Subject: Re: Hmmmm
The gospels were written between about 50-100 AD. Matthew specifically was written no earlier than about 85 AD. Was anti-semitism prevalent that early?

There was certainly conflict between the early Christians and the Jews during that time period, yes - though I don't think the modern concept of "anti-semitism" really maps onto it. Early in the first century, Christianity was still mostly a sect of Judaism - those first Christians were all ethnically Jewish or recent converts to Judaism, but were starting to differentiate themselves from the rest of Judaism through their belief that Jesus was the messiah. By the time Matthew was written, you were starting to see more gentile Christian communities springing up, but the two faiths were still in the process of separating. So while the blood curse passage in Matthew might indeed have indeed been a political or ideological attack Jews who did not follow Jesus or accept him as the Messiah, it was probably written from the perspective of people who thought of themselves as Jewish.

IOW, the author probably read it not as "Jews are responsible for killing Jesus" but rather "Those are responsible for killing Jesus, as opposed to us Jews who realize he was the Messiah." But over the next few centuries, when Christianity was fully split from Judaism, the passage reads differently.

BTW, figured out the answer to whether Jordan/Egypt/Syria retained the lands. The Jordanians were the West Bank, and Jordan does not control that anymore. Apparently Egypt didn't hold any land for long (a matter of days/weeks), as they were counter-attacked and driven out. Apparently Syria had the Golan Heights, which they lost later.

That's not entirely correct. Egypt controlled Gaza from 1948 until 1967 - the same time that Jordan controlled the West Bank. Almost all of the land that the Oslo Agreement contemplated might form a Palestinian state was controlled by those two countries from 1948 until Israel retook those lands after they defeated Egypt and Jordan in the 1967 War.