HaLeiVi:
“Had a group of Frum, sincere people been the ones to try and legally gain the land, I’m pretty sure that all Rabbonim would have enthusiastically backed them.”
Instead of assuming, ask a Rav if that’s true (it’s not). Frum and sincere or otherwise (and the Zionists were certainly “otherwise”), there is no heter to take the land and it’s also outright stupid to do so, as history has shown. Just for starters, who needs every 18 year old kid to risk their lives in an army?
There were Arab countries where Jews were able to keep their mesorah intact since the FIRST Beis Hamikdash. Naturally, the wicked Zionists (in multiple ways) forced them (in multiple ways) to throw it all away upon their arrival to Eretz HaKodesh.
Witness the “Arab Spring” now. Who knows what the Arab world would look like if they never had an Israel upon which to blame their problems on? But that is conjecture. The point is that many Jews lived for centuries under Arab rule, and while it was not always pleasant and at times the savages would go on a blood-thirsty rampage, it was far better than the “religion of love”.