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The land was called Palestine, but the people have never called themselves palestinians.

The Romans called the Land "Philistia." That got Anglicized to "Palestine" much, much later.

As I recall from my one whopping semester of Arabic I took in college, the Arabic word for Palestinian is something like “Filistia”, which is an obvious cognate from Philistine, in the same tradition as Goliath. Problem is, the historical Philistines of the OT were actually descended from Greek seapeoples. The “Palestinians” of today are tribal Arabs from the deserts south of Israel. Personally, I don’t know why the “Palestinians” would want to associate themselves with the Philistine name, given the baggage that is inherent with the term philistine, especially they way it’s interpreted in Europe.

The land was called Palestine, but the people have never called themselves palestinians.

The Romans called the Land "Philistia." That got Anglicized to "Palestine" much, much later.

After the Bar Kochba Revolt, the name of the Roman Province of Judea was changed to "Syria Palaestina".

"Phillistia" was the coastal strip corresponging to Gaza.

What is now the Negev Desert used to be in the Roman Province of "Arabia Petraea" which was formerly the Nabatean Kingdom.

The Roman Province of "Asia" was limited to western Turkey and the Roman Province of "Africa" was limited to Tunisia and northern Lybia.

Once we start playing present day name games with the old Roman Provinces, Israelis living in the Negev would be "Arabs" and there would be no "Israelis" but only "Judeans" but only if you want to play the game with provincial names up to the Bar Kochba Revolt after which they would become "Syrians" in Syria Paelestina after which they would become .........

But, nowadays, games are played with the old Roman Provincial names to the point that a "Hispanic" means a pure-blooded Mayan Indian from the Yucatan and not a descendant of the Roman Province of Hispania.

During the time of the British Mandate of Palestine, the Jewish inhabitants were refered to as "Palestinian Jews" and the term remained in use until the 1950's. I have a bound set of the "Foreign Affairs" journal from the 1950's where an article written by Moshe Dayan uses the term "Palestinian Jew" to refer to Jews in the British Mandate of Palestine prior to 1948.

However, this letter to the New York Times from a veteran of the 329th Palestinian Company of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers best explains the use of the term "Palestinian" in the 1940's:

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Your newspaper frequently uses the term "Palestinian" to describe a section of the Middle East population which is Arab, to differentiate it from Israeli Jews. As the holder of a Palestinian Identity Card and a Certificate of Discharge from a Palestinian Unit of the British army, I find this practice annoying and certainly untrue...

We Palestinian Jews wore the uniform of the British Army, and on our shoulder epaulettes the single word, "Palestine" in English. We tried to get permission to wear Hebrew insignia, fly the Jewish flag and be recognized as Palestinian Jews, but-no, Palestinian meant Jew and Arab, and who cared if there were fewer than 3000 Arabs as compared to 36,000 Jews in khaki? In British army nomenclature, the equivalent of a GI is BOR, meaning British Other Rank. We were formally known as POR , Palestinian Other Ranks.

So we fought the war as Palestinians, set up the Jewish Brigade as Palestinians, and I'll be damned if I agree that only Arafat and his assassins are Palestinians.

As a Palestinian, I was arrested by the British on suspicion of smuggling immigrants into the country. As a Palestinian, I had the honor of commanding the 329th Palestinian Companyof the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (all Jews). There were no equivalent Arab units. Once a British general said to me, "Migawd| I have so many things to dislike you for, for being a Jew, American born, a Palestinian-and you don't even know how to handle a knife and fork!

So cut it out, please. Call them what you will, but not Palestinians.

Yours truly,
Joe Criden

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Claiming that "there was never such a thing as a Palestinian" may be a fun little name game to play today but it has no historical accuracy.

There certainly were "Palestinians" and at least one Palestinian named Joe Criden was really pissed off that the name has been monopolized by the Arabs.