It belonged to the British before WW2. After the war, where Israel was created after 6,000,000 Jewish people (among other “undesirable” groups, such as gay people) were summarily executed by the nazis, it fell under immediately attack from all of its neighbors in 1947. Two years after six million were executed.

The Arab League members Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq refused to accept the UN partition plan and proclaimed the right of self-determination for the Arabs across the whole of Palestine. The Arab states marched their forces into what had, until the previous day, been the British Mandate for Palestine, starting the first Arab–Israeli War. After an initial loss of territory by the Jewish state, the tide turned in the Israelis’ favour and they pushed the Arab armies back beyond the borders of the proposed Arab state

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Israel

While it doesn’t excuse brutal repression, I don’t think they are ever going to back down. Any time they do, everyone seems to execute all of them in pogroms.