Comment by xg15

I can understand the need for a Jewish state. (Though wouldn't the same apply to other disenfranchised groups? Why not a Roma or a Native American state?)

What I don't understand is why that state had to be erected in a land where people were already living, against the explicit wishes of that population, and in the end pushed through with military force.

Or rather, I do understand: This was how the world powers of the late 19th century were thinking and operating. They thought they had the god-given right to redraw the world map as they saw fit, in Africa in the 19th, and in the middle east in the early 20th century. But this mindset is what everywhere else we renounce as colonialism today - except for some reason here.

I think present-day Israelis do have a valid claim to the land, because they were born there and spent their entire life in that land. Forcing them to move away would amount just as much to expulsion than demanding the same from Palestinians. (Not even speaking of things that would amount to not just expulsion but genocide)

What I don't understand is what would give them the exclusive claim to the land or the right to drive others off it.