You’ve probably seen these maps claiming Israel has been shrinking Palestine since 1948. They look convincing, color-coded, dated, and shared everywhere. But here’s the truth: There was never a sovereign state of Palestine. Under the British Mandate, Jews, Arabs, and Christians all lived in the same land, none under a country called “Palestine.” The first map paints nearly all the land as “Palestinian,” but much of it was empty or sparsely populated desert. The 1947 map shows a UN plan for two s