Federation of Canaan

Flag of the Federation of Canaan

40% Arameans

1% Jerusalemites

42% Christian

Christian President: Azmi Bishara

Muslim President: Rami Hamdallah

The **Federation of Canaan** (Arabic: اتحاد كنعان, *Ittiḥād Kanʿān,* Hebrew: פדרציה של כנען, *Federátsiya Shel K'nā'an*) is a sovereign state in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. It has land borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan on the east and Egypt to the southwest. The country contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area.

The Federation of Canaan is a very ethnically, religiously and linguistically diverse country established following the Jerusalem War and the consequential Jerusalem Accords. The main body of the Federation of Canaan was formed from the the United Canaanite Army, a paramilitary force created from pro-democracy Muslims, Christians and Jews. There are four capital cities: three unofficial capitals and one official capital city. The three unofficial capital cities represent the three main religious groups of Canaan: Tel Aviv is the Jewish Capital, Nazareth is the Christian Capital and Nablus is the Muslim Capital. Tikva-Salam (Arabic: تكفا سلام, Hebrew: תקוה-סלאם) is the officially recognized Capital city and is west of Rehovot and north of Ashdod. Tikva-Salam was established as a historically and politically neutral capital for the new country that suffered from intense ethnic and religious tensions. Tikva means "Hope" in Hebrew and Salam means "Peace" in Arabic.

The Federation of Canaan is considered the heartland of all Abrahamic religions and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited territories in the world.

## Etymology

Following the Jerusalem Wars and the Jerusalem Accords there was great debate around what to name this new democratic nation. Many Muslims advocated for Palestine which Jews rejected due to its history as the colonial name of ancient Israel. Jews advocated for Israel which Muslims and Christians rejected for its inherent Jewish history. Christians advocated for just the Levant as a geographic term. They finally came to the consensus on Canaan, the biblical geographic name for the land. It predated ancient Israel and was present in Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

The English term Canaan comes from the Hebrew כנען‬ (*knʿn*), via Greek Χαναάν *Khanaan* and Latin *Canaan*. It appears as 𒆳𒆠𒈾𒄴𒈾 (*KURki-na-ah-na*) in the Amarna letters (14th century BC), and *knʿn* is found on coins from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium. It first occurs in Greek in the writings of Hecataeus as *Khna* (Χνᾶ). Scholars connect the name *Canaan* with *knʿn*, *Kana'an*, the general Northwest Semitic name for this region.

The etymology is uncertain. An early explanation derives the term from the Semitic root *knʿ* "to be low, humble, subjugated". Some scholars have suggested that this implies an original meaning of "lowlands", in contrast with Aram, which would then mean "highlands", whereas others have suggested it meant "the subjugated" as the name of Egypt's province in the Levant, and evolved into the proper name in a similar fashion to Provincia Nostra (the first Roman colony north of the Alps, which became Provence).

## History

### **Classical Period**

The territory of the Federation of Canaan has been populated for around 120,000 years and is considered the heartland for all Abrahamic Religions. The first people to unify the region were the ancient Israelites under the Jewish Kingdom of Israel which then in 930 CE broke into the Kingdom of Israel-Samaria (930 BCE - 720 BCE) and the Kingdom of Judah (930 BCE - 586 BCE). In 586 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon conquered the Kingdom of Judah. According to the Hebrew Bible, he destroyed Solomon's Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylon. The Babylonian exile ended around 538 BCE under the rule of the Persian Cyrus the Great after he captured Babylon. The Second Temple was constructed around 520 BCE. As part of the Persian Empire, the former Kingdom of Judah became the province of Judah (Yehud Medinata) with different borders, covering a smaller territory. The population of the province was greatly reduced from that of the kingdom, archaeological surveys showing a population of around 30,000 people in the 5th to 4th centuries BCE.

