No, you are mistaken to believe this was a sincere attempt at coexistence rather than a cynical act, motivated mostly by self-interest, aimed at stalling a real peace process and the establishment of a Palestinian state. And don't take my word for it, here's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's senior adviser, Dov Weissglass, explaining the thinking behind the Israeli disengagement.
"The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process, and when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress. That is exactly what happened.
You know, the term 'peace process' is a bundle of concepts and commitments. The peace process is the establishment of a Palestinian state with all the security risks that entails. The peace process is the evacuation of settlements, it's the return of refugees, it's the partition of Jerusalem. And all that has now been frozen.... what I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did."
It's worth noting that you could have found this out just by reading about the Gaza disengagement on Wikipedia, the absolute bare minimum for a mind halfway interested in the truth. You Zionism supporters really are among the most low-information, intellectually incurious people I've ever come across. Just propaganda and brainwashing all the way down. And all while claiming that other people are uneducated.
Yes, we can talk all day long about the insane things written in both the Quran and the Torah. Or even in the founding charters of Hamas and Likud. Likud's, for example, describes settler terrorism as "an expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel" and proclaims that "between the river Jordan and the sea, there will be only Israeli sovereignty." And the Torah claims that Israel must once again become the Jewish homeland so that God can return and the goyim can become their slaves.
I don't know how much of this nonsense the current leaders of either party believe, nor do I trust either of them to act in good faith. Any lasting peace will obviously require intermediaries and impartial peacekeeping forces. But at least Hamas have stated what they would require for peace in terms more realistic than "total and unconditional surrender." And, it's worth noting that what they require (which is essentially just that Israel follow international law by respecting the 1967 borders) forms the backbone of a UN resolution for peace that enjoys almost universal international support (seriously, it's like 153 countries in favour and 9 against, with the U.S., Canada and Israel being the only significant opposition).
As for the ridiculous claim that Hamas is an existential threat to Israel, Hamas' most lethal attack, BY FAR, on Israeli territory killed around 800 Israeli civilians and 400 more soldiers and foreign nationals. It has been met by an almost completely one-sided civilian massacre (that some people are stupid enough to call a "war") that has lasted eleven months with no measurable or meaningful achievements beyond death and destruction, has killed over 40,000 people (mostly women and children), wounded another 90,000 and left Gaza all but uninhabitable for decades.
At the same time, Israel has killed over 600 civilians in the West Bank, stolen over 5 square miles of Palestinian land, and driven God-knows how many innocent civilians from their homes, (not to mention stoked a wider conflict with Iran and Lebanon that could well lead to thousand more Israeli deaths and potentially even a World War). And all this, without the excuse of Hamas or October 7th or an "existential threat." Just a few days ago, Netanyahu spoke in front of a map with the West Bank completely erased. 100% of it replaced by "Greater Israel." He did the same thing a month before October 7th. His ambitions for the region have been absolutely plain for decades. So who, exactly, is an existential threat to whom?
If a foreign invader made it this clear that they were planning to wipe out your homeland, killing you if necessary, and had been steadily doing exactly this for decades, would you attack them? Would you recognise their "right to exist." Would you care if they were Jewish or Muslim or atheist? So no, I don't find facts inconvenient my friend, I just know what the facts are.
