The problem was that a significant population of indigenous Arabs had already been living in Palestine for centuries. A sizable number of Palestinian Jews also lived side by side with the Arabs, but the overwhelming majority of the population was Arab: Jewish, Muslim, and Christian. Not only was the land already settled and under the suzerainty of the Ottoman caliph, who, as one might imagine, was not receptive to the idea of turning it over to Europe’s Jews, but Palestine, and Jerusalem in particular, was as sacred to the Arabs as it was to the Jews.
