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Series: Palestine, the Lie  ·  Part II of III
Christians Standing With Israel

Palestine, the Lie — Inveracity

By Michael Knighton  ·  Christians Standing With Israel
"A lie, told one thousand times, is still a lie."

The previous installment examined the effectiveness surrounding the dissemination of anti-Semitic propaganda by a conglomeration of Arabs who would call themselves "Palestinians." Following the model of their Nazi predecessors, the Arabs have effectively unleashed a campaign of misinformation that has been heard and seen with a high degree of frequency. In so doing, they have not only shaped public opinion, but have also been extremely effective in garnering support sympathetic to an ideology that portrays them as "refugees" who have been somehow victimized and displaced by the creation of the Jewish state. In their refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist, they claim the region as their own — delving further into the nonsensical by referring to it as "Palestine."

Behold, the lie — the inveracity in your midst.

And so, for the purposes of this writing, let us assume, if but for a moment, that we have the capability of "time travel" and have elected to traverse the millennia. The period in time is approximately 2,000 BC; the location is the land of Canaan. What would we see?

A Trip Through Time

Jews in ancient Jerusalem — daily life in the ancient city with the Temple visible on the hill

We observe the presence of Canaanites who, as we advance to 1700 BC, have been conquered by the first "Israelites" — Abraham and the Hebrews. Where are the Arabs? We observe, centuries later — nearly 1,300 years before Yeshua walked the earth — in the region near Shechem, a population of Hebrews who, having been freed from Egyptian bondage by the Hand of God through Moses, cross the Jordan River and enter "the Promised Land" in a region we know as Samaria. The Hebrews would live in conflict with the Canaanites for years to come. Nonetheless, there exists no historical record of this time period supporting the existence of an Arab people in this land. Yet, according to today's "Palestinians," they roamed this land freely during this time.

This is the inveracity at the heart of the Palestinian narrative — a claim without a single line of ancient historical corroboration. There are no ancient Arab place names in the archaeological record of Canaan. There are no Arab kings listed in the annals of Mesopotamian, Egyptian, or Hittite records as rulers of this territory. There are no Arab temples, no Arab coinage, no Arab administrative documents from this land in this period. The archaeological record of ancient Canaan is rich, detailed, and extensively documented — and it is a record of Canaanites, Hebrews, Philistines, Phoenicians, and Egyptians. The Arabs are conspicuously, utterly, and irrefutably absent.

A Nation Forged by God

In the centuries that followed, Israel would flourish as a nation — forged by the tenacity of Saul, the faith and courage of David, and the wisdom and brilliance of Solomon. David established Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish people approximately 3,000 years ago — a full millennium before the birth of Islam, and nearly two millennia before any notion of a "Palestinian people" existed in the political imagination of the Arab world. Solomon built the First Temple on Mount Moriah — the same mount where Abraham had offered Isaac, and where God's presence would dwell among His people.

The historical record of Jewish sovereignty in this land is not a matter of religious belief alone — it is confirmed by archaeology, epigraphy, and the written records of every major civilization of the ancient Near East. The Tel Dan Stele, discovered in northern Israel in 1993, contains the first extrabiblical reference to "the House of David" — confirming the historical existence of David's dynasty. The Siloam Tunnel inscription, carved during the reign of Hezekiah, describes the engineering feat recorded in 2 Kings 20:20. The Lachish Letters document the final days before Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem. The Cyrus Cylinder records the Persian king's decree allowing the Jewish exiles to return to their homeland.

However, for Israel, intense suffering and persecution would lie ahead in the coming seasons as she would become downtrodden by the Gentiles — enemies who would go on to destroy her eternal capital, Jerusalem, and its inhabitants, as well as the First and Second Temples. However, the same God whose wrath punished Israel for her disobedience would also be the One who would vindicate her in deliverance — time and time again.

Where Are They Now?

The Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD — painting depicting the siege and burning of the city

Over the span of millennia, the enemies of Israel would inevitably and undeniably come to know the exorbitant price of spilling Jewish blood. Among these were the Canaanites, the Amalekites, and the Philistines. The prophet Jeremiah prophesied that God will shelter His people Israel and destroy her enemies: "For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee" (Jeremiah 30:11).

Israel lived on and thrived — yet where is the empire of the Assyrians today? Nineveh, the great city God sent Jonah to warn, was so completely destroyed in 612 BC that its very location was forgotten for centuries. Israel lived on and flourished — yet what became of the Babylonian empire? Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon, which destroyed Solomon's Temple and carried Judah into exile, was itself conquered by the Persians and eventually swallowed by the sands of Iraq. Israel lived on and blossomed — but did the Roman empire manage to keep pace? Rome destroyed the Second Temple in 70 AD, slaughtered over a million Jews, and scattered the rest across the earth. The Roman empire dissolved into history by the fifth century AD. The Jewish people returned to their land in the twentieth century and reestablished their state.

Israel is as strong as ever — but can the empire that was the Third Reich say the same? Hitler's thousand-year reich lasted twelve years. Six million Jews were murdered in its death camps. And yet, three years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the State of Israel was reborn in its ancient homeland, exactly as the prophets had foretold. The pattern is unmistakable. The nations that have risen against the Jewish people have, without exception, fallen. Israel endures.

The Name "Palestine" — A Roman Insult, Not an Arab Heritage

The very name "Palestine" is itself an act of historical erasure — and it was perpetrated not by Arabs but by Romans. After crushing the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 AD, the Emperor Hadrian deliberately renamed the province of Judea "Syria Palaestina" — derived from "Philistia," the ancient enemies of Israel — in an explicit attempt to sever the Jewish people's connection to their land. It was a political act of spite, not a recognition of Arab sovereignty. The Arabs who today call themselves "Palestinians" have appropriated a Roman colonial insult as their national identity — a name that has nothing to do with Arab history and everything to do with Rome's attempt to erase Jewish history.

Prior to 1948, the term "Palestinian" was most commonly used to refer to the Jews living in the British Mandate territory. The Jerusalem Post was originally called the Palestine Post. The Jewish Brigade that fought with the Allies in World War II carried the Palestine insignia. Arab leaders of the pre-1948 period consistently rejected the label "Palestinian," insisting they were part of the broader Arab nation. The rebranding of Arab residents of the region as a distinct "Palestinian people" with an ancient national identity is a post-1948 political construction — a deliberate act of narrative engineering designed to reframe the Arab-Israeli conflict as a colonial dispossession rather than what it actually was: a failed Arab military attempt to destroy the newborn Jewish state.

Perspective

The Jewish people would come to know bondage and death — from Babylon to Birkenau — on a level unseen by any other group of people, and they would experience much suffering. However, as is the nature of a God who never parts from His promises, they would be restored to and flourish in their land each time. This was a truth foretold. Unlike the "Palestinian" myth that has been repeatedly and caustically advanced into the global marketplace of ideas, it need not be said a thousand times to become defined as truth.

The historical record does not support the Palestinian narrative. The archaeological record does not support it. The linguistic record does not support it. The genetic record does not support it. The ancient documents of every civilization that touched this land do not support it. What the record does support — overwhelmingly, consistently, and across every discipline of historical inquiry — is the deep, ancient, and unbroken connection of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.

In fact, it needn't be said at all.

Continue the Series — Palestine, the Lie
Part I  ·  Indoctrination
Part II  ·  Inveracity — You are here
Part III  ·  Influx of Indignation
© 2026 Michael Wayne Knighton | Christians Standing With Israel™ | All Rights Reserved.
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