Here's some history, from Israeli Archeologist Eilat Mazal, who's been in the headlines lately for her controversial discovery of King David's Palace.
[ . . . ] the Gaza area was allotted to the tribe of Judah. That tribe did not settle the place, which housed the Philistines who hailed from the vicinity of the Aegean Sea.
Gaza was a strategic crossroads between the Egyptian and Assyrian empires and consequently everyone, including the Babylonians and Persians, fought to control it. Alexander the Great conquered the place and turned it into a splendid Hellenistic city. The Hasmoneans also seized control of it during their short-lived reign. During the Byzantine period (fourth to sixth centuries CE), when Jews were forbidden entry to Jerusalem, they made holiday pilgrimages to Gaza, then home to a large Jewish community.
A synagogue from this period was found with the remains of a mosaic floor showing King David plucking a harp, alongside a Hebrew inscription with the word "David."
In 634 CE the Arabs conquered Gaza. Under their rule there was a Jewish presence in the city and surrounding areas, which included Jewish agricultural settlements. Under the Crusaders, however, there was no Jewish settlement in Gaza.
The earliest evidence we have of a renewed Jewish presence is from the 14th century. In the 15th century Gaza was a large, beautiful city with a flourishing Jewish community. A Christian traveler from this period related that he found more Jews and Christians there than in Jerusalem.
In the 16th and 17th centuries as well the city and its environs included a Jewish settlement that was partly agricultural in character. Jewish settlement in the area ceased in the 18th century and was revived in the 19th century. Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, the second president of the State of Israel, recalled having visited the Jewish community in Gaza several times prior to World War I. During the bloody Arab riots in 1929 the Jewish settlement was wiped out.
I lost the rest of this post, which discussed the New York Times' "analysis" of Dr. Mazar's findings in East Jerusalem. And I'm just not up to trying to reconstruct it. Miriam has already addressed it better, anyway.
But I now see that the Palestinian Authority has weighed in on the subject. Don't bother to read it. You already know what it says.
Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities affirmed Saturday that what an Israeli daily publish regarding the uncover of the so-called King David's Palace in Jerusalem is worthless and groundless. . . .
