#this book warns the old testament is not a reliable historical source but then cites herotodus seriously

[keshetchai]

went back to reread my frustrated review of a [highly recommended by people] palestinian history book which does a HORRIBLE job of being a history of palestine and lol:

"The Cana'anites are in fact identical to the Phoenicians. The alphabet of the Phoenicians of the coastal regions of Palestine and Lebanon -- conventionally known as the proto-canaanite alphabet - was given to Greek, Aramaic, Arabic, and Hebrew. However, the Old Testament terms 'Canaanites' and Israelites' in Palestine do not necessarily refer to or describe two distinct ethnicities…" [book quote] [so,] The Canaanites are the Phoenicians all along. And also, the Israelites aren't actually different from the Canaanites, it's an in-group/out-group terminology. (The word "Hebrew" is often used this way too, so no surprises here). But then on another page, we're told "Also, a large amount of Palestinian ("Canaanite") pottery from this period was discovered in Egypt…" and yet another page reads "Like the Phoenicians, the Philistines developed advanced Naval technology…." So now, we know that the Palestinians are the Canaanites, the Canaanites are actually the Phoenicians, the Israelites are [also] Canaanites (but aren't Palestinian?), and also the Philistines…who are the Palestinians (since we're using the Egyptian records of Peleset to identify the Philistines as Palestinians in this book), are similar to the Phoenicians, even though we were just told that they're Canaanites and the Canaanites are the Phoenicians. Are you following? I'm not. Are the Philistines Canaanites? Are they Phoenician? [Both?] How do we know this? When do we know it? Why do we know it? This book doesn't tell us.

deeply infuriating book to read lmao.

maybe an okay exploration of the possible etymological history of the word "palestine" and its cognates. but terrible history book of palestine and palestinians.