Actually what to-day we call the 'West Bank' - i.e. The West Portion of the Jordan River- now home to nearly 2 Million modern 'Filistin' i.e.
Palestinians, was actually the major part of the ancient NORTHERN 'clan-kingdom of 'Yisro'el' (a group of allegedly 10 tribelets who 'separated
themselves' from the southern Kingdom of Yehud c. 920 BCE) after the death of 'Jedediah-Solomon'.
It is not quite known for sure (to judge from all the modern archaeological finds with their pesky Carbon-14 dating !) if the northern 'kingdom' was
EVER really a part of the 'southern kingdom' - except in the minds of the writers of the Hebrew Bible - despite the Judaean fantasies contained in
their 'scriptures' which only set down their 'history' many centuries AFTER the events they purport to relate [i.e. 'following the period of the
Judges] -
Not surprisingly perhaps, bearing in mind that the Hebrew 'Chronicles' found in the heavilly midrashic Books of Samuel / Kings etc. were not finally
redacted/re-edited into its present form until after c. 630 BCE during the era of 'Josiah' who is named in the text) - and there was a lot of
'retro-jection' of later (post Exilic) religio-political ideas into earlier histories that never really happened in 'historical fact'.
Not only 'physically and politically separate' , the inhabitants of this West Bank area - i.e. the so-called Northern Kingdom' (also called
'Ephrayim') - also never really adopted the sole worship of 'YHWH alone' especially in the early 'Daviddic' days - probably not until after the
Babylonian Exile (BCE 587 - BCE 530) -
To judge from what Archaeologists have actually found in the ground dating from c. 1000 BCE to BCE 500 the general 'West Bank' Ephrayim area was
filled with pre- and non-Israelitish 'pagan' shines to the 'gods' for centuries after 'David' and Solomon - some of these very elaborate Canaanite
shrines date back millennia at the numerous cult centers
e.g. Shomeron ("Samaria"), Gilgal, Beth-El (Luz), Shekhem and Shiloh etc. - mostly dedicated to various pagan gods including Ba'al (and all the
various Ba'alim), the goddess Asherah-Ashterot (also called the 'Wife-Consort of YHWH" !) as well as the Cannanite fertility god Bull EL - only much
later did the cult of the clan god-YHWH became identified with 'YHWH' post Exilic clan-god of the 'Hebrew Bible' - sometime prior to the time of Ezra
c. BCE 430 )
This Northern Amphyctiony of Ephraimitish tribelets (in today's West Bank area) went through long periods of ecconomic successes (clearly borne out by
rich Archaeological finds in the area) at least when compared with the originally tiny tribelets of Judah & Benyamin in the South (despite what the
Hebrew Bible says about the 'evil' Northern Kingdom - since the North worshipped not YHWH of the Bible but the many pre-Israelite 'Canaanite'
clan-gods prior to the Assyrian invasion (722 BCE to 701 BCE) - it was the Assyrian army who deported the elite of the Northern (West Bank)
population to Nineveh [anyone who could read/write were taken there - mainly the scribes/priestly class of the various cults of the gods in the
'north') and (of course !) all persons who could work in metals - i.e. anyone who could foster a Rebellion against the Assyrians.
These are the so-called '10 Lost Tribes of Israel' - many of whom never made it back to Palestine, but rather stayed put and got racially mixed (read:
'married into') the ancient local Assyrian population - only to become genetically mixed in - and becomea genetic part of to-days's modern Iraqi's,
Iranian and (Shock and Awe !) the oft-displaced 'Kurdish' population in the Middle East.
The Assyrians then re-populated the area [what we to-day call the West Bank] with their own imported 'foreign' (law abiding 'Assyrian') citizens
during this time, and many of these 'imported persons from abroad' after the Babylonian Exile (c. BCE 587-537) later became identified with the group
known as the Samaratim ('Samaratins') who also likewise 'separated from Judah' in the south.
So the West Bank has always been a separate entity from the rest of Palestine, despite all the mythological fantasies of a 'single giant united (and
politically important) kingdom' of Judah under the clan chiefs 'David' and Jedediah' (Solomon). The population of Jerusalem prior to the Assyrian
invasion (and the influx off refugees c. 720-700 BCE) was less than 4,000 permanent persons to judge from the archaeogical remains...hardly a kingdom
to be compared with Egypt, Assyria or Babylon whose capitol cities contained more than 150,000 persons each at this time.
Check out the most recent Israeli led Archaeological digs which DO NOT show any 'major kingdoms' at all in existence in the southern region during the
alleged Judean 'reigns' of Yehudite clan-chiefs such as 'David' and Jedidiah ('Solomon') c. 1000 BCE to 920 BCE
A good start for the novice to all this 'shock and awe' information would be the book (designed for the general reader) entitled,
"The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts" (published in 2001)
which tells all about all the shocking modern findings of Archaeology in both the area thought to be ancient Israel and Judah - and its relationship
to the midrashic legends / fantasies of the 'essentially made up history' of ancent Israel as reflected in the 'Hebrew Scriptures' with regards to
Judah's alleged political control of the lands to the north pf Jebus/Jerrusalem (incluiding the area of the modern PalestinianWest Bank) - and how
the 'propaganda' of the Hebrew Bible foisted legendary 'wishful thinking' on to the world.
The authors of this 'beginners guide' to modern Israelite digs are : the eminent Dr Israel Finkelstein, Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv
University, and Dr Neil Asher Silberman, a contributing editor to 'Archaeology Magazine' -and are considered 'main stream' archaeologists - not weirdo
fringe persons in the field. They at least TRY to tell it like it was !
In the book, Finlestein & Silberman try to explain to the reader (who often has never heard this before !) that the 'southern kingdom' of Yehud
(=Judah) did not become a signigifant political player on the Canaanite-Palestinian Scene until the time of the many-gods worshipping clan chief
Humberi (=Omri) some 150 years later than the purported reign of 'David' - and how the politics of the reign of Josiah (c. 630 BCE) caused all the
propaganda we read today in the Hebrew texts about the 'historical origins' of 'Israel' and 'Judah'.
It is clear from the Archaelogy that most of the real political movers and shakers in Palestine (prior to the Assyrian Mow Down of 722 BCE) did not
take place in the Jerusalemite 'backwater' south at all (i.e. Judah) but rather in the modern (roughly) West Bank area = i.e. in the northern tribal
amphytionies known as 'Ephraim' - - and it is very clear from the most recent archaeological digs since 1960 that the 'kingdoms' of the 'north'
(Yisro'el / Ephrayim) and the south (Yehud / Judah) had a TOTALLY separate political and environment history as far back as from c. BCE 3000 - mainly
because of the different types of climate and land quality.
So it is not surprising that even to-day the modern Palestinian West Bank inhabitants (quite apart from their separate religion) think and act much
different from modern 'state of Israel' - they always were a breed apart in one way or another from very ancient times...
edit on 10-5-2011 by Sigismundus because: Dittography & Haplography - still around with a Modern Computer Keyboard !