The Greek conquests largely skipped the region without any resistance or interest. Incorporated into Ptolemaic and finally Seleucid empires, the southern Levant was heavily hellenized, building the tensions between Judeans and Greeks. The conflict erupted in 167 BCE with the Maccabean Revolt, which succeeded in establishing an independent Hasmonean Kingdom in Judah, which later expanded over much of modern Israel, as the Seleucids gradually lost control in the region.

### **Roman Period**

The Roman Empire invaded the region in 63 BCE, first taking control of Syria, and then intervening in the Hasmonean Civil War. The struggle between pro-Roman and pro-Parthian factions in Judea eventually led to the installation of Herod the Great and consolidation of the Herodian kingdom as a vassal Judean state of Rome. With the decline of the Herodian dynasty, Judea, transformed into a Roman province, became the site of a violent struggle of Jews against Greco-Romans, culminating in the Jewish–Roman wars, ending in wide-scale destruction, expulsions, and genocide. Jewish presence in the region significantly dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE. Following this Roman Judea was renamed to Palestine in an attempt to remove Jewish claims to the region.

Christianity emerged during the 1st century CE and began to gain traction in the Levant and the surrounding regions. Around the time associated with the birth of Jesus, Roman Palestine was in a state of disarray and direct Roman rule was re-established. Most scholars agree that Jesus was a Galilean Jew, born around the beginning of the first century, and hold that Jesus lived in Galilee and Judea and did not preach or study elsewhere. Using the gospel accounts with historical data, most scholars arrive at a date of birth between 6 and 4 BCE for Jesus, but some propose estimates that lie in a wider range. The general scholarly consensus is that Jesus was a contemporary of John the Baptist and was crucified by Roman governor Pontius Pilate. Most scholars agree that his crucifixion was between 30 and 33 CE.

Following the victory of Christian emperor Constantine in the Civil Wars of the Tetrarchy (306–324), the total Christianization of the Roman Empire began. Within a few months, the First Council of Nicaea (first worldwide Christian council) confirmed the status of Aelia (Jerusalem) as a patriarchate. Theodosius I declared Christianity the state religion of the empire in 380, and Palestine became part of the Eastern Roman Empire ("Byzantium") after the division of the Roman Empire into east and west (a fitful process that was not finalized until 395 CE).

### **Islamic Period**

Following the rise of Islam in the 7th century CE, newly converted Arabs under the Rashidun Caliphate invaded Christian Byzantine controlled Palestine during the Siege of Jerusalem which led to the death of many Jews who were caught between the two empires and the construction of a mosque (now known as the Dome of the Rock) were the Jewish Holy Temple once stood. In Arabic, the area approximating the Byzantine Diocese of Palaestina I in the south (roughly Judea, Philistia, and southern Jordan) was called Jund Filastin (meaning "the military district of Palestine", as a tax administrative area), and the Diocese of Palaestina II in the north (roughly Samaria, Galilee, Golan, and northern Jordan) Jund al-Urdunn.

In 661, with the assassination of Ali, the last of the Rashidun Caliphs, Muawiyah I became the uncontested Caliph of the Islamic World. Muawiyah I was ordained as Caliph in Jerusalem, ending the First Fitna and marking the beginning of the Umayyad Empire.

Under Umayyad rule, the Byzantine province of Palaestina Prima became the administrative and military sub-province (*jund*) of Filastin—the Arabic name for Palestine from that point forward. It formed one of five subdivisions of the larger province of *ash-Sham* (Arabic for Greater Syria). *Jund Filastin* (Arabic جند فلسطين, literally "the army of Palestine") was a region extending from the Sinai to the plain of Acre. Major towns included Rafah, Caesarea, Gaza, Jaffa, Nablus and Jericho. Lod served as the headquarters of the province of Filastin and the capital later moved to Ramla. *Jund al-Urdunn* (literally "the army of Jordan") was a region to the north and east of Filastin, which included the cities of Acre, Bisan and Tiberias.

In 1054, the Great Schism formally divided the Christian church into east and west, resulting in the holy sites of Palestine falling under the jurisdiction of the Eastern Orthodox Church. However, in 1090, Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos began taking reconciliatory measures towards the Papacy, with the intention of seeking western support against the Seljuqs. In 1095 his ambassadors appeared before Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza, to request mercenary forces, and later that year at the Council of Clermont Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade.

