Ultimately, what is unique about the Nakba is not 1948 but 1949. The Israelis offered to accept back ~300,000 people conditioned on peace agreements with the Arab States. The US was willing to invest millions to build homes for 200,000 people in the Jordan Valley. And for another 60,000 in the East Bank of the Suez Canal. Arab States and many Palestinians rejected much of this. Meanwhile, Israel paid 4.6x as much to Palestinian refugee relief funds as all Arab States combined in the immediate post-war period. There's a lot of gnarly and ugly stuff you can find in the 1948 War. Real dark stuff. On both sides. But, you could have had a resolution of the conflict based on rehabilitation, compensation, and return. And ... Arab States and much of the Palestinian public said no.
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