What people like you fail to understand (deliberately perhaps) is that Israel is not monolithic. Yes, there are those who favour settlements to peace but there are many who have been willing to compromise and accept peace for land.
Why didn`t that happen then? Because contrary to your assertion, the Arabs are the ones who have not been negotiating in good faith. In fact, till the 1990s the Palestinian Arabs were not even willing to talk to Israel directly. But even since then, they only paid lip service to the two state solution. How do I know? Because to this day they have not given up their so called Right of Return which would represent national suicide for Israel if they`d go along with that.
You talk about the settlements Natalie but you forgot to mention Ehud Barak`s Taba offer. Had the Palestinians accepted that, there would be no more occupation...
But seeing that the Palestinians seem to favour an all or nothing solution, Israelis too hang on to the settlements. But when and if they would perceive a serious will to compromise by the majority of Palestinians and a serious willingness to suppress their extremists, Israelis too would be willing to do likewise. In fact many settlers (not all) would be willing to give up their settlements voluntarily in such circumstances but NOT before... |
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