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Israel and Jordan1980 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses
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The land that is now the modern nations of Israel and Jordan is of special interest to Jehovah’s Witnesses. This is because most of the people spoken about in the Bible lived here, and the events in which they were involved occurred here. Yet our interest is not only in what happened to ancient servants of Jehovah who lived in this land; it is also in connection with the activities of Jehovah’s modern-day Witnesses. What has been the situation with this land and its people in the years since Jesus Christ and his apostles walked and taught here?
In Jesus’ day and afterward the land was under the control of the Romans, and was called Palestine.a As a result of conflicts with the Romans, most of the Jews fled Palestine by the early part of the second century. The land, however, remained a part of the Roman Empire until the 600’s, with most of its inhabitants professing Christianity. Then the Arabs swept over Palestine, and the land came under Moslem rule.
Eventually, beginning in 1096, crusades were organized by professed Christians from Europe to seize the land from the “infidels.” In that first crusade, Jerusalem was captured in 1099. However, the city was taken back from the “Christians” by the Moslem ruler Saladin in 1187. More crusades followed, and the land was drenched with blood as barbarous atrocities and cruelties were inflicted on countless thousands while Moslems and professed Christians fought to control Palestine.
In 1517 the Ottoman Turks took possession of Palestine and held it for 400 years. During the latter part of the 1800’s Jews from Europe began to migrate to Palestine. By 1914, out of the land’s total population of nearly 700,000, about 85,000 were Jews. Then, in 1917, during World War I, the British forces under General Allenby defeated the Turks and ended their long rule of Palestine.
In the years following World War I a new political state east of the Jordan River came into existence. It was called the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan and more recently was known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Yet most of Palestine was a mandated territory of Britain. On May 14, 1948, however, the new nation of Israel came into existence, and the next day war broke out between Israel and surrounding Arab nations. In this war most of Palestine west of the Jordan River came under the control of Israel, although about 2,165 square miles (5,607 km2) of this territory became part of Jordan.
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Israel and Jordan1980 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses
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a The name “Palestine” was derived indirectly from “Philistia,” a name originally limited to the coast territory occupied by the Philistines.
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