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A Brief History of Gaza: From The Philistines to Hamas
A land always at the crossroads and in the crosshairs
No one will deny that the situation in Gaza is a mess. Whether you are an American or Israeli, Zionist or two-state nationalist, Muslim, Christian, or Jew, you can’t deny that what is happening in Gaza is not ideal. It is a mess. The Gaza Strip, or just Gaza, is beset by war, poverty, political tyranny, and international isolation, and it has been for decades. This current war, the most extreme in decades, is just the sad accumulation of a long and fraught history.
So, how did we get here? Gaza is a topic that many people like to talk about, but how many people actually know the history of this particular area? The situation in Gaza today cannot be fully understood without going back to the very beginning.
The history of Gaza, dating back thousands of years, is one of near constant conflict. The area has been the subject of a tug-of-war of hostile powers and global empires of all kinds. Unlike Israel, Gaza and Palestine have never been an independent nation of their own. Even the earliest Canaanite city-states were under the sway of nearby Egypt. Instead, the inhabitants of Gaza have been forced to contend with a never-ending parade of foreign powers overseeing their affairs and claiming their lands.
