Palestine (Greek: Παλαιστίνη, Palaistinē; Latin: Palaestina; Hebrew: ארץ־ישראל, Eretẓ Yisra'el; formerly ארץ–כנען, Eretẓ Kena'an; also פלשׂתינה, Palestina; Arabic: فلسطين Filasṭīn, Falasṭīn, Filisṭīn) is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.[1]As a geographic term, Palestine can also refer to 'ancient Palestine,' an area that includes contemporary Israel and the Palestinian territories, as well as part of Jordan, and some of both Lebanon and Syria.[1] It can also refer to the area west of the Jordan River, or to British Mandate Palestine (1920–1948), which contained two states, the British-administered Palestine[2][3] and the autonomous Transjordan.[4][5][6] The term Land of Israel is used to refer to the same geographic region, both narrowly or broadly defined, by Israelis, Jews, and Christian Zionists, among others. Other terms for the same area include Canaan, and the Holy Land.
Origin of name
The name "Palestine" is the cognate of an ancient word meaning "Philistines" or "Land of the Philistines".[7][8][9] The earliest known mention is thought to be in Ancient Egyptian texts of the temple at Medinet Habu which record a people called the P-r-s-t (conventionally Peleset) among the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign.[10] The Hebrew name Peleshet (פלשת Pəléshseth)- usually translated as Philistia in English, is used in the Bible to denote the southern coastal region that was inhabited by the Philistines to the west of the ancient Kingdom of Judah.[11]
The Assyrian emperor Sargon II called the same region Palashtu or Pilistu in his Annals.[7][8][8][12] In the 5th century BCE, Herodotus wrote in Ancient Greek of a 'district of Syria, called Palaistinê" (whence Palaestina, whence Palestine).[7][13][14][15]
According to Moshe Sharon, Palaestina was commonly used to refer to the coastal region, and shortly thereafter, the whole of the area inland to the west of the Jordan River.[7] The latter extension occurred when the Roman authorities, following the suppression of the Bar Kokhba rebellion in the 2nd century CE, renamed "Provincia Judea" (Iudaea Province; originally derived from the name "Judah") to "Syria Palaestina" (Syria Palaestina), in order to complete the dissociation with Judaea.[16][17]
During the Byzantine period, the entire region (Syria Palestine, Samaria, and the Galilee) was named Palaestina, subdivided into Diocese I and II.[18] The Byzantines also renamed an area of land including the Negev, Sinai, and the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula as Palaestina Salutoris, sometimes called Palaestina III.[18]
The Arabic word for Palestine is Philistine (commonly transcribed in English as Filistin, Filastin, or Falastin).[19] Moshe Sharon writes that when the Arabs took over Greater Syria in the 7th century, place names that were in use by the Byzantine administration before them, generally continued to be used. Hence, he traces the emergence of the Arabic form Filastin to this adoption, with Arabic inflection, of Roman and Hebrew (Semitic) names.[7] Jacob Lassner and Selwyn Ilan Troen offer a different view, writing that Jund Filastin, the full name for the administrative province under the rule of the Arab caliphates, was traced by Muslim geographers back to the Philistines of the Bible.[20]
The use of the name "Palestine" in English became more common after the European renaissance.[21] The name was officially revived and used after the fall of the Ottoman Empire (1517–1917) and applied to the territory in this region that was placed under the British Mandate for Palestine.
Some other terms that have been used to refer to all or part of this land include Canaan, Greater Israel, Greater Syria, the Holy Land, Iudaea Province, Judea,[22] Israel, "Israel HaShlema", Kingdom of Israel, Kingdom of Jerusalem, Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael or Ha'aretz), Levant, Retenu (Ancient Egyptian), Southern Syria, and Syria Palestina.
Boundaries
The boundaries of Palestine have varied throughout history.[23][24] Prior to its being named Palestine, Ancient Egyptian texts (c. 14 century BCE) called the entire coastal area along the Mediterranean Sea between modern Egypt and Turkey R-t-n-u (conventionally Retjenu). Retjenu was subdivided into three regions and the southern region, Djahy, shared approximately the same boundaries as Canaan, or modern-day Israel and the Palestinian territories, though including also Syria.[25]
Scholars disagree as to whether the archaeological evidence supports the biblical story of there having been a Kingdom of Israel of the United Monarchy that reigned from Jerusalem, as the archaeological evidence is both rare and disputed.[26][27] For those who do interpret the archaeological evidence positively in this regard, it is thought to have ruled some time during Iron Age I (1200 - 1000 BCE) over an area approximating modern-day Israel and the Palestinian territories, extending farther westward and northward to cover much (but not all) of the greater Land of Israel.[26][27]
Philistia, the Philistine confederation, emerged circa 1185 BCE and comprised five city states: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod on the coast and Ekron, and Gath inland.[12] Its northern border was the Yarkon River, the southern border extending to Wadi Gaza, its western border the Mediterranean Sea, with no fixed border to the east.[10]
By 722 BCE, Philistia had been subsumed by the Assyrian Empire, with the Philistines becoming 'part and parcel of the local population,' prospering under Assyrian rule during the 7th century despite occasional rebellions against their overlords.[12][28][29] In 604 BCE, when Assyrian troops commanded by the Babylonian empire carried off significant numbers of the population into slavery, the distinctly Philistine character of the coastal cities dwindled away, and the history of the Philistines as a distinct people effectively ended.[12][28][30]
The boundaries of the area and the ethnic nature of the people referred to by Herodotus in the 5th century BCE as Palaestina vary according to context. Sometimes, he uses it to refer to the coast north of Mount Carmel. Elsewhere, distinguishing the Syrians in Palestine from the Phoenicians, he refers to their land as extending down all the coast from Phoenicia to Egypt.[31] Josephus used the name Παλαιστινη only for the smaller coastal area, Philistia.[32] Pliny, writing in Latin in the 1st century CE, describes a region of Syria that was "formerly called Palaestina" among the areas of the Eastern Mediterranean.[33]
Since the Byzantine Period, the Byzantine borders of Palaestina (I and II, also known as Palaestina Prima, "First Palestine", and Palaestina Secunda, "Second Palestine"), have served as a name for the geographic area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Under Arab rule, Filastin (or Jund Filastin) was used administratively to refer to what was under the Byzantines Palaestina Secunda (comprising Judaea and Samaria), while Palaestina Prima (comprising the Galilee region) was renamed Urdunn ("Jordan" or Jund al-Urdunn).[7]
The Zionist Organization provided their definition concerning the boundaries of Palestine in a statement to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919; it also includes a statement about the importance of water resources that the designated area includes.[34][35] On the basis of a League of Nations mandate, the British administered Palestine after World War I, promising to establish a Jewish homeland therein.[36] The original British Mandate included what is now Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan), and trans-Jordan (the present kingdom of Jordan),although the latter was disattached by an administrative decision of the British in 1922.[37] To the Palestinian people who view Palestine as their homeland, its boundaries are those of the British Mandate excluding the Transjordan, as described in the Palestinian National Charter.[38]