But Palestine was decidedly not a land without people. Palestinians were already living there. The first wave of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw Palestinian peasants, many of whose families had lived on the land for centuries, being driven off their land. Much of the land was sold to the settlers by Palestinian landlords, it is true, but the peasants who remained worked the land they could no longer call home for lack of other employment opportunities. They often were subject to cruelty.
Answers differ widely.
Nevertheless, it is one thing to peaceably reclaim uninhabited land, and it is quite another to forceably seize it. Depending on your ideas on imperialism, the two might be equally legitimate. Fastforwarding to the present, I must take objection to Mr. Kaufman's discussion of security concerns. While travel from one territory to the next, be it a nation or otherwise, generally requires such security precautions, the treatment of Palestinians passing through the Gaza checkpoint is not entirely fair. The soldiers who man this checkpoint as well as that in Bethlehem are inexperienced and trigger-happy, often just out of high school, and all too willing to harass students and workers who enter into Israel in order to do things that we as Americans take for granted.