Arabs in the region and their sympathizers have co-opted the words “Palestine” and “Palestinian” to give their national movement a sense of longevity, credibility and ownership.
The word “Palestine” is not Arab or Middle Eastern in origin. It dates back 1,900 years and is derived from a people who were not native to the region — the Philistines, a people from the Aegean Sea who were closely related to the ancient Greeks. They lived on the coast of what is now the Gaza Strip and Israel, but had disappeared by the 6th century BCE.
The name associated with them, however, did not die out. The Romans, in a fit of spite, reapplied the term “Palestine” to the Land of Israel centuries later, after they defeated a Judean uprising in 135 CE.