> I have been pretty reasonable with you, and many times taken what you said and thought about them considerably. You need to also come to this with good faith.

Thank you, I appreciate your coming at this in good faith. I don't believe I'm acting otherwise, so I'm sad to hear that's what you think. I believe we have real disagreements, though we probably agree far more than we disagree.

The reasons I engage in these debates are 1) to learn, 2) to give an Israeli, albeit leftist-Israeli, perspective, something I think is very lacking in discussions about Israel, which is sad - both because it makes things uninformed, but also because IMO, the best chance we have of arriving at peace is via Israeli leftists and peace-activists. I do sometimes argue a more standard-Israeli POV than my personal opinions, because I believe it's valuable to understand it.

I'll try to tackle your specific points. I'll attempt to be as inclusive of all points of view as I can, but please also keep in mind that we might actually disagree about things - don't just assume I'm talking in bad faith. Sorry, this comment will be a bit long.

First, let me lay outright my main point of disagreement with you, IMO - I think you're coming at this from an outsider, "both sides" perspective, where you believe "Israelis" have a POV, "Palestinians" have a POV, both have reasonable points and are roughly equally valid, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and the way to arrive at peace is by somehow squaring the circle and giving both sides what they want.

I believe that is, roughly speaking, wrong.

I'm an Israeli Jew, so obviously I'm biased. That said, I've always been far more sympathetic to the Palestinians than most Israelis. I've spent the time since the war trying to learn a lot more about the history of Israel and Palestine, the history of the conflict, etc. I'm still far more sympathetic to the Palestinian side than most, even more so that I was before. In fact, I think Israel has behaved morally badly for the last 15 years by stopping all work towards peace (both not trying to seek peace, and actively blocking paths towards peace).

That all said, I still believe that, while the "pro-Israeli" narrative is obviously not completely accurate and paints Israelis more nicely than it should, it's still more accurate than the "pro-Palestinian" narrative. Both the history - the common "Jews came in and stole the land, the Palestinians should get all of it back" has some truth to it, but is far more wrong than it is right, for a lot of reasons.

More importantly, I believe it really is true that the main reason there was no peace is that the Palestinians refuse to live side-by-side with Israel, and continue to refuse it. There could've been peace many times (as Israel has done with other countries) if Palestinians had acted differently. That is a failure of the Palestinian narrative and the Palestinian leadership - which is continuing to push the completely false idea that if they just tried a bit harder, they'd convince the Israelis to pack up and leave Israel.

OK, I'll try to address specific points:

> Things like

> > I agree that there's a list of supposed reasons, but I think they're being considerably blown out of proportion

> Are not in good faith, imo. People whose loved ones die, who see killing in the name of hatred, on both sides, are not blowing their issues out of proportion. The expansion of settlements isn't a "blown out of proportion" reason to doubt Israeli commitment to peace any more than terrorism is a reason to doubt Palestinian commitment to peace. Both lead to horrific and disturbing killings and massacres with state (or quasi-state) backing.

Look, I'm not saying that someone who lost a loved one is "blowing it out of proportion" as a reason to be angry at Israel. And I can't imagine the feeling of most Gazans over the horror they've had to suffer over the last year.

I was specifically saying that these things are blown out of proportion as reasons to think that Israel is actively hostile to Palestinians. And indeed, I think your list is inaccurate. You talk about "killing in the name of hatred", and you talk about "horrific massacred with quasi-state backing", which is simply a mistaken interpretation of Israeli actions. Despite the absolutely horrible, terroristic actions of many in the settler movement, there are almost no "massacres" of Palestinians by settlers. Before the war, the vast majority of Palestinians killed weren't "killed in the name of hatred", they were killed in clashes with IDF for security reasons.

You paint a picture of Israel (the state) or of Israeli settlers routinely going around killing Palestinians, and (before the war) this just wasn't true, at all.

About the expansion of settlements - yes, I agree, that's a genuinely valid reason for the Palestinians to doubt Israeli commitment to peace. I think all settlements were and are a horrible idea, and I'd dismantle them all if I could. However, I don't think it's correct to say "well the settlements continued while we're still negotiating so that means the Israelis don't really want peace". Many of these "settlements" are a dozen people going in and "claiming" some land no one is on. Again, I get where this is coming from, and it's a totally valid criticism of Israel - but isn't real proof that Israel is "not serious".

> When you say

> > it's not even close to being true that they got nothing from it. Those accords literally created the Palestinian Authority, which is the official governing body of the Palestinians

> You're not reading what I'm writing with good faith, you're preparing a counter. I didn't say nothing. I said "basically nothing" because a government can be formed without Israeli agreement. They did not see an end to settlements. They did not see Israel commit to stopping its authority over Palestine, instead they rather cemented it against a "state" they knew had no equivalent defense against such. This is all after they made very big concessions and continued to do so even after the talks failed.

Again, I honestly disagree, and think you are misreading history here.

It's not true that "they could just setup a government", because Israel was militarily ruling the West Bank and Gaza at the time, and acted as the government.

After the accords, not only did the PA get official recognition, they got governmental control of most of the Palestinians. They don't have Israeli army presence within their cities, mostly, and the day-to-day lives of a majority of Palestinians doesn't involve any interaction with Israel.

It's just not accurate to say that Israel didn't commit to stopping its authority over Palestine, because the authority that Israel had over the lives of most Palestinians changed drastically, and is far lower.

Palestinians in the West Bank are mostly living without any interaction with Israel or Israelis, if they don't want it. They can travel the world at will via Jordan. Israel still exerts some authority, and it's not a truly independent state, but you're making it seem like the accords changed literally nothing.

Btw, I'll take a moment to criticize the Israeli POV here too - many Israeli pretend that Israel also gained nothing from these accords. Despite the fact that the Palestinians officially recognized Israel, and officially relinquished 80% of their claims on land (by agreeing to a future state only existing on roughly the '67 borders). Most Israelis don't think they had any valid claim to the rest of the land, but nevertheless, they do think they had a claim to it, and relinquished it. And the PA, for all its very massive faults, has worked in security coordination with Israel ever since.

This is why this subject is so touchy for me - I believe that both Israelis and Palestinians think the accords and peace talks didn't go anywhere or yield anything, making both sides dig in and say "there's no point in talking to the other side". And I think they're both wrong, because actually, the Oslo accords, despite eventually leading to failure of future peace talks, actually achieved some things that were real, important, and have held to this day.

I think it's really important to recognize the successes and build on them, and understand the failures and what led to them, because that's how we'll arrive at peace.

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