A far as the population of Palestine, at the time of the mandate, There were more Christians than Jews in Palestine at the time and most were recent arrivals.
AN INTERIM REPORT
ON THE
CIVIL ADMINISTRATION
OF
PALESTINE,
during the period
1st JULY, 1920--30th JUNE, 1921.
AN INTERIM REPORT
ON THE
CIVIL ADMINISTRATION
OF
PALESTINE.
I.--THE CONDITION OF PALESTINE AFTER THE WAR.
" There are now in the whole of Palestine hardly 700,000 people, a population much less than that of the province of Gallilee alone in the time of Christ.* (*
See Sir George Adam Smith "Historical Geography of the Holy Land", Chap. 20.) Of these 235,000 live in the larger towns, 465,000 in the smaller towns and villages.
Four-fifths of the whole population are Moslems. A small proportion of these are Bedouin Arabs; the remainder, although they speak Arabic and are termed Arabs, are largely of mixed race.
Some 77,000 of the population are Christians, in large majority belonging to the Orthodox Church, and speaking Arabic. The minority are members of the Latin or of the Uniate Greek Catholic Church, or--a small number--are Protestants.
The Jewish element of the population numbers 76,000. Almost all have entered Palestine during the last 40 years. Prior to 1850 there were in the country only a handful of Jews. In the following 30 years a few hundreds came to Palestine. Most of them were animated by religious motives; they came to pray and to die in the Holy Land, and to be buried in its soil. "
Mandate for Palestine - Interim report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations/Balfour Declaration text (30 July 1921)
