Unarmed Jews returned in large numbers 150 years before the re-creation of Israel and legally bought land. They were attacked anyway and there was a pogrom in Hebron in 1835. Jews onky began to arm themselves, 100 farmers, in 1909 as it was illegal for Jews to be armed under Ottoman law.

As more Jews arrived in 1920s, more riots occurred, including pogroms. No land was stolen except many Muslims believed it was waqf, Muslim Holy land, and Jews had no right to be there and certainly not as equals.

Things got worse in the 1930s with the local Arabs(now known as Palestinians) successfully petitioning the British to limit the number of Jews arriving. Right wing groups of Jews began to fight back against the British and occasionally the Arabs.

The Arabs were not in anyway willing to share the land with Jews, while the Zionists had pledged to uphold the rights ,per Balfour and San Remo, of anyone living there. The situation became untenable and thus the Peel Commission proposed splitting the land in 1937 in a way more generous than the later UN partition plan. Jews were agreeable to this, The Arabs rejected it. Then we had 1947 partition also rejected and finally the British quitting and Israel declaring independence and 5 Arab armies invading. Over 20% of Israel's population is Palestinian who are in all levels of society even in parliament. That percentage would have been closer to 50% but the Arab world ethnically cleansed itself of all its Jews and these Jews make up 55% of the Jews in Israel. The number of Jewish refugees from the Arab world that ended up in Israel is higher than the number of Palestinian refugees.

As for ethno-state- Israel is Jewish in the same way France is French. Indeed Israel has more non-Jew minorities as a percentage than France has minorities.