Palestine's Early Roots From about 1517 to 1917, the Ottoman Empire ruled much of the region. When World War I ended in 1918, the British took control of Palestine.
In modern times, the area was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, then the United Kingdom and since 1948 it has been divided into Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
Before the British occupation, Palestine was part of Ottoman Syria. The British army ruled Palestine until a civil administration was established on 1 July 1920.
The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region.
While the State of Israel was established on 15 May 1948 and admitted to the United Nations, a Palestinian State was not established. The remaining territories of pre-1948 Palestine, the West Bank - including East Jerusalem- and Gaza Strip, were administered from 1948 till 1967 by Jordan and Egypt, respectively.
While some argue that many in the British government at the time were Zionists themselves, others say the declaration was issued out of an anti-Semitic reasoning, that giving Palestine to the Jews would be a solution to the “Jewish problem”.
After Herodotus, the term `Palestine' came to be used for the entire region which was formerly known as Canaan. The region is part of the so-called fertile crescent and human habitation there can be traced back to before 10, 000 BCE.
Zachary Foster in his doctoral dissertation wrote that "Most scholars believe the Roman Emperor Hadrian changed the provincial administrative name of Judaea to Palestine to erase the Jewish presence in the land," opining that "it's equally likely the name change had little to do with Jew hatred and more to do with ...
In 1917, in order to win Jewish support for Britain's First World War effort, the British Balfour Declaration promised the establishment of a Jewish national home in Ottoman-controlled Palestine.
638 C.E. Muslims enter the area north of Arabia, known as "Sham," including Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. 641 C.E. Muslims enter Egypt and rout the Byzantine army.
The Plan sought to address the conflicting objectives and claims of two competing movements, Palestinian nationalism and Jewish nationalism, or Zionism. The Plan also called for Economic Union between the proposed states, and for the protection of religious and minority rights.
The British Empire had received the Christmas present the Prime Minister had wanted to give them, along with the moral prestige of effecting a Christian control of Jerusalem. It was a huge blow to the Ottoman Empire, which had suffered the loss of yet another Muslim Holy Place (having already lost Mecca and Baghdad).
The goal of the Arabs was initially to block the Partition Resolution and to prevent the establishment of the Jewish state. The Jews, on the other hand, hoped to gain control over the territory allotted to them under the Partition Plan.
Archaeologic and genetic data support that both Jews and Palestinians came from the ancient Canaanites, who extensively mixed with Egyptians, Mesopotamian, and Anatolian peoples in ancient times. Thus, Palestinian-Jewish rivalry is based in cultural and religious, but not in genetic, differences.
Approximately 4,000 years ago, Abraham moved to the land of Israel where he lived with his family, raised his children and purchased land to bury his wife and himself. After Abraham came Isaac and Jacob. Jacob, who was named Israel by God, had twelve sons whose families became the 12 Tribes of Israel.
The 1948 war ended with Israeli forces controlling approximately 78 percent of historical Palestine. The remaining 22 percent fell under the administration of Egypt and Jordan. In 1967, Israel absorbed the whole of historical Palestine, as well as additional territory from Egypt and Syria.
The British achieved legitimacy by obtaining a mandate from the League of Nations in June 1922. One objective of the League of Nations mandate system was to administer areas of the defunct Ottoman Empire "until such time as they are able to stand alone".
The British made Jerusalem the capital city of Palestine; they introduced the idea of professional civil service, and they encouraged a lively civil society; they built roads and airfields, and provided sound legal institutions and reliable police.
The British controlled Palestine until Israel, in the years following the end of World War II, became an independent state in 1947.
Under the British Mandate (1920–1948), the whole region was known as 'Palestine' (Hebrew: פלשתינה [א״י], lit. 'Palestine [Eretz Israel]').
This country received the name of Palestine, from the Philistines, who dwelt on the sea coast: it was called Judea, from Judah: and is termed the Holy Land, being the country where Jesus Christ was born, preached his holy doctrines, confirmed them by miracles, and laid down his life for mankind.
Both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital, as Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there and the State of Palestine ultimately foresees it as its seat of power. Because of this dispute, neither claim is widely recognized internationally. Nicknames: Ir ha-Kodesh (The Holy City)
Among the G20, nine countries (Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Turkey) have recognized Palestine as a state while ten countries (Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have not.
The expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank has led the majority of Palestinians to believe that Israel is not committed to reaching an agreement, but rather to a pursuit of establishing permanent control over this territory in order to provide that security.
The name Syria-Palaestina was given to the Roman province of Judaea in the early 2nd century AD.