The True Inhabitants of the Land Called “Palestine”

In this post, we will look at a few timelines that show us the true Inhabitants of the land called “Palestine” since Roman rule.

This is my 3rd post on this subject. In my last post How the Land of Israel Became Known as “Palestine” we learned that God made a covenant with Abraham. 

We also discovered that there was never a country called Palestine. The Romans renamed the province as a punishment, to obliterate the link between the Jews and the land.

Name of the Land Designed to Make a Political Point.

Douglas J. Feith, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from July 2001 to August 2005 states:

The land to the east of the Mediterranean has gone by many names, all of them designed to make a political point…

It is widely thought… the term Palestine refers only to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea…But that is not correct. The term “Palestine” was used for millennia without a precise geographic definition…No precise definition existed for Palestine because none was required.

Since the Roman era, the name lacked political significance. No nation ever had that name.

The term was meaningful to Christians as synonymous with the Holy Land.
It was meaningful to Jews as synonymous with Eretz Yisrael, which is Hebrew for the Land of Israel.
As noted by the Palestinian scholar Muhammad Y. Muslih in The Origins of Palestinian Nationalism, Arabic speakers sometimes used the Arabic words for “Holy Land,” but never coined a uniquely Arabic name for the territory; Filastin is the Arabic pronunciation of the Roman terminology.

“Palestine was also referred to as Surya al-Janubiyya (Southern Syria), because it was part of geographical Syria,” wrote Muslih.
In the pre-World War I-era, scholars also sometimes said Palestine was the region just south of Syria.
Since biblical times, Palestine was understood to span the Jordan River. It was common to call the one bank Western Palestine and the other Eastern Palestine…

The Forgotten History of the Term “Palestine” – Mosaic – 12/13/21 (Emphisis mine)

Satanic Hatred of The True Inhabitants

The world is quickly nearing the final years of this age and the judgment of Almighty God. We are once again experiencing the greatest outbreak of anti-Semitism in US history and around the globe.

Moreover, this is due to one thing. It is the hatred of Satan for the Jewish people. Since the beginning of time, Satan has been trying to destroy those made in the image of God, especially the Jewish people.

Without the Bible, we can only observe what we can see—nations in turmoil, wars, rumors of war, natural disasters, global threats, unstable governments, biological threats, and the chilling possibilities of extinction events. Global disasters that could destroy all human life.

Dr. David Jeremiah tells us that these things are unfolding in full view on the global stage, beamed by millions of cameras onto billions of phones and screens. But background drama is unfolding out of the reach of our cameras, behind the scenes. Only one book explains it to us—the Bible.

When we turn to God’s Word what we see with our natural eyes finally makes sense. What appears to be politics run amuck is actually a spiritual battle in the unseen realm that manifests itself in the lives of people all around us.

Satan hates the Jews with a passion and has high hopes of destroying them to keep Jesus Christ from returning to set up His reign and carry out the final sentence against Satan and his demonic minions.

5 Reasons Why Satan Hates Israel

Dr. David Reagan gives us 5 Reasons why Satan hates Israel:

1. God chose Israel to be His witness to the world.
   1. When you look at the Jewish people in their history you understand what it means to have a relationship with God.
      • God blesses when they are obedient. When they are disobedient, He disciplines them.
        • When they repent, He forgives and blesses them again.
2. Through Israel, God gave the world the Bible.
3. Satan hates Israel with a passion because through them God gave the world the Messiah.
4. Satan hates Israel because God has promised He will save a great remnant of them in the tribulation when they look upon their Messiah, Jesus Christ whom they have pierced and cry out for salvation.
5. Satan hates the Jews with a passion because God has promised that through that remnant that’s saved Jesus will reign over all the nations of the world one day while Satan is bound during Christ’s Millennial Reign.

Therefore, we see now why Satan hates the Jews and he is determined to block God’s promises that have been made to the Jews. Moreover, he uses the deceived, ignorant, humans who reject God to carry out his plan.  Satan has made great progress in pursuing his nefarious goal of destroying the Jewish people. We have seen this through the persecution, the Holocaust, and Hamas terrorism like 10/1/23. Satan never gives up.

The True Inhabitants: The Palestinian Claim

This is an indication of how the Jewish people have been persecuted, assaulted, and murdered throughout history, primarily, because of the relentless lies and propaganda of Satan as his minions.

