Palestine - A Geo-physical Study – Norman A. Rubin
The world 'Palestine' has a curious meaning. Ethnologically, it means the
land of the Philistines', a strip of territory along the Levant coast from El Arish to Jaffa approximately.
The Romans and later the Byzantines gave the
word definite and precise administrative significations and extended the
boundaries.
The Arabs, under the banner of Saladin, extinguished Frankish rule at the decisive battle of Hattin in 1187, to become masters of the
area. They coined the word "Falestin" as their name for one of their provinces.
Since the 16th cent., this region was part of the Ottoman dominions.
For them this was not Palestine. For the Turks and the Arabs, the whole of the region lying between the Taurus Mts. and the confines of Egypt, was Syria, a term which had been in use from antiquity. After the 'Treaty of Berlin' in 1870, which insured free access to the holy places to Jews and Christians, their Jerusalem province came to be known as 'Palestine'. The area consisted of Jaffa to Jerusalem, and southwards, covering the entire Negev Desert to the port of Aqaba (
Jordan).
In Europe in the Middle Ages the word Palestine came to mean the Land of Israel before the Diaspora (Dispersion) as mentioned in the Book of Judges 20:1-2, "All the Israelites, the whole community from Dan to Beersheba and out of Gilead also, left their homes as one man and assembled before the Lord..."
The Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916 - the dismembering of the Ottoman
Empire), assigned to France Lebanon and Syria, and to England - Palestine and Iraq. Between the two zones it was agreed to create an Arab state or confederation of states; France with priority of rights in the north and England in the south. (British rule in Palestine began on Dec. 11, 1917.)
The British determined the boundaries of present-day Palestine
mandatory government in 1924. Transjordan was created from the eastern part (a gift to placate the Royal House of Hussien), extending from the river Jordan to the eastern boundaries; and Palestine, Sist Jordan - its borders were from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea.
And now to modern history. The British government announced their
intentions to withdraw from Palestine on Aug, 1st, 1948, pushing it
foward to May of the same year. The United Nations in Nov. 1947 had
adopted a partition plan for both Arab and Jewish States based on part of the Mandates's geography of Palestine, Sist Jordan. This plan the Arabs refused and though Israel won its War of Independence, the neighboring Arab countries occupied the West Bank and Gaza. (And the resolution of a Palestinian homeland was put aside.)
And so the essential nature of the Arab-Israel conflict has been the
background truth of the origins of the Land of Palestine that has eluded the world. In its place an illusion has been formed, or rather, a delusion, which has contributed to the root cause of the failure of a settled and lasting peace in the area.
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