page_title: Timeline of the name "Palestine"
section_title: Late Ottoman period
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of the name "Palestine" / Historical references / Modern period / Late Ottoman period
caption_attribution_description: English: The "Basel Program" at the First Zionist Congress in 1897The source text on the document is as follows:German:Programm Der Zionismus erstrebt für das jüdische Volk die Schaffung einer (öffentlich-)rechtlich gesicherten Heimstätte in Palästina.Zur Erreichung dieses Ziels nimmt der Congress folgende Mittel in Aussicht: I. Die zweckdienliche Förderung der Besiedlung Palästinas mit jüdischen Ackerbauern, Handwerkern und Gewerbetreibenden. II. Die Gliederung und Zusammenfassung der gesammten Judenschaft durch geeignete örtliche und allgemeine Veranstaltungen nach den Landesgesetzen. III. Die Stärkung des jüdischen Volksgefühls und Volksbewusstseins. IV. Vorbereitende Schritte zur Erlangung der Regierungszustimmung, die nötig sind, um das Ziel des Zionismus zu erreichen. One English translation follows:English: Program Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law.The Congress contemplates the following means to the attainment of this end: 1. The promotion by appropriate means of the settlement in Palestine of Jewish farmers, artisans, and tradesmen. 2. The organization and uniting of the whole of Jewry by means of appropriate local and overall events, in accordance with the country's laws. 3. The strengthening and fostering of Jewish national sentiment and national consciousness. 4. Preparatory steps toward obtaining the consent of the government, where necessary, in order to reach the goals of Zionism. Some English variations translate the term Palästina and Palästinas as Eretz Israel, or Eretz Yisrael (with the more traditional religious Hebraic spelling), rather than using the standard English term Palestine. This difference reflects Revisionist, Religious Zionism and Neo-Zionism dogma within broader Zionist ideology. It became official terminology following the Menachem Begin Likud government in 1977. Additionally, some translations of the second item say “by means of appropriate institutions, both local and international,” rather than the “by means of appropriate local and overall events,” as noted above. Some translations of the fourth item say “obtaining the consent of governments,” rather than the “obtaining the consent of the government,” as noted above. Other minor variations also exist.
context_page_description: "
  The term "Peleset" is found in five inscriptions referring to a neighboring people or land starting from circa 1150 BC during the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt. The first known mention is at the temple at Medinet Habu which refers to the Peleset among those who fought with Egypt in Ramesses III's reign, and the last known is 300 years later on Padiiset's Statue. The Assyrians called the same region "Palashtu/Palastu" or "Pilistu," beginning with Adad-nirari III in the Nimrud Slab in c. 800 BC through to an Esarhaddon treaty more than a century later. Neither the Egyptian nor the Assyrian sources provided clear regional boundaries for the term.
  The first appearance of the term "Palestine" was in 5th century BC Ancient Greece when Herodotus wrote of a "district of Syria, called Palaistinê" between Phoenicia and Egypt in The Histories. Herodotus applied the term to both the coastal and the inland regions such as the Judean mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley.
context_section_description: 1805: Palestine Association founded
  1806: Lant Carpenter, An Introduction to the Geography of the New Testament: He brought out in 1806 a popular manual of New Testament geography. (Levant map, p. PA4, at Google Books)
  1809: Reginald Heber, Palestine: a Poem
  1811: François-René de Chateaubriand, Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem (Travels in Greece, Palestine, Egypt, and Barbary, during the years 1806 and 1807 [trans. 1812]): As to travellers of very recent date such as Muller, Vanzow, Korte, Bescheider, Mariti, Volney, Niebuhr, and Brown, they are almost totally silent respecting the holy places. The narrative of Deshayes (1621), who was sent to Palestine by Louis XIII, appears therefore to me the fittest to be followed.
  1812: William Crotch, Palestine (an oratorio)
  1819: George Paxton (Rev), Illustrations of the Holy Scriptures: in three Parts.
       1. From the Geography of the East.
       2. From the Natural History of the East.
       3. From the Customs of Ancient and Modern Nations.
  Females of distinction in Palestine, and even in Mesopotamia, are not only beautiful and well-shaped, but, in consequence of being always kept from the rays of the sun, are very fair.
  1819: Abraham Rees, Palestine & Syria, The Cyclopædia: Or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature: Palestine, says Volney, is a district independent of every Pachalic. Sometimes it has governors of its own, who reside at Gaza under the title of Pachas; but it is usually, as at present, divided into three appanages, or Melkana, viz. Yafa, Loudd, and Gaza. The former belongs to the Walda or sultana mother. The captain Pacha has received the two others as a recompence for his services, and a reward for the head of Daher. He farms them to an aga, who resides at Ramla, and pays him two hundred and fifteen purses for them, viz. one hundred and eighty for Gaza and Ramla, and thirty-five for Loudd. [...] The ground is tilled by asses or cows, rarely by oxen. In districts like Palestine, exposed to the Arabs, the countryman must sow with a musket in his hand. The corn before it changes colour, is reaped, but concealed in caverns. The whole industry of the peasant is limited to a supply of his immediate wants; and to procure a little bread, a few onions, a wretched blue shirt, and a bit of woollen, much labour is not necessary.
  1822: Conrad Malte-Brun, Universal Geography, Or, a Description of All the Parts of the World, on a New Plan: BOOK XXVII. TURKEY IN ASIA. PART II. Including Armenia Mesopotamia and Irac Arabi. The eastern provinces of the Turkish empire in Asia form three natural divisions: the region of Orontes and Libanus, or Syria and Palestine; that of the sources of the Euphrates and of the Tigris, or Armenia with Koordistan; finally, the region of Lower Euphrates, or Al-Djesira with Irac-Arabi, otherwise Mesopotamia, and Babylonia. We shall here connect the two divisions on the Euphrates, without confounding them. Syria will be described in a separate book. [...] Population. It would be vain to expect a near approximation to the truth in any conjectures which we might indulge respecting the population of a state in which registers and a regular census are unknown. Some writers estimate that of European Turkey at twenty-two, while others have reduced it to eight millions (Bruns. Magas. Géograph. I. cah. 1. p. 68–74. compared with Ludeck's Authentic Account of the Ottoman Empire. Etton's View and de Tott's Memoirs.), and both assign equally plausible grounds for their opinions. Respecting Asiatic Turkey, the uncertainty, if not still greater, is at least more generally acknowledged. Supposing the houses to be as thinly scattered as in the less populous parts of Spain, the population of all Turkey, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, may amount to 25 or 30 millions, of which one half belongs to Asia. Under the want of any thing like positive evidence, we shall not deviate far from probability in allowing to Anatolia, five millions; to Armenia, two; to Koordistan, one; to the pashâlics of Bagdat, Mosul, and Diarbekir, one and a half; and to Syria 1,800,0
caption: "Palestina" in the first line of the "Basel Program" written at the 1897 First Zionist Congress
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