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Palestine (Greek: Παλαιστίνη Palaistinē, Latin: Syria Palæstina, Hebrew: פלשתינה Palestina, Arabic: فلسطين Filasṭīn (Palestinian dialect: Falasṭīn)) is the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the banks of the Jordan River, plus various adjoining lands to the east. Many different definitions of the region have been used in the past three millennia (see also definitions of Palestine).

Boundaries and Name

Egyptian writings refer to the region as R-t-n-u (for convenience pronounced Rechenu). Several names for the region are found in the Bible: Eretz Yisrael "Land of Israel", Eretz Ha-Ivrim "land of the Hebrews", "land flowing with milk and honey", "land that swore to your fathers to assign to you", "Holy Land", and "land of the Lord". The portion of the land lying west of the Jordan was also called "land of Canaan" during the period in which it fell under the control of Egyptian vassals traditionally descended from Canaan the son of Ham. After the division of the Jewish kingdom into two the southern part was called "land of Judah" and the northern part was called "land of Israel".

The name "Palestine" comes from the Philistine people, who are first recorded by the ancient Egyptians as P-r/l-s-t (conventionally Peleset), one of the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign. "Palestine" (Hebrew פלשת Pəléšeth, P(e)léshet) is used in the Bible to denote the coastal region inhabited by the Philistines, whose five principal cities were Gaza, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Ashkelon. Usage of the term, usually in the form "Syria Palestina", to denote the inland areas as well was common among Greek writers as early as Herodotus. Josephus, however, apparently intended by the name only the land of the Philistines. The Philistines (meaning "invaders" in Hebrew) were subjugated by David; however, by Amos' time they had regained their independence. They are no longer mentioned by Assyrian times.

5th century B.C.E.

The term "Syria Palaestina" is first recorded by the 5th century B.C.E. Greek historian Herodotus, who wrote of the "district of Syria called Palaistinêi", and later Ptolemy and Pliny (who alludes to a region of Syria that was "formerly called Palaestina"), to refer to the eastern coast of the Mediterranean; it is generally accepted that the region they referred to extended further inland than the domain of the Philistines.

Roman times

In 135, the Roman emperor Hadrian changed the name of the Roman province of Syria Judea to Syria Palaestina, which is the Latin version of the Greek name, and it became an administrative political unit within the Roman Empire, following the fall of a Jewish revolt led by Bar Kokhba in 132-135. In approximately 390, Palaestina was further organised into three units: First, Second, and Third Palaestina. Palastina Prima consisted of Judea, Samaria, the coast, and Peraea which the governor residing in Caesarea. Palaestina Secunda consisted of the Galilee, the lower Jezreel Valley, the regions east of Galilee, and the western part of the former Decapolis with the seat of government at Scythopolis. Palaestina Tertia included the Negev, southern Jordan — once part of Arabia — and most of Sinai with Petra the usual residence of the governor. Palestina Tertia was also known as Palaestina Salutaris. This reorganization reduced Arabia to the northern Jordan east of Peraea. Roman administration of Palestine ended temporarily during the Persian occupation of 614-28, then permanently after the Arabs conquered the region beginning in 635.

Arab rule

The new Arab rulers divided the province of ash-Sham (Syria) into five districts. Jund Filastin (Arabic جند فلسطين, literally "the army or military district of Palestine") was a region extending from the Sinai to south of the plain of Acre. At times it reached down into the Sinai. Major towns included Rafaḥ, Caesarea, Gaza, Jaffa, Nablus, Jericho, Ramla and Jerusalem. Initially Ludd (Lydda) was the capital, but in 717 it was moved to the new city of ar-Ramlah (Ramla). (The capital was not moved to Jerusalem until much later, when the organization into Junds was already breaking down.) Jund al-Urdunn (literally "Jordan") was a region to the north and east of Filastin. Major towns included Tiberias, Legio, Acre, Beisan and Tyre. The capital was at Tiberias. Various political upheavals led to readjustments of the boundaries several times. After the 10th century, the division into Junds began to break down and the Turkish invasions of the 1070s, soon followed by the Crusades and the establishment of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, completed that process.

From the 11th to the 19th centuries we have instances that Filasṭin did not refer to the land of Palestine but to its by then defunct capital ar-Ramla.

• See also the Mideastweb map of "Palestine Under the Caliphs", showing Jund boundaries (external link).

Muslim division into districts

After Muslim control over Palestine was reestablished in the 12th and 13th centuries, the division into districts was reinstated, with boundaries that were frequently rewritten. Around the end of the 13th century, Palestine comprised several of nine "kingdoms" of Syria, namely the Kingdoms of Gaza (including Ascalon and Hebron), Karak (including Jaffa and Legio), Safad (including Safad, Acre, Sidon and Tyre) and parts of the Kingdom of Damascus (sometimes extending as far south as Jerusalem). By the middle of the 14th century, Syria had again been divided into five districts, of which Filastin included Jerusalem (its capital), Ramla, Ascalon, Hebron and Nablus, while Hauran included Tiberias (its capital).

Ottoman rule

After the Ottoman conquest, the name disappeared as the official name of an administrative district but remained in popular and semi-official use. Many examples of its usage in the 16th and 17th centuries have survived . During the 19th century, the "Ottoman Government employed the term Arz-i Filistin (the 'Land of Palestine') in official correspondence, meaning for all intents and purposes the area to the west of the River Jordan which became 'Palestine' under the British in 1922" . Amongst the educated Arab public, Filastin was a common concept, referring either to the whole of Palestine or to the Jerusalem sanjaq alone .

20th Century

In European usage up to World War I, the name "Palestine" was used informally for a region that extended in the north-south direction typically from Raphia (south-east of Gaza) to the Litani River (now in Lebanon). The western boundary was the sea, and the eastern boundary was the poorly-defined place where the Syrian desert began. In various European sources, the eastern boundary was placed anywhere from the Jordan River to slightly east of Amman. The Negev Desert was not included.

Under the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, most of Palestine was envisioned as an international zone not under direct French or British colonial control.

British Mandate

Main article: British Mandate of Palestine

Formal use of the English word "Palestine" returned with the British Mandate. During this period , the name "Eretz Yisrael" (Hebrew: ארץ ישראל) was also part of the official name of the territory. Between 1920 and 1922, Palestine was defined by the San Remo Conference as the area bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and a short stretch of Red Sea coastline between the latter two. These borders include all of present-day Israel, the West Bank. the Gaza Strip, and Jordan. . However, the final text left the borders unspecified (note in particular Article 25.) After Transjordan was split off from Palestine in 1922, the term Palestine referred to the segment west of the Jordan river (see History of Palestine, History of Jordan). Even before the Mandate came into legal effect in 1922 (text), British terminology applied the word Palestine to the part west of the Jordan River and Trans-Jordan (or Transjordania) to the part east of the Jordan River. This terminology was applied consistently during the Mandate period and it is difficult to find any official documents that use any name other than "Palestine and Trans-Jordan" when referring to the whole area of the Mandate. Nevertheless, the fact that "Palestine" was once considered to include lands on the east side of the Jordan River continues even today to have significance in political discourse.

Between 1922 and 1947, the term "Palestine" referred to the geographical region bordered by (Trans-)Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and the Mediterranean Sea .

UN Partition

Main article: 1947 UN Partition Plan

Under the 1947 UN Partition Plan, Palestine was to be divided into two states of approximately equal size, one for Jews and one for Arabs, as well as the city of Jerusalem, which was to be administered by the UN . The Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states rejected the partition plan, and attacked the newly declared state of Israel in 1948. An independent Arab Palestine was declared by a Palestinian National Congress meeting in Gaza in September 1948; it defined its borders as those of the British Mandate, and its capital as Jerusalem. A week later, the Jordan-backed rival First Palestinian Congress convened in Amman and denounced the Gaza "government".

Current status

Following the 1949 armistice agreement between Israel and neighboring Arab states, Palestine disappeared as a distinct territory. The territory previously known as Palestine was occupied by Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan. In the course of 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Israel captured an additional 26% of the Mandate territory west of the Jordan river and annexed it to the new state. Known as al-Nakba (the catastrophe) to Palestinians, the 1948 war resulted in the destruction of over 500 Palestinian villages. Jordan captured about 21% of the Mandate territory (which became known as the West Bank), including parts of Jerusalem that included the old city and eastern environments and separated the city into West and East Jerusalem. The Gaza Strip was captured by Egypt.

After 1948, the term "Palestine" was regularly used in political contexts to describe land considered by the speaker to rightfully belong to a Palestinian state. Various declarations, such as the 1988 proclamation of a State of Palestine by the PLO referred to a country called Palestine, defining its borders with differing degrees of clarity. Most recently, the Palestine draft constitution refers to borders based on the West Bank and Gaza Strip prior to the 1967 Six-Day War. This so-called Green Line follows the 1949 armistice line; the permanent borders are yet to be negotiated. Furthermore, since 1994, there has been a Palestinian Authority controlling varying portions of historic Palestine.

Literature

• Mariam Shahin, Palestine - a Guide, Interlink Books 2005
• Gideon Biger, Where was Palestine? Pre-World War I perception, AREA (Journal of the Institute of British Geographers) Vol 13, No. 2 (1981) 153-160.
• Guy Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems (1890; reprinted by Khayats, 1965)
• N. J. Mandel, The Arabs and Zionism before World War I (University of Califormia Press, 1976)
• H. Gerber, "Palestine" and other territorial concepts in the 17th century, International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol 30 (1998) pp 563-572
• Y. Porath, The emergence of the Palestinian-Arab national movement, 1918-1929 (Cass, 1974)
• B. Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus 1700-1900 (UC Press, 1995)

See also

• Land of Israel covers roughly the same region, with a different focus
• State of Palestine
• State of Israel
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Arab-Israeli conflict

• Palestine