In 1948, the Jews had nowhere to go, and the Europeans didn't want them back. The United Nations, at the prompting of the United States, said that the Jewish people could be established in their historic homeland. The original UN agreement made a place for a Jewish homeland and a homeland for the Palestinian people.
On the day the UN made that proclamation, all the surrounding nations—Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt—attacked Israel, a brand new country. Day one, no standing government, no standing military, no real international support. I have friends that lived there, and they heard people on the radio telling the people in the area, "Take a week's vacation. We're gonna drive the Jews into the sea." And somehow, inexplicably, the Jewish nation survived.
When we talk about the West Bank, we're talking about land on the west bank of the Jordan River. At the end of that war, the Jordanians controlled it. The people who lived there had Jordanian passports. Nobody called the people there Palestinians. There was never a Palestinian government there. Palestine referred to a region, like we refer to the southeastern United States. It was a name for a region in the Middle East because the Romans didn't want the Jews there anymore.
Then came the Six-Day War. Israel was attacked, and at the end of it, the Israelis had captured the West Bank. From 1967 until today, it's been a disputed territory. The Israelis, under a great deal of pressure from the Americans, put together a peace deal that would have given the Palestinian people the entire West Bank and half of Jerusalem. That was the deal on the table. And Yasser Arafat said, "No, we want it all." At multiple points in this story, the leadership of the people in this region have refused to make peace.
In the Six-Day War, the Jews took control of the Temple Mount, the holiest place in all of Judaism, for the first time since 70 AD. Then Moshe Dayan went to the Prime Minister and said, "If we give to the Muslim nations the Temple Mount, our holiest place on the planet, they will understand how much we want peace." So the Israelis gave the Temple Mount to the Muslim people—and it didn't bring any peace.
So, did Israel steal the Palestinians' land? The reality is that the Israelis didn't steal anyone's land. The Muslim world wasn't interested in the Palestinian people having a homeland. They're determined to drive the Jews into the sea.
This is why it is crucial for Christians to understand history and to pray for the Jewish people.