I can't believe I'm weighing in on a political thread, but the "deal" is very one sided. It offers very little for the Palestinians in terms of creating their own country and ability to self govern and gives Israel pretty much everything they want including some control over Palestine.
The current "peace deal" is terrible for the Palestinians. No other country would sign it either.
Yes they did. The jews were ready to accept the UN plan in 47. If the palestinains agreed the nakba would have been the end of this conflict. Instead the Palestinians chose governments that attacked israel. Even when Israel left gaza after the second intifada the gazans continued to launch rockets at tel aviv.
In context, of course pro Zionist leaders such as David Ben-Gurion were strongly in favour of a plan that saw a two-thirds majority Arab population pushed back into 43% of the territory, at the time such leaders were advocating acceptance of that plan as their ideal stepping stone to to future territorial expansion over all of Palestine.
Naturally the opposing Arab leaders were against a plan that saw a majority population receive less land, a plan that was being put forward by people openly stating it was a first step to total control of everything.
> Naturally the opposing Arab leaders were against a plan that saw a majority population receive less land, a plan that was being put forward by people openly stating it was a first step to total control of everything.
Keep in mind that there is a state with a Palestinian majority population that came out of the division of the territory under the British Mandate system, that country of course is Jordan.
> It's a shame a better deal could not have been struck for the benefit of all the people with a millennium plus history in the Levant, of all faiths.
I think it's pretty clear that the Arab leaders at the time would never have accepted an independent Jewish state regardless of how fair the land division was.
Most people wouldn't accept a new country being made over their heads within their land. Jewish people had largely not been there since Roman times. That's a long, long time. Would you accept a country being founded in yours for, say, the Roma? I highly doubt it.
> Most people wouldn't accept a new country being made over their heads within their land. Jewish people had largely not been there since Roman times.
There were plenty of Jews living on the land by the time of Israeli independence, land which had largely been acquired by purchases from Arab landowners.
> Would you accept a country being founded in yours for, say, the Roma? I highly doubt it.
Palestine was never a country prior to Israeli independence so that's probably not a realistic comparison either.
Most of the land allocated to the jews was uninhabitable desert. You can count acreage but that doesnt really tell you anything about the value each side received. Im not going to act like the plan was a great deal for palestinians, but it was an choice they had and they spurned it in favor of a never ending war that they can not win.
> The indigenous people of Palestine did not start this conflict.
These arguments are not particularly helpful because you can easily make the case for either side being the indigenous people depending on how far you want to go back in history.
> They did not choose to be colonized by Jews fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe.
At this point the majority of Israelis were born in Israel and hold no other citizenship, so if you're suggesting the Jews all go back to Europe that isn't a realistic expectation, also many Jews were forced out of other middle east countries shortly after the founding of Israel. You can make these same arguments about many countries like the United States or Canada as well as being colonies that pushed out their indigenous people, but these arguments are not going to be particularly productive as nobody is expecting these countries to return all land to their indigenous populations either. By the way these Jews fleeing Eastern Europe prior to Israeli independence were largely purchasing the land from Arab landowners which is arguably better than them haven taken the land by force.
Germany and Japan also got to keep their countries in the end. What guarantees do the Palestinians have that they'll get to keep Gaza and not have it be overrun by Israeli settlers (who are already wreaking havoc in the West Bank)?
> Germany and Japan also got to keep their countries in the end.
Germany was split in two for many years. Ultimately they were able to keep their countries because the occupation forces were successfully able to largely de-radicalize those countries.
> What guarantees do the Palestinians have that they'll get to keep Gaza and not have it be overrun by Israeli settlers (who are already wreaking havoc in the West Bank)?
I suppose that would depend on the surrender agreement and whatever agreements are subsequently put in place, but the settler issue differs significantly between Gaza and the West Bank for various reasons. For example the issue of religious sites is a much bigger issue in the West Bank, there has been little desire amongst Israelis to settle Gaza compared to the West Bank. The security issues in the West Bank tend to also be more problematic due to proximity to major Israeli cities.
the deal is not with palestinians but with hamas (unless you say that hamas represents palestinians). palestinians at large and palestinian authority support this deal.
The current "peace deal" is terrible for the Palestinians. No other country would sign it either.