> Yes, very briefly, until Netanyahu’s faction murdered Yitzhak Rabin, and not since.
I think we've talked about this before?
This is just wrong. Firstly, I wouldn't call them Netanyahu's faction.
More importantly, Israel then elected Ehud Barak, who pursued peace, then Sharon was incredibly popular for doing the Gaza disengagement (not in pursuit of peace, of course, but in effect leaving Gaza completely and giving it over to the Palestinians). Then Israel elected Olmert, who vowed to continue with peace and disengagement. And finally, giving a majority to Livni who also wanted to continue down this line, but unfortunately wasn't able to build a coalition, so Netanyahu (who had, IIRC, one seat less than her) became PM.
As for the rest of your comment, I'm not sure where you stand here - does the PA represent the Palestinians? Doesn't it? Should we believe that Hamas is more representative, which is true by polls in the WB (though polls in Gaza have them at 5%! nowadays).
If Hamas truly represents the Palestinians, do you think there's any chance for peace? Given that Hamas's goals are basically the dismantling of Israel?
De jure, yes.
De facto, not particularly, and they are quite conscious of that, and actively seeking to correct it but actively prevented by Israel whose strategy to mitigate international pressure for peace (and particularly to avoid meaningful US pressure for peace) centers on avoiding having any entity that effectively represents the Palestinian people.
> Should we believe that Hamas is more representative
It is more representative of Gazans a couple decades ago when the last elections were held (whereas the PA is of WB Palestinians at the same time.) It probably is less interested in fixing the problem (certainly its Iranian sponsors are), but even so it has on more than one occasion reached deals with the Fatah-led PA on new elections throughout the occupied territories for a new PA government, but those agreements went nowhere because Israel blocked implementation.
> If Hamas truly represents the Palestinians, do you think there's any chance for peace?
There's no chance for peace with the current Israeli regime, at least as long as it has unshakable support from the US; Hamas is a symptom of the problem (one actively fostered to both divide Palestinian opposition and provide a less Western-sympathetic opposition by Israel when they weren't in their momentary orientation toward peace), not its source.
> Given that Hamas's goals are basically the dismantling of Israel?
Peace always requires parties compromising on their goals, largely because they recognize that they are unattainable at acceptable cost. Why both Fatah, Hamas, or the numerous other Palestinian factions might do so is...fairly obvious. Israel, whose goal is no more the destruction of the Palestinian people entirely than Hamas’s is destruction of Israel, has bottomless US support, little effective (though plenty of symbolic) international opposition, and continues to progress (slow over the long term, quite rapid recently) progress towards its goal. Yes, it costs Israeli lives, but those are lives that the Israeli government has been clear that it is willing to sacrifice, not an unacceptable cost.
I wouldn't call Hamas a symptom of the problem, because the majority of Israelis have only the goal of security in mind. An extremist minority, that is unfortunately gaining-in-size-and-power, wants to conquer all the land, but they are still a small minority of the population. The majority of Israelis were historically totally on board with peace and a two-state solution, except for the security risk, which Hamas is one huge part of. (Hamas's actions were specifically targeted at destroying the peace process in the 90s, and are a big part of the reason for the dissolution of the Israeli left.)
> Peace always requires parties compromising on their goals, largely because they recognize that they are unattainable at acceptable cost. Why both Fatah, Hamas, or the numerous other Palestinian factions might do so is...fairly obvious. Israel, whose goal is no more the destruction of the Palestinian people entirely than Hamas’s is destruction of Israel, has bottomless US support, little effective (though plenty of symbolic) international opposition, and continues to progress (slow over the long term, quite rapid recently) progress towards its goal
Unfortunately, I agree with most of this. The current government is a disaster on many levels for Israel, and is not only not interested in peace, but is actively furthering that in many ways. I think this has been true for many years.
The opposition to the government comes from many places, but most of it is ineffective. Worse, the part of the opposition that comes from a pro-peace "trying-to-arrive-at-a-deal" place within Israel is severely weakened, since in Israeli's experience, that approach has always led to security disasters. So the Israeli left is tiny, and even if we were to get a new government, it is unlikely to pursue peace any more than the current government is. (Though the important silver lining - it will hopefully be a centrist-right government, not an right-extreme right government, which is making everything much, much worse.)
This makes it all the more obvious that the main way to arrive at peace will be for the Palestinians themselves to stop the violence and start making steps towards peace from their side. If the Israeli populace were ever convinced there's an actual partner for peace, the Israeli left and pro-peace camps will actually have something to work with.
I hope the one thing that comes out of this disaster that was October 7th and is the Gaza war, is a renewed boldness for peace activists pushing both sides to actually work towards a peaceful resolution.
Yes, very briefly, until Netanyahu’s faction murdered Yitzhak Rabin, and not since.
> I think even in 2017, a majority of Israelis supported a two-state solution in polls.
There is a very big difference between a majority of a population preferring something in polls and the government representing that population working toward it (cf., universal single-payer healthcare in the US ca. 2000)
> And btw, this whole notion of "the Palestinians are fighting back" is itself detached from reality
No, actual Palestinians are, in fact, fighting back.
> the Palestinians are ostensibly represented by the Palestinians Authority
“ostebsnsibly” is a marker that the speaker believes the claim following it is detached from reality; if you can't even claim that this is more than ostensibly true, how can any claim about what the PA is doing rebut a claim about Palestinians qua Palestinians are doing?
> that's their official governing body
Yes, it is the widely (but not by the US or Israel) recognized government of the State of Palestine. It doesn't particularly represent the Palestinian people because of the Hamas-PA civil war that Israel orchestrated and assisted Hamas in winning in Gaza, and Israel’s subsequent use of its power administering parts of the West Bank to prevent all-Palestine elections for a new PA government that have been agreed to between the PA and Hamas; most living Palestinians couldn't vote in the last Palestinian election, most Gazans (before the recent escalation in fighting, even moreso probably since) weren't born.
> Hamas overthrew that governing body
No, they threw them out of Gaza, where Hamas already dominated the local administrations and the representation to the PA.
> The actual government of the Palestinians is working together with Israel to stop terrorist attacks
No, Israel has also engaged in an escalation of violence in both the PA and Israeli-administered parts of the West Bank, against the wishes of the PA. The PA acknowledges that it is structurally incapable of militarily fighting Israel (the PA administered parts of the West Bank lack the geographical compactness of Hamas-administered Gaza, and are instead dozens of small cantons interespersed with similar Israeli-administered zones and even when (almost) adjacent separared by Israeli-controlled security corridors, but is still actively opposing Israeli actions with every means at their disposal, having repeatedly suspended security cooperation even though the US has used the leverage its aid gives it over the PA to demand uninterrupted security cooperation, and securing a UNGA resolution demanding Israeli exit from the entirety of the occupied territories (Gaza and the West Bank) following its success at the ICJ in having the occupation declared to be in violation of international law.