Abraham's descendants were thought to be enslaved by the Egyptians for hundreds of years before settling in Canaan, which is approximately the region of modern-day Israel. The word Israel comes from Abraham's grandson, Jacob, who was renamed “Israel” by the Hebrew God in the Bible.
During the British Mandate, Palestine's official name in Hebrew was “Eretz Yisrael.” That was the name that appeared in Hebrew (alongside "Palestine" in English and Arabic) on the local currency, stamps and official documents, lending the name "Israel" official status.
The name Palestine was attached to this region after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. and the further devastation of Jerusalem and Judea in 135 C.E. by the Romans, when they renamed the area Syria Palaestina.
Official Hebrew documents used the Hebrew transliteration of the word "Palestine" פלשתינה (Palestina) followed always by the two initial letters of "Eretz Yisrael", א״י Aleph-Yod. The Land of Israel concept has been evoked by the founders of the State of Israel.
Meaning. 'God Contended', 'Wrestles with God', 'Triumphant with God'
Israel, Arabic Isrāʾīl, officially State of Israel or Hebrew Medinat Yisraʾel, country in the Middle East, located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.
After Herodotus, the term `Palestine' came to be used for the entire region which was formerly known as Canaan.
Palestine's Early Roots
Throughout history, Palestine has been ruled by numerous groups, including the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Egyptians and Mamelukes. From about 1517 to 1917, the Ottoman Empire ruled much of the region.
Mandatory Palestine is how the territory that today is made up of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was referred to when it was under the control of British authorities in the 1920s.
or ˈiz-rəl. : jacob sense 2. : the Jewish people. 3. : a people chosen by God.
Through this wrestle, Jacob proved what was most important to him. He demonstrated that he was willing to let God prevail in his life. In response, God changed Jacob's name to Israel, meaning 'let God prevail.
The land of Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish people. Approximately 4,000 years ago, Abraham moved to the land of Israel where he lived with his family, raised his children and purchased land to bury his wife and himself. After Abraham came Isaac and Jacob.
From 1517 to 1917, what is today Israel, along with much of the Middle East, was ruled by the Ottoman Empire.
In 722 BCE, the Assyrians, under Sargon II, successor to Shalmaneser V, conquered the Kingdom of Israel, and many Israelites were deported to Mesopotamia. The Jewish proper diaspora began with the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE.
Jews originated as an ethnic and religious group in the Middle East during the second millennium BCE, in a part of the Levant known as the Land of Israel.
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has its roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the birth of major nationalist movements among the Jews and among the Arabs, both geared towards attaining sovereignty for their people in the Middle East.
In 1967, Israel absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria. By the end of the war, Israel had expelled another 300,000 Palestinians from their homes, including 130,000 who were displaced in 1948, and gained territory that was three and a half times its size.
RAMALLAH, Palestine
According to the bureau, Jews controlled only 6.2% of land in Palestine under British mandate (1920-1948). “Israel now controls around 27,000 cubic meters of land, accounting for 85% of historical Palestine,” the PCBS said.
Officially governed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), it claims the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip as its territory, though the entirety of that territory has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War.
The declaration of a State of Palestine (Arabic: دولة فلسطين) took place in Algiers on November 15, 1988, by the Palestinian National Council, the legislative body of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).
The city of Jerusalem was first built on the hill south of temple mount by the ancient Canaanites in the 18th century b.c.e. David son of Jesse, King of Israel, conquered the small Jebusite (Canaanite) city and made it his capital, which he called - the City of David (2nd Samuel 5).
Jesus' name in Hebrew was “Yeshua” which translates to English as Joshua.
The country of Israel today was created by the United Nations in 1947 from Palestine. Thus, the country of Israel today is not to be confused with, and has no connection to, the word “Israel” of the Bible.
The term "Palestine" first appeared in the 5th century BCE when the ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote of a "district of Syria, called Palaistinê" between Phoenicia and Egypt in The Histories.
Indigenous Peoples in Israel
Israel's Arab Bedouin citizens are Indigenous to the Negev (Naqab, in Arabic) desert, where they have lived for centuries as a semi-nomadic people, long before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.