The Jewish immigration to the region was legal. Moreover, a Jewish population had existed in the region throughout the time it was occupied by Rome, the Ottoman Empire, etc.

With respect to the legal immigration of Jewish people, in 1906, the Sultan of Turkey revoked the laws that previously had forbidden Jewish people from settling in the Palestine region (Source: "Palestine Open to Jews," The New York Times, July 3, 1906). In 1912, Turkey even began consideration of plans that would give each of the Palestine region's various ethnic groups, including the Jewish people living there, home rule over their own communities. Under the initiative, Jewish people were to be given autonomy over their local governments. (Source: "Jews Promised Autonomy," The New York Times, September 13, 1912).

Under the British Mandate, it remained legal for Jewish people to immigrate to the region until 1946.

Under the British White Paper of 1922 that governed the Palestine region, Jewish migration was encouraged. That law declared:

For the fulfilment of this policy it is necessary that the Jewish community in Palestine should be able to increase its numbers by immigration. This immigration cannot be so great in volume as to exceed whatever may be the economic capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals. It is essential to ensure that the immigrants should not be a burden upon the people of Palestine as a whole, and that they should not deprive any section of the present population of their employment.

Moreover, in 1922, the League of Nations ruled, "The Mandatory shall have full powers of legislation and of administration, save as they may be limited by the terms of this mandate... The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes."

In 1930, the British passed a law that temporarily halted Jewish immigration and additional subsequent laws that same year that reinstated it.

Later, in 1939, annual Jewish immigration was to be restricted to 75,000 persons per year for the next five years, before being ended altogether. In no year was the limit reached, much less exceeded.

In any case, the United Nations' Partition Plan of 1947 (enacted under UN General Assembly Resolution 181) accommodated the core needs of both the Arab and Jewish peoples. Both peoples had historic ties to the land. Both had a shared right to self-determination. The partition plan was the only feasible means by which the conflicting interests between the two peoples could be accommodated to the greatest possible extent.

In rejecting proposed solutions that would have benefited either of the Palestine region's two peoples at the expense of the other, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) explained:

Every practicable solution today, even the most extreme, is confronted with the actual fact that there are now in Palestine more than 1,200,000 Arabs and 600,000 Jews, who, by and large, are from different cultural milieux, and whose outlook, languages, religion and aspirations are separate.

The most simple solutions, naturally enough, are the extreme solutions, by which is meant those which completely reject or ignore, or virtually so, the claims and demands of one or another party, while recognizing in full the claims of the other. The Special Committee has rejected such solutions.

UNSCOP's reasoning for the partition plan was:

The basic premise underlying the partition proposal is that the claims to Palestine of the Arabs and Jews, both possessing validity, are irreconcilable, and that among all of the solutions advanced, partition will provide the most realistic and practicable settlement, and is the most likely to afford a workable basis for meeting in part the claims and national aspirations of both parties.

It is a fact that both of these peoples have their historic roots in Palestine, and that both make vital contributions to the economic and cultural life of the country. The partition solution takes these considerations fully into account.

The basic conflict in Palestine is a clash of two intense nationalisms... Only by means of partition can these conflicting national aspirations find substantial expression and qualify both peoples to take their places as independent nations in the international community and in the United Nations.

During all sustained combat, some degree of accidents and even some abuses have occurred. However, it should be noted that Israel makes a good faith effort to uphold the humanitarian principles enshrined in the Laws of War. One should also note that during the combat in Lebanon, Hezbollah fired rockets indiscriminately into Israel. During the intifada, Palestinian suicide bombers deliberately attacked Israeli civilians, including women and children. In both cases, those attacks would properly constitute crimes against humanity. That distinction between accidents by Israel and deliberate harm inflicted on civilians by Hezbollah and the Palestinian terrorist groups is vitally important.