### **Crusades**

The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Christian kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 as a result of the First Crusade. Its control of Jerusalem and most of Palestine lasted almost a century until defeat by Saladin's forces in 1187, after which most of Palestine was controlled by the Ayyubids.

Shortly after Crusader rule was established in Palestine, Godfrey of Bouillon promised to turn over the rule of the region to the Papacy once the crusaders had captured Egypt. However, the invasion of Egypt did not occur as Godfrey died shortly thereafter and Baldwin was proclaimed the first King of Jerusalem after politically outmaneuvering Dagobert of Pisa who had previously been appointed as the Latin Patriarch.

At first the Crusader kingdom was little more than a loose collection of towns and cities captured during the first crusade. At its height, the kingdom roughly encompassed the territory of modern-day Israel and the State of Palestine. It extended from modern Lebanon in the north to the Sinai Desert in the south, and into modern Jordan and Syria in the east. There were also attempts to expand the kingdom into Fatimid Egypt. Its kings held a certain amount of authority over the other crusader states to the north: the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa.

Many customs and institutions were imported from the territories of Western Europe from which the crusaders came, and there were close familial and political connections with the West throughout the kingdom's existence. It was, however, a relatively minor kingdom in comparison and often lacked financial and military support from Europe. Locally based military orders were founded in the kingdom to fill this vacuum. The foundation of the Knights Hospitaller by Gerard Thom at the Muristan Christian hospice in Jerusalem was confirmed by a Papal Bull from Pope Paschal II in 1113, and the founding by Hugues de Payens and Godfrey de Saint-Omer of the Knights Templar took place in 1119 in the Al Aqsa Mosque.

The kingdom grew closer to the neighboring Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia and the Byzantine Empire, from which it inherited "oriental" qualities, and the kingdom was also influenced by pre-existing Muslim institutions. However, when Arnulf of Chocques was appointed Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem for the second time in 1112, he prohibited non-Catholic worship at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Socially, the "Latin" inhabitants from Western Europe had almost no contact with the Muslims and Eastern Christians whom they ruled.

The Royal Palace of the Kingdom was based in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Dome of the Rock was converted into a church. Under the Crusader rule, fortifications, castles, towers and fortified villages were built, rebuilt and renovated across Palestine largely in rural areas.

During the period of Crusader control, it has been estimated that Palestine had only 1,000 poor Jewish families. Jews fought alongside the Muslims against the Crusaders in Jerusalem in 1099 and Haifa in 1100. In July 1187, the Cairo-based Kurdish General Saladin commanded his troops to victory in the Battle of Hattin, shortly followed by the Siege of Jerusalem (1187) in which Saladin captured Jerusalem. Following the crusader defeat by Saladin's forces in 1187, most of Palestine was controlled by the Ayyubids. A rump crusader state in the northern coastal cities known as the Kingdom of Acre survived in the region for another hundred years until 1291, throughout the Ayyubid Period and well into the Mamluk Period. However, despite seven further crusades from Europe, the crusader state was no longer a significant power in the region after the fall of Jerusalem in 1187.

### **Ottoman Period**

In 1486, hostilities broke out between the Mamluks and the Ottoman Turks in a battle for control over western Asia. The Ottomans proceeded to conquer Palestine following their victory over the Mamluks at the Battle of Marj Dabiq. The Ottoman conquest of Palestine was relatively swift, with small battles fought against the Mamluks in the Jordan Valley and at Khan Yunis en route to the Mamluk capital in Egypt. There were also minor uprisings in Gaza, Ramla and Safad, which were quickly suppressed.

