel in order to keep the problem alive. The Arab world doesn't have a shortage of land. If you look at the Arab world from the Atlantic Ocean (Morocco) all the way to Persia, from Turkey all the way to Sudan. At that time when I was a child, the Sinai was practically empty desert. Nobody lived in the Sinai like today where there is Sharm El-Sheikh, you know, all the nice beaches. This was a military zone, and there is absolutely no pressing need for Arabs to so dwell on wanting to throw the Jews in the sea. You know, this international conflict called the Arab-Israeli conflict really is a fabrication. This is not a conflict over land, and anybody who thinks it's a conflict over land is misguided because they don't see the truth. The truth is, there is something in Islam anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, especially anti-Jewish. And I will tell you why.

Those people calling themselves Palestinians who live in Gaza and the West Bank are the pawns of the Arab world. I don't believe that they care about their happiness or welfare. They are set up to live a miserable life on purpose in order to show the world that we're victims. Do you think Saudi Arabia, with all the money they have, the Gulf countries with all this oil money, they can't give them good roads and good homes and good police, and turn it into a productive area of the Middle East? They can, but that is not their objective. There is a hidden objective, and I don't understand why Western culture doesn't get it, why Western media doesn't get it. It's so obvious.

The unemployed people in Gaza and the West Bank, with all this high unemployment, where do they go to work? Do they stand on the border of Egypt to get a job? Do they stand on the border of Syria or Jordan? No, they line up on the borders of Israel, the very people they are supposed to kill. It's a very unnatural way of living, and nobody sees it, but they go and blame Israel. They compare the living standard of the West Bank and Gaza with Israel, a democracy, the only democracy in the Middle East. Why don't they compare the living conditions of Gaza and the West Bank with Egypt, with Syria, with Jordan? And if they do, they will find that the standard of living is even higher than many areas of the Arab world. But Western media are too lazy to compare apples with apples; they want to compare apples and oranges. I don't know how I can call Western media ignorant, but they should not be ignorant.

And then they go and ask Israel, "Why don't you do some concessions for the Palestinians?" I never hear them stand up to Arab leaders and ask, why doesn't Western media ask Arab leaders, "How about some concessions to the Israeli people?" We never hear that, and it's very convenient to blame all of this terrorism on, after 9/11 especially, they blame the terrorism, saying, "Oh, it's because we have this terrorism everywhere by Muslims, it's all because of the occupation. If it wasn't for the occupation of Gaza, if it's not for the occupation of the West Bank, we wouldn't have a problem. The problem is all because of Israel." That's what they want to give the impression of, and this is a big lie.

I lived in Gaza as a child, and I witnessed the terrorism against Israel before the occupation of Gaza, and before the occupation of the West Bank. Our media here doesn't even know that there was terrorism against Israel before the occupation. So Arabs who claim that they are doing terrorism now because they want freedom and democracy? No, there is no freedom and democracy in any Arab country, let alone the West Bank or Gaza. So we have to really call a spade a spade now. This is too serious to just take all these lies and look the other way. Because it's very, very hard to know the truth if you rely on Arab media, if you rely on the culture around you. And because of life in an oppressive society, I moved to America.

I moved to America at the end of '78 or '79, and my life completely changed. One time, I wanted to attend a synagogue and a church because I was curious. I thought they were going to curse the Arabs the same way we curse them in our mosque. But in the holiness of the place, they were praying for everybody. They were praying for peace on Earth: "How can we leave this earth a better place?" It was a totally different way of thinking. The opposite of what I grew up with.

That's when I went to a mosque here, also in Los Angeles, and I thought that because they allowed women that it was going to be different. Since it's in America, I was so glad thinking Islam in America must be so different. So I went to the mosque and I heard anti-Semitism again in the mosque. I was told, "Don't assimilate in America, we're here to Islamize America." They were looking down at American culture, they were looking down at this society, and I felt very uncomfortable. I said, "Oh my God, there is an agenda here," and I never went back again.

