Esdraelon

Esdraelon, or PLAIN OF JEZREEL, a broad valley of Palestine, constituting the basin of the Kishon, extends westwards from Mount Hermon to the slopes of the Carmel range. Although it was a flourishing and fertile region in antiquity, it fell in modern times out of cultivation, and so recently as 1867 was annually harried by Bedouins; now, however, it is once more in the highest state of cultivation. Here Gideon defeated the Midianites, and here in 1799 the Turks were defeated by the French. See Laurence Oliphant's Haifa (1887).