yoel-
Philistines are not Palestinians. The philistines came from the sea. The
Hebrew word for Philistines is "plishtim", which comes from the palash
root, which means "invaders". I believe they were from the sea, perhaps an
island... I am not sure, I don't remember- but I think they were greek.
Anyway, they lived along the mediteranean coast. I have included the
Encyclopedia text below.
Palestinians are named this mistakenly. The Romans, who wished to erase all
connection of the rebellious Jews with Israel, called the land of Israel
"Palestina" after the philistines, but the Arabs who live in Israel are NOT
Philistines. Palestinians are not Philistines. Palestinians are in fact
related to Jordanians- Jordan (formerly TransJordan) was part of Palestine.
How are the "inhabitants of Tyre" Syrians?
What is Ammon? The capital of Jordan is Amman- in Hebrew Rabat Amon, but it
is not a seperate entity from Jordan.
Who is Edom? Amalek? I lived in the middle east and served in the Israeli
army and have never heard of these nations.
The incestious father-daughter children of lot were "Moab" (means "from the
father") and Ben-Ami (means "son of my people"). How do you know that they
are Jordan? How do you know that Jordanians are the descendants of these
tribes, since so many of the original inhabitants were moved around and
intermarried? Not this only, but the Moslem conquest, the Otoman conquest,
the Crusaders, the British and French mandates bought an influx of
outsiders into the area, so how can you say that these are the same
countries? The present day borders were to a large part set by the British
and French, and fairly reently.
Now, especially regarding Jordan (Yarden), you must explain why, if
prophecies were made regarding these nations, why do the nations have such
different names than those appearing in the prophecies? I point out Jordan
specifically, since the name Yarden existed in Biblical times (the country
is named after the river). It could have been used by God's prophet and
would have been an amazing indication of prophetic foresite, since the
country "Yarden" would not exist for 2 more millenia. But I do not believe
that any prophecies were made concerning a nation named "Jordan". In fact,
here is your quote:
> It is fascinating as it names all the nations that opposed Israel in the
>last 50 years. The nations mentioned are: Edom, Moab, Amalek, Ammon, childr=
en
>of Lot (Jordan), Ishmaelites and Hagarites (The Arabs), Gebal (Beirut), Th=
e
>inhabitants of Tyre (Syrians), Philistines (Palestinians and Syrians),
If it is so "fascinating", then why do you have to interpret the names? The
names above names do not appear in any modern map that I have, nor do I
remember them being mentioned when I lived in the Middle East.
So, if these are promises or prophecies, why did God give defunct names in
the prophecies? It is only people who wish to claim prophecy fulfillment
who wish to link the names of the previous nations with the current ones.
Walid-
>Assyria (Iraq). Notice it said =ECTHE INHABITANTS OF TYRE=EE, since God alr=
eady
>new that the city of Tyre itself will be destroyed and totally removed
>(Ezekiel 26), yet it's people still have there desendants living.
>
>How did David (Daud) know of this if he wrote the Psalms (Al-Zabur) from hi=
s
>own mind ?
yoel-
Why the Arabic names? Just curious.
Walid-
> Also notice the most important verse to me 16 =ECFill their faces with
>shame, That they may seek Your name, O Lord.=EE. This was fulfilled
>literally, I myself witnessed The Jordanian Army fleeing from fear, they
>were taking there
>uniforms off and runing with there underwears from fear.
yoel-
When did this happen? Where does the Bible mention the Jordanian Army?
Doesn't every warrior nation desire their enemies to be filled with shame?
Walid-
It is also a
>declaration to the enemies of Israel, that the God of the Bible does not ha=
te
>the Arabs or the Muslims, but is requesting them to repent and turn to
>him(That they may seek Your name O Lord), and beleieve in his salvation, he
>is like a loving father to his children, that when they go against his will
>he would have to inflict some pain as to re-direct them His way.
> The same God did for the Phraoh of Egypt, he bid him to let His people g=
o,
>then started with simple punsihments of frogs, hail, and other stuff, he
>loved the egyptians who many of them went along with Moses.
>
>How can Mr. Till explain away these promises ?
>
>These prove the impossibilities of such accusations and show that The Bible
>is 100% God's Word, Mr. Till has to respond to these questions.
>
>I rest my case for now
>
>Walid
yoel-
The nations you mentioned are defunct. It is Christians who wish to link
the names of these ancient kingdoms with modern national entities.
Philistines
{fil'-uh-steenz}
The Philistines were one of a number of SEA PEOPLES who penetrated Egypt
and Syro-Palestine coastal areas during 1225-1050 BC. Of Aegean origin,
they settled on the southern coastal plain of CANAAN, an area that became
known as Philistia. The Philistines rapidly adopted Canaanite language and
culture, while introducing tighter military and political organization and
superior weaponry based on the use of iron, over which they had a local
monopoly. The chief Philistine cities were Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath,
and Gaza. The military rulers of the Philistines extended their rule in
Canaan, constantly warring with Israel. The Israelite king DAVID, who had
earlier been a Philistine vassal, finally defeated them, succeeding where
SAMSON and SAUL before him had failed. Distinctive Philistine artifacts in
the Mycenaean tradition, such as the double-handled jug, have been found in
archaeological excavations in Palestine (a name derived from Philistia).
