> That's not the case. That's the "common wisdom" in the US, but it's not the dominant view among experts, and it's just objectively false.

Can you provide backup for this?

> If you read through the passages you've quoted carefully, you'll realize that the text does not say that the Palestinians will have their own sovereign state.

The passages don't say the word state, but they pretty explicitly say that Palestinians will govern themselves, and that this is an interim step towards full Palestinian rights. Is your only issue with it that it's missing the word "state"? Honestly trying to understand your view here.

> The Israeli government's position under Rabin was that the Palestinians would be given a semi-autonomous status in an "entity" - not a state - that would be under Israeli control.

I saw you referencing this earlier. I think you're making too much of this. He was probably playing politics to a country that wasn't yet ready to hear talk of a Palestinian state in full, but it seems fairly clear that that was his end goal, and the obvious end of the process he himself was most actively pursuing (and tragically gave his life for). See e.g. this article in Haaretz, which gives a lot more context on this [1], I'll quote a relevant part:

"Kurzman’s claim is supported by my interviews with close associates of Rabin who told me that he had come to terms with the eventuality of a Palestinian state. He and his foreign minister, Shimon Peres, had an agreement not to discuss a Palestinian state at that stage but clearly understood that this was the end game, then-Labor Party Secretary General Nissim Zvili told me."

I'll also note that we are not beholden to what Rabin believed at the time, and many people have since become far more on board with a two-state solution, as the article notes:

"It is difficult to imagine that he would disagree with the vast majority of other retired Israeli generals – as well as the former heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence service – who today argue that a Palestinian state, alongside the Jewish state, is a top national security interest for Israel."

> Effectively, some sort of limited ability to run their own affairs, but under ultimate Israeli control, and without the ability to vote in Israeli elections.

Now I'm confused. Why would they have the ability to vote in Israeli elections? The idea is to have a separate state, with its own government. How does voting in Israeli elections figure into this?

> This is a view that just flies in the face of reality. Netanyahu did everything possible to torpedo the peace process in the 1990s, and no Israeli government was prepared to accept the minimal acceptable settlement, which is a sovereign Palestinian state on 1967 borders.

While you're right about Netanyahu, you're still wrong about Camp David, Taba and the 2008 offer. More importantly, while I have multiple times put the fault on Israel for not working actively for peace in the last 20 years, there is also a lot of fault on the Palestinians for exactly the same reason, and for continually choosing violence and terror instead of pushing more for peace from their side. You seem to view everything as 100% Israel's fault, giving no agency at all to the Palestinians - "Israel didn't make a good offer so that's that". It's also on them to advance peace, denounce terror, and work towards a two-state solution.

[1] https://www.haaretz.com/2017-11-02/ty-article/.premium/fight...