However, despite “physical violence against Jews and pagans” by the post-Roman Christians, more than forty Jewish communities survived and could be traced to the sixth century. There were 12 towns on the coast, in the Negev, and east of the Jordan (land that was part of the Palestine Mandate, called Transjordan in 1922) and 31 villages in Galilee and in the Jordan Valley. (Samuel Katz, Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine (New York, 1973), p. 88.)

Click on the pictures below to see how the land given by God has changed throughout history.

More Pre-20th Century Maps of Interest

• Map of Palestine in the Time of Saul (c. 1020 B.C.E.)
• The Roman Empire (12 C.E.)
• Jewish Exile after Temple Destruction (70 C.E.)
• Jewish Diaspora (1^st Century)
• The Land of Israel (1^st Century)
• Palestine in the Time of Christ Illustrating the Four Gospels
• The Roman Empire
• The Eastern Roman Empire (395)
• Crusader States (12^th-13^th Century)
• East Europe & the Ottoman Empire (1481)
• Map of the Holy Land (1486)
• The Ottoman Empire (1580)
• Map of Israel in the Amsterdam Haggadah (1695)
• Map of the Holy Land (1759)
• The Holy Land (1782)
• Jerusalem (1883)
• Map of “Palestine” 1895
• “Palestine” During the Monarchy (1895)

Now let’s look at a few “conquerors” of the land God gave Israel beginning with the Romans.

The True Inhabitants of the Land God Gave Israel From 70 – 1900 A.D.

Roman Period (70 – 324 CE)

Byzantine Period (324-638 CE)

Year	Description
70	Romans conquered Jerusalem.
132-136	Jewish revolt under Bar Kochba; final defeat of Judah and loss of political sovereignty.
135	Jerusalem Rebuilt as a Roman City
351	Roman Empire adopts Christianity.
438	Empress Eudocia the wife of the Eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II allowed Jews to pray again at their holy temple site, the Jews from Galilee optimistically declared, “the end of the exile of our people”. This was misinterpreted by the Jews as a return to nationhood.
614	Persian conquest under Chosroes (with the support of a Jewish army).
628	Byzantines reconquered Palestine

From 629 A.D. to 1517 was the period when Jerusalem became the target of many people. The city and its residents were captured by the Byzantine Empire, the Muslim Force, Seljuk Turks, the Crusaders, Saladin of Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire.

First Muslim Period (638-1099 CE)

Year	Description
637	Muslim forces capture Caesarea, forcing the city’s estimated 100,000 Jews to follow the Pact of Omar.
638	Caliph Umar conquers Jerusalem and Jews are permitted to return to the city under Islam.
661-750	661-750 CE – Jerusalem Ruled Under Umayyad Dynasty
691	Dome of the Rock was built on the site of built on the site of destroyed Jewish Temples by Caliph Abd el-Malik.
742-814	Palestine was annexed to Egypt.
750-974	Jerusalem Ruled Under Abbasid Dynasty
878	Ahmad ibn Ṭūlūn, a Turkish general and governor of Egypt, conquers Palestine.
904	The Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad reconquer Palestine.
934	The Egyptian lkhshidi princes conquer Palestine; their reign begins.
969	Jerusalem Ruled Under the Abbasid Dynasty
970-976	Byzantine invasion
1070-1080	Seljuq Turks conquer Palestine.

Arab/ Muslim “Palestinians” The True Inhabitants From Time Immemorial?

You don’t need a math degree to understand that the Jewish people were living in the land given by God from ca. 1250 B.C. was approximately 2000 years before 637 A.D. when the Muslims moved in.

As you can see from the map below “time immemorial” means from the 7^th century… Things that make you go hmmmmm.

Video: Amir Tsarfati of Behold Israel: Who are the Palestinians?

Below is a short 3-minute video from Amir Tsarfati of Behold Israel: Who are the Palestinians?

Year	Description
1099	The Crusaders conquered Jerusalem, massacred the Jewish and Muslim populations; reigned in parts of Palestine until 1291.
1187	Saladin Captures Jerusalem from the Crusaders.
1229-1244	Crusaders Briefly Recapture Jerusalem Two Times
1244	The Kharezmians, instigated by Genghis Khan, invade Palestine; Jerusalem’s population is slaughtered.
1250	Muslim Caliph Dismantles Walls of Jerusalem; Population Rapidly Declines
1260	Mongol invasion; Jerusalem sacked.
1260	Mameluk Sultans of Egypt defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut, in Palestine; their reign begins.