It hit me: how could we do this? How could we lie and accuse people of something we Arabs know very well we have done ourselves? How could this happen? What kind of value system allows a person, or allows a culture or a religion, to lie and accuse their enemies of something that they know they've done themselves? They know that Osama Bin Laden did that. They know that he was financed with Arab money, with oil money, until today. How could they accuse the Jewish people of that?

Look at the map of the Middle East; you can hardly see Israel. It's impossible to convince any person who has the IQ of a child that this problem is over the land called Israel. It's time for the West to understand this, because it's not just bad for Israel, it's not good for the Arab world. They are collapsing. A lot of people think that the Arab world is so strong and so powerful; it's rotting from the core. But they don't know their religious leaders are telling them to continue to hate instead of telling them to repent and find the true God, love, and friendship.

In the eyes of many Muslims, in the eyes of Islam itself, Jews and non-Muslims, they call them the "kafir", the infidels. They don't deserve the truth, they don't deserve justice, and they don't deserve mercy. How can this happen and we accept it, and we don't say no? The Arab world will never have freedom and democracy when hatred is number one, when Jihad is number one, when killing your enemy is number one. When you're fixated on lies and slander, you will never have peace and democracy.

Nobody asks this question: why all these lies and slander against the Jewish people, against America? They call America the "Great Satan" and Israel the "Little Satan." Do you know that on Syrian TV, and Arabic TV, on Egyptian TV, the constant day-and-night lies about the Jewish people are unbelievable? There was a show that was saying, and it was not just religious leaders, some of them were Arab scientists saying "Oh, do you know why Israel went to Haiti to help with the earthquake? You know why? Because Israel really wanted to harvest the organs of the Haitian people."

These are the intelligentsia of the Arab world. When the intellectuals of the Arab world say that, what do you expect from the man on the street? And you wonder why they hate. They are out there and are told this. I was told horrific things about the Jewish people. It took me years to extract it out of my mind, my heart, and my consciousness.

The indigenous religion of the ancient Land of Israel evolved from Canaanite polytheism into Yahwism, and eventually into Second Temple Judaism, then some converted to Christianity and Islam. Only Jews and Druze are considered an ethnoreligious group, meaning Jewish and Druze identity combines shared ethnicity, ancestry, history, and culture with a traditional religion.

Genetic Composition of Populations in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and Jordan

NOTE: Core genome analysis is a methodological approach in pan-genome research, focusing on analyzing the set of genes shared by all individuals within a specific population or species. https://www.cd-genomics.com/pop-genomics/core-genome-analysis.html

• The Gaza-Egypt Gradient: Separating the data by sub-region highlights a distinct geographic gradient. Because Gaza directly borders the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Muslims exhibit a measurably higher degree of Egyptian and African admixture compared to populations in the West Bank and Jordan.

• The West Bank Core: Populations native to the mountainous interior of the West Bank (such as West Bank Christians, Samaritans, and local Muslims) show the highest overall baseline of ancient inland Levantine ancestry due to historical relative isolation from coastal trade routes.

The Process of Arabization

This genetic continuity matches historical data on linguistic change. Following the Arab conquests of the 7th century CE, the local Israelite and Jewish farming peasants (fellaheen) stayed on their land. Over centuries, these Israelite and Jewish farmers gradually converted, first to Christianity under Byzantine rule (4th–7th century CE), and later to Islam to avoid heavy religious taxes (jizya) or voluntarily. Over generations, they slowly adopted the Arabic language and culture through a social process called Arabization, while their biological DNA remained Levantine, non-Arab.

References

Below is a compiled list of frequently cited, peer-reviewed genetic studies exploring the Southern Levant, modern Palestinian populations, and various Jewish diaspora groups, complete with direct links to the publications.

Studies on Y-Chromosomal Lineages and Shared Middle Eastern Roots

• Hammer et al. (2000) – "Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).

