Between 132–135, Simon bar Kokhba led a revolt against the Roman Empire, controlling parts of Judea, for three years. The Jewish population is increasingly composed of persons born in Israel itself, although millions of immigrants have arrived since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. Herodotus, writing The Histories in the Ionic dialect of Ancient Greek in 440 BC, repeatedly refers to Syria Palaestina (Ionic Greek: Συρίη ἡ Παλαιστίνη, romanized: Suríē hē Palaistínē) as a combined name single phrase. Assyrians were still populating western Mesopotamia and indeed Mesopotamia as a whole, while nomad Arameans, Nabateans and Bedouins, were thriving in the south Syrian Desert. [citation needed]. [2] Following the partition of the Herodian kingdom into tetrarchies in 6 AD, it was gradually absorbed into Roman provinces, with Roman Syria annexing Iturea and Trachonitis. Farther northward the Plain of Esdraelon (ʿEmeq Yizreʿel), formed by subsidence along lines of faults, separates the hills of southern Galilee from the mountains of Samaria. In Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2007.

Traditions and reworking", in Ton Derks, Nico Roymans (ed. From Ramallah in the north to Beersheba in the south, the high plateau of Judaea is a rocky wilderness of limestone, with rare patches of cultivation, as found around Al-Bīrah and Hebron. [3], Judea province was the scene of unrest at its founding in 6 AD during the Census of Quirinius and several wars were fought in its history, known as the Jewish–Roman wars. The capital of the enlarged province remained in Antiochia. Today it is located within Israel proper. [citation needed], In circa 390, Syria Palaestina was reorganised into several administrative units: Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, and Palaestina Tertia (in the 6th century),[14] Syria Prima and Phoenice and Phoenice Lebanensis. [17][18], Second Temple Judaism is Judaism between the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, c. 515 BC, and its destruction by the Romans in 70 AD.

Both Zionists and Palestinian Arab nationalists have at various times since the 19th century claimed rightful possession of the area west of the Jordan River. The region has been controlled by numerous peoples, including Ancient Egyptians, Canaanites, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Achaemenids, Ancient Greeks, Romans, Parthians, Sasanians, Byzantines, the Arab Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, M… In the 3rd century, Syrians even reached for imperial power, with the Severan dynasty. [10], Furthermore, the juxtaposition of Syria and Palestina together into combined name Syria Palaestina predates Hadrian's naming decision by at least 6 centuries, the term already long in use in Classical Greek historical literature to refer to Palestine as part of a broader Syrian region encompassing the Levant from Cappadocia and Cilicia in the north down through Phoenicia and Palestina, bordering Egypt to the south. The Temple was destroyed in 70 AD as part of the First Jewish–Roman War resulting in the institution of the Fiscus Judaicus. Jerusalem is located in what used to be known as the Mandate of Palestine. According to Jewish nationalists (Zionists), Judaism constitutes a basis for both religious and national (ethnic) identity. Shortly before or after the Bar Kokhba's revolt (132–135), the Roman Emperor Hadrian changed the name of the Judea province and merged it with Roman Syria to form Syria Palaestina, and founded Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem, which some scholars conclude was done in an attempt to remove the relationship of the Jewish people to the region. The social geography of modern Palestine, especially the area west of the Jordan River, has been greatly affected by the dramatic political changes and wars that have brought this small region to the attention of the world. Syria was an early Roman province, annexed to the Roman Republic in 64 BC by Pompey in the Third Mithridatic War, following the defeat of Armenian King Tigranes the Great. [citation needed], New pagan cities were founded in Judea at Eleutheropolis (Bayt Jibrin), Diopolis (Lydd), and Nicopolis (Emmaus). Syria was of crucial strategic importance during the Crisis of the Third Century. It is bounded by the Sinai Peninsula on the west and the northern extension of the Great Rift Valley on the east. [citation needed], Septimius Odaenathus, a Prince of the Aramean state of Palmyra, was appointed by Valerian as the governor of the province of Syria Palaestina.