> There was no meaningful "peace deal" because there were no meaningful concessions on the root cause: the settlement policy. I don't understand what you mean.

> There was no meaningful "peace deal" because there were no meaningful concessions on the root cause: the settlement policy. I don't understand what you mean. The negotiation was to come to an agreement to stop settlement activity and give all the territory to the Palestinians. Are you saying the problem is that there were no concessions before the negotiations had reached an agreement? That is not how negotiations typically work. > My case is very simple: there needs to be a significant compromise on the settlement policy first, and only then can any meaningful agreement be reached and violence be reduced. Look, I agree that settlement activity should stop. Many Israelis agree and don't want settlement activity to continue. The problem is that many Israelis are convinced, very likely correctly, that undoing settlements without a deal will cause far more violence to happen to Israel. This is exactly what happened with Gaza - a unilateral withdrawal of army and settlements, before any negotiated agreement, led to Gaza turning into a launching pad of rockets on Israel. I still think the settler violence happening today in the WB is abhorrent, all new settlements must cease immediately, etc. I'm totally with you there. I don't know if it'll happen - we may be too far gone at this stage. In any case, Palestinian violence has basically always backfired on Palestinians. Even if you can somehow accept it morally (which you absolutely shouldn't), the end result is that every single bad condition of the Palestinians has been the direct result of violence, including the horrific condition of Gaza right now. Maybe trying a different approach like renouncing violence is just a good idea?