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In the final analysis, the law is Power masquerading as justice. Whichever is the most powerful authority in that time and place, is, the law. That is all. Morals and ethics might contribute but they're just nice-to-haves as the entirety of history testifies to very clearly.
This becomes critically important to a civilisation once it has become secular, thinking it has risen above nature*. Once there's no longer a higher order of so called justice to moderate our obedience** in an unknown after life, how do you think things will play out for that civilisation?
Something can only be stolen, if it was owned in the first place. Do we all agree? If not, we cannot proceed.
For example, we're told that so called private property can be owned - the earnings of hard work or the capital savings in a business. But isn't this just a legal construct too and what does nature say about it?
But land feels like something deeper and more important than private property in your earned incomes - is land even something anyone has worked to create, given it has always been there and they're not making any more of it?
Then there is the idea of your rights in the market - when you buy something does that presuppose that it is then owned by you? Buying something is an agreement to exchange one thing for another, usually with money on one side of the exchange because it's more efficient. And that agreement and ownership is protected, usually by the force of the state. Who else will protect it?
So when you buy something - land or private property, all you have is a bundle of rights which the state promises to protect. Can you say you own it, do you need to own it. What utility is lost from it because you do not own it. Does ownership add any value to the thing? You already have exclusive possession which is everything you need to max out it's value in use or value in exchange.
Beware: I'm not saying that ownership is a right or a wrong thing. I am trying to bring scrutiny onto the idea for the first time, without judgement driven by either side.
There are no guarantees - if the land of a so called nation is successfully invaded, what used to be protected is quickly lost to the greater power of the invader. Who will then proceed to institute their own forms of flaky protections and privileges which still oppose nature.
Nature has made no agreement to uphold your man made rights. Weakling man made power can only make a tacit promise to you without insurance. Yes, we can quote 'natural law' and say it harmonises with nature. But this is just the philosophical and intellectual masturbation commanded by the current authority hoping you won't see the illusion and remain obedient to them.
So all you have with your rights to ownership of anything at all, are what the present authority in power promises, but does not guarantee to protect, in exchange for your obedience.
How often does this hallowed law of ownership controlled by authority harmonise with nature? Never. Nature knows nothing about ownership of the material world. Nature mocks it.
All you can say is that private property in earned incomes is probably fairer, than is private property in land, the ownership of which has never been earned because it's always been there.
So can land be stolen? Only in the eyes of the law - which as we've discussed, is not inherently justice. Nature knows nothing about ownership, even of land. So how can it be stolen?
Remember Me: "If you oppose me, nature, expect the heat of fire and the stroke of the sword - power"
*NOTE: I have no idea what nature is in totality. All I can say about it is that it encompasses the whole of the universe, both materially and metaphysically - everything.
**NOTE: God does not want your obedience, but your autonomy. Religion has made this observation impenetrable to most people - religion insists on you obeying God, a terrible mistake and a limited earth bound power structure no less. To me, religion and God are mutually exclusive. Religion is an obedience structure, to hold onto power. God is not power, but the embodiment of your own autonomy.