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Who was there first?
Interesting question, but mostly irrelevant. Land has changed hands for many millenia. You and I are sitting on such land at this moment (hint: a few hundred years ago, there were no white people on the lands we currently occupy).
Sometime in the 20th century it became less fashionable to take over a land by force of arms. Even objectionable. The Palestinians were minding their own business, and radical Zionists were launching terrorist attacks to claim their "holy land that god promised us". After WWII, the Palestinians were told -in essence- to get lost, and the land was given to the Jews.
Who owned it 2000 years ago is irrelevant (though it was Rome, but the non-Muslim Palestinians (Islam wasn't invented yet) still lived there along with the Jews). Who was living on it for the past several hundred years was really the only relevant question. For over 400 years it was part of the Ottoman Empire, settled by what we would call today "the Palestinians". WWI resulted in the British moving in, but it was still Palestine. The Brits had to contend with terrorists like Menachem Begin (I've seen his mugshot when the British caught him). After WWII, the Jews were given the land. If I'm being cynical, I would say that racism played a part (i.e. no other nation wanted the Jews within their borders). Less cynical, both Jews and Xians recognized those lands as "the Promised Land for god's chosen people", and put them there. Either way, that was not exclusively a Jewish homeland for at least 1000 years (probably longer).
