The Balfour Declaration: A Jewish Homeland in Palestine
With respect, you're misinformed. Dating back to around 1150 BCE, the Egyptians were referring to the Peleset in Canaan. The Assyrians mentioned them around 800 BCE and finally, in 5 BCE, Herodotus spoke about the Palestine area in Syria.
If you'd argued that we don't know where they lived, then I would be nodding in agreement. But the Palestinian people were somewhere in that area from the dawn of recorded history. Us Britons have a lot to answer for, but not making up the name of a nation of people.
We're a little clearer about Israel, but not much. They are first mentioned by the Egyptians in 1209 BCE, but only to say that they've been utterly destroyed. An assessment which appears a little premature.
These Israelis lived in the highlands of Canaan. By 1000 BCE, they'd grown in strength enough for Egypt to feel threatened, so the pharaoh sent troops into the mountains to attack them.
Sometime during the next 100 years, it appears that some of the Israelis split to create Judah. This was very useful for the Assyrians, when they came to conquer in the 700s BCE. There's some evidence that Assyrian money and support bolstered the Judean people and, in return, they turned against the Israelites.
The historical record shows Samaria (Israel's capital) being destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE; and a mass exodus depopulating Israel completely. That was largely the end of that until modern times. Judah survived (as an Assyrian vassal state) until the collapse of the Assyrian Empire, a couple of hundred years later. Then it was a sitting duck for Egyptian and Babylonian forces to move in for the kill.
But to say that the Palestinian people weren't anywhere in the vicinity just doesn't add up in the historical record. Where they were situated in Canaan is a totally different question.
JoHarrington, Nov 21, 2012
