Between 1878 - when the area which approximated what later became Israel, West Bank and Gaza and then under Ottoman Empire rule - and 1947 (area came under British Mandate* in 1920) - through waves of Jewish immigration to the area the Jewish population grew significantly from around 20-30,000 in 1878 to 630,000 by 1947. (Always been a Jewish population since biblical Old Testament times, albeit fairly small from 70AD when Jewish people were expelled by Roman Empire. And Jerusalem remained the spiritual home of the Jewish faith since Old Testament times).
Correspondingly, the Muslim Arab population was 386,000 in1878 and 1,324,000 by 1947. Sources show the Muslim Arab leaders seeing themselves as the larger population were not willing to agree to dividing the land into two states wrongly believing they could dominate and create an Arab state across the whole land when the British left.
*During the First World War (1914–1918), an Arab uprising against Ottoman rule and the British Empire's Egyptian Expeditionary Force drove the Ottoman Turks out of the Levant.[3] The United Kingdom had agreed in the McMahon–Hussein Correspondencethat it would honour Arab independence if the Arabs revolted against the Ottoman Turks, but in the end, the United Kingdom and France divided the area under the Sykes–Picot Agreement — an act of betrayal in the eyes of the Arabs. Further complicating the issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain promised its support for the establishment of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine.
In 1938 the British Peel committee (established after serious clashes between Arabs and Jews broke out in 1936 and were to last three years) suggested the Jewish population should gain statehood in 20 percent of the territory of Palestine but the Muslim Arab leaders refused to agree. The 1948 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine proposed a more even split but half of the Jewish portion was the mostly inhabitable Negev desert in the south. UNSCOP (the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine] arrived in Palestine in June 1947. While the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Council cooperated with UNSCOP in its deliberations, the Arab Higher Committee charged UNSCOP with being pro-Zionist, and decided to boycott it
In 1947 the UN General Assembly voted on the partition plan of the land under the then British mandate of Palestine (and Transjordan). This was adopted by 33 votes to 13 with 10 abstentions. The Jewish population accepted the UN plan for the establishment of two states. The Arabs living there rejected it and with the surrounding Arab countries launched a war against the newly founded Jewish state seeking its annihilation. They lost. Israel seized the opportunity to occupy a good part of the territory allotted to the Arab state during this war. Jordan and Egypt also occupied until the 1960s land meant for the 1947 Arab state.
I am unable currently to go into all the subsequent events, wars, intifadas, the v negative role of the terrorist group Hamas last 20 years or so and problematic Israeli settlements, but it’s a complex, sad situation.
However, this video gives an imo fair overview of the history and issues surrounding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict up to the present day.
And I find the below 2014 piece written by a young Israeli woman insightful and worth reading in full. She points out
“Israelis and Palestinians both have the right to exist. We must all accept that. The past is gone, the people, the present is now. Israelis (especially those in the Southern communities) have the right to live without fear of constant rocket attacks. The Palestinians have the right to live in security and socio-economic prosperity in their own state without fear of Israeli strikes.”.
It’s tragic this still hasn’t been achieved and the cycle of violence continues. The appalling terror attacks by Hamas on civilians on Saturday should be thoroughly condemned.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/lliana-bird/why-im-proisraeli-and-pro-palestinian_b_5592220.html