The Ottomans maintained the administrative and political organization that the Mamluks left in Palestine. The region was divided into the five *sanjaks* (provincial districts, also called *liwa′* in Arabic) of Safad, Nablus,  Jerusalem, Lajjun and Gaza, all part of the larger *eyalet* (province) of Damascus. The *sanjaks* were further subdivided into subdistricts called *nawahi* (sing. *nahiya*). For much of the 16th century, the Ottomans ruled Damascus Eyalet in a centralized way, with the Istanbul-based Sublime Porte (imperial government) playing a crucial role in maintaining public order and domestic security, collecting taxes, and regulating the economy, religious affairs and social welfare. Most of Palestine's population, estimated to be around 200,000 in the early years of Ottoman rule, lived in villages. The largest cities were Gaza, Safad and Jerusalem, each with a population of around 5,000–6,000.

Ottoman property administration consisted of a system of fiefs called *timar* and trusts called *waqf*. *Timar* lands were distributed by the sultan to various officers and officials, particularly from the elite *sipahi* units. A *timar* was a source of income for its holder, who was responsible for maintaining order and enforcing the law in the *timar*. *Waqf* land was owned by various individuals and its revenues were dedicated to religious functions and institutions, social welfare and individual beneficiaries. Over 60% of cultivated land in the Jerusalem Sanjak was *waqf* land. To a lesser extent, there was also privately owned land predominantly located within villages and their immediate vicinity.

The name "Palestine" was no longer used as the official name of an administrative unit under the Ottomans because they typically named provinces after their capitals. Nonetheless, the old name remained in popular and semi-official use, with many examples of its usage in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries surviving. The 16th-century Jerusalem-based Islamic jurist Sayf al-Islam Abu'l Sa'ud Effendi defined the term as an alternative name for *Arazi-i Muqaddas* (Turkish for "the Holy Land"). The 17th-century Ramla-based jurist Khayr al-Din al-Ramli often used the term "Filastin" in his *fatawat* (religious edicts) without defining the term, although some of his *fatawat* suggest that it more or less corresponded with the borders of Jund Filastin.

In February 1799, Emperor Napoleon of France entered Palestine after conquering Egypt as part of his campaign against the Ottomans, who were allied with his enemy, the British Empire. He occupied Gaza and moved north along Palestine's coastal plain, capturing Jaffa, where his forces massacred some 3,000 Ottoman troops who had surrendered and many civilians. His forces then captured Haifa and used it as a staging ground for their siege of Acre. Napoleon called for Jewish support to capture Jerusalem. This was done to gain favor with Haim Farhi, Jazzar's Jewish vizier. The invasion rallied the sheikhs of Jabal Nablus, with the *multazem* of Jenin, Sheikh Yusuf al-Jarrar, beckoning them to combat the French. In contrast to the sheikhs of the Hebron Hills and Jerusalem who provided conscripts to the Ottoman Army, the sheikhs of Jabal Nablus fought independently, to the chagrin of the Sublime Porte. Their men were defeated by the French in the Galilee. Napoleon failed to conquer Acre and his defeat by Jazzar's forces, backed by the British, compelled him to withdraw from Palestine with heavy losses in May. Jazzar's victory significantly boosted his prestige. The Ottomans pursued the French in Egypt in 1800, using Gaza as their launch point.

By the 1800's the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities of Palestine were allowed to exercise jurisdiction over their own members according to charters granted to them. For centuries the Jews and Christians had enjoyed a large degree of communal autonomy in matters of worship, jurisdiction over personal status, taxes, and in managing their schools and charitable institutions. In the 19th century those rights were formally recognized as part of the Tanzimat reforms and when the communities were placed under the protection of European public law.

In the 1860s, the Ottoman military was able to restore order east of Jordan by halting tribal conflicts and Bedouin raids. This invited migration to the east, notably the Salt area, from various populations in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine to take advantage of new lands. This influx amounted to some 12,000 over the period from 1880 to just before the First World War, while the Bedouin population east of Jordan increased to 56,000. However, with the creation of the Transjordanian emirate in 1921–22, the hamlet of Amman, which had been recently resettled by Circassians, attracted most of the new immigrants from Palestine, and many of those that had previously moved to Salt.

