I don't believe it's incidental that there have always been Jewish settlements, it's exactly the point: Muslims were fine with Jewish settlements so long as the Jews were subservient to a ruling Muslim power, but Jewish self-determination was intolerable.
I do agree that arguing about who deserves what is not constructive. 1948 was 78 years ago, there are ~10 million Israelis, and the country has nukes. The historical perspective is not very helpful here.