you don't need to have a state to lose your land. The modern nation state is western creation and only came into existence in the 19th century.
the native americans who were dispossessed of land and resources never had a formal state. The Kurds don't have a state, but no one doubts they were forced out of parts of the middle east or the armenians were forced out of what became turkey. There are many people's who don't have their own countries. some who amount to millions, the karen and kachin peoples of burma are examples, as well as large numbers of tribal groups in africa. Just because the local arabs didn't have a state with an army and borders and flags and an airline doesn't make them less of a people. As to whether the local arabs considered themselves palestinians in the 1870s to the 1940s, documents from that time period could tell you.
Peoples have land taken from them all the time, by their own governments and other countries.
This frequently happens during war. The romany people of europe are the result of defeated armies moving west over the centuries from northern india.
At the end of ww2, vast numbers of germans were forced west and their lands given to poland.
England is the name given to a land colonised by the angles, saxons, jutes, vikings etc.
When large numbers of peoples arrive in a new place where there are inhabitants, they are often militarily aggressive or technologically superior.
If large enough numbers come they create new identities and cultures and the existing peoples are quite often submerged or assimilated
If small numbers invade, which has quite often been the case throughout history, they themselves can become assimilated. The qing dynasty of china was a manchurian dynasty which assimilated into the han chinese population
The normans who conquered england assimilated into the anglosaxon peoples there.
The mongols who conquered all of asia became part of the peoples they conquered.
Throughout history it isn't that often entire peoples are exterminated and replaced by invaders. The arab armies who conquered the middle east didn't replace the existing peoples. They overlaid their culture and religion. Genealogically the arabs of israel and the west bank have dna markers going back thousands of years.
Sometimes the existing inhabitants are dispossessed and relegated to the fringes, economically and politically. The berbers of north africa complain about this.
Not all colonising is permanent despite time. The french controlled algeria for more than 130 years and had more than 1 millions colonists there, however they weren't enough to survive against the millions of arab algerians who were kept under permanent french military occupation. The colonies can't survive on their own militarily or financially they can fall.
white Colonists in eastern africa were forced out, because they were few in numbers in comparison to black africans. There are millions of white afrikaaners and white english speaking peoples in south africa, they may prove numerous enough to stop the black south africans forcing them to the margins or even out of south africa.
Israel could be said to a western colony created by technologically advanced and educated european jewry starting from 1870s. The reasons are clear, a desire for a safe homeland and the religious attachment to that area in particular.
The reason the local arabs were unhappy is that the jews who came made no secret that they wanted to create a state for jews , by the 1920s, in 50 years the jewish percentage of what would become israel moved from 5 % to more than 30% and there was regular fighting between the two communities.
Israel won and the local arabs were forced / left what would ecome israel, they moved to the west bank, gaza and other arab countries. With the exception of jordan, ( and the arabs who lived there still aren't happy at the numbers of palestinians who moved to jordan) most arab countries refused to give citizenship to the palestinians and many were forced to live in 'temporary' refugee camps which their descendants live in today. many arab countries thought that israel's existence would be temporary and the arabs would go back. Even after it became clear they could not, they were used by the arab countries to show they considered israel temporary.
There was fighting between the local arabs and israelfor the next 30 years. As well as regular wars between the arab states and israel. Israel consistently won.
If you view this as simply as a fight between two peoples in the same land, then you might ask why don't the palestinians stop, however many palestinians view the israelis as settlers and colonisers. From their point of view, regaining what they lost is something they have legitimate reasons to fight for.
attacks by people who have been colonised and conquered is common throughout history. they either are successful or they are put down
In the grand scheme of things, peoples lose their identities, who now remembers the phoenicians or sparta or moghul peoples ( well they do, but people don't consider themselves spartans or phoenicians etc) There are endless countries which are long gone over europe, asian, africa and the americas.
The iranians may have been sassanids and followers of the zoroaster, however the vast majority would not longer wish to go back to those days. Nor do the turks wish to recreate the byzantine empire etc.
It may take 200 years (unless israel gets brutal and depopulates the west bank and gaza - that stopped the iranians rebelling against the mongols - it took seven hundred years for parts of the country to return to their pre mongol populations) but either the palestinians will accept israel's existence and adapt to it, or will become militarily strong and take what they considered theirs.
That may seem unlikely now, but I am always reminded of prussia, which used to be called an army with a country. but it only became a militarised society in the early 19th century. Germany once made the world tremble and now its army is relatively small and week and its society as a whole is hostile to it.
