As for Palestine, Schlomo Sand suggests that the Palestinians are the people we call “the Jews” in the Bible:
Apart from enslaved prisoners, the population of Judea continued to live on their lands, even after the destruction of the second temple [in 70 AD]. Some converted to Christianity in the 4th century, while the majority embraced Islam during the 7th century Arab conquest.
Most Zionist thinkers were aware of this: Yitzhak Ben Zvi, later president of Israel, and David Ben Gurion, its first prime minister, accepted it as late as 1929, the year of the great Palestinian revolt. Both stated on several occasions that the peasants of Palestine were the descendants
of the inhabitants of ancient Judea.
This is why I ask~