Where the "Palestine" Moniker Came From

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

The biggest lie told in the world is about Palestine;  what it is and its history.  This is being told by anti-Semites throughout the world.

Here's the truth about Palestine:  

Palestine was not the name of a country.

It's on maps but leads people to think it was a country.  It was a name the Romans created to replace Israel's name--the country they had taken. Both Arabs and Jews living there were called Palestinians until May 14, 1948-Israel's re-birth.

There was no actual country of Palestine.  

   Jacob (Israel), father of 12 sons who became 12 tribes, received the name, ISRAEL, after wrestling or struggling with a heavenly emissary (angel?) and overcame him,  given this name. Perhaps its meaning is "one who overcame."   Actually, Israel today has overcome all odds of existence, even after being accepted  by the LEAGUE OF NATIONS and the UNITED NATIONS after World War I.  Anti-Semitism has arisen since then and continues among the nations of the earth.  Israel came about by following all the legal needs of the time-losing promised land to Jordan before they even received it, and yet still has to prove every day their worth;  shameful.  No other country in the world has gone through what they have had to overcome. To read of such nonsense happening in our college campuses, a place of higher education, makes me sick.  Our students should be learning how to make decisions out of facts, not hearsay-gossip.  They who are against Israel's right to exist  are coming out no smarter than sheep at this rate.     

Countries had to have leaders such as kings or queens or presidents.  Palestine was the new name for old land-Israel, land already  1,070 years old of being Israel- land of Jacob's 12 tribes when the Romans named Israel "Palestine."  It was a slap in the face name, a cruel name-giving the name of their long-time enemy, the Philistines, the name for their land.  

                           

                                         Israel's History

Israel had been created by Joshua arriving with 600,000 Israelites from Egypt in a 40 year trek to get there, arriving about 1271 BCE-Jewish calendar time; using leaders of the tribes such as Deborah as Judges,  and was officially Israel with a king with King Saul in about 1000 BCE. King David then ruled from 1010-970 CE, and his son, Solomon from 961-920 BCE.  Solomon took on the task of the actual building of the Temple, spoken of by Moses.  To do this he overworked his people, and taxed them as well.  This caused the Civil War between the North and the South.  

Jerusalem was in the tribe of Judah's land, became the united capital of Israel-(new name of Jacob, father of the 12 tribes of Israel). Jerusalem is also called the City of David. David had found Jebusites living here and dealt leniently with them in 1010 BCE.  

Solomon's death brought on a Civil War. His son, Rehoboam ruled 933-912 BCE but the kingdom went through a Civil War with the North and their new king, Jeroboam- Solomon's former superintendent of forced labor,  where the North (new name of Samaria for their new capitol) ceded from the South (Judah).   Then in 721 BCE the Assyrians attacked, took away the best of the population of 27,290 Israelites  and left their unwanted slaves.  

Babylonians attacked Judah  in 597 BCE, then again in 586 BCE taking Judeans to Babylon.  The next Babylonian,  king Cyrus,  allowed them to return to Jerusalem in 538 BCE but some had remained. 

    Roman Occupation-Aggressive Take-Over

 The Romans had occupied Jerusalem in 63 BCE  and then their leader, General Pompey the Great (106-48 BCE),  burned it down in 70 CE, including its Temple.

Judaea  had been a Roman ally since the second century BCE and became a Roman province in 6 CE.

Eventually Josephus (Jewish general who went over to the Roman side to save his life),  and his men sheltered within the walled city of Jotapata, surrounded by Romans. Just before dawn on the 47th day of the siege, Roman soldiers scaled the city's walls and poured into the city. They killed around 40,000 Jews.

  (For some time Rome had been expanding its authority in Asia, and in 63 BCE the Roman triumvir Pompey the Great captured Jerusalem)..   Pompey was involved in the fight over the throne of Judea (southern Israel).  It was Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus who were fighting over it.  Pompey favored  Hyrcanus so captured Jerusalem and the Temple from Aristobulus supporters.  Judea was made a tributary and stripped of the territories acquired by the Hasmonean Jews.  Aristobulus and his family were taken to Rome to grace Pompey's triumph.  Pompey ended Jewish independence enjoyed since Simon the Maccabee of the Hasmonean era.of which we're about to remember with the holiday of Chanukah.  

Palestine's  the name given to Israel by the Romans after 132-135 CE (AD) out of anger at the Jewish General Bar Kokhba-meaning son of the star;  real name was Bar/Ben (son of) Kosiba Simeon.  He was the nephew of Rabbi Eleazar of Modiin and of Davidic descent.                          

