The recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas marks another chapter in a long and complex history of conflict. To truly grasp the current situation, it’s essential to look beyond the immediate events and understand the millennia-spanning narrative of Palestine—a land profoundly shaped by colonization, displacement, and a persistent struggle for self-determination.
Where and What is Palestine?
For over two thousand years, Palestine has been a focal point for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. As Nabil Matar notes in “Mediterranean Captivity through Arab Eyes,” it has been a land of pilgrimage, conquest, and scholarship, attracting diverse groups and becoming a rich granary in the Fertile Crescent. Palestinian historian Nur ad-Din Masalha, in “Palestine: A 4000 Year History,” traces the region’s earliest known names to ancient Egyptian texts, referring to it as Retenu and Djahi. These names encompassed the eastern Mediterranean coast, divided into various subregions.
Our understanding of ancient Palestine and its people, the Philistines (Peleset), has evolved significantly. While traditional interpretations, influenced by colonial and biblical scholarship, often depicted them as “sea peoples” from the Aegean, recent genetic, archaeological, and epigraphic discoveries—including Philistine burial sites in Ascalon—suggest they were indigenous to the Near East. Egyptian inscriptions from Ramesses III’s reign and later Assyrian records confirm the presence of these peoples and the region’s name as Palashtu or Pilistu.
For the ancient Hebrews, “Philistia” referred to a confederation of five coastal cities: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath. Importantly, biblical narratives often portrayed the Philistines negatively, from Goliath to Delilah, as symbols of evil. The Old Testament refers to the ‘land of Plishtim,’ and the Mediterranean Sea was known as the ‘sea of Philistines.’
In Islamic geographies, “Filastin” was defined variously, sometimes encompassing areas from Rafah to Lajjun, and at other times restricted to the town of Ramla. Early European maps sometimes limited “Palestine” to the coastal plain, while others used it to describe the entire Holy Land. By the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods, the term gained administrative precision, with borders extending as far north as Ras al-Naqura. Today, the very existence of Palestine is, for some, a point of denial.
Palestine: From Prehistory to Civilization
Archaeological research in Palestine has often been viewed through theological and historical lenses, with studies on its “prehistory”—preliterate societies—being somewhat limited, potentially reflecting the politics of “settler-colonial history.” The ancestors of modern Palestinians, the Canaanites, were Semitic peoples who settled the region around 3000 BCE. Biblical tradition recounts Abraham’s call from Mesopotamia to the Land of Canaan.
Canaanite city-states maintained strong trade and diplomatic ties with Egypt and Syria, as evidenced by Egyptian inscriptions from the reign of Seti I. These cultures worshipped various deities, with religious practices and languages eventually shared across the Levant. Between 1550–1400 BCE, these city-states were under Egyptian dominance, but following Egypt’s withdrawal in the late 13th century BCE, the area saw the rise of groups identified as Israelites and Philistines.
Interestingly, some scholars, like Niels Peter Lemche, suggest that the narratives of “Israelites” and “Canaanites” in the Old Testament may have been ideological constructs rather than strict historical accounts of conflict. Similarly, Masalha posits that the term “Canaanite” itself might be a “religio-ideological construct.”
The region subsequently experienced a series of conquests by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Persian Achaemenid Empire, followed by Alexander the Great’s conquest, which ushered in Hellenization. Masalha highlights that the development of Philistine city-states in Palestine might have resembled that of ancient Greek polis, with many cities adopting this urban structure during the Hellenic and Roman periods.
For centuries, Caesarea-Palaestina served as the administrative capital of Roman Palestine, becoming a major cultural and intellectual hub that rivaled Athens and Alexandria. Jewish revolts against Roman rule in 66-70 CE and 132–136 CE were brutally suppressed, leading to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Jewish Temple, and the expulsion of much of the Jewish population. During the Classical era, Palestine was known as Judea or Palaestina Prima, inhabited by diverse communities including Jews, Samaritans, pagans, and Christians.
In 637-638 CE, Arab Muslim armies conquered the region. Masalha points out that the official Arab Islamic administrative province of “Jund Filastin” existed for nearly half a millennium until the Crusades. Arab rule introduced Islam and Arabic language, with significant architectural contributions like the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem reflecting the city’s evolving religious importance.
(HistoriCity is a column by author Valay Singh that delves into the documented history, mythology, and archaeological findings of cities in the news. The views expressed are personal.)