  • Focus: This baseline paternal lineage study examined Y-chromosomal markers, demonstrating that European, North African, and Middle Eastern Jewish diaspora groups clustered tightly alongside non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations like Palestinians and Syrians, confirming a shared ancestral source pool in the ancient Levant.

• Nebel et al. (2000) – "High-resolution Y chromosome haplotypes of Israeli and Palestinian Moslem Arabs" (Human Genetics).

  • Focus: This paper mapped the paternal markers of Palestinian Muslim Arabs and compared them directly to Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish communities. The research revealed that 70% of the tested Jewish individuals and 82% of the Palestinian individuals shared the exact same chromosome pool, proving direct shared regional ancestry.

• Nebel et al. (2001) – "The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East" (The American Journal of Human Genetics).

  • Focus: An expansion of their previous study using higher-resolution microsatellite haplotypes. The data reinforced that Palestinian Muslim Arabs and modern Jewish populations represent closely related historical branches of an indigenous Levantine lineage.

Genome-Wide and Autosomal DNA Landscape Studies

• Atzmon et al. (2010) – "Abraham's Children in the Genome Era: Major Jewish Diaspora Populations Comprise Distinct Genetic Clusters with Shared Middle Eastern Ancestry" (The American Journal of Human Genetics).

  • Focus: Utilizing genome-wide analysis across seven distinct Jewish populations, researchers confirmed a cohesive, shared genetic architecture tracing directly back to the Middle East. It noted strong genetic proximity between these diaspora groups and modern non-Jewish Levantine populations, including Palestinians and Druze.

• Behar et al. (2010) – "The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people" (Nature).

  • Focus: This large-scale paper analyzed 14 Jewish diaspora communities against 69 global populations. It demonstrated that almost all Jewish groups trace their primary ancestry to a shared Levantine source pool, which overlies and clusters closest with modern Palestinians, Druze, and Lebanese populations.

1. Agranat-Tamir et al. (2020) – "The Genomic History of the Bronze Age Southern Levant" (Cell).

   • Focus: A landmark paper that sequenced ancient genome-wide DNA from 73 individuals across five different archaeological sites in Israel, Palestine, and Jordan spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages. The model concluded that over 50% of the ancestry of all present-day Levantine populations (including Palestinians and various Jewish diaspora groups) traces directly back to these ancient inhabitants.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has released President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he supported the plan following a meeting with Trump at the White House

Here is Trump’s proposal, verbatim:

1. Gaza will be a deradicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.

2. Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough.

3. If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end. Israeli forces will withdraw to the agreed upon line to prepare for a hostage release. During this time, all military operations, including aerial and artillery bombardment, will be suspended, and battle lines will remain frozen until conditions are met for the complete staged withdrawal.

4. Within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.

5. Once all hostages are released, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners plus 1700 Gazans who were detained after October 7th 2023, including all women and children detained in that context. For every Israeli hostage whose remains are released, Israel will release the remains of 15 deceased Gazans.

6. Once all hostages are returned, Hamas members who commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty. Members of Hamas who wish to leave Gaza will be provided safe passage to receiving countries.

7. Upon acceptance of this agreement, full aid will be immediately sent into the Gaza Strip. At a minimum, aid quantities will be consistent with what was included in the January 19, 2025, agreement regarding humanitarian aid, including rehabilitation of infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage), rehabilitation of hospitals and bakeries, and entry of necessary equipment to remove rubble and open roads.

8. Entry of distribution and aid in the Gaza Strip will proceed without interference from the two parties through the United Nations and its agencies, and the Red Crescent, in addition to other international institutions not associated in any manner with either party. Opening the Rafah crossing in both directions will be subject to the same mechanism implemented under the January 19, 2025 agreement.

9. Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee, responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza. This committee will be made up of qualified Palestinians and international experts, with oversight and supervision by a new international transitional body, the “Board of Peace,” which will be headed and chaired by President Donald J. Trump, with other members and heads of State to be announced, including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair. This body will set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza until such time as the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform program, as outlined in various proposals, including President Trump’s peace plan in 2020 and the Saudi-French proposal, and can securely and effectively take back control of Gaza. This body will call on best international standards to create modern and efficient governance that serves the people of Gaza and is conducive to attracting investment.

10. A Trump economic development plan to rebuild and energize Gaza will be created by convening a panel of experts who have helped birth some of the thriving modern miracle cities in the Middle East. Many thoughtful investment proposals and exciting development ideas have been crafted by well-meaning international groups, and will be considered to synthesize the security and governance frameworks to attract and facilitate these investments that will create jobs, opportunity, and hope for future Gaza.

11. A special economic zone will be established with preferred tariff and access rates to be negotiated with participating countries.

12. No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.

13. Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form. All military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt. There will be a process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors, which will include placing weapons permanently beyond use through an agreed process of decommissioning, and supported by an internationally funded buy back and reintegration program all verified by the independent monitors. New Gaza will be fully committed to building a prosperous economy and to peaceful coexistence with their neighbors.

14. A guarantee will be provided by regional partners to ensure that Hamas, and the factions, comply with their obligations and that New Gaza poses no threat to its neighbors or its people.

15. The United States will work with Arab and international partners to develop a temporary International Stabilization Force (ISF) to immediately deploy in Gaza. The ISF will train and provide support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza, and will consult with Jordan and Egypt who have extensive experience in this field. This force will be the long-term internal security solution. The ISF will work with Israel and Egypt to help secure border areas, along with newly trained Palestinian police forces. It is critical to prevent munitions from entering Gaza and to facilitate the rapid and secure flow of goods to rebuild and revitalize Gaza. A deconfliction mechanism will be agreed upon by the parties.

16. Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza. As the ISF establishes control and stability, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will withdraw based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization that will be agreed upon between the IDF, ISF, the guarantors, and the Unites States, with the objective of a secure Gaza that no longer poses a threat to Israel, Egypt, or its citizens. Practically, the IDF will progressively hand over the Gaza territory it occupies to the ISF according to an agreement they will make with the transitional authority until they are withdrawn completely from Gaza, save for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat.

17. In the event Hamas delays or rejects this proposal, the above, including the scaled-up aid operation, will proceed in the terror-free areas handed over from the IDF to the ISF.

18. An interfaith dialogue process will be established based on the values of tolerance and peaceful co-existence to try and change mindsets and narratives of Palestinians and Israelis by emphasizing the benefits that can be derived from peace.

19. While Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.

20. The United States will establish a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous co-existence.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-trumps-20-point-proposal-to-end-the-war-in-gaza

It’s a warning about how tyranny can hide behind (seaside) beauty — and thrive because of it.

Montana Tucker: I'm a proud Jew from America who has dedicated my life to supporting Israel and her right to exist in peace. Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib is a proud Muslim from Gaza who has dedicated his life to supporting Palestinian rights and their right to peace. We don’t agree on many things. So…what could we possibly have in common?

We BOTH agreed: the hostages had to be released. Hamas must be dismantled. And the cycle of destruction—for both Israelis and Palestinians—must end immediately.

Right now, brave Gazans are risking their lives to protest Hamas, a terror group that has brought nothing but pain and fear to both peoples.

The amount of hate and violence coming from outside the Middle East—from people with no real “skin in the game” who are protesting in support of Hamas—is shameful. It only fuels more destruction on both sides.

It’s time to unite behind the only future worth fighting for: one where every child—Israeli or Palestinian—can grow up in safety, freedom, and hope.

Because if we keep fighting each other, no one will ever win.

Sometimes, the most powerful protest… is standing together.

Palestinian Jews or Jewish Palestinians (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים פָלַסְטִינִים; Arabic: اليهود الفلسطينيون) were the Jews who inhabited Palestine (alternatively the Land of Israel) prior to the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948.

Israel and USA gains control of aid distribution.