> This war (no need for scare quotes) definitely started on October 7th.

This is not a war, it's a one-sided genocidal invasion, part of a decade-long war. There have been periods of ceasefire in this war, but it is the same conflict that has lasted for decades.

> Nope. Left in 2005.

Nope, they are still controlling the border (see below) and periodically bombing Gaza, keeping records of every citizen of Gaza, rationing power and water, etc. That is an occupation, even if there aren't Israeli troops constantly on the border.

> All Israel asked was a declaration of willingness to live side-by-side with Israel, without hostilities.

This is completely facetious. Netanyahu has been very clear that there Israel will not allow a two-state solution, long before the October 7th attack. He even explicitly supported Hamas's stay in power [0]:

> For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.

> The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Here is a quote from him directly [1] about his vision for a Palestinian state, where he is asking for infinitely more than a commitment to not attack Israel:

> “[A]ny final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians would have Israel controlling security – overriding security responsibility in the area west of the Jordan.

> [...] “And I said, you’re right. But – I don’t know what you’d call it, but it gives them the opportunity to control their lives, to elect their officials, to run their economy, to run their institutions, to have their flag and to have their parliament, but we have to have overriding security control.”

I think it's obvious this is not a serious proposal that any state would accept. It also happens to be almost exactly one of the things Putin was asking of Ukraine, widely viewed in Europe and the USA as an absurdity.

> Israel controls the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border.

Israel controls all sides of the Gaza border, including Gaza's border with the sea. Even the USA wasn't allowed to bring in medicine and food to Gaza over boat unless Israel approved it. The Gaza-Egypt border is nominally controlled by Egypt, but Egypt has long agreed to follow Israel's requests on who and what is allowed through there.

> Yes, because they kept trying to import arms, explosives, and rockets.

Which they should be allowed to do, if you are claiming they are not under occupation. Every free state in the world is allowed to import weapons.

> Sounds like the Palestinians' top interest should be to get a deal struck as soon as possible that forces Israel to remove the settlers.

The Palestinians shouldn't need to reach a "deal", since the settlements are fully illegal under international law, as recognized even by the USA.

> Like they did with the Oslo accords in 92', until Arafat was found to be straight-up lying to Clinton, negotiating with Clinton and Rabin in the morning and directing terrorist attacks in the evening.

The Oslo accords were a sham. There is nothing about a Palestinian state in the Oslo accords. Israel's leaders had no intention whatsoever to commit even to a vision that would eventually lead to a Palestinian state under numerous conditions. Arafat kept negotiating, but at some point this became apparent. Was he fully committed to the process? No. Was the process ever plausibly going to lead to any good solution for Palestinians even if he had been? Absolutely not. The Israelis were occupying Gaza at the time, and busy settling the West bank. They were adamantly opposed to any kind of third party monitoring or enforcement of any term that they would agree to: who would be foolish enough to sign something like this? Here is a good article on the overall process and how one-sided it was [2], written by one of the US negotiators who was present.

> They are allied with Israel because Israel is the historical homeland of the Jews

Most Jews that founded Israel had lived for hundreds of years, more than a thousand often, in various places in Europe. Israel is about as much their "historical homeland" as Rome is the "historical homeland" of the Spanish. Calling the most clear modern example of colonization a "decolonization" project is preposterous. There were hundreds of thousands of people who had been living in Palestine for generations, who were displaced to make room for the Zionist project. Initially, this was done mostly peacefully; only later, after the British took and then ceded control of the territory, did the forceful removal of Palestinian Arabs start, to make room for the new state of Israel. And then the colonization of this state by settlers from all over the world.

[0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...

[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/01/middleeast/netanyahu-pale...

[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/13/oslo-accords-1993-anniv...