Well, let's start at the beginning, looking at
what that area originally started as. The
region known as the British Mandate of
Palestine was originally Ottoman Empire
territory, in what was then southern Syria.
Basically, it was part of a British plan to not
establish colonies but develop and take care
of the territories of the shut-down Ottoman
Empire. They soon found they had no real
interest, and began to back out soon after
the First World War. Now we get to the
interesting part.
The Mandate of Palestine was maintained by
Britain until 1948. In 1946 they started
planning to fulfill an earlier promise. Let's go
back in time now to 1917. It's the height of
the first world war and we look at the
Balfour Declaration, which was a formal
promise to the Jewish Population of Great
Britain that the area known as the British
Mandate of Palestine would be established
as a national home for the Jewish people.
This was in part to raise more soldiers.
Now, this promise is tabled for decades,
until after the Second World War and the
atrocities of the holocaust, the Jewish
people are livid. Jews across Europe are full
of hate, fear, strife, and have had enough.
The Balfour Declaration is returned to the
light, and Britain responds. In 1946 Britain
formally looks into what it would take to
admit Jews into Palestine. They decided to
immediately admit 100,000 Jewish refugees
from Europe, accompanied by 300,000
troops to keep the peace against an Arab
revolt.
The Commission stated that "in order to
dispose, once and for all, of the exclusive
claims of Jews and Arabs to Palestine, we
regard it as essential that a clear statement
of principle should be made that Jew shall
not dominate Arab and Arab shall not
dominate Jew in Palestine."
It was decided later, by the united nations,
that the territory known as Palestine would
be divided more or less in two, among the
Arab inhabitants and the Jewish inhabitants,
creating two states, one Arab, one Jewish.
Jerusalem was maintained internationally,
and was not the jurisdiction of either state.
The Jewish Agency, which was the Jewish
state-in-formation, accepted the plan, and
nearly all the Jews in Palestine rejoiced at
the news. At midnight of the 14th of May,
1948, the territory known as the British
Mandate of Palestine ended.
And the Arab area, much of it, was invaded
by Arabs from Jordan. Over time, the Jewish
nation known as Israel has expanded to
occupy the entire block, more or less,
previously known as Palestine.
Basically, the old Arab nation was in two
parts. One on the left, one on the right. The
right was invaded by Jordan, later reclaimed
by Israel. The left has been shrinking, and
now it is only the Gaza strip remaining of
the left side of the old Arab nation. A map to
help you can be found below:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
commons/d/db/
UN_Partition_Plan_For_Palestine_1947.svg
Anyway, that's the story of how the Ottoman
Empire region of south Syria became the
British mandate of Palestine, which became
an Arab and Jewish nation, which then
became Israel and the dwindling left side of
the old Arab nation.
And here we are today; with Israel the large
mass surrounding the remnants of the Arab
part of Palestine (Which they still refer to
themselves as because they never changed
it to anything like the Jews did with "Israel")
Palestine did exist. Palestine technically does
exist. Palestine is the old name for the
territory as a whole, all of the Gaza strip and
all of Israel, in the same way that Great
Britain used to be called Albion. And now
Palestine is the name used by those who
never changed the name of their state.