Hello! This map was discussed very thoroughly in this thread from a month ago. I hope you will find your answer there.

Hi!

I'm going to tackle the description first, then get to the map. I'll explain problems and what each frame really shows, just to make it as clear as possible as we go. Feel free to ask any follow-up questions, if you are curious!

Description

The last ancient Israeli state disappeared 2600 years ago.

Well, it's important to keep in mind that "states" as we know them are not the same as states in the past. Though this ancient history is not really my expertise, this is roughly correct as best we can tell.

2000 years ago these were the Romans which gave this region the name Palastine about 200 A.D. .

To be specific, they called it Syria Palaestina, designating it as the southern portion of Syria (borders were a little more fluid then than now).

After the downfall of the Ottoman empire the region was administered (dominated/ruled?) by the Britain and the French.

Well, the Middle East was administered by both, but Palestine was administered by the British. The British received the Mandate for "Palestine", which included the following from the Mandate text itself:

In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18.

The significance of this is that it explains that Palestine was considered to include areas east of the Jordan river, the area which the British would rule out for a future Jewish state and call "Transjordan", later Jordan.

It's also important to note why this was significant in the first place: the British had made numerous promises to the Muslims, French, and Jews during WWI. In 1915, the McMahon Correspondences in very vague terms promised to provide for an independent Arab state in Palestine, something which the king of Syria (Faysal Husseini) would attempt to claim briefly before being deposed by the French in 1920. The Correspondences were left vague and semantics over the words "district" were used to get out of the commitment.

In 1916, the Sykes-Picot Agreement seemed to designate that part of modern-day Israel's area (particularly the southern portion, with Jerusalem), would be under an international trusteeship. This was altered in subsequent arrangements, and the British never followed through on that promise.

In 1917, and this is where the Transjordan significance comes in, the British said they viewed with favor a "Jewish homeland" being established in "Palestine". However, by splitting Transjordan from Palestine, they removed the area from the possible area in which a Jewish homeland could be established. Also note that they said "homeland", not "state". This was mentioned in 1922 by Churchill in a white paper to mean that there would be a homeland somewhere in Palestine, but not necessarily a state and not necessarily in all of Palestine: another way the British could keep their options open and whittle away at their promises based on the geopolitical benefits they could gain by keeping or removing them.

1943 Libanon has become independent from France, 1946 Syria from France too, in the same year Jordan has become independent from Britain.

This is not my specialty, but pretty sure it's correct and straightforward.

The remaining small part on the left-hand picture remained under British mandate until the foundation of the new state of Israel. Right, a palestine state has never exist, but the people who have lived in this region since generations call themselves Palestinians and it is their homeland and it doesn't matter if they had or had not an independent state before.

Indeed, the area in the left frame is correct as the British Mandate for Palestine dictates, split along the Jordan river for east-west borders with Transjordan. The people called themselves Palestinians sparingly prior to the British Mandate: after, and around 1920, there began to be a stronger move towards being "Palestinian", and fighting for a Palestinian state. I expand on the question of "Palestinian" vs. "Arab" ideology in this answer, going over the various movements that originated before WWI and onwards.

Since the Arabian conquest started in the 7th century A.D. the majority of the people here have been of Arabian ancestry and of Islamic religion.

Indeed, this is correct. Jews maintained a presence in the region, but did not make up the majority for a significant amount of time. What I'd like to mention briefly is that there is significant evidence as well that Palestinians are actually Jews who converted rather than fled the region in previous expulsions. At the very least, there is genetic evidence that Israelis and Arabs are very closely related, specifically Jews and Palestinians.

However some Jewish and Christian people still have lived there.

Yep!

All of them have become Palestine people over the last 1300 years, only their religion was different.

Well, they didn't really "identify" as Palestinian for the most part. While an understanding that the region was called Palestine existed, the definitive borders were not always that clear, nor is there significant evidence that they viewed themselves as "Palestinian" any more than "Ottoman", for example. Part of this goes back to the differences in how states today and states back then worked: the state is a much more obvious part of people's identities today, many would argue, than in the past. But even the state identity back then was stronger than the "Palestinian" identity, if it existed. I personally find a good way to look at it based on what I've studied is that Palestinians viewed themselves as members of, say, the South in the Arab empires and Ottoman empire. They saw themselves as being part of the provinces (ie. states like California) which were not "Palestine" until late in the Ottoman era, and saw themselves as Ottomans, or members of the "South" in the Ottoman era (this is just an example, I'm not saying they were really calling themselves "the South"), but didn't really feel like they were "Southerners" any more than they felt they were Ottomans.

In the Westbank the majority of the Christian Palestinians live today, the Jewish Palestinians have become Israeli citizens in 1948.

Uh, yes, I suppose. Palestinian Christians have left large parts of Israel and gone down in population, if memory serves, but they still are around in the West Bank and Israel, just in lower numbers. Palestinians who were in Israel post-1948 war (which ended in 1949) were granted Israeli citizenship, to put it simply.

Let's come back to the left-hand picture, it shows the British mandate Palestine and where Jewish people settled, most of them immigrated from Europe since 1900, when the zionist- nationalistic movement/ideology was created by Theodor Herzl and other European Jewish leaders.

Well, the majority came from Eastern Europe at first, and Russia, only coming a little more from Western Europe in the lead-up to WWII (fleeing Nazi persecution when it first began, or fearing the persecution to come), and after WWII itself. Many also arrived in Israel after the 1948 war from Arab countries, where they feared or experienced persecution, and many also left their belongings behind in those Arab countries. That too is another story. But note that at the time of partition, there were estimated to be (according to the 1947 Partition plan) roughly 175,000 Jews in Palestine by 1931 (this is before the Holocaust, of course), and 493,000 Muslims. By 1941 there were an estimated 906,500 Muslims, and 474,000 Jews, many of whom came before WWII began.

The national ideas of Zionism were already existing in the world prior to Herzl and the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. Writings on moving back to establish a Jewish state in Palestine existed prior to 1897, going further back than the early 1800s. However, Herzl is credited with being the father and founder of political Zionism, and really getting the ball moving diplomatically on trying to secure a Jewish state.

Continued below!

Here are the problems that I see with the map:

• The first map inaccurately makes the distinction between "Jewish Land" and "Palestinian Land", assuming that all land which wasn't owned and settled by Jews was owned and settled by Palestinians. All the land on that map was politically owned by the British. The white areas were politically owned by the British, and privately owned by Jews (in the same sense that I "own" my house, but it's still on Canadian soil). The green area doesn't represent anything.

• The second map accurately depicts huge land gains in the 1948 war, but what isn't clear is that the vast majority of the land is the Negev Desert — a region that's barely inhabited, incredibly difficult to farm (at the time impossible), and whose indigenous population are nomadic Arabian Bedouins rather than Palestinians.

• The map suggests that in 1948 and in 1967 all land switch sides from Palestinians to Israelis. This is not the case. While some Arabs were expelled in 1948, most stayed in their villages and their descendants still own their homes and live there. No Arabs were expelled in 1967. This inaccuracy is particularly evident in the change between the middle two maps — that triangular area in the North has an Arab majority today.

• The map does not indicate the periods when Gaza was ruled by Egypt and the West Bank was ruled by Jordan (the 40's and 50's).

• The last map inaccurately depicts "Israeli land" in the West Bank. Most white areas within the West Bank on that map are neither owned nor settled by Israel (rather, it is under a temporary military occupation, but Palestinian civil administration).

In general, the problems have to do with fuzzy definitions of "Israeli land" and "Palestinian land", which change between the maps.