Palestine
Palestine, a historic region on the east coast of the Mediterranean, also
known as the Holy Land, was the site of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and
Judah and comprises areas of the modern states of Israel and Jordan. In
the 20th century, Arab and Jewish nationalists have made conflicting claims
to the region. The borders of Palestine have fluctuated throughout history
but have generally included the territory lying between the southeastern
Mediterranean coast on the west, the Jordan/Dead Sea Valley on the east,
the Negev Desert on the south, and the Litani River on the north--an area
only about 280 km (175 mi) long by 128 km (80 mi) wide. This land has been
coveted throughout history because, by local standards, it is relatively
well watered and strategically located on the major land routes linking
western Asia and northern Africa.
Early History
The name Palestine is an adaptation from a Greek word that was in turn
derived from the Hebrew word for "the land of the Philistines." Palestine
was first peopled by wandering Stone-Age hunters; permanent agricultural
settlements appeared at JERICHO about 8000 BC. A mixed society of
agricultural villagers, sheep- and goat-herding nomads, and urban artisans
evolved in Palestine under the influence of cultural currents flowing from
Egypt, Hittite Anatolia, the Semite-populated deserts to the east, and the
Minoan island of Crete. Although some scholars date the arrival of the
Hebrews earlier, the principal influx of Hebrew tribes (see JEWS) from the
desert into Palestine occurred between the 14th and 12th centuries BC. At
roughly the same time the PHILISTINES invaded from the sea. Eventually, the
Hebrew tribes dominated the area politically by forging a union c.1000 BC
under the warrior kings SAUL, DAVID, and SOLOMON. This unity was fragile,
however, and the kingdom split into two small states, Israel and Judah (see
ISRAEL, KINGDOM OF; JUDAH, KINGDOM OF).
These states were eventually destroyed, Israel by Assyria (721 BC) and
Judah by Babylonia (587 BC). Afterward, except for a period of
independence (143-63 BC) under the priest-princes of the MACCABEE family,
Palestine was dominated by a succession of foreign rulers including the
Persians, Alexander the Great, and the Hellenistic Ptolemies and Seleucids.
The last vestige of ancient Hebrew statehood was shattered in AD 70, when
the Romans responded to a revolt by occupying the capital city of
JERUSALEM, destroying the Temple, placing Palestine under Roman governors,
and scattering rebellious segments of the Jewish population. During the
succeeding 500 years of Roman and Byzantine rule, Palestine became
overwhelmingly Christian. The Arab conquest of 641 brought Palestine under
the sway of the Islamic CALIPHATE. Although Islam tolerated other faiths,
it also encouraged conversions and facilitated immigration of Muslim Arab
tribes into the country. Thus, by the 10th century most Palestinians had
embraced Islam. After the decline of the central caliphate late in the
10th century, the region endured another period of political instability.
In 1099 the Crusaders took Jerusalem and established a feudal kingdom (see
JERUSALEM, LATIN KINGDOM OF), which was itself destroyed in 1291 when the
Europeans were expelled by the MAMELUKES of Egypt. The rule of the Turkish
OTTOMAN EMPIRE (1516-1918) brought some stability but also growing cultural
and economic stagnation.
In 1918, Palestine's population numbered about 500,000 Muslim Arabs,
100,000 Christian Arabs, and 60,000 Jews. All but a few thousand of the
Jews had arrived since the 1880s, when immigrants from Europe started
establishing agricultural settlements. They were inspired by ZIONISM, an
ideology born in Central and Eastern Europe's Jewish communities. Zionism
combined a program to revive ancient Hebrew culture with an assertion of
the self-identity of Jews who felt threatened by various European
nationalist movements. Zionism's program, as outlined by the World Zionist
Congress (1897) in Basel, Switzerland, called for a Jewish "national home"
in Palestine supported financially and politically by a worldwide
organization.
British Occupation
Toward the end of World War I, British troops led by Gen. Sir Edmund
ALLENBY invaded Palestine, capturing Jerusalem in December 1917. Britain's
occupation of Palestine ended four centuries of Ottoman sovereignty. In
1922 the League of Nations approved a British mandate over Palestine and
neighboring Transjordan. The mandate was supposed to encourage the
development of self-governing institutions and, eventually, independence.
The Arab state of Transjordan (later Jordan) became autonomous in 1923 and
was recognized as independent in 1928.
In Palestine, however, independence was delayed while conflicting Arab and
Jewish claims were weighed and Britain searched for a solution to the
Palestine question. In 1916 an ambiguous political accord between HUSAYN
IBN ALI, sharif of Mecca, and Henry McMahon, British high commissioner in
Cairo, had led the Arabs to believe that the British would support the
creation of an independent Arab state that would include Palestine. On
Nov. 2, 1917, however, the British government issued the BALFOUR
DECLARATION, which promised support for Zionist aims.
