And what evidence does Israel have that being kinder and gentler towards a terrorist organization would be effective? When it is surrounded by countries who literally want it to be obliterated. Not because of anything that has happened in the last 80 years but because they are Jewish.
Why was Israel created?
Nevermind
why. The problem, as you yourself note, is the
where.
The British gave them a big chunk of Palestine, but as with so much of what the British gave people (and/or helped themselves to), it wasn't theirs to give.
If Israel had been created in Wales, that would have been better, though you'd likely have the Sons of Glyndŵr launching attacks on illegal settlers. Perhaps the English could have given them Lancashire instead, though that could be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Better yet, Israel could have been created in the USA. There's plenty of big tracts of semi-desert that look a lot like Palestine. Or they could have just been given governance over New York City, which already has a large Jewish population.
Creating a homeland for Jews, well away from Europeans who hated them, sounds like a good plan post WWII. But creating it in a place where even more of their neighbours are antisemitic than was the case in Europe, seems pretty stupid.
Perhaps the Allies should have just given them Prussia, as a massive "fuck you" to the surviving Nazis. If you think they deserved to be given a big tract of land as a consequence of attempted genocide, then it makes little sense to give them land that didn't belong to the perpetrators of that genocide.
