Palestine: The historically misleading term for the land of Israel

PALESTINE - THE HISTORICALLY MISLEADING TERM FOR THE LAND OF ISRAEL

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1. The origins of the term “Palestine “instead of Land of Israel - The Philistines, who gave the name to Palestine, were a warlike, seafaring people who came from the Greek Islands. They conquered the coastal strip of the Land of Israel from Gaza in the south to Jaffa in the north. One3 of the first references to them is in the Bible. The story of David’s defeat of the philistine giant, Goliath. By the end o f King David’s reign, the Philistines were a spent force. They disappeared completely from the pages of history by the time the Jews were exiled to Babylonia 1n 597 B.C.E..

2. In the year 135 C.E. the Romans succeeded in suppressing the Bar Kochba Revolt only after having suffered severe losses. In retribution Jerusalem’s name was changed to Aelia Capitolina and the Land of Israel (or Judea) to Palestine.

3. Hadrian’s historical curse did not last since the Jews reconstiituted their independence in the Northern Galilee and on the Golan Heights. They furthermore assured Jewish history by producing the Mishna and the Jerusalem Talmud.

4. Neither did the Jews forget Jerusalem. On the ninth day of the month of Av, when both Temples were destroyed and the Bar Kochba’a fortress at Beitar fell, an important minor holiday and fast day was instituted. Furthermore for almost two thousand years, The city of JerusaLem became the eternalized focus of Jewish yearning in religious prayer and cultural consciousness. We may conclude , therefore, that Hadrian’s curse on Judaism became an episode bereft of historical appreciation.

4. In then the 7th century the Muslim Caliphate replaced the Byzantine Empire as the rulers of the Land of Israel The name Aelia Capitolina passed into oblivion and the city holy to the Jewish People was again called Jerusalem. All references to Paslestine was forgotten for almost 1,300 years.. During the brief period of Crusader rule , the Land of Israel was called “The KIngdom of Jerusalem” When other rulers controlled the area, such as the Mamelukes, Mongols and Turks, the term “Palestine was never used even during the 400 years of Ottoman rule.

5. Another interesting geographic fact that from the end of Jewish rule in antiquity to the beginning of the British Mandate in 1922, the area now known as ‘The Land of Israel was not a country with definitive boundaries but only an administrative are such as Southern Syria as it was usually referred to when it belonged to the Ottoman Empire with the capital not in Istanbul but in Damascus. If the Arabs identified themselves by any nationality, it was “Arab”. In the European Lexicon, the Land of Israel was referred to as Palestine by virtue of the Christian Bible. The name “Palestine was also used in the Balfour Declaration It is also interesting to note that when the British in 1922 removed over three quarters of the lands dedicated to Jewish settlement in the Balfour Declaration and Sanctioned by the League of Nations as a British Mandate. The land was given to a Saudi prince named Abdullah. It is interesting to note that the area given by the British to Abdullah was called “Trans-Jordan” not Palestine.

6. During the time of the British Mandate from1922 to 1948 when the State of Israel wa founded, the British administration in Jerusalem stamped passport issued to Arabs as“Arab”. Passports issued to Jews were stamped “Palestine. The reason is obvious. The Arabs always looked upon themselves by nationality as Arabs, with their boundaries stretching from India to the Atlanti9c Ocean

7. During World War II a British unit was established of Jews from the Land of Israel, with out any Arabs and it was called “His Majesaty’s Palestine Brigade”.

8. The picture changed in 1967 when Yasser Arafat set up the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and began to call all Arabs living in the Land of Israel between the Mediterranean Sera and the Jordan Rift as “Palestineans” and their land they claimed for themselves as “Palestine”.

9. For that reason all Arabs Living within the boundaries of the State of Israel should be refrerred to as Arabs and the official title of the Land of Israel should not be “Palestine. In all official documents and pronouncements the “Land of Israel should not be referred to by Jews as Palestine. Historically there are no Palestinians, only Jews or Arabs, and there is no historical geographic al entity called “Palestine” but the Land of Israel is a reality.