In the reorganisation of 1873, which established the administrative boundaries that remained in place until 1914, Palestine was split between three major administrative units. The northern part, above a line connecting Jaffa to north Jericho and the Jordan, was assigned to the vilayet of Beirut, subdivided into the *sanjaks* (districts) of Acre, Beirut and Nablus. The southern part, from Jaffa downwards, was part of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, a special district under the direct authority of Istanbul.[282] Its southern boundaries were unclear but petered out in the eastern Sinai Peninsula and northern Negev Desert. Most of the central and southern Negev was assigned to the vilayet of Hejaz, which also included the Sinai Peninsula and the western part of Arabia.

### **Rise of Zionism**

The rise of Zionism, the national movement of the Jewish people started in Europe in the 19th century seeking to recreate a Jewish state in Palestine, and return the original homeland of the Jewish people. The end of the 19th century saw the beginning of Zionist immigration. The "First Aliyah" was the first modern widespread wave of Zionist aliyah. Jews who migrated to Palestine in this wave came mostly from Eastern Europe and from Yemen. This wave of aliyah began in 1881–82 and lasted until 1903 with an estimated 25,000–35,000 Jewish settlers. The First Aliyah laid the cornerstone for Jewish settlement in Palestine and created several settlements such as Rishon LeZion, Rosh Pina, Zikhron Ya'akov and Gedera.

In 1891, a group of Jerusalem notables sent a petition to the central Ottoman government in Istanbul calling for the cessation of Jewish immigration, and land sales to Jews. The "Second Aliyah" took place between 1904 and 1914, during which approximately 40,000 Jews immigrated, mostly from Russia and Poland, and some from Yemen. The Second Aliyah immigrants were Jews fleeing from the increasing antisemitism sweeping throughout Europe. They thus founded the kibbutz movement. The first kibbutz, Degania, was founded in 1909. Tel Aviv was founded at that time, though its founders were not necessarily from the new immigrants.

The Second Aliyah is largely credited with the revival of the Hebrew language and establishing it as the standard language for Jews in Israel. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda contributed to the creation of the first modern Hebrew dictionary. Although he was an immigrant of the First Aliyah, his work mostly bore fruit during the second.

Ottoman rule over the eastern Mediterranean lasted until the Great War of 1914 when the Ottomans sided with the German Empire and the Central Powers. During World War I, the Ottomans were driven from much of the region by the British Empire during the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire

### **Mandate Period**

In World War I, the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany. As a result, it was embroiled in a conflict with the United Kingdom. Under the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916, it was envisioned that most of Palestine, when freed from Ottoman control, would become an international zone not under direct French or British colonial control. Shortly thereafter, British foreign minister Arthur Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which promised to establish a "Jewish national home" in Palestine but appeared to contradict the 1915–16 Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, which contained an undertaking to form a united Arab state in exchange for the Great Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. McMahon's promises could have been seen by Arab nationalists as a pledge of immediate Arab independence, an undertaking violated by the region's subsequent partition into British and French League of Nations mandates under the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 1916, which became the real cornerstone of the geopolitics structuring the entire region. The Balfour Declaration, likewise, was seen by Jewish nationalists as the cornerstone of a future Jewish homeland.

Following the First World War and the occupation of the region by the British, the principal Allied and associated powers drafted the mandate, which was formally approved by the League of Nations in 1922. Great Britain administered Palestine on behalf of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1945, a period referred to as the "British Mandate".

Not all were satisfied with the mandate. The purported objective of the League of Nations mandate system was to administer parts of the defunct Ottoman Empire, which had been in control of the Middle East since the 16th century, "until such time as they are able to stand alone". Some of the Arabs felt that Britain was violating the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence and the understanding of the Arab Revolt. Some wanted a unification with Syria: in February 1919, several Muslim and Christian groups from Jaffa and Jerusalem met and adopted a platform endorsing unity with Syria and opposition to Zionism (this is sometimes called the First Palestinian National Congress). A letter was sent to Damascus authorizing Faisal to represent the Arabs of Palestine at the Paris Peace Conference. In May 1919 a Syrian National Congress was held in Damascus, and a Palestinian delegation attended its sessions.

