Everyone knows what the Philadelphi corridor is. Separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt, it is notorious for the tunnels Palestinians dig underneath it to smuggle arms, and for Israel’s search-and-destroy operations there. But what does “brotherly love,” which is what the name means in Greek, have to do with this godforsaken death trap? Nothing, really. The name was assigned by the Israeli army, by a random process of code-naming locations on military maps. Another example of Israel arbitrarily assigning foreign names to Palestinian locations? Not at all. Israelis love to use Arabic place names, when they exist. Although Hebrew names were created for what used to be Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Israelis still refer to them as Talbiyeh, Katamon, Baka and Malkha. But there never was an Arabic name for the strip of land along the border between Raffah and the sea, and Philadelphi is what the army computer came up with. Only in reaction did the Palestinians name it after Salah a-Din, after the medieval Muslim warrior.

This is just one example of the problem that Palestinians face in claiming this country as their autochthonous birthright. The fact is that there are few indigenous Arabic names for this area of the world, since Arabs are not an indigenous people. Even “Palestine,” or “Filistin,” is not originally Arabic, but an old Canaanite name, preserved by the Hebrew Bible long after the extinction of the Philistine people. The Arabs used the term to denote the Gaza area, the abode of the Philistines. The British applied it to the region encompassing modern-day Jordan and Israel.

The Koran contains no mention of Palestine or Philistines, Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, a prominent critic of fundamentalist Islam, informs me, although it does mention them indirectly: “So they [the Children of Israel] routed them [the Philistines] by Allah’s permission, and David killed Goliath, and Allah gave him [David] the kingdom [after the death of Saul] and wisdom, and taught him what He willed. And if Allah did not expel one set of people by means of another, the earth would indeed be full of mischief. But Allah is full of bounty to the created beings” (al-Baqarah, 2:251). Not all Palestinians would be happy to hear that Allah supported their routing by the children of Israel.

Virtually all the place names used by local Arabs are non-Arabic in origin, deriving either from Biblical Hebrew names, or from later Greek or Roman names. Jerusalem for example was referred to as Iliya’ — the Arabic transliteration of the Roman name Aelia. The Temple Mount was referred as Bayt al-Maqdis, a translation of the Hebrew Beit Hamikdash. In time, a shortened version, al-Quds (the Holy) was used to refer to the entire city.

The Biblical city of Shekhem is referred to as Nablus, a corruption of the Greek name Neopolis, or “new city.” Hebron is called “Bayt al-Khalil,” the “home of the beloved one,” a reference to Abraham, whose purchase of a burial place in Hebron is recorded in the Hebrew Bible. In some cases names may be Arabic, but still give evidence of non-local origin. For example the al-Aqsa mosque, whose name has also been adopted by a Palestinian terrorist organization, translates as “the far mosque” reflecting the fact that it was not named by a local ruler, but by a distant imperial power. Sometimes the retention by the Arabs of a Hebrew name helps us to locate Biblical sites which we would not be able to locate otherwise, as in the case of the Arab town of Luban, located next to the Biblical Levanah, now the site of a thriving Israeli settlement. Names are remarkably stable and provide historians with important clues about the history of geographical regions. Even after a violent conquest, the names used by the original inhabitants are not easily erased. Indian names are still used for major portions of the United States. Mississippi, Chicago, Tennessee, California, Oklahoma, are all Indian names. In all likelihood, these names will remain in use as long as the United States of America exists, and thus the record of native Indian inhabitation will remain intact.

But these historical realities are disconcerting for Palestinians, who like to believe that their existence as a people in this land extends deep into the past. Naming the Philadelphi corridor for Salah a-Din is an expression of this existential need. There is nothing wrong with recreating an identity through names. Names help tell us about ourselves, and if local Arabs wish to identify with medieval Muslim warriors, that is surely their right. Perhaps one day the Palestinians” will get around to finding new names not only for geographical regions, but also for ethnic groups such as themselves. Surely an Arabic people of the Muslim faith can do better than calling itself by the name of an extinct pagan tribe from Canaan. Any suggestions?

Gabriel Danzig is a lecturer in Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Classics