stillborn

With a POD after 1900, come up with a scenario where high-speed rail is something that is the domain of science fiction and prototypes which don't get into production as opposed to the situation in our world where high speed rail is something which crisscrosses large parts of Europe and Asia.

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?