There is no Palestine.

[Rorschach]

There is no Palestine and there are no Palestinians.
Let us be clear on this.

All the wailing and war mongering in Gaza and the ME about this is bunk.

The real history of "Palestine" begins with the League of Nations in 1922... The Mandate of Palestine at the time was administered by the UK. It was known as the British Mandate of Palestine. Today the Arab state of Jordon occupies most of that mandate.

In 1948 the British control of the mandate was ended and the UN's proposed partition plan (Resolution 181) was to take effect. This plan incorporate 2 states; one Jewish one Arab. Jerusalem and Bethlehem were to be in an area protected by the UN itself.

The Jews accepted this plan and the Arabs rejected it.

One day before the British Mandate expired, Israel declared its independence within the borders of the Jewish State set out in the Partition Plan. The Arab countries declared war on the newly formed State of Israel beginning the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

After the war, which Palestinians call the Catastrophe, the 1949 Armistice Agreements established the separation lines between the combatants: Israel controlled some areas designated for the Arab state under the Partition Plan, Transjordan controlled the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip.

The rest is history.

[Rorschach]

For those who like to see what the arguments are about there are some maps at these links.

http://israelipalestinian.procon.org/vi ... urceID=945
http://world-media-watch.org/2013/03/10 ... stine_wmw/
http://www.mythsandfacts.org/conflict/m ... estine.htm