I was painting with a broad brush, since the original question was "who was there first". As such, I was incomplete (and likely wouldn't have pulled out Sykes-Picot since I was dimly aware of it, and not aware of the details).

I had to look it up...the Zionists were causing problems long before 1944. Begin's mugshot is dated 1940. The Zionists were stirring trouble well before that, that's just when that one guy (future PM) was caught.

My overarching point was that both Palestinians and Jews have occupied that land, often at the same time, for many millenia. "Who was first" isn't really relevant when you're talking thousands of years, or else all us non-native folks should pack-up and return to "the old world" (which, obviously, isn't going to happen).

Yeah, the Brits and French messed it up (as per usual...such are colonial empires**). But a mix of Jews and now-Islamic Palestinians resided in the area at the end of the Ottoman Empire before the white folks arrived to upset the apple cart. Going back to the Romans seems irrelevant (and the Babylonian exile was sometime B.C.E.). I think it more relevant, given the history, who was living there at the end of the Ottoman Empire. That is a long history (hundreds of years), and overlaps the more modern attitude of not seizing territory by force of arms. It clearly wasn't the European and American Jews (as the names suggest, they lived in Europe and the US). So, really, it is Palestine that was occupied by Palestinian Jews and Palestinian Muslims for at least 400 years.

The heart of the issue (besides the white people interfering) is religion. The Muslims see that as "once Muslim land, always Muslim land"***, and the Jews see it as the land "promised by god". Those are incompatible positions.

Out of curiosity, do Egypt and Jordan still occupy those lands? Or did they lose them along the way (e.g. the Six Day War)? Seems we shouldn't have let those seizures stand (in 1948, no one could have stopped us if we counterattacked...Egypt and Jordan wouldn't have lasted 2 days).




**Another example: India, Pakistan and Kashmir. That you alluded to. Also Afghanistan and Iraq (both because of the Brits).

***What about Spain, you Islamic ignoramuses? It was occupied by the Moors long ago, and lost. Spanish architecture still reflects that heritage.