1.
Toward the end of the 13th century BCE, the tribes of Israel entered Canaan from the east and began to conquer and settle in the Land of Israel, starting in the Jordan Valley and the hill country. Around the same time, sea-faring peoples invaded from the west, from the Greek islands and Sardinia, and settled primarily along the coast. For centuries, the Philistines fought the Israelites for control of the land, until the end of the 7th century BCE, when they disappeared from the region following the Babylonian conquest.
Unlike other nations that fought Israel, either by harming them physically and materially or by attacking their spirit and faith, the Vilna Gaon in his comments to the book of Habakkuk identified the Philistines as having a unique role in history: to prevent the People of Israel from establishing sovereignty over the Land of Israel. "And the Philistines greatly oppressed Israel and did not allow them any government or sovereignty." He pointed to the Bible, which recounts that whenever the Philistines heard of a resurgence of the national spirit among the tribes of Israel, such as the coronation of Saul, the first Israelite king, they prepared for war against them (see 1Samuel, 13).
2.
In the 5th century BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus visited the coastal region of the Land of Israel. In his writings, he referred to these territories as "Palaestina" or "Syria-Palaestina" in reference to the Philistines, who had already disappeared from the region about 150 years earlier. By contrast, the Jews, who had returned from the Babylonian exile, were in the midst of rebuilding the Land of Israel (Judah) and Jerusalem under the leadership of Ezra the Scribe.
Approximately 500 years later, in the year 70 CE, the Second Temple was destroyed by Emperor Titus, and in 132 CE, the Bar Kokhba revolt broke out under the command of Shimon Bar Kokhba and the spiritual leadership of Rabbi Akiva. The goal was to free the land from Roman control and achieve political and religious independence. The suppression of the revolt resulted in many Roman casualties, and when it was finally put down in 135 CE, punishing religious edicts and heavy taxes were imposed on the Jews. Emperor Hadrian, angered by the Jews, ordered the "erasure from memory" (Damnatio Memoriae) of the name "Judah" from all Roman documents. He decreed that it be called "Palaestina" and incorporated into the province of "Syria-Palaestina," assuming that with name Judah no longer existing, the Jews would forget their homeland and cease to rebel. He likely found the name "Palaestina" in the writings of Herodotus. Thus, through the twists of historical events, the Philistine specter returned to deprive Israel of sovereignty over its homeland.
3.
Hadrian also changed the name of Jerusalem to "Aelia Capitolina" and intended to transform it into a pagan city. However, the name of our capital survived the challenges of time. The name Palaestina, on the other hand, became entrenched in history as a designation for the Holy Land. However, the peoples who lived here during history were not referred to as "Palestinians." Since the Arab conquest in 638 CE, there has never been any mention in Arabic or Islamic literature of a distinct Palestinian people with their own identity or a defined country. In English tradition, Palestine was the biblical Holy Land.
At the San Remo Conference in April 1920, the leaders of the victorious powers of World War I discussed the division of the Middle East. They decided to grant 99 percent of the territory, which had previously belonged to the Ottoman Empire, to the Arab peoples. The remaining one percent was awarded to the Jewish people, and Britain was tasked with fulfilling the Balfour Declaration regarding the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in "Palestine." During the discussions, French Prime Minister Alexandre Millerand asked British Prime Minister Lloyd George about the boundaries of "Palestine." In response, Lloyd George opened an atlas by the British theologian and geographer George Adam Smith and showed the attendees Map 34 of "Palestine under David and Solomon," which spanned both sides of the Jordan River. "This belongs to the Jews," he said.
Speaking of British geography, between 1870 and 1878, a delegation from the British "Survey of Palestine" roamed the land. The British surveyors meticulously mapped the land, hill by hill, and produced a map of enormous dimensions and great precision, with a scale of 1 millimeter representing 63 meters on the ground. Using this map, one can accurately measure the size of the different villages and towns and the population at the time. The map reveals that the land was desolate and sparsely populated. The size of Arab villages was tiny. For example, Haifa was 440 by 190 meters. Jaffa was a small town measuring 540 by 240 meters. Jerusalem had a solid Jewish majority. The Jezreel Valley, the Jordan Valley, and other areas that Jews began to settle were completely devoid of Arabs. A reasonable estimate of the Arab population at the time the map was created was around 100,000 (you can find more details on the excellent website of journalist Zeev Galili, "The Logic in Madness"). By 1948, the Arab population had increased twelvefold, meaning most had migrated from other parts of the Middle East, with British Mandate authorities turning a blind eye, enforcing only the prohibition on Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel.
4.
The United Nations Partition Plan of November 29, 1947, mentioned a Jewish state but not a Palestinian state. The Arabs of the Mandate were offered an "Arab state." The Jews also lived as citizens in "Palestine – Land of Israel," as the British Mandate entity was called. "Palestine" was later invented as a tool in the war to destroy Israel and remove the Jews from their land.
In an interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw (March 1977), the head of the terror group As-Sa'iqa, and PLO Executive Committee member, Zuhair Mohsen, stated: "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the ongoing struggle against Israel for the purposes of Arab unity. Realistically, there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Just for political reasons we carefully under write our Palestinian identity. Because it is of national interest for the Arabs to advocate the existence of Palestinians to balance Zionism." In 1982, during the First Lebanon War, Yasser Arafat clarified the goal of the struggle: "It is not about defending the Palestinian people but defending the Arab nation, so that this land remains Arab, Arab, Arab, Arab."
It is more challenging to convince the world, when it is the vast Arab nation that covets the small territory of the Jews. It is for this reason that the Palestinians were invented with a separate identity, and it is this that has led to the genocidal call heard around the world: "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." It is likely that the vast majority of those shouting out this slogan have no idea which river and which sea, and they certainly do not know the historical facts. Article 20 of the Palestinian National Charter states that the Jews are not a people but a religion, and therefore do not have the right to national self-determination, in other words to a land of their own. This is the power of propaganda: age-old antisemitic prejudices are employed to convince people that a recently invented collective can deny the national identity of one of the oldest peoples in the world, who already in the 10th century BCE had a kingdom in their homeland, where Saul, David, and Solomon ruled.
5.
Rome has long since disappeared into the mists of time, and Hadrian lives primarily in Jewish memory, but his scheme to sever the Jewish people from their land persists. The world still ignorantly believes that before the establishment of Israel, there was a Palestinian state here. During my term as ambassador to Italy, I used to label this phenomenon as "intellectual laziness." History however has its own ways of teaching us humility and justice: In July 1975, during excavations at Tel Shalem in the Beit She'an Valley, statue of the Emperor Hadrian was discovered in what had been the Roman Sixth Legion's camp. The statue is now displayed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, the city whose name Hadrian sought to erase. His right hand is amputated (see Psalms 137:5-6).
