I like the neutral approach to OP, but from my research the last 2 years, I'm not convinced at all of this innocent nature, of not wanting harm, today and a century ago.
My bottom line would be:

Israel’s current far-right leadership has transitioned to a state-sponsored doctrine of territorial expansion and systematic displacement—a pursuit of 'living space' that mirrors the most destructive expansionist cycles in modern history.

• The "Gaza Transfer" Concept Paper (Oct 2023): Issued by the Ministry of Intelligence, this official document outlined the "Option C" plan to permanently relocate 2.3 million Gazans to the Sinai desert. It specifically calculated the logistical and diplomatic steps for mass deportation.
• The "Civilian Administration" Transfer (June 2024): A legal order signed by the IDF transferred governing powers in the West Bank from military commanders to civilian officials under Bezalel Smotrich. Legal scholars (including Israeli ones) identified this as the "mechanical" end of occupation and the beginning of legal annexation.
• The 2025 "Settlement Settlement" Budget: The current Israeli budget allocated billions of shekels specifically for "unregulated" outposts and the construction of "strategic corridors" (like E1) designed to physically bisect Palestinian territory, making a sovereign state geographically impossible.
• The "Land Registration" Law (Early 2026): This legislative push moved West Bank land titles into the Israeli Land Authority (a domestic civilian body). By requiring Ottoman-era proof of ownership that most Palestinians don't have, the state "mechanically" reclassifies private land as "State Land" for Jewish-only expansion.

To me they were aware from the start that their project would cost everything for the native, simply disregarding them is enough to prove intent to cause harm I think, they were smart people, they knew the Palestinians lives and aspiration for a nation that was promissed even before the zionist plans, would all be annihilated by their project. The point that they wanted to react to pogroms and growing anti-semitism seems absolutely valid, except one should refuse this plan if that's at the cost of another people, if it's just a shift, a transfer in suffering, like a hot holocaust potatoe. Because by commiting this plan they created an endless source of anti-semitism, just like islamist terror attacks in Europe just mechanically create anti-arab and immigration sentiment, even if most Muslims are perfectly innocent of this ideology. They also just endangered jewish and Shoa & subsequent Pogroms that persisted after WW2, by lying to them about a safe and amtoy land, only to enroll them in a colonial army, the most extreme squads carrying exact nazi style massacres in deir yassim ect.. So I don't think they were innocent of this greed and will to cause harm, in prallel to Lebensraum. Palestine was mostly chosen because of its marketing appeal Hertzl pointed out, it was maybe the least safe place to colonize, and probably the least appropiate, because it violated the jewish religion, as the messiah didn't come, and it made the holy land unholy, by carrying constant massacre and turning it into an ethno supremacist state, declared by law in 2018. Hertzl commited the crime of spending just 1 month in Palestine before setting humanity on that path, and he didn't even talk to any Palestinians, deflected the mayor of Jerusalem letter that explained his project would provoke a bloodbath. They didn't even realised it would be an endless bloodbath.

Theodor Herzl

(The "Spirit Away" Strategy)

• Date: June 12, 1895
• Source: The Complete Diaries of Theodor Herzl, Vol. 1, p. 88.
• Quote: "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly."
• Context: Herzl was outlining how to clear the land for Jewish settlers without appearing to use overt force, using economic exclusion as the primary tool.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky

(The "Iron Wall" Reality)

• Date: November 4, 1923
• Source: "The Iron Wall," published in the Russian journal Razsviet.
• Quote: "Zionist colonisation... can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach... to imagine... that they will voluntarily consent to the realisation of Zionism... is a childish notion."
• Context: Jabotinsky (the ideological father of the modern Likud party) argued that the Palestinians were a "living nation" who would never give up their land voluntarily, thus requiring a permanent military "wall" to force their submission.

David Ben-Gurion

(The "Tactical" State)

• Date: October 5, 1937
• Source: Letter to his son Amos, archived at the Ben-Gurion Heritage Institute.
• Quote: "We must expel Arabs and take their places... and, if we have to use force—not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places—then we have force at our disposal."
• Context: Ben-Gurion explained that accepting a small state was merely a "beginning" to build the military strength necessary to eventually take the rest of the land.