Not really. When most modern countries were formed, they belonged to the people actually living on the land at the time.
Not even close. The entirety of the America's were conquered by western nations and their original inhabitants genocidaly massacred. Mass migrations and genocide followed the creation of many states in Africa after the colonial powers left. The mass movements that followed the creation of India and Pakistan don't need to be belabored by me. Suffice to say, moving in and killing all the locals has a long, long, history, stretching back to before imperial Rome.
In the case of Israel, its future inhabitants were shipped in after the state was proposed in 1917. To give an analogy, it would be like declaring India to be a Sikh state (3% population) and then gradually terrorizing the non-Sikh population out of India over the next few decades.
Umm not really, it would be more like declaring in the 40's that a certain region comprising mostly of one religion or another be separated from the surrounding land and given autonomy. Then, following that, wars and general uncertainty caused mass migrations and displacement.....Wait a second....That sounds exactly like the creation of another state we might have both heard of!?
I don't really approve of Israel, or many of its current tactics, but if I were in their shoes I would have done most of the same things. It was originally 40% of its current size, with only a small majority of Jewish citizens. The mandate called for an independent democratic state, the result may have been a "Jewish" state, but it was just as likely to be secular. The problem is that all the surrounding states (Which had just so happened to side with the genocidal NAZIS in the recent war) decided the new state was a cancer, and decided to launch another genocidal conflict, since ya know, the world had not seen enough of that lately. The Palestinians decided (Wisely) to avoid the war zone, hoping the war would be over fairly quickly. Unfortunate for the Palestinians, the Arab armies were incompetent and unaware of it, and they lost. The Israelis decided (cruelly, but wisely) to not let floods of armed and angry refugees back in. The rest as they say, is history.
So, let me put it this way to you. Let us assume you are the citizen in a newly created tiny dot of a state in the center of a vast desert. Recently, your ethnic group barely survived a concerted attempt to destroy it. When faced with an eminent and existential threat do you A) Put your hands up and go back to the concentration camp to finish off what Hitler started, or B) Put up a fight, and hold onto whatever comes your way during the fight?
I am just trying to be logical. Like I said, I don't approve of many of the things Israel does. I don't like its Illegal settlements, or the way it ignores collateral damage, or the way it assumes it can do whatever it damn well pleases in neighboring countries. But do you really expect to win any sympathy with the "They have no right to continue breathing" argument though? If Israel is an illegal state because the neighboring countries don't like it's existence, than Pakistan is an illegal state because India does not approve of it's existence. You can make similar arguments about the various Hindu and Muslim refugees that immigrated from both countries.
The big difference between Israel-Arab and Pakistan-India divisions, is that in the case of India and Pakistan, the refugees had a pretty good idea they were not going back to their former homes, and made new homes in the new countries. The Palestinians on the other hand, were rejected by both Israel and their Arab neighbors... I feel sorry for them, but I think the blame is as easy to assign to the surrounding nations as it is to Israel itself.
