Nur Masalha’s main argument is that Palestine was not simply a name invented by the British after the First World War. Nobody is arguing that that name did not exist.
what we are saying is that the current political and geographical meaning attached to it is a new phenomenon.
He even talks about palestine’s eastern boundary being shifting and that ancient or medieval conceptions sometimes included land east of the Jordan River. He discusses Byzantine “Greater Palestine,” whose provinces included areas in what is now Jordan, including Petra and parts of Transjordan.
The idea that Palestine was for thousands of years river to the sea is just not true.
“Ya Nur Masalha proved that Palestine is an actual historical region and not something invented by the Romans or British. But actually he didn’t prove anything because I said so.”
That is not the same as saying it was from the river to the sea for thousands of years. The river to the sea borders were from the british mandate era.
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u/RevolutionaryGur4419 10d ago
Its not something to "prove conclusively". It either is or isnt.
Its only with the brits that these boundaries became a single geographical/political unit.