Jews, Christians and Palestinians, historically and today who has a rightful claim to Israel
This is a much contested topic, the Muslim Palestinians insisting on a right of return, the Jews claiming Israel is their's, so who is right? Firstly we need to clarify a few facts (hereafter, Palestine means the former British Mandate of Palestine that is now Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip collectively and does not include the former parts of the French Palestine, being Syria and Lebanon). Population of Palestine (numbers) In 1920, the official British Government's Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine by T.E. Lawrence stated that there were hardly 700,000 people living in Palestine. Palestine at the time was today's Jordan, Israel, Gaza Strip and the West Bank, meaning today the population of the same area is 18.7 million (an increase of 18 million over the last 95 years). To put this into perspective, the entire area of what was then called Palestine was 116,127 km², slightly smaller than the small African nation of Eritr