Well, no - even the Balfour Declaration demanded respect for the rights of the indigenous population. It's just that those rights have been ignored.
My question would be whether, in those circumstances, a "nice" Israel was ever possible. And the present situation is because - apart from a brief period 30-25 years ago - the prevailing view in Israel has been based on Jabotinsky's "Iron Wall" doctrine - that the indigenous Arab population would never quietly retreat in the face of colonial Zionism. That this "Revisionist Zionism" should still be the guiding principle in Israel a century later suggests that (a) Jabotinsky never thought "never" meant never and (b) some other solution must be found if Israel is to have any sort of peace within the next hundred years - and they may have to find that solution without relying on a western world that, if it doesn't deny the Holocaust, will no longer feel guilty for it - at least not to the extent of being willing to allow a new genocide.
Specially for
@Palerider and any others who could do with a brief history lesson, here's the basic Iron Wall idea. It includes a reminder of how the Jews came into the promised land in the first place - as colonisers "like brigands".
Voluntary Agreement Not Possible.
There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. I say this with such conviction, not because I want to hurt the moderate Zionists. I do not believe that they will be hurt. Except for those who were born blind, they realised long ago that it is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting "Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority.
My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent.
The native populations, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilised or savage.
And it made no difference whatever whether the colonists behaved decently or not. The companions of Cortez and Pizzaro or (as some people will remind us) our own ancestors under Joshua Ben Nun, behaved like brigands; but the Pilgrim Fathers, the first real pioneers of North America, were people of the highest morality, who did not want to do harm to anyone, least of all to the Red Indians, and they honestly believed that there was room enough in the prairies both for the Paleface and the Redskin. Yet the native population fought with the same ferocity against the good colonists as against the bad.
Full article:
https://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf
www.bbc.com