[bjourne]

That is not true, they did not have any such opportunity. The best Israel has been prepared to offer was autonomy. That is, the Bantustan option favored, by, for example, Menachem Begin. The notion that the Palestinians "oppresses themselves" by not accepting "Israel's gracious offers" is completely absurd.

The Palestinians signed the Oslo accords in 1993. What has happened since? Israel has strengthened its grip on the West Bank and more than doubled the settler population. Despite the fact that everyone in the whole world recognizes that transferring your civilian population to occupied territory is a war crime. Why? Because Israel is run by supremacists and religious nuts who think that their holy book gives then an eternal and inviolable right to "Eretz Israel". In fact, they refer to the West Bank as "Judea and Samaria" to underscore their view that the territory belongs to the them.