Bari

Posted Sunday, November 5, 2023

1y

ENFJ

Scorpio

This is the facts

The origin of the name "Palestine" for the land of Israel is very ancient. The copyright for this nickname is registered in the name of the father of historians, Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century BC. Herodotus, according to his testimony, visited the coastal plain of the Land of Israel (in Gaza and Ashkelon), and there he learned about the Philistines who lived in the area and Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon for a time Before that there was no war with the Jews of the land, hence the name he gave to this land: Palestine. The name Palestine was later used as an alternative name for the entire Land of Israel, and even Jewish writers who wrote in the Greek language and relied on the writings of Herodotus (such as Philo of Alexandria and Joseph ben Mattathias) sometimes used it. However, the name Yehuda remained the dominant name not only in intra-Jewish usage but also among the nations of the world, and even after the Roman Empire took over the Hasmonean Kingdom, it called its new acquisition the "Province of Judah". This name also appears on the victory coins of Vespasian Caesar after his son Titus defeated the great rebellion and destroyed the Temple: Judea capta (conquered Judea). After the Bar Kochba Rebellion (135 AD), when Hadrian Caesar wanted to erase once and for all the memory of the Jews from the region, he was not satisfied with deporting them, but also changed the official name of the rebellious province to Palestine, a name he knew from the Greek books. Later the name Palestine became the dominant designation to the Land of Israel, which became part of the empires that ruled the region (Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Mamluks, Turks). That's what the British also called it during the Mandate days. Unlike the name of Judah, which reflected - like most countries in the world - the name of the people living in it, Palestinians have never lived in Palestine. Palestine, since Herodotus invented it, was only the name of a region of land or an administrative district where fragments of the peoples of the region lived, and none of them identified with the name "Palestinian people". The Arabs living in the country did not identify themselves as Palestinians either. Their highest institution during the mandate period was the "Supreme Arab Committee", and there was no mention of the Palestinian people in it. Neither Abu Mazen's father nor Ishmael Haniyeh's father knew they were Palestinians, even though the name Palestine continued to be widely used among Jews as well (note the change in Hebrew spelling that applied from Palestine to Palestine). For example, the leading Zionist newspaper (!) in the English language during the Mandate period adopted the name Palestine Post (and became the Jerusalem Post only after the establishment of the state). The bottom line: before the establishment of the state, the Arabs in Palestine were not yet Palestinians. The term "Palestinian people" as denoting the Arabs of the Land of Israel appears for the first time in 1964 in the Palestinian Charter of the PLO. Therefore, unlike the other peoples who formed their national identity over the course of many centuries, the Palestinian people were born suddenly, on paper. Moreover, Palestinian nationalism was actually born from the Arab-Israeli conflict. It turns out that the Palestinians owe their national existence to Zionism. When Golda Meir claimed that there is no such thing as a Palestinian, she provoked strong opposition, but her words found an unexpected confirmation in Zuhair Mohsin, one of the senior members of the PLO. In 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Mohsin in which he openly admits: "We are Palestinians for political reasons only" (You can check me: the interview was published on March 31, 1977 on page 7 below). It is therefore clear that without Zionism there would be no Palestinian people, and if, God forbid, the State of Israel ceases to exist, the Palestinian people will also disappear, as it was created for political purposes only. In 135 AD, after the Bar Kochba rebellion was subdued by the Romans and most of the Jewish population of the Land of Israel was destroyed, the province of Judah was renamed by the Romans to Syria Palaestina (Philistine Syria, named after the Philistines, a non-Semitic people who previously lived in part of the land). Shortly thereafter the name was shortened to Palaestina. Since then, the country has been called by this name in many foreign languages, and it was even translated into the Arabic language towards the end of the Middle Ages. The term "Palestine" in Arabic was used in the 19th century to denote a large part of the Land of Israel west and east of the Jordan River, but only towards the end of the 19th century did it acquire a national political meaning. With the establishment of the British Mandate rule in the Land of Israel (after the occupation of the land in the First World War), the name of the Land of Israel was determined according to the accepted English language at that time - Palestine, and accordingly all the inhabitants (Jews and Arabs alike) of the Land of Israel and the Transjordan were called - Palestinians. With the separation of the eastern Transjordan and the establishment of the Emirate of Transjordan (1923), the name was determined to refer only to the residents of the Land of Israel. The Jews of the Land of Israel, who as mentioned were also called Palestinians by the British government, did not adopt the nickname, while the Arabs of the Land of Israel adapted the name to themselves over the years, partly as a symbol of highlighting their national existence separate from the rest of the Arabs of the region. (edited)