stillborn

Let's say that Israel loses the 1948 war (don't ask how and assume the Israelis were unlucky at some bad points in said war), leading to it being nipped in the bud. What happens next with Israel stillborn? How does the Middle East develop without Israel? What happens to the Jews in Palestine...

In a scenario where Rome remained a minor Italian city-state (or at most, a regional power in the Italian peninsula), who dominates the Mediterranean and becomes an "ersatz-Rome" and why? Carthage? Ptolemeic Egypt? Macedonia? The Seleucids? Someone else?