I don’t or have every held the “Palestinian people” innocent of what Hamas has done. They don’t deserve a “homeland” because look what they did with what little autonomy they had: voted Hamas as their government and did everything to help them in their quest to murder their neighbors.
They’ve been offered their own state 6 times. Turned it down every time.
The Palestinians have been given opportunity for their separate state five times. However given their culture which given an inch they take a mile, they have squandered their opportunities.
The first time, the partition plan was rejected by the Arabs, and the ensuing conflict over territory led to the first Arab-Israeli war (1948–49).
Later, the Camp David Accords laid the foundation for a two-state solution.
In 1987, Palestinians began an uprising known as the first intifada. It became evident to the Israelis that a permanent peace might not be possible. In the 1990s a breakthrough agreement negotiated between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in Oslo, Norway, set out a process for a mutually negotiated two-state solution to be gradually implemented by the end of the decade. In 1992 Yitzhak Rabin (Labour Party) was elected prime minister with a mandate to pursue peace with the PLO. The most contentious issues (including Jerusalem, final borders and Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the return of Palestinian refugees) were set to be discussed after that five-year period.
Negotiations continued as Israel and the PLO worked to implement a two-state solution. In 1994, Jewish extremist Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslim worshippers in the Sanctuary of Abraham above the Cave of Machpelah. The same year, Hamas, a militant Palestinian organization that likewise rejected a two-state solution, began a campaign of suicide bombings.
In May 1994 a deal concluded in Cairo led to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the cities of Gaza and Jericho that same month and set up the Palestinian Authority (PA) to carry out civilian functions in those areas. The PA’s autonomous governance was extended to six other cities in 1995. Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (known as Oslo II). A seventh city, Hebron, was to be handed over in 1996. This agreement also split the West Bank and the Gaza Strip into three types of territory: areas under Palestinian administration and security (“Area A”), areas under Palestinian administration but joint Israeli-Palestinian security (“Area B”), and areas under Israeli administration and security (“Area C”).
On November 4, 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by another Jewish extremist while attending a peace rally. This led to the election of Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud Party).
Negotiations were then disrupted with Likud leader Ariel Sharon’s contentious visit in 2000 to the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount, which is also the site of Al-Aqṣā Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, is sacred to both Jews and Muslims and is located in a central area of Jerusalem claimed by both Israelis and Palestinians as part of their capital. The visit was seen as a deliberate provocation and sparked riots. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak resigned in late 2000 before any final status agreements could be reached. The second intifada began one of the most violent periods.
Israeli troops reentered cities in the West Bank and confined Arafat to his compound in Ramallah until he fell gravely ill in 2004. Sharon, meanwhile, tried a new approach to the peace process in 2005 by unilaterally dismantling Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip (along with four Jewish settlements in the West Bank) and withdrawing Israeli troops from the territory. Facing fierce opposition, especially within his own party, he formed a new party, Kadima, which was committed to the pursual of a two-state solution.
Sharon suffered a massive stroke in early 2006, only months before elections. Ehud Olmert became acting prime minister and took the reins of Kadima, which became the dominant party in the Knesset after the elections. The PA also held legislative elections early that year, in which Hamas won a surprise majority. Although some leaders of Hamas now indicated a willingness to accept a two-state solution, as well as the bilateral agreements between Israel and the PA, Israel was unwilling to negotiate with a Hamas-led government.
By the time the Trump administration unveiled its peace plan, which it touted as the “Deal of the Century,” the Palestinians had determined that the United States could no longer play a fair role as mediator in the conflict. Opportunity was rejected.