Algeria was known as Algeria before it became an independent state. The same is true for Tunisia, Syria, and Iraq. I don’t know about Libya, you’d have to consult a historian of the country. Israel by contrast was not known as Israel prior to the establishment of the state in 1948.
If you for example take a minute and read the Balfour Declaration, you’ll learn that it refers to this territory as Palestine, not Israel.
The League of Nations Mandate for that territory was known as the Palestine Mandate, not the Israel Mandate.
The UN resolution that laid the basis for the establishment of Israel called for the partition of Palestine, not Israel.
The partition resolution never mentions Israel, because the future state’s rulers hadn’t yet decided on a name for their entity. In fact, they seriously considered calling it Palestine, not Israel.
Palestine’s rulers have in fact for several millennia referred to it as Palestine, or some variation of this term, or as a province of Syria, not Israel.
This was hardly a Muslim innovation. The Byzantines and before them the Romans and others did so as well.
As did everyone else, including Herodotus as early as 500 BCE.
An Israelite kingdom existed, briefly, in regions of Palestine. It was not the only kingdom that existed in Palestine during that time, nor were its inhabitants the only ones who lived in that kingdom.
More importantly, that was during the Iron Age. Perfectly irrelevant for the purposes of establishing rights and wrongs during the twenty-first century.
I have no clue when my ancestors came to Palestine, or what their names were, and I’m not silly enough to claim I know they were there during the Iron Age. I can however demonstrate that my ancestors were in Palestine before the beginnings of Zionist immigration.
Similarly, you cannot demonstrate your ancestors were in Palestine during the Iron Age or provide their names. But unlike me you are silly enough to claim this is an incontestable fact, and that it somehow matters.
And you additionally have the gall to claim that I am the one engaging in propaganda while you’re engaged in scholarship.
To claim that Israel was the only polity in that region would be like claiming Denmark is Europe.
As for what is known as the United Kingdom (of Israel and Judah), historians remain divided over its historicity. They are divided between those who believe the evidence for its existence is insufficient, and those who believe there is sufficient evidence for its existence.
It is, to the best of my knowledge, essentially a scholarly/academic rather than ideological debate.
Those who do believe the United Kingdom existed, believe it existed for only about a century.
Again, that was several thousand years ago. It is literally ancient history. For similar reasons, we speak of France rather than Gaul, and have done so for many centuries.
Mouin Rabbani for more