The End of Assad? Syