Thanks Alex. It drives me nuts that when I now write, if I use the term Palestine some people get upset. Over the past ten years I've gone to Eretz Yisrael which is how the rabbis usually refer to the land of Israel. Can't call it Israel because that's too modern as well. Its a shame, but not sure Jews can recover the use of the word Palestine.
I have written elsewhere (not on substack as of yet) that it is quite possible that the Romans changed the name to Syria-Palestina just because empires generally changed the names of places they conquered and not to punish the Jews in particular. So I would agree that it is possible that the name change was something prosaic as you suggest.
Two points in your conclusion that I want to consider
(1) "Even as recently as the pre-state period, Jews in the land had no objection to the term." The Jews living here had no objection to the term because it had nothing to do with an independent Jewish state. It was a name given to a piece of land over which the British had a mandate. As soon as we had an independent state, we changed the name to Israel, from which point on, calling it Palestine took on a somewhat sinister tone since the Arabs wanted us out of here, wanted to eliminate Israel and have a "Palestinian state" over the entire land. There never had been an independent Palestinian state before in history. And, in fact, while some Arabs (mostly Christians) called themselves Palestinians during mandate times, the Muslims only took on that name much later. And the PLO meant liberating a Palestine that had never been a state so that it could be judenfrei.
(2) "Palestine should not be viewed as the adversary of Israel, but as an important part of the history of the land." Here you combobulate "Palestine" and "Palestinians." In fact, while Palestinian Arabs are a part of the history of this land, what "Palestine" is part of that history? The Mandate of Palestine? The Palestinian Authority? Syria-Palestina? The Palestinian state that never was? Please explain it to me.
1) I think you are overly focused on the fact that there was no independent Palestinian state before. Many modern states didn't have earlier states with the same name.
2) For the period from the 2nd century to the mid-20th century it's reasonable to refer to the land as Palestine. One could argue that we should instead refer to the specific districts of whichever empire was ruling at the time, but - again - one could make the same argument for a lot of places. Nobody complains if someone refers to the history of 7th-century central Thailand, even though it was known back then as Dvaravati. You might object that in this case no Palestinian state has been formed in modern times but given the widespread use of the name for at least 2,500 years, I don't think this is a reasonable objection. The Palestinians aren't that unusual - most nations emerged relatively recent, some with stronger historical antecedents, some with weaker ones. The problem is you consistently and unjustifiably use it as some kind of "gotcha."
I am not one to complain about 7th C central Thailand or any other place as I have no stake there and I leave it to the people there to worry about it. Likewise other places.
The problem is that the use of Palestine today is for the purposes of undermining Jews in Israel. That is the only "gotcha" going here. "Gotcha Jew -- get outahere, Jew."
You might be interested in my critique of Zachary Foster's PhD thesis in which he discusses the origins of the names Palestine and Palestinian, and he goes waaaay back in history.https://ozsheri.substack.com/p/the-invention-of-palestine
Well you didn’t address any of the points I made, but you seemed to imply you had no problem with using double standards as you think it serves the cause. My experience is the opposite.
and here I thought I was addressing your points. If you cannot see that, then we do not have the conversation I thought we were getting into. So not point in going on. If you want to have the last word here, go ahead.
Thank you for making the effort to separate the history from the politics. For most people, on either side of the debate, history is simply viewed as a political tool. It's interesting to see that so eminent a biblical scholar as Geza Vermes had no problem with using the term 'Palestine' in his book 'Jesus the Jew' to describe the geographical region in biblical times.
Thanks Alex. It drives me nuts that when I now write, if I use the term Palestine some people get upset. Over the past ten years I've gone to Eretz Yisrael which is how the rabbis usually refer to the land of Israel. Can't call it Israel because that's too modern as well. Its a shame, but not sure Jews can recover the use of the word Palestine.
Thanks Josh - you can print out this article to give to anyone who complains about you using the word Palestine :)
Fascinating.
I have written elsewhere (not on substack as of yet) that it is quite possible that the Romans changed the name to Syria-Palestina just because empires generally changed the names of places they conquered and not to punish the Jews in particular. So I would agree that it is possible that the name change was something prosaic as you suggest.
Two points in your conclusion that I want to consider
(1) "Even as recently as the pre-state period, Jews in the land had no objection to the term." The Jews living here had no objection to the term because it had nothing to do with an independent Jewish state. It was a name given to a piece of land over which the British had a mandate. As soon as we had an independent state, we changed the name to Israel, from which point on, calling it Palestine took on a somewhat sinister tone since the Arabs wanted us out of here, wanted to eliminate Israel and have a "Palestinian state" over the entire land. There never had been an independent Palestinian state before in history. And, in fact, while some Arabs (mostly Christians) called themselves Palestinians during mandate times, the Muslims only took on that name much later. And the PLO meant liberating a Palestine that had never been a state so that it could be judenfrei.
(2) "Palestine should not be viewed as the adversary of Israel, but as an important part of the history of the land." Here you combobulate "Palestine" and "Palestinians." In fact, while Palestinian Arabs are a part of the history of this land, what "Palestine" is part of that history? The Mandate of Palestine? The Palestinian Authority? Syria-Palestina? The Palestinian state that never was? Please explain it to me.
1) I think you are overly focused on the fact that there was no independent Palestinian state before. Many modern states didn't have earlier states with the same name.
2) For the period from the 2nd century to the mid-20th century it's reasonable to refer to the land as Palestine. One could argue that we should instead refer to the specific districts of whichever empire was ruling at the time, but - again - one could make the same argument for a lot of places. Nobody complains if someone refers to the history of 7th-century central Thailand, even though it was known back then as Dvaravati. You might object that in this case no Palestinian state has been formed in modern times but given the widespread use of the name for at least 2,500 years, I don't think this is a reasonable objection. The Palestinians aren't that unusual - most nations emerged relatively recent, some with stronger historical antecedents, some with weaker ones. The problem is you consistently and unjustifiably use it as some kind of "gotcha."
I am not one to complain about 7th C central Thailand or any other place as I have no stake there and I leave it to the people there to worry about it. Likewise other places.
The problem is that the use of Palestine today is for the purposes of undermining Jews in Israel. That is the only "gotcha" going here. "Gotcha Jew -- get outahere, Jew."
You might be interested in my critique of Zachary Foster's PhD thesis in which he discusses the origins of the names Palestine and Palestinian, and he goes waaaay back in history.https://ozsheri.substack.com/p/the-invention-of-palestine
I think you are mistaken if you think perpetuating your own falsehoods is the best way to respond to the falsehoods of others.
LOL. And I thought we were starting to get an interesting dialogue going. Oh well.
Well you didn’t address any of the points I made, but you seemed to imply you had no problem with using double standards as you think it serves the cause. My experience is the opposite.
and here I thought I was addressing your points. If you cannot see that, then we do not have the conversation I thought we were getting into. So not point in going on. If you want to have the last word here, go ahead.
Thank you for making the effort to separate the history from the politics. For most people, on either side of the debate, history is simply viewed as a political tool. It's interesting to see that so eminent a biblical scholar as Geza Vermes had no problem with using the term 'Palestine' in his book 'Jesus the Jew' to describe the geographical region in biblical times.