[slg]

If you take the view of history that the ability to forcibly drive other people off their land grants the new inhabitants a valid claim to that land, then Israel's actions are only objectionable because they are happening now rather than in the history books. It's inherently a doctrine of might is right, and the Israelis are mightier than the Palestinians at this current moment in history.

[echoangle]

Right, but at least historically, what alternative is there? You can’t really unroll thousands of years of human history and make everyone go back to where their ancestors came from (even just because people ended up mixing after colonizing other places), so you have to take some state as the correct one and then condemn every change after that (or just let everyone do whatever they want).

Otherwise, how would you decide who gets which part of the world?

[slg]

Which is exactly why this area has been in conflict for millennia. Many different groups have valid claims to the area being their historic homeland. Dubbing one single group as "indigenous" is a refutation of all the other people's historical claims on that land and it means all the Israelis have to do is wait out this conflict until it becomes "history" and the Palestinians lose that "indigenous" label.