A quick recap, for people who don't have the contextual knowledge of the Israel solution and whose history only begins from 1945/48. I wrote this as a response to someone, but I will rewrite it here as I think it is important to know. I don't pretend to know too much, so this is just a cursory knowledge but I hope it helps.
Those are lands of Canaan, the Semitic speaking people, Abraham the father of Judaism from whom came Isaac and Ishmael, and of Isaac and of Jacob. Of Moses when he led his people back from Egypt. The lands of King David and Solomon. The two Kingdoms of Israel and Judah established there. Conquered by Assyrians and Babylonians, then the Persians, but still the Jews returned to those lands from exile. The Greeks came and took over Persians, then followed a period when Egyptian and Syrians took over but Hasmoneans retook Israel. That was the dynasty of Judea and we are still at 140 BC. Then came the Romans who took over Israel, the building of the second temple by King Herod. Islam is still many years away from even being born, Christianity is still in its infant age. The Romans destroy the second temple, and then Bar Kokhba uprising against Rome. 210 AD Mishna - Jewish oral law is completed. Then the Byzantine came and then the Persians invaded again. Yet the Jews persevered - their holy sites remained their own. But then the Arabs came, from 636AD and on the site of 1st and 2nd Temples in Jerusalem after the death of Muhammad, Caliph Abd el-Malik built the Dome of the Rock. At the time of the Battle of Yarmuk, in 636 AD, when the Levant passed into Muslim Rule, thirty Jewish communities existed in Haifa, Sh’chem, Hebron, Ramleh, Gaza, Jerusalem, as well as many other cities. Then the Crusades happened and at the end of them was the rule of Mamluk empire. They were of Turkic origins from the Eurasian Steppe - no claim to those lands or history whatsoever. They ruled the lands of Egypt, Levant and Hejaz. Local Jews still remained in numbers although often suffered at the hands of government officials and Muslim zealots. After them came the Ottoman Empire from 1517 AD onwards. And to be fair, during their time Jews faired a lot better relatively. Code of Jewish Law Shulhan Arukh was published in 1564 AD. As a whole the Ottoman Empire had the largest Jewish population in the world. The two Aliyas happened (large scale immigration from Europe). Tel Aviv was formed in 1909. Then the 400 or so years of Ottoman rule was ended by British Conquest after the end of WWI. Third Aliya happened. In 1922 Britain was granted Mandate for Palestine and Transjordan by the League of Nations. Palestine is derived from Philistia, which the Greek named when they occupied the area in 12th Century BC as mentioned above.
So there was no Palestine till the British Mandate which named those lands as such. The Balfour Declaration was to form a national home for the Jewish people in those lands and so the 4th and the 5th Aliya happened mainly from Poland and Germany. WWII happened and the horrors of Holocaust in Europe. Then in 1947 UN proposed the establishment of Arab and Jewish States in those Lands. In 1948 British Mandate ended, without any resolution. Israel proclaimed independence, got invaded by 5 Arab states yet succeeded. And from then on is the current history of these lands.