Israel Belkind, Ber Borochov, David Ben-Gurion, Itzhak Ben-Zvi ...
A good handful of Zionists knew that the Palestinians were descendants of the Hebrews.
In fact, they were surprised to see how the Palestinians maintained many traits of Hebrew culture.
But when the european Zionist saw that the local population did not accept the colonization of their new European masters, all of this was forgotten and covered up, and the old Christian legend was insisted upon: the legend of the Exile.
The damned Christian legend says: "those in Jerusalem condemned him", and HaShem became so so so angry with them that he destroyed their Temple, packed his bags, and left Jerusalem for Rome. And scattered them throughout the empire
The legend of the Exile is a Christian tale, a tale for Christian children that the rabbis accepted because it suited them. Later, the Zionists would insist on this tale for Chistian chidren
It's as if, in two thousand years, the people of Saudi Arabia became readers of The Lord of the Rings and some violent fanatics arrived from Indonesia saying: We are from Mecca, Mecca is our ancestral homeland, and you are going to understand and acept it with massacres.
It's as if some Argentine Catholics claimed the lands that were once Vatican lands (Papal States) and unleashed terror on the local population, the Italians, and after expelling 700,000 Italians (1947-) the bulk of the Italians of the old Papal States were in ghettos (1967-) without civil rights and under military domination of artillery and aviation plus the usual raids to capture hostages, of course ghettos with autonomous administration like the Warsaw ghetto.