Everyday Items Originating from Palestine

Did you know there's a ton of super common things that you probably use all the

time that you had no idea came from Palestine?

But wait, the media told me Palestinians didn't

exist until the 1960s.

Hi, I'm Chelsea and I'm a bit of a history

nerd.

Here are five everyday things you didn't realize came from Palestine.

Number one: the moon of Bethlehem.

Now you will most likely recognize this from your favorite bestie old Christmas

sweater. You'll even see it marketed as an ugly

Christmas sweater, but this is

actually a tree's embroidery pattern native to Bethlehem.

The motif has been passed down for centuries and depicts the star of the

Nativity,

hence why it found its way into your Christmas collection.

So think twice before you call that sweater ugly next time. Number two:

gauze.

It's been widely believed for centuries that the word gauze found its way into

Europe from the city of Gaza, which was once a massive producer of silk.

English economist George Richardson Porter recorded in one of his books in 1832

that we are indebted to Gaza for the invention of gauze. Number three: perfume.

Now fragrance as an idea has existed since ancient Egyptians, but the fragrances

were weak and the perfume could spoil easily.

Palestinians developed a double distillation technique

that concentrated flower

oils more potently than anything that had come before.

Palestinians were the first to combine this with distilled alcohol,

which made the

perfume sprayable. This technique caught on throughout the

Islamic world and became

the basis of what we know as perfume today.

So every time you smell good, thank a Palestinian. Number four:

liquid makeup.

Makeup used by Egyptians and Romans was largely powder-based.

Palestinian women combined flowers and different coloring agents into olive

oil for

their rouge. The predecessor for modern foundation

was a combination of saffron,

turmeric, and henna mixed in sesame or olive oil.

This looked more natural and lasted longer than powder.

The idea of liquid makeup wouldn't find its way to the West for another nine

hundred years when Max Factor came out with grease paint in 1914.

So every time you feel beautiful, think of Palestine.

Last but certainly not least is number five: fruit stickers.

The Jaffa orange is what constituted as viral in the 1920s.

It was the first orange on the market to be relatively seedless, easy to peel, and

super,

super sweet. It was so viral people started trying to

export fake Jaffa oranges.

So to ensure that the public got genuine Jaffa oranges, the fruit label was born.

And very quickly people started copying that idea and it became the industry

standard. And every you eat your daily vitamin C,

or you accidentally ingest the

sticker in a hungered craze, think of Palestine.

If you like this video, please share and donate to my friend Basim Balo who's

currently stuck in Northern Gaza and really deserves your support and love.

And just remember Palestine in the little things you do every day.