A revolt had begun against the Emperor Hadrian (P.Aelius Hadrianus) Roman Emperor (117-138)  in 132 which he led.  Hadrians initial eastern policy was the removal and execution of the savage Roman governor of Judea, Lucius Quietus, who was a Roman Berber general and 11th legate of Judaea in (117–120). He was the principal commander against the Jewish rebellion known as the Kitos War (Kitos is a later corruption of Quietus). As both a general and a highly acclaimed commander, he was notably one of the most accomplished Berber statesmen in ancient Roman history. After the death of the emperor Trajan, Quietus was murdered or executed, possibly on the orders of Trajan's successor Hadrian.

Who were the Berbers who were in the Roman army?  The two largest populations of Berbers are found in Algeria and Morocco, where large portions of the population are descended from Berbers but only some of them identify as Amazigh. Roughly one-fourth of the population in Algeria is estimated to be Berber, while Berbers are estimated to make up more than three-fifths of the population in Morocco. In the Sahara of southern Algeria and of Libya, Mali, and Niger, the Berber Tuareg number more than two million.  Romans used people they had fought against such as the Germanic tribes.  

Rabbi Akiva (greatest scholar of his time, had thousands of students)  claimed Aluf (General) Bar Kokhba was the awaited Messiah, but other rabbis didn't agree. Causes of revolt were many:  1)rebuilding Jerusalem as a Roman colony;  2) prohibition of circumcision;  3) repression of Judaism carried on since 70 CE... 

It is written about him that he had great personal strength, was autocratic, irascible that were mentioned in letters found near the Dead Sea in letters from Bar Kokhba.  

    Romans fighting Bar Kokhba in 133 CE in Jerusalem

Bar Kokhba's soldiers had captured Jerusalem back in 132 and held it for 3 whole years!  It was in 133 that the Romans counterattacked with an army of 35,000 under Hadrian and the commander Julius Severus.  

  After 3 years of fighting and winning the hardest fight they had in a long time, the Romans had renamed the land after Israel's worst past enemy, the Philistines. 

Jews taken as slaves from Jerusalem forced to carry the loot from the Temple to Rome as shown on Arch of Titus 

What had led up to this fight was that Rome had occupied Jerusalem and then had burned the city and its Temple in the year 70 after looting and taking everything of value.  They even documented the occasion by having the Arch of  Titus picture the great event that pleased the Romans in Rome; seeing all the loot brought back.  

The Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in the extensive depopulation of Judean communities, more so than during the First Jewish–Roman War of 70 CE. According to Cassius Dio, 580,000 Jews perished in the war and many more died of hunger and disease, 50 fortresses and 985 villages were destroyed. In addition, many Judean war captives were sold into slavery. Some modern historians assert that Dio's numbers were somewhat exaggerated, but other researchers support Dio's claim of massive depopulation. The Jewish communities of Judea were devastated to an extent which some scholars describe as a genocide.

 However, the Jewish population remained strong in Galilee, Golan, Bet Shean Valley, and the eastern, southern, and western edges of Judea. Roman casualties were also considered heavy – XXII Deiotariana was disbanded, perhaps after serious losses in this conflict. In a possibly punitive act, the province of Judaea was renamed Syria Palaestina-thus, Palestine.

The Bar Kokhba revolt greatly influenced the course of Jewish history and the philosophy of the Jewish religion. Despite easing the persecution of Jews following Hadrian's death in 138 CE, the Romans barred Jews from Jerusalem, except for attendance in Tisha B'Av. 

Jewish messianism was abstracted and spiritualized, and rabbinical political thought became deeply cautious and conservative. The Talmud, for instance, refers to Bar Kokhba as "Ben-Kusiba", a derogatory term meaning "son of deception", used to indicate that he was a false Messiah. It was also among the key events to differentiate Christianity as a religion distinct from Judaism. Although Jewish Christians regarded Jesus as the Messiah and did not support Bar Kokhba, they were barred from Jerusalem along with the other Jews.  

This brings to mind the Nazis, who said that if you had one 

grandparent who was Jewish, even if you were a Christian, you were 

marked a  Jew and were killed. 

Resource:

https://www.jns.org/opinion/genocidal-antisemitism-is-conquering-american-campuses/

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Berber

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusius_Quietus

https://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/josephus.html#:~:text=Judaea%2C%20now%20part%20of%20modern,Roman%20province%20in%206%20AD.

https://www.britannica.com/place/Jerusalem/Roman-rule

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Kokhba_revolt#:~:text=In%20132%2C%20the%20revolt%20led,in%20Aelia%20Capitolina%20(Jerusalem).