It obviously was. It was a direct consequence of the Israeli policy of mowing the grass, (terrible term) allowing settler terrorism and terrorists into the government, and a lack of engagement in a decade or more. The consequence was reality to both sides.
The miscalculation was the scale of the Hamas terrorism, and the resulting response being proportional to their own “success.”
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Israel would have prospered just fine in say Alberta or British Columbia (and not minded a “dual citizenship” solution with the natives/themselves at all.) Too late for that now though. Palestinians would probably prosper just fine and peacefully now if you gave them a random island somewhere and hoped that Iran and Russia kept their hands off.
in 1948 the west needed a bastion to counterbalance communism though, and Israel was perfectly positioned geopolitically for the Jews to hold. I’d love
@2cents or somebody to weigh in on how much that determined the direction of the early Israeli state as I don’t know so much about it.
The Palestinians have obviously made many mistakes too; they should have accepted the good offer to Arafat. But the past is the past, here we are now. And now is pretty damned hopeless.