>The problem with division is did it take into account population numbers, quality of land, access to water etc. So there's no point in trying to say it was "fair" because there will always be ways one can argue it wasn't fair.

I'm not going to get deeply involved in this thread, but I have to answer the "quality of land" question because I see this issue a lot.

When Jewish immigrants started coming into what was then Palestine in the late 1800's and early 1900's, they found that what had once been "the land of milk and honey" was not very conducive to agriculture. These pioneers drained swamps and worked hard to make the land able to grow things. So, when Palestine (btw, the name derives from "Philistine") was divided to create Israel, it wasn't unreasonable for the reclaimed land to be part of the new Jewish state.

Tamar