If you grew up in the United States, it’s likely that you have often heard Americans - when referring to conflict in Palestine - say something to the effect of:
“Well, Jews and Muslims have fighting over that land for thousands of years. They hate each other and there’s no way we’ll ever have peace there.”
I think you all be surprised to learn that Americans are complete dumbasses when it comes to history, because this notion of Jews and Muslims struggling in eternal conflict over a piece of land is an absolute myth.
Up until the last hundred years or so, then stretching back to Roman Empire times, Jews and Muslims (and Christians) have lived together in Palestine. From the third or fourth century CE until the emergence of Islam, Jews and Christians both lived there (oftentimes it was Jewish people who converted to Christianity). After Islam emerges then you had three groups living there, in various proportions, with the Muslim proportion steadily getting larger over the centuries; and there really doesn’t seem to be intra-group conflict beyond a sort of baseline for humans.
Of course there was conflict and war. You had Turks and Crusaders and others fighting plenty of wars in the area. But it doesn’t seem to me like there was any more amount of war in Palestine during that time than there was, say, in the Rhine Valley. And also, just because there are wars doesn’t mean that there is conflict between groups of people. In general, it seems like for centuries, Jews, Muslims and Christians occupying the same space in relative peace seems to be the norm. Even up until before the Balfour declaration, there were a number of Jewish people living alongside Muslims in Palestine. But importantly, the Jewish people in Palestine didn’t seek to dominate, but to either mind their own business quietly in their community, or even with a sort of shared Palestinian identity with their Muslim neighbors.
Co-existence has been the historical norm there, not conflict.
As best as I can tell, this whole notion of “they’ve been fighting forever” comes from one specific source: Evangelical Christians. It’s because that group believes that roughly 4,000 years ago, the only humans alive were Noah and his family. Then in a few generations, Jacob and Esau fought over a birthright and then those two literally became the first ancestors of Jews and Muslims, respectively. There’s some verse in there about “always struggling against each other” or something. These Evangelicals then go on to believe everything else in the Old Testament - despite the overwhelming historical evidence - is literally true. That the Jewish people were slaves in Egypt and then conquered Palestine (there’s no evidence for Jews being slaves in Egypt and most historians believe the Jewish people emerged out of the larger Canaanite people, not as something separate from them). These Evangelicals can then excuse genocide if not encourage it since it’s inevitable anyway (and in that they side with Israel, because they’re all racist pieces of shit).
Once again, Evangelicals making the world worse for everyone.
christians and jews fought over jerusalem a lot longer than muslims and jews ever did.
i thought it was jews and babylonians fought each other in the iron age, then jews and romans in late antiquity, then christians and muslims in the middle ages, then under the ottomans abrahamic faiths coexisted in jerusalem, but with a muslim majority. but my history knowledge here is probably incomplete. When were jews and christians ever fighting each other over jerusalem? I’m pretty sure the history of jews vs christians is the history of jews being minorities in europe and suffering pogroms, with very little in the way symmetrical warfare.
the christians ruled Jerusalem under the romans and as romans with the jews expelled for 5 centuries until the Persians and then 'Umar let them back in. add in a century and a half for Crusader rule where the christians expelled the jews again.
that’s a damn sight longer than the israeli colonial project’s made a conflict with muslims. the vast majority of muslim rule was amicable, starting out as it did with the reversal of the roman exile.
and this is entirely within the levant, Christians are the antisemitism world champions when you include europe, the most crocodillian of tears are coming from them as they yell about muslim antisemitism
100%
Well the Babylonians enslaved the Jews but also the Babylonians fought everybody.
It was the Neo-Babylonians. They wore shades and leather dusters.