The 1922 census of Palestine recorded the population of Palestine as 757,000, of which 78% were Muslims, 11% were Jews, 10% were Christians and 1% were Druze. In the early years of the Mandate, Jewish immigration to Palestine was quite substantial. In April 1920, violent Arab disturbances against the Jews in Jerusalem occurred, which came to be known as the 1920 Palestine riots. The riots followed rising tensions in Arab-Jewish relations over the implications of Zionist immigration. The British military administration's erratic response failed to contain the rioting, which continued for four days. As a result of the events, trust among the British, Jews, and Arabs eroded.

In July 1920, the French drove Faisal bin Husayn from Damascus, ending his already negligible control over the region of Transjordan, where local chiefs traditionally resisted any central authority. The sheikhs, who had earlier pledged their loyalty to the Sharif of Mecca, asked the British to undertake the region's administration. Herbert Samuel asked for the extension of the Palestine government's authority to Transjordan, but at meetings in Cairo and Jerusalem between Winston Churchill and Emir Abdullah in March 1921 it was agreed that Abdullah would administer the territory (initially for six months only) on behalf of the Palestine administration. In the summer of 1921 Transjordan was included within the Mandate, but excluded from the provisions for a Jewish National Home. On 24 July 1922, the League of Nations approved the terms of the British Mandate over Palestine and Transjordan. On 16 September the League formally approved a memorandum from Lord Balfour confirming the exemption of Transjordan from the clauses of the mandate concerning the creation of a Jewish national home and Jewish settlement. With Transjordan coming under the administration of the British Mandate, the mandate's collective territory became constituted of 23% Palestine and 77% Transjordan. The mandate for Palestine, while specifying actions in support of Jewish immigration and political status, stated, in Article 25, that in the territory to the east of the Jordan River, Britain could 'postpone or withhold' those articles of the Mandate concerning a Jewish National Home. Transjordan was a very sparsely populated region (especially in comparison with Palestine proper) due to its relatively limited resources and largely desert environment.

Between 1922 and 1947, the annual growth rate of the Jewish sector of the economy was 13.2%, mainly due to immigration and foreign capital, while that of the Arab was 6.5%. Per capita, these figures were 4.8% and 3.6% respectively. By 1936, the Jewish sector had eclipsed the Arab one, and Jewish individuals earned 2.6 times as much as Arabs. In terms of human capital, there was a huge difference. For instance, the literacy rates in 1932 were 86% for the Jews against 22% for the Arabs, but Arab literacy was steadily increasing. Following the rise of the antisemitic Nazi regime in Germany, many Jews fled Germany for Palestine.

### **1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine**

Sparked off by the death of Shaykh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam at the hands of the British police near Jenin in November 1935, in the years 1936–1939 the Arabs participated in the Great Uprising to protest against British rule and against Jewish immigration. The revolt manifested in a strike and armed insurrection started sporadically, becoming more organized with time. Attacks were mainly directed at British strategic installations such as the Trans Arabian Pipeline (TAP) and railways, and to a lesser extent against Jewish settlements, secluded Jewish neighborhoods in the mixed cities, and Jews, both individually and in groups.

Violence abated for about a year while the Peel Commission deliberated and eventually recommended partition of Palestine. With the Arab rejection of this proposal, the revolt resumed during the autumn of 1937. Violence continued throughout 1938 and eventually petered out in 1939.

The *Haganah* (Hebrew for "defense"), a Jewish paramilitary organization, actively supported British efforts to quell the insurgency, which reached 10,000 Arab fighters at their peak during the summer and fall of 1938. Although the British administration did not officially recognize the *Haganah*, the British security forces cooperated with it by forming the Jewish Settlement Police and Special Night Squads. A terrorist splinter group of the Haganah, called the *Irgun* (or *Etzel*) adopted a policy of violent retaliation against Arabs for attacks on Jews. At a meeting in Alexandria in July 1937 between Jabotinsky and Irgun commander Col. Robert Bitker and chief-of-staff Moshe Rosenberg, the need for indiscriminate retaliation due to the difficulty of limiting operations to only the "guilty" was explained. The Irgun launched attacks against public gathering places such as markets and cafes.

