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| quote: | Originally posted by dennis
What is a Palestine? |
Palestine (Hebrew: פלשתינה Palestina, also ארץ ישראל, Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel), a term for the same area; Arabic: فلسطين Filastīn or Falastīn) is one of many historical names for the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the banks of the Jordan River, plus various adjoining lands to the east and south. Many different definitions of the region have been used in the past three millennia.
The portion of the land located west of the Jordan River 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 split of the United Monarchy into two parts, the southern part became the Kingdom of Judah and the northern part the Kingdom of Israel.
The term "Palestine" comes from the word Philistine, the name of an ethnic group which lived in the southern coast of the region. The Philistines disappeared as a distinct group by the Assyrian period. What is possibly the earliest mention of them occurs in Egyptian texts which record a people called the P-r/l-s-t (conventionally Peleset), one of the Sea Peoples who invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign. The Hebrew name פלשת (Pəléeth or P(e)léshet, translated Philistia in English) is used in the Bible to denote the coastal region inhabited by the Philistines. The Assyrian emperor Sargon II called the region Palashtu in his Annals. The Greek form Palaistinęi from which English "Palestine" is ultimately derived, was first used in the 5th century BCE by Herodotus who wrote of the "district of Syria, called Palaistinęi". The boundaries of the area he referred to were not explicitly stated, but Josephus used the name only for Philistia. Ptolemy also used the term. In Latin, Pliny wrote of a region of Syria that was "formerly called Palaestina" when describing the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.
However, the name really stuck thanks to the Brits:

That was back in 1920, 27 years before the establishment of the State of Israel. Why do you ask? Do you need an explanation of what a "Israel" is?
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