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1-“Syria” is a term of disputed etymology. It first appears in Greek, during Classical Antiquity, as a broad geographic designation, later adopted by Roman Administration. After the Arab Conquests of the Near East, “Syria” disappears and is unknown in Arab and Muslim chronicles.
2-The term “Syria” was was excavated and reintroduced in the 19th century by Near Eastern Christians versed in the languages, ideas, and geographic terminologies of Europe, becoming the official name of a new country contrived by the French in the middle of the 20th century.
3-The use of “Syria” in Arabic garb today as “Suriya” betrays its European origin and the triumph of European systems of social and political classification in the so-called Arab world.
4-The same applies to “Palestine,” a name of Greek, not Arab, derivation, applied as an administrative term in the late Roman period to replace Judea after the destruction of the 2nd Temple.
5-Roman Paleastina falls into desuetude soon after the Arab conquest and completely disappears by the time the Crusaders came East to liberate what they called the Holy Land.
6- Palestine would reappear as part of the European language of learning with the Renaissance. It was integrated into the political language of Europe and became for the first time the Romans the name of an administrative unit under the British Mandate.
7- During that period, the demonym “Palestinian” meant primarily Jews and Christians of British Mandate Palestine and was used exclusively by them. Muslims (Arabs) rarely viewed themselves to be Palestinians as such.
8- The fact that there is no Muslim written record, private correspondence, memoirs, literature, press, or other published & unpublished materials referring to Palestinians as Arabs is testimony to the absence of “Palestine” from the national imagination of “Palestinian Arabs.”
9- “Palestinian” becomes "Arab" ONLY after 1948, when Palestinian Jews relinquished the demonym in favor of “Israeli.”
