The people from the isles

Before the Arabs conquered our land and settled here, there were many other occupants. Thirty two centuries before today, the Egyptians ruled Eretz Israel, when the whole Middle East was disturbed by the concerted attack of the Peoples of the Isles, currently known as Sea Peoples. It is surprising that of all the mighty peoples that lived here, none was able to establish itself for long, and it is the Arabs who inherited it (temporarily, because we are back). In comparison, the Han settled in the Yellow River valley some 5000 years ago, and no one could displace them. The Greeks settled in the isles and the mainland, and they are still there. In the Middle East, none of the ancient settlers survives. Not them nor their genes.  

The earliest mention of the Sea Peoples proper is in an inscription of the Egyptian king Merneptah, whose rule is usually dated from 1213 BC to 1204 BC. Merneptah states that in the fifth year of his reign (1208 BC) he defeated an invasion of an allied force of Libyans and the Sea People, killing 6,000 soldiers and taking 9,000 prisoners. 

About 20 years later the Egyptian king Ramses III was apparently forced to deal with another invasion of the Sea Peoples, this time allied with the Philistines. In the mortuary temple he built in Thebes, Ramses describes how, despite the fact "no land could stand before" the forces of the Sea People and that they swept through "Hatti, Kode, Carchemish, Arzawa, and Alashiya" destroying their cities, he defeated them in a sea battle. He gives the names of the tribes of the Sea People as including: the Peleset, the Tjeker, the Shekelesh, the Denyen, and the Weshesh. 

However, because this list is identical to the one Merneptah included in his victory inscription, and because Ramses also describes several fictitious victories on his temple walls, some Egyptologists believe that he never actually fought the Sea Peoples, but only claimed the victories of Merneptah as his own - a common practice of a number of the Pharaohs. 

Apparently the Weshesh are the tribe of Asher, the Denyen - the tribe of Dan and the Tjeker - Menasseh, while the Shekelesh were Issachar. The Northern Canaanite cities of Tzur and Tzidon were the only ones not attacked, probably they were related to the attackers or their allies. The Peleset were the Plishtim of the Bible, the Philistines, clearly a proto-Greek group.