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.
