By now, if you’ve seen my other writings we all know I love language. So bare with me for a moment as we go down a couple trails together, but ultimately arrive at the age-old adage “ignorance is bliss”.

Did you ever wonder where the term “Palestine” came from? Let’s take a trip way back in time, about 3200 years ago. In the 12th century B.C., the first iteration of the word “Palestine” came from the Egyptians. Although the word “Palestine” wasn’t actually the word at all, we would translate the word today as “Philistine” while the Hebrew would call it “Palesheth.” The Philistines were coastal people situated where Gaza is today. And up until the Babylonian Empire took Israel captive in 586 BCE, the Philistines were always a pain to the Jewish people.

After many wars, empires, and the like, there became a new reigning empire in the world. Its name was Greece, and it was led by a man named Alexander the Great. Somehow, most likely because their navy landed on Philistine shores off the Mediterranean, the whole region would be known then on as “Philistia.” This is very important because this is the first iteration of a new word.

However, this new empire would not last (as most don’t); the Roman Empire took over the area in 63 B.C. by Roman General Pompey. In 70 A.D, a revolt would cause major headaches for the Romans, the republic was in turmoil, and they didn’t need to deal with dissenters. So, they quashed the revolution of Judea by the Jewish people. Soon after that initial revolt, they would mint coins for the area marked as “Judea Capta” or Capture/Occupied Judea. However, not even 70 years after that, in 135 A.D., there would be another revolt by the Jews in the same area.

The Romans quashed that as well, but this time, they would call it “Palestine” and remove all names, traces, and history linking back to Israel to quash the mental revolt as well as the physical one.

Due to the Roman Empire’s influence in the West, the area has retained the name of Palestine, but in reality, it has always been the natural home of Israel. It has also been the natural home of Israel fighting with its neighbor Philistia. Arabic still retains the usage of the word Philistia and Palestine is never used.

So where do I want to go with this? Due to the recent conflict with Israel and Gaza, many people on both sides have weighed on it; however, as usually is the case, one side uses social media a lot better than the other to get their opinions out. Unfortunately, this time, it’s very uninformed.

Tik Tok Teens have been using memes and viral messaging that is at best intellectually vapid to support Palestine and BTS. They simply are regurgitating the views of many on the left that “Israel bad, Palestine victims,” which, especially in this instance, couldn’t be further from the truth. Now I know Israel isn’t perfect and no country is, but there is a continual volley back and forth from Gaza and Israel of rockets and missiles. Unfortunately, Hamas, the terror organization deep within the Palestinian Regional Authority, uses women and children as shields for their weapons depots. So, when the news media and others gain videos or pictures of the carnage, it always makes Israel look terrible for targeting civilians.

This conflict has been ongoing since around 1000 B.C., and it won’t stop. Their fighting is well documented Biblically and in multiple extraBiblical records. The Tik Tok stars don’t care, nor do they want to look into this fighting further. They want to jump on the bandwagon all for the sake of likes and popularity, which, as we also know from the Bible, never ends well.