July 16, 1948: The town of Nazareth in Upper Galilee was attacked and captured by Zionist troops.
Western readers are not always very clear about the character and history of this famous town, whose name is readily associated with Christ.
They are often under the wrong impression that it is a Jewish town and has always been so. The fact is the town and the entire country has since times
immemorial been predominantly Canaanite(the Arab Palestinians are the direct descendants of the Canaanites ) and if it is true that the Jews did have the
kingdom of their own in it, the life of that kingdom was comparatively short and the composition of the country's population remained Canaanite,
especially outside the big cities. The population was eventually converted to Christianity and for the most part, later to Islam. Since then, i.e. since
the seventh century A.D. the population of Nazareth has always consisted of Arabs, both Christian and Moslem.
Despite all the religious strives that engulfed European communities for a very long time, the Moslems and Christians of Nazareth, and generally of all Palestine, have always lived in harmony, and even participated in
battling the Crusade invasions during the tenth and eleventh centuries.
From Palestine Diary 1973 Yousef Al Khatib
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