Based on the preceding historical introduction, which admittedly did not place religion center stage, this chapter argues that while religion has been recruited by both sides, especially in more recent years, to fuel animosity and to justify claims for the control of land, its initial involvement was marginal in comparison with rival nationalisms. The reality that confronted the world in late 1947 was that two people, who were hostile to each other, wanted to control all or part of the same territory. One people, the Jews, claimed an historical, even theological, connection with the land but their immediate justification for establishing a state in which they would constitute the majority was that they currently occupied a substantial portion of that land. This had its roots in the ethnocentric European conviction that territory outside Europe was ‘open to European occupation’ (Akenson 1992: 157 citing Maxine Rodinson). The other people, the Palestinians, claimed that, as they had lived in the same land for centuries and were the overall majority, they had the right to determine how the whole territory should be governed. No doubt some Arabs intended that any Palestinian state would be ruled by some form of Islamic government, although Christians as well as Muslims pioneered Palestinian nationalism. Certainly, the Arab State that the Sharif of Mecca had hoped to rule would have been an Islamic entity. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who fully supported Hitler's final solution, would also have envisaged an Islamic state.