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The Arab Israeli Conflict Background The Ottoman Empire controlled the land called “Palestine” from about 1516 to 1917. The land was not populated until about 1880 when the first Zionists arrived. Zionism is a term that in its broadest and early sense meant simply the "return" of Jews to their ancestral homeland. That homeland was called Zion (or Israel) and its heart was Jerusalem, known as the "City of Zion." Early Zionists were simply nonpolitical, religious Jews who thought they could best practice their faith in the Land of Zion. After WWI, at the Paris Peace Conference, it was agreed that Palestine would become a League of Nations Mandate, entrusted in Great Britain. Britain main order of business was to implement the Balfour Declaration, which simply declared a national home for the Jewish people. Territorial restrictions weren’t place on the Jewish homeland, though. Then in July 1922 the British divided the “Holy Land” into two districts. The land that was given to the Jews, west of the Jordan River, was only about 22% of Palestine. They didn’t even receive a quarter of the land they were promised. Mandate passports went along with this division. In 1946, Britain partitioned Palestine and gav