Israel vs Palestine - why so rude!!

“Israel” first appears near the end of the 13th century BC within the Egyptian Merneptah Stele, referring apparently to a people (rather than a place) inhabiting what was then “Canaan.” A few centuries later in that region, we find two sister kingdoms: Israel and Judah (the origin of the term “Jew”). According to the Bible, there had first been a monarchy comprising both, apparently also called “Israel.”

In about 722 BC, the kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian empire, centred in what’s now Iraq. As an ancient geographic term, “Israel” was no more.

Judah alone
Less than a century and half later, Judah was overthrown. Its capital Jerusalem was sacked, the Jewish Temple destroyed and many of Judah’s inhabitants were exiled to Babylonia.

Following the exile’s end a little under 50 years later, the territory of the former kingdom of Judah served as the heart of Judaism for almost seven centuries (although the rebuilt Temple was again destroyed in AD 70, by the Romans).

‘Palestine’
In AD 135, following a failed Jewish revolt, Roman Emperor Hadrian expelled the Jews from Jerusalem and decreed that the city and surrounding territory be part of a larger entity called “Syria-Palestina.” “Palestina” took its name from the coastal territory of the ancient Philistines, enemies of the Israelites (ancestors of the Jews).