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Originally posted by falafel
Regarding what you said about the Palestinians living in reservations - that's completely not true.
Israel offered 97% of the west bank and 100% of the Gaza strip.
That means that all the settlement in Gaza & most of the settlement in the west bank would have been dismantled.
The Palestinians were not supposed to live in reservations but in a normal country.
One problem is that the Palestinians are divided to 2 territories: the west bank and the Gaza strip - separated by Israeli land.
You said that Israel was suppose to hold the border checkpoints between its borders and the ones of the Palestinians - but that's what happens in any country.
You can't allow free and unauthorized movement between 2 countries.
Doesn't the US have the ability to screen people in its border checkpoints with Mexico and Canada ?
Of course it does, and that's how it goes with any country that has borders.
Israel offered to establish a "safe passage" mechanism (perhaps by a huge bridge) that will enable the movement of Palestinians between the the west bank and Gaza.
Regarding Jerusalem, Barak offered to split the city to two: the Jewish and the Armenian quarters will go to Israel & the Muslim and the Christian quarters will go to Palestine.
Personally, I think that the Jerusalem arrangement won't work.
In my opinion, it will be better if the whole city will be given to international hands (the UN for example).
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You are stating that Palestinians would have been isolated to only two areas, Gaza and West Bank. It is my recollection that they were/are divided into 13 areas under the occupation and if they would have accepted the offer of a State they would still have been divided into more than two areas.
I will assume that you are correct for the sake of argument, but the right of Palestinians to travel freely within the geographically divided State of Palestine was in conflict and whatever assurances were provided by Israel, was found to be unacceptable by the Palestinians.
Your comparison of controlling borders is not really applicabable if you are a citizen of a geographically divided country.
The fact is that the Palestinians found different aspects of the offer of a State to be unacceptable, and did not think that it was the great deal that others thought that it was.
Perception is sometimes as important as fact.