### **Versailles War**

When the Versailles War broke out, the Jewish population sided with Britain. As in most of the Arab world, there was no unanimity among the Palestinian Arabs as to their position regarding the combatants in World War II. A number of leaders and public figures saw an Axis victory as the likely outcome and a way of securing Palestine back from the Zionists and the British. Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, spent the rest of the war in Nazi Germany and the occupied areas, he would later lead the Islamic Revolt and rise of the Mashriq Caliphate during the Jerusalem Wars. About 30,000 Palestinian Jews joined the British forces.

Starting in 1939 and throughout the war and the Tseshterung (Yiddish: צעשטערונג‎ "destruction"), the British reduced the number of Jewish immigrants allowed into Palestine, following the publication of the MacDonald White Paper. Once the 15,000 annual quota was exceeded, Jews fleeing Nazi persecution were placed in detention camps or deported to places such as Mauritius.

During this time Ze'ev Jabotinsky among other Zionist Jews went to Europe to aid in the emigration of Jews fleeing the Nazi regime to Palestine. Jabotinsky was killed while aiding Jews leading to David Raziel taking charge of Irgun.

Raziel was determined to force the British government to remove its troops entirely from Palestine. Citing that the British had reneged on their original promise of the Balfour Declaration, and that the White Paper of 1939 restricting Jewish immigration was an escalation of their pro-Arab policy, he decided to break with the Haganah. Soon after he assumed command, a formal 'Declaration of Revolt' was publicized, and armed attacks against British forces were initiated. Lehi led by Avraham Stern (who would later lead the Maccabean Army) opposed cessation of operations against the British authorities all along. The Jewish Agency, which opposed those actions and the challenge to its role as government in preparation responded with "The Hunting Season" - severe actions against supporters of the Irgun and Lehi, including turning them over to the British.

### **Commonwealth Period**

Following the end of the Versailles War in 1940, the United Kingdom was able to devote full resources to the chaos going on in the Mandate of Palestine. In 1947 the Mandate of Palestine became a full commonwealth nation known as the Commonwealth of Palestine. However, Arab and Jewish nationalists were heavily suppressed and persecuted during this time. Zionists who had previously worked with the British were now suppressed.

In late 1940 when the Soviet Union created the Galitsyanish Arbeterepublik as a socialist "Yiddish homeland", a handful of Jews would leave Palestine for Galitsia viewing Zionism as a lost cause, these Jews along with later Palestinian Jewish emigres would become known as the Shavim (Hebrew: שָׁבים, "*returners*"). In order to replace these numbers, many right-wing Zionists began traveling to
Galitsia to recruit young and malleable Jews to join the Zionist resistance. It
is during this time that Avraham Stern forms the Maccabean Army, a far-right
wing Jewish Nationalist paramilitary force that sought to convert Palestine
into a Jewish fascist state. During this period there is a mass settlement of
British Israelites (not related to ethnic Israelis) and American Jerusalemites
in the Commonwealth. Both groups are notably far-right wing, White Christian
supremacists. The American Jerusalemites led by Preacher Wesley A. Swift drew
from the prior German Templar movement and believed in converting Palestine
into a far-right wing Christian nation. They were often at odds with the native
Arab Christians as they only supported White Christians. The American
Jerusalemites and British Israelites formed a far-right wing White supremacist
paramilitary group known as the Tenth Crusaders.

### **Jerusalem Wars**

On December 1st, 1958, communist uprisings break out in the
Commonwealth of Palestine as the Soviets had been funding Palestinian Communist
forces of the Palestinian Communist Party (which contains Jews, Muslims and
Christians). The British colonial government is swift to react quickly crushing
the revolutionaries. However, with the Kurdish communist to their north they
feared another socialist uprising and as such began funding the Mashriq Party,
a notably anti-communist, pan-Arab, pro-Islamic organization run by Mohammed
Amin al-Husseini. The British hoped that al-Husseini would crushed the Jewish
revolutionaries as well.

