The real story here is the revanchism of the displaced Palestinians. By 1948, Europeans knew that magnanimous winners and acquiescent losers make for peace. But it takes two to tango. At Versailles, the vengeful victors set in motion the horrors of the next war. After WWII, the Marshall Plan put (West) Germany on the road to prosperity, but only because the West Germans did not elect a government committed to the destruction of France.

The revanchist intransigence preceded and accounts for the conditions in Gaza. The Israelis would have liked nothing better than peaceful neighbors, including those who were displaced by Israel's creation. One can believe that partition was an act of European colonialism but also that Gaza is an "open-air prison" only because its people refused to come into the twentieth century. It's impossible to prove a counterfactual, but one can have opinions about them. Mine is that Israel's neighbors would be far better off today if they had accepted defeat in 1948. Or 1967. Or 1973. Or 2023.