And thus it began, Gaza and the Gaza Strip

The oldest sources on Gaza tell that it was the residence of the Egyptian governor to Canaan.

13th century BCE: Arrival of the Philistines, making Gaza (City) into an important coastal city.

7th century CE: The Gaza territory comes under Muslim rule.

1947: By the partition plan of the UN the territory of Gaza is projected to become part of an independent Arab state.

1948 May: Egyptian forces move up along the Palestinian coastline in an attempt to reach Tel Aviv. Being pushed back by Jewish forces, a British cease fire agreement stops the Jewish troops while the Egyptians still hold the Gaza territory. Soon after, large groups of Palestinian refugees are coming in to Gaza.

— During the Egyptian occupation little was done to improve the conditions on the Gaza Strip and the borders between Egypt and the occupied strip are virtually closed. The Gazan population does not receive any citizenship, and large parts of the population survive on UN relief schemes.

1956: As part of the Suez-Sinai War, Gaza Strip is occupied by Israel, but Israel leaves as a result of international pressure.

1967 Israel captures the Gaza Strip, in addition to the Sinai peninsula near Egypt and the Golan Heights in Syria in the Six Day War. Since then, Israel has been building, funding and supporting disputed Jewish settlements on occupied lands.

Israel’s population is growing but the neighborhood trend helps to understand why Israel's leaders have concluded that they have no choice but to trade land for peace.

The fertility rate among Palestinians in Israel is 4.5 children per woman; on the West Bank, 5.5 children per woman; in Gaza, 6.6 children per woman. If demography is destiny, Israel is in an existential crisis that can only be exacerbated by continued military occupation and expansion of settlements. Consider the projections.

In the year 2000 there were 6.2 million Israelis and estimates are by the year 2025 there will be 8.3 million. In the year 2000 in the rest of the Middle East, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia there were 116.2 million growing to 178.4 million by the year 2025. In the next twenty-five years, Israels population (Jewish and Arab) will grow by 2.1 million, while her Arab neighbors will increase by 62.2 million.

Now consider Israel’s “Palestinian Problem.”

In the year 2025 projections indicate there will be 6 million Jewish Israelis and 16 million Palestinians with 2 million within Israel. By the year 2050 there will be 7 million Jewish Israelis and 3 million Palestinians inside of Israel.

In 2025 Palestinians in Israel, West Bank, Gaza and Jordon will number 16 million and in 2050 , 25 million.