You are the one that just took us back to 2000 years, so do you want to talk history or do you want to talk about this article about the ICJ?
The Israelites were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The name of Israel first appears in the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt, dated to about 1200 BCE.
The Merneptah Stele, also known as the Israel Stele or the Victory Stele of Merneptah, is an inscription by Merneptah, a pharaoh in ancient Egypt who reigned from 1213 to 1203 BCE. Discovered by Flinders Petrie at Thebes in 1896, it is now housed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
As for King Herod, he was appointed by the Romans. He was an Edomite (a semite of the area) who converted to Judaism according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. However, what religion were the Edomites before Christianity or Islam?