The town of Jaffa,
municipally a part of the modern city of
Tel-Aviv, is one of the most ancient settlements in
Palestine.
If memory serves, it was originally a Philistine port town. Whatever its origins, however, it was always one of the three most important points of contact of Palestine and Judeah with the Meditteranean, and, for long periods of time, the most important.
Napoleon took Jaffa as part of his campagn in the middle east, but, rebuffed by the vast citadel and massive artillery batteries of Akre, never actually took Palestine.
Jaffa is also believed to be the site of Andromeda's rock - the place where the princess was chained to a rock to be devoured by a sea serpent and eventually saved by Perseus.
Modern day Jaffa is a jumble of cutesy, restored and renovated Arabic alleyways - full of galleries, restaurant and other tourist fodder - and fairly depressing and impoverished council blocks. It is one of the few bi-national (Arab and Jewish) cities in Israel, and has seen considerable violence during the turbulent autumn of 2000.