The term 'Palestine'

[Isiah 2:4]

The term "Palestine"

Summary

The international community has for more than 50 years been in the practice of referring to the Land of Israel by the term "Palestine" and the Arab inhabitants of that land as "Palestinians." The use of these terms, however, is the perpetuation of a historical inaccuracy.

Historical usage

1 - The term "Palestine" is derived from the ancient Philistines, an Aegean people who colonized the Mediteranean coast of what is now "Israel proper" and the Gaza Strip in the 12th century BC.

2 - While the ancient Philistines disappeared from history in the second half of the first millineum BC, the term "Palestine" was kept alive by the Romans in the second century AD.

3 - Following the defeat of the second Jewish revolt under Simon Bar Kochva in 135 AD, the Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed Judea as Palaestina, in referrence to Israel's ancient enemy, as a slap in the face of the defeated Jews.

4 - Prior to Hadrian's act of hatred, the Land of Israel was consistently referred to as Judea by Roman era writers such as Pliny, Tacitus, Plutarch, Strabo and Ptolemy.

5 - Eusebius (ca. 300 AD) writes of Hadrian's law, which "ensured that not even from a distance might Jews have a view of their ancestrial soil..." (Ecclesiastical History, IV:6)

6 - The New Testament, written during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, never uses the term "Palestine", but rather refers to the region as the "Land of Israel" or "Judea."

7 - The Koran, written in the 7 century AD, never uses the term "Palestine", but rather refers to the region as the "holy land" and as being divinely assigned to the Israelites. (Sura 5:12, 20-21)

8 - "Palestine" was used off and on during the centuries of Muslim [Arab, Turk, Marmuluke] control, but was always understood to be a part of Syria - this is evident from the 1946 Arab testimony before the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine, which referred to "Palestine" as part of "Greater Syria."

Rebirth

1 - The respected Encyclopedia Italiano (Vol. 26, ca. 1930) tells of "Palestine" becoming the preferred term for the region in modern times as part of the revival of Latin as the "scientific" language.

2 - Despite the resurgence, the famous eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1911) continued to associate "Palestine" with the "Hebrews."

3 - Until the mid-20th century, "Palestine" remained a Western geographical term that never defined a nation or a people group.

4 - Following the 1967 Six Day War, the Arab world intensified efforts to transform the geographical term "Palestine" into one denoting an ancient Arab culture.

Conclusion

Eliyahu Green writes:

"Is 'Palestine' the proper or rightful name of the country? The name of a country, any country, has to be looked at as a historical object, for if otherwise, a land might as well be called XYZ or No. 14. A country's name is associated with events and personalities and sentiments. 'Palestine' too must be scrutinized in that light.

"The Roman change of name was part of a complex of related oppressive measures of national despoliation, punishment, and oppression.

"The name 'Palestine' cannot be divested of the negative overtones of its history, from the circumstances of its Roman official origin. It cannot be considered a 'neutral, value free,' purely 'scientific' term, as some would have. Felix Abel, the noted Catholic historian of the country, frankly states that the name change was 'another indication of the anti-Jewish orientation of imperial policy.' Should the continued use today of the name 'Palestine' be seen otherwise?"

From : http://www.jnewswire.com/fact_sheets/index.asp

[Mira~]

All of the names of the nations in the ME are modern day fictions. The fact that the same Arabs who once argued that they were part of lower Syria and thus "Syrians" doesn't much matter today since they have developed a "Palestinian" consciousness and there is no chance that the West Bank and Gaza will become part of Syria again, unless the entire Arab world throws off the European created divisions in the Middle East. It's just another bit of irony.

[nuttie]

Originally posted by Mira
The fact that the same Arabs who once argued that they were part of lower Syria and thus "Syrians" doesn't much matter today since they have developed a "Palestinian" consciousness and there is no chance that the West Bank and Gaza will become part of Syria again, unless the entire Arab world throws off the European created divisions in the Middle East.

Agreed in principle, except for one thing: the European creation of Palestine was geographical, and the "Palestinians" were rightly all inhabitants of the land. The modern definition of "Palestinian" is racist, because it excludes Jews. In parallel, it creates a fictional Arab history of "Arab Palestine", for the purpose of usurping the term for Arabs only. Evidently a racist spin, if there ever was one.