On June 10th, 1960, the 44th anniversary of
the Arab Revolt, members of the extremist Mashriq party led by Mohammed Amin
al-Husseini began a revolt against British rule in Palestine and Jordan. They
planned to establish the Mashriq Caliphate, a united Arab caliphate centered on
Jerusalem and implement Islamic law and expel all non-Muslims. This begins the
Jerusalem War. The British army is fairly incapable in fighting the guerrilla
forces of the Mashriqis. They establish the Mashriq Caliphate with Jerusalem as its capital and Al-Hussseini as Caliph Al-Husseini I.

On May 1st, 1961, Palestinian, Kurdish and Jordanian communists
overthrow King Abdullah I Hussein of Jordan and establish the People’s Republic
of Jordan. The Palestinian and Jordanian communists unite to form the Communist
Party of the Levant. In response, Caliph Al-Husseini I calls for a Tathir
or “cleansing” of the Mashriq Caliphate by purging it of non-Arabs and
non-Muslims. Multiple nationalist factions crop up during the period hoping to take advantage of the chaos in Palestine. These groups included the: Aramaean Christian Army (Arab Christians), the Tenth Crusaders (White Christians) and the Maccabean Army (Jewish Nationalists). In response to this, the United Canaanite Army formed from moderate Jews, Christians and Muslims who opposed
both the far-left Palestinian Communists and the far-right insurgent movements
and Mashriq Caliphate.

On June 10th, 1961, Jews are massacred by Mashriq forces
in the city of Tel Aviv. This later becomes known as the “Yom Shel Dimot” or “Day
of Tears”. In response to the massacre in Tel
Aviv, many Jews in Galitsia begin joining Volunteer forces in Palestine to
support the United Canaanite Army, Communist Party of the Levant and the Maccabean
Army.

The Maccabean Army captured the
Haifa District and Acre Sub-District on August 30th, 1961. In response Aramaean insurgents capture the
Nazareth and Tiberias Sub-District. The United Canaanite Army establishes a
front after it captures the Lydda District and parts of the Gazza District. Levantine
Communists mainly control parts of the Beersheba District. The Tenth Crusaders
take parts of Southern Gaza and commit mass attacks against the native Muslims
as well as commit guerrilla attacks in the Hebron Sub-District.

The United Canaanite Army expanded to take the Tulkarm Sub-District
and the Gaza District on December 10th, 1961. Aramaeans expand into Safad. The Mashriq Army was more
so focused on defeating the communists and as such deals with a guerilla war
against the communists in the Beersheba Sub-District and in the Negev Desert. The United Canaanite Army then formed a treaty with the Aramaeans, merging their forces and territory on March 10th, 1962.

On March 30th, 1962 the newly strengthened United Canaanite Army defeated the Maccabean Army and then begins to encircle Mashriq territory from the north and south. On September 30th, 1962: The United Canaanite Army encircled Jerusalem and finally on October 10th, 1962, the United Canaanite Army captured Jerusalem and established the Federation of Canaan, a multiethnic, multilingual
and multi-religious democratic state. This ends the Jerusalem War.

On October 11th, 1962, the Federation of Canaan is admitted
into the League of Nations.

### **Modern Period**

Initially, the Congress of the Federation of Canaan attempted to create four autonomous regions within Canaan: Palestine for Muslims, Galilee for Christians and Israel for Jews with the Capital of Tikva-Salam representing its own autonomous region. However, the Congress could not decide on the borders for Palestine, Galilee and Israel and worried they would exacerbate religious tensions. As such they decided to maintain its multiethnic and multi-religious policy throughout all of Canaan and decided against creating these autonomous regions with the exception of Tikva-Salam becoming an autonomous capital region.