I'd argue it is relevant, as the annexations were a direct consequence of said wars, especially the 1948 Palestine war. Causality matters.
Sure.
Jewish immigration to Palestine
Zionism formed in Europe as the national movement of the Jewish people. It sought to reestablish Jewish statehood in the ancient homeland. The first wave of Zionist immigration, dubbed the First Aliyah, lasted from 1882 to 1903. Some 30,000 Jews, mostly from the Russian Empire, reached Ottoman Palestine. They were driven both by the Zionist idea and by the wave of antisemitism in Europe, especially in the Russian Empire, which came in the form of brutal pogroms. They wanted to establish Jewish agricultural settlements and a Jewish majority in the land that would allow them to gain statehood. They mostly settled in the sparsely populated lowlands, which were swampy and subjected to Bedouin robbers.
So Zionist migrate to Palestine and trying to establish their own state there...in 1882.
The Arab inhabitants of Ottoman Palestine who saw the Zionist Jews settle next to them had no national affiliation. They saw themselves as subjects of the Ottoman Empire, members of the Islamic community and as Arabs, geographically, linguistically and culturally. Their strongest affiliation was their clan, family, village or tribe. There was no Arab or Palestinian Arab nationalist movement.
Arabian sees them as friend because culturally they are similar.
In the first two decades of Zionist immigration, most of the opposition came from the wealthy landowners and noblemen who feared they would have to fight the Jews for the land in the future.
The fear at that time only from the land owner, as they doesn't want someone to simply claim their land for their own(and look what we have today). So yes, like you said, causality matters, Zionism is the cause of the conflict. Much like how Christopher Columbus gain the trust of the native in America when he set foot there and later enslave them, slowly drive them into almost extinction, Arabian accept them, in return they backstab the Arabian.
I don't think it is, as Israel is not ethnically homogeneous (a requirement for ethnic cleansing under the UN definition,)
Not really.
Definition
As ethnic cleansing has not been recognized as an independent crime under international law, there is no precise definition of this concept or the exact acts to be qualified as ethnic cleansing. A United Nations Commission of Experts mandated to look into violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia defined ethnic cleansing in its interim report S/25274 as "… rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area."
So basically UN did not define it, but according to the report, this is, by definition, a result of ethnic cleansing. At this stage, Israel isn't exactly there yet. But if they expel Gazan and replaced it with Jewish people, then this fulfill the requirement. However, the definition continued:
In its final report S/1994/674, the same Commission described ethnic cleansing as “… a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”
The Commission of Experts also stated that the coercive practices used to remove the civilian population can include: murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extrajudicial executions, rape and sexual assaults, severe physical injury to civilians, confinement of civilian population in ghetto areas, forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, use of civilians as human shields, destruction of property, robbery of personal property, attacks on hospitals, medical personnel, and locations with the Red Cross/Red Crescent emblem, among others.
The one i highlight is applicable to what Israel did in both Gaza and West Bank for decades.
Pacify means stop fighting, become peaceful.
How much more peaceful do you want the West Bank to be to reach your definition of peaceful?
If that happens I suspect more authority, autonomy, and possibly even Palestinian statehood may become possible one day.
As i put it, the ship already sailed, the current political party and the leader stated repeatedly they doesn't want a Palestine state to exists.