The Crusaders Almost “Wiped Out”…

Although the Crusaders had almost “wiped out” the Jewish communities of Jerusalem, Acre, Caesarea, and Haifa, some Jews remained, and “village communities of Galilee survived.”

Acre became the seat of a Jewish academy in the thirteenth century. And while “many may have merged themselves into the local population, Christian or Muslim,” the Jews “stayed, to share and suffer from the disorder” of the aftermath of the Crusaders’ “feudalism,” resisting conversion. (Parkes, Whose Land?. pp. 97-99.)

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, “there was a constant trickle of Jewish immigrants into the country . . . some from other Islamic territories and especially North Africa.” (Parkes, Whose Land?. p. 110.)

Moreover, in 1438 a rabbi from Italy became the spiritual leader of the Jewish community in Jerusalem, and 50 years afterward another Italian scholar, Obadiah de Bertinoro, founded the Jerusalem rabbinical school that dealt authoritatively with rabbinic matters among the Jewish communities of the Islamic world.

The Jews meanwhile were plentiful enough so that in 1486 “a distinguished Pilgrim” to the Holy Land, the Dean of Mainz Cathedral, Bernard von Breidenbach, advised that both Hebron’s and Jerusalem’s Jews “will treat you in full fidelity, more so than anyone else in those countries of unbelievers”.

The “Ishmaelite,” or Islamic-born, Jewish immigration to the Holy Land was prominent and became intensified after the Spanish Inquisition.

The Ottomans conquer Palestine

In 1516, the Ottoman Turks invaded and occupied Palestine, an occupation that lasted for 402 years (1516-1918), except for the 9 years between 1831 and 1840, when the Egyptian Governor Muhammad Ali sent his troops to capture Palestine under the command of his son Ibrahim Pasha.

The Holy Land’s throbbing, spirited Jewish life continued, even in Hebron, where ” the prosperous Jewish community . . . had been plundered, many Jews killed and the survivors forced to flee” in 1518, three years after the Ottoman rule began.

By 1540, Hebron’s Jewry had recovered and reconstructed its Jewish Quarter.

In 1561, “Suleiman gave Tiberias, one of the four Jewish holy cities, to a former ‘secret’ Jew from Portugal, Don Joseph Nasi, who rebuilt the city and the villages around it.” Nasi’s efforts attracted Jewish settlements from many areas of the Mediterranean. (For a more detailed account, see Joachim Prinz, The Secret Jews (New York,1973), p. 147ff.)

Moreover, in 1563 the first Jewish printing press outside Europe was instituted in Safed.

Under Turkish rule the Jews in Jerusalem and Gaza maintained “cultural and spiritual unity,” and  Sultan Suleiman I allowed many Jews ” to return to the Holy Land.”

The Ottoman occupation of Palestine ended by the end of World War I, after the Ottoman Empire along with the other ‘Central Powers’ lost the war to the ‘Allies’.

Final Thoughts

Now you have a brief overview of the true inhabitants of the land RENAMED “Palestine” by the Romans. In 1917, the British forces entered Palestine, and by 1918, the Ottoman rule over Palestine ended following the defeat of its forces at the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918.

In my next post, we will look at the time period leading up to Israel becoming a nation once again in 1948. Below is a short video by Prager U that I believe you will find helpful concerning “Palestinian” refugees.

Supplemental Sources

• Read the article: Continuous Jewish Presence in the “Holy Land”
• Read the article: The Forgotten History of the Term “Palestine” – Mosaic
• Web site: Amir Tsarfati: Behold Israel
• Web site: Jewish Virtual Library
• PDF of the book: From Time Immemorial – THE ORIGINS OF THE ARAB-JEWISH CONFLICT OVER PALESTINE – written by Joan Peters, a CBS producer of documentaries. The Carter Administration sent Joan Peters to write a book about the rights of the Palestinians over the land. Jimmie Carter was a great advocate of the Palestinians. However, in her intensive research of the Ottoman Empire the UN, and the British mandate she was shocked by what she found.