[xfax]

My understanding is that every major attempt at getting to a two-state solution has been encumbered by pre-conditions set by Israel that have made the negotiations a non-starter.

For example, any deal that would have Israel give back territories it has been occupying since 1967 has never even been on the table.

The Oslo accords, perhaps the most serious of these, were deeply unpopular on both sides.

Also, any and all attempts by Palestinians to get formal recognition in the UN have been repeatedly vetoed by the United States.

[edanm]

> My understanding is that every major attempt at getting to a two-state solution has been encumbered by pre-conditions set by Israel that have made the negotiations a non-starter.

I'm sorry, not sure how else to say this - you're simply wrong. Pretty much everyone involved in the negotiations at the time disagrees with this idea. Whether the "final" offer that Israel gave to the Palestinians was "enough" or not is of course a matter of some opinion, though many at the time, both Israelis and Americans, thought that they were given an incredibly generous offer. In any case, the Palestinians never came back with a counteroffer of what they would accept, so it's hard to say how close or far Israel was from the "minimum" that Palestinians would consider acceptable.

> For example, any deal that would have Israel give back territories it has been occupying since 1967 has never even been on the table.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Literally every deal is that the West Bank and Gaza become part of a Palestinian state, that's the territories that Israel has occupied since 1967. One other territory, the Sinai, was given back to Egypt as part of the peace deal with Egypt (and is, btw, 4x the size of all of Israel).

And the Palestinian authority, as part of Oslo, did get a limited sovereignity over parts of the West Bank. Israel also completely left Gaza in 2005, though it still had some control over it, and imposed a blockade when Hamas was elected (together with Egypt).

So again, I'm not sure what you mean - literally every deal starts with Israel giving the pre-1967 land to the Palestinians, with some land swaps for land that Israel prefers not to give (btw, you call it "giving back" the land, which is inaccurate - it was never the Palestinian's land, it was part of Jordan and Egypt when it was occupied).

> The Oslo accords, perhaps the most serious of these, were deeply unpopular on both sides.

They are probably deeply unpopular now, but I don't think they were deeply unpopular at the time on the Israeli side. Indeed Israel elected multiple people trying to pursue peace after the Oslo accords, and while none of them had overwhelming public support, they had enough support to form majority coalitions and actually try to negotiate.

They're unpopular now because the result of what to Israelis looks like serious attempts at achieving peace with the Palestinians, ended with violence, terror and refusal to cooperate on the side of the Palestinians.