The ancient land of Israel which had been in the hands of the Israelites since before 1,000 B.C. and was composed of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin in the south and the other ten tribes in the north (the former being called Israel and the latter being called Judah (later called Judaea by the Romans) after the country was split under the sons of Solomon, was under Israelite/Jewish control or Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian control until approximately 500 B.C. when the king of Persia allowed the Jews to return to their land and helped them with his wealth to rebuild and adorn the Temple in Jerusalem.
From then until 135 A.D. (after the Bar Kochba Rebellion) the Jews lived in their land although they were under the rule of the Persian king, but became a theocracy with the high priests ruling the country.
Following the brief rule of th Greeks over Persia and their dynasties in Syria and Egypt etc., there was a revolt under the Maccabees which allowed complete control by the Jews until Herod the Great (who had become king of Israel) made the mistake of allying himself with the Romans against the Syrians, and thereby acquired Roman protection for his dominions. After his death it was a matter of time before Israel was a possession of Rome split into three tetrarchates each ruled by a son of Herod the Great.
The 135 A.D. revolt under Rabbi Bar Kochba resulted in the Jews being expelled from Israel which the Romans re-named Palestine as an insult to the Jews who were not allowed to live in their homeland for some time, many of them being sold into slavery although they were allowed to live in other parts of the Roman Empire.
Now before the Israelites dwelled in Israel it was called Canaan and inhabited by the Canaanites, who were defeated by the Israelites, with the Philistines living in what is now Gaza.
As far as Arab claims to the region prior to the time of Mohammed the Arabs all lived in the Arabian peninsula south of Nabataea which was Herod the Great's father's homeland. Prior to that there may have been a colony here and there of Arab merchants who like the Jews were the traders and merchants of the area, but they would have been a small number and were only recognized as residents as many Canadians are recognized today who work in the United States.
Following Mohammed's uniting of the Arab tribes under the new religion he invented by combining Judaism and Christianity, and making Jesus (Yeshua) only a prophet and not part of the Christian Divinity of the
G-d of Israel, the Arabs began a conquest of the Byzantine lands near them invading but not keeping any area of Byzantine Palestine (still called that until 1948) as they were shortly kicked out the Holy Land not being re-taken by Arabs or Turks unti around 1,000 A.D.
Although there were Arabs later living in the land they were not rulers and the country would have many Greeks and Samarians as well as some Jews who returned under the Byzantines :all of these people inhabiting the land until the Turks invaded and then they would have stayed through the centuries, the Jews always being there. There was even a famous Yeshiva (place of Jewish religious study) there for many centuries since at least Byzantine times, which was highly regarded by Jewish scholars everywhere.
After the Turkish conquest of what was still called Palestine more and more Arabs moved into Palestine but there were many descendants of the Byzantine Greeks, Romans and Samarians who were for the most part Christians and of course there was the ongoing presence, (thanks to the Byzantines) of the Jews.
Therefore all of the above taken into consideration, the Palestinian Arabs are merely a colonial people allowed into Palestine by the Turks and Byzantines, but in no way can they claim Israel as their homeland or continue to call it Palestine, the insulting name given the area by the Romans, which was the Roman pronunciation for Philistia, the land of the Israelites' worst ancient enemies who they defeated and who lived in Gaza which the Israelites conquered..
