‘Palestine’: An Arab- or Jewish-created entity? - opinion

There is a very basic question of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which, due to political correctness, is avoided or immediately confronted with harsh castigation: Is Palestine an Arab creation or was Palestine created for the Jews? Can it be that Palestine, a geopolitical defined entity, actually existed historically?

Following a recommendation by Nonviolence International, I visited a website called Decolonize Palestine, which purports to be “a collection of resources for organizers and anyone who wants to learn more about Palestine.” 

In its Palestine Throughout History section, one can learn that Palestine was “first documented in ancient Egyptian tablets as Peleset” and it covered “the region between the Mediterranean and the river Jordan.” Moreover, as far back as 9,000 BCE, there were “Palestinian agricultural practices” that “can be traced back to the Natufians.”

Unpicking their narrative

All that, of course, is misleading or better, creationary. The Peleset were thought to be from the “Sea Peoples,” who appeared in fragmentary records in the late 2nd millennium BCE. They probably participated in the Battle of the Delta circa 1175 BCE and then exited history. Some, wrongly, seek to link them to the biblical Philistines.

Another proof of Palestine’s supposed existence is Herodotus, who, writing in the 5th century BCE, refers to a region “stretching from Phoenicia along the coast of Palestine-Syria till it comes to Egypt.” That, however, leaves out any inland territory. Other classical writers, Hecataeus of Abdera and Clearchus of Soli, as early as 300 BCE, reference a “Judaea,” which most probably was the hill country, as well as noting a “Palestine.”

Upon the return of the Jewish exiles from their Assyrian captivity in the 6th century BCE, their Persian province was known as Judea. When the Maccabees revolted in 167 BCE, Judea became independent. Rome eventually assumed the administration of a country called Judea in 63 BCE.

After the failed Jewish revolt in 70 CE, Judaea Capta coins were struck to celebrate its capture and the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple. These coins were issued for 25 years. In addition to numismatic evidence, archaeological, literary (in a range of genres), and epigraphic evidence all attest to the existence over the past eight centuries of a Judea, not a Palestine.

Palestine, as a term applied to the country known as Judea, only appeared at the end of the Bar Kochba Revolt in 135 CE. That name continued under the Byzantine Empire, with three districts, Prima, Secunda, and Tertia, and it was that name adopted by the Arabs who, coming out of Medina, first conquered and occupied it in 638 CE. It is of Latin etymology and was corrupted into Arabic as Filastin. Arabs of the Middle East referred to the area as Bilad al-Sham, of which Filastin was one of four districts.

The next date this introduction mentions is 1516 CE, when the Mamluks were defeated at the battle of Marj Dabiq and the Ottoman Empire’s reign over the territory began. Skipping over almost 900 years of history when the country was still populated by Jews who continued to live in and visit the country, was fought over by Christian Crusaders and more is another form of obliterating history.

They add another twist when the content editors of the Decolonize Palestine site stress that in referring to Palestine, “we are not talking about a Palestinian nation-state.” After all, during most of history, they note, “the concept of a nation-state did not exist.” A nation-state, they assert, “is the foundational myth of many reactionary ethno-nationalist ideologies.” If that is the case, why do they demand the establishment of a state of Palestine?

In any case, in antithesis to all this “history,” today’s pro-Palestine proponents see Zionism as a settler-colonial project. Rabea Eghbariah, in the December 2023 N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change issue (not his piece in the Columbia Law Review) insists that “settler-colonialism [is] the lens through which we assess Palestine.” What is settler-colonialism? It is “a structure of erasure where the settler displaces and replaces the native.”

In his now infamous Columbia Law Review essay, he asserts that “Zionism is a modern European phenomenon” that sought “the colonization of Palestine and resettlement of Jews outside of Europe.” This, of course, fits in with the stigma of “white privilege,” as well. Ignoring Jews who came to the Land of Israel from North Africa, Yemen, Iraq, and other Middle Eastern countries, and whose skin is not white, is another Palestinian creation.

In opposition to this portrayal, let us recall the preamble of the 1922 League of Nations decision to create a Mandate for Palestine. It states that “the grounds for reconstituting... [the Jewish] national home in that country” were “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine,” a territory that “formerly belonged to the Turkish Empire.”

What was the “historical connection” that convinced 50 countries to vote to begin the process of the reconstitution, that is, the process of reconstructing something, of putting together elements back into a whole? Moreover, why did they avoid any mention of an Arab people or community in their 2,750-word document? Arabic as a language is noted thrice whereas Jews or Jewish is mentioned 15 times.

Was all this truly a conspiracy to assist some Zionist settler-colonial enterprise? Was antisemitic Europe so conveniently helpful and considerate? Or is there something very wrong and twisted in the foundations of Palestinianism? Worse, is it a created imagination of the mind?

True, there is a “modern Zionism” but that refers to the political mechanism formed in the 19th century. History, however, attests to a 3,000-year Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, a genuine non-imagined connection. That historical, religious, and cultural legacy is real and very legitimate, unlike the created idea of an Arab Palestine.

The writer is a researcher, analyst, and opinion commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.