Where, then, did the name come from? In AD 132, a Jewish man named Simon bar Kokhba led a revolt against the Roman Empire. Starting in the central town of Modi’in, the revolt quickly spread.

Hadrian, like most Roman emperors, did not take too kindly to uprisings, so he dropped the hammer on Judea. Nearly one-third of the Roman army, under the leadership of General Julius Severus, descended mercilessly upon the nation. The country was devastated, and over a half million Jews lost their lives. Because this was not the first revolt of this rebellious people, Severus decided to ensure they would not rise again—so he stripped the country of its identity. No longer would the country of Judea exist; it would be called Syria-Palestina instead, which was eventually shortened to Palestine.¹

The name Palestine is derived from the Philistines. “Aha!” some may say. “There is our Arab connection.” Not so fast. The Philistines were not Arabs, but sea people. In fact, the root of their name comes from the Hebrew word for “invade.” So, if anyone has invaded the land, it would be “the Invaders,” not those to whom God originally gave the land.

Palestine immediately became the accepted name for the region, and the name Israel was soon forgotten—precisely what the enemy wanted. In a call for the Lord to rise to action, the psalmist Asaph wrote,

For behold, Your enemies make a tumult; and those who hate You have lifted up their head. They have taken crafty counsel against Your people, and consulted together against Your sheltered ones. They have said, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.” Psalm 83:2-4

Outside of the Church, this very thing has happened among the nations.

Even the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Jews who first returned to the land seemed to forget the land’s true identity, calling themselves Palestinians. Prior to the 1948 independence, The Jerusalem Post, a Jewish newspaper, was The Palestine Post. The Israeli Philharmonic, a Jewish orchestra, was called the Palestine Orchestra. When there was a call to arms among the repatriated Jews to fight in World War II, they organized as the Palestinian brigade. If anyone has a right to the Palestinian name, it is the Jews—not the Arabs.

This confusion has led to a delegitimizing of the nation of Israel throughout the Arab world and beyond. There is no international organization that has been more of an enemy to Israel than the United Nations, a body that claims to represent the world’s opinion. Instead, they are quick to tout the cause of a nation, Palestine, that never really existed, and of a people who have no true national identity.

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