That's not really accurate. Israel accepted the division plan the British offered where part of the land was to be Israel and the other Palestine. The Palestinians didn't accept it, and 5 Arab armies attacked the newly founded Israel while calling for driving all the jews to the sea. (Mean while Ben Gurion asked the local Arab population to stay and promised equal rights in the new country. Both right wing and left wing Israeli leaders of that time talked about equal rights, while the Arab leaders talked about annihilation, and asked the local Arabs to leave while the clean the land from jews)

Israel fought back, and got territorial gains. Of course there were Jewish militias, Jews in British Mandate era were constantly being attacked by local arabs.

Anyway, even with all the complications of this era and our ability to form a tidy nerrative, the comparison of Israel to American and Chinese empirialism is just crazy talk. This stays true even if you totally accept the Arab narrative.