Not long after World War I ended, Arab Palestinians began to evidence fears
that enactment of the Zionist program would submerge them under waves of
Jewish immigrants. In July 1919, the General Syrian Congress in Damascus
demanded independence for a Syrian state that would include Palestine,
categorically rejecting the concept of a Jewish national home. In 1920,
Emir Faisal (later FAISAL I, King of Iraq), military commander of an Arab
revolt (1916-18) against Ottoman rule, was declared king of this Syrian
state. That April the Allied supreme council assigned France the mandate
over Syria (approved in 1922 by the League of Nations) and, in July, French
troops took Damascus, deposing Faisal, who fled the country. Anti-Zionist
riots broke out among Arab Palestinians in April 1920 and were followed by
even more serious violence in May 1921, after Britain announced that 16,500
Jewish immigrants would be admitted. Another serious clash erupted at the
Wailing Wall in Jerusalem in 1929. That year the Zionists formed the
Jewish Agency to help develop quasi-governmental institutions among
Palestine's Jews.
The Palestine crisis deepened in the 1930s when, in reaction to Nazi
persecution of Jews in Europe, Jewish settlement jumped dramatically; the
Jewish population totaled more than 400,000 by 1939, comprising nearly a
third of Palestine's inhabitants. Between 1935 and 1939, Britain advanced
proposals to stabilize the population with an Arab majority. The Arabs
resented these schemes and Zionists rejected them.
Between 1936 and 1939 the Arab Higher Committee, formed to unite Arab
opposition to Jewish claims and led by the grand mufti (chief Islamic
judge) of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-HUSAYNI, carried on a virtual civil war.
Thousands were killed, and many of the Arab Palestinian leaders were
deported or forced to flee. The conflicts of these years exposed serious
Arab social fragmentation, as well as military deficiencies, that
contrasted with the solidarity and organizational efficiency displayed by
the Jews, who formed a paramilitary organization, the Haganah ("Defense"),
during the period of unrest.
Britain's last serious attempts to reach a compromise were the inconclusive
London Round Table Conference (1939) and the White Paper of that year,
which promised the establishment within 10 years of an independent
Palestine retaining an Arab majority. The White Paper also limited Jewish
immigration to 1,500 per month until 1944, when Jews would no longer be
admitted to Palestine. This limit was a devastating blow to the Jews of
Hitler's Europe, and, after the outbreak of World War II, Zionists
transferred their major efforts to attract support from Britain to the
United States. In May 1942, the Biltmore Conference in New York demanded
the formation of an independent Jewish commonwealth, a stance that
attracted widespread endorsement from U.S. political leaders.
During World War II the potential economic and military strength of
Palestine's Jewish population increased considerably. After the war's end,
when large numbers of European concentration-camp survivors sought homes in
Palestine, Britain's resistance to reviving large-scale Jewish immigration
prompted a revival of widespread disorder.
BIRTH OF ISRAEL
By 1947 the exhausted British declared that they could do no more and
referred the problem to the United Nations, which voted in November to
split Palestine into Arab and Jewish states. Despite violent Arab
protests, Palestine's Jews proclaimed the creation of the independent state
of ISRAEL, comprising more than half of Palestine's territory, on May 14,
1948, the eve of Britain's evacuation. Armies of the adjacent Arab states
quickly entered Palestine. This war, the first in a series of ARAB-ISRAELI
WARS, ended in 1949 with a hard-fought Israeli victory that included
possession of territories won on the battlefield; the migration of more
than 700,000 Arab Palestinian refugees out of Israeli territory into
adjacent areas controlled by various Arab states; the confiscation of the
property left by the Arab refugees and its redistribution to Israelis; and
the eclipse of Palestine as a political entity.
Most of the territory west of the Jordan River that the United Nations had
designated as Arab came under the control of Transjordan, renamed Jordan,
which formally annexed it in 1950. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli War,
however, this WEST BANK territory was occupied by Israel. In 1974 the
United Nations General Assembly reaffirmed the right of the Palestinians to
self-determination and national sovereignty, and the Arab nations
(including Jordan) signed the Rabat resolution, which proclaimed the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) the sole legitimate representative
of the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian Arabs reacted to the loss of their homeland with despair,
shame, and anger, and most still seek identifiable statehood within the
boundaries of historic Palestine. Since the early 1950s a bewildering
array of organizations, programs, strategies, and leaders--ranging from
moderates favoring a secular Palestine that would guarantee equality for
Jews and Arabs, to militant revolutionaries advocating the destruction of
Israel and the creation of an independent Arab state in Palestine--have
tried to realize this aim.
In December 1987, Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
launched an uprising (INTIFADA) in an effort to end Israeli occupation, and
in November 1988 the PLO unilaterally declared an independent Palestinian
state and implicitly recognized the sovereignty of Israel. The 1990-91
Persian Gulf crisis caused one of the largest Palestinian migrations in
history and fueled discontent with the PLO leadership, which backed Iraq.
Various proposals to create a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza
have been debated. Although no solution acceptable to all parties has been
found, Israelis and non-PLO Palestinians from the occupied territories held
direct post-war talks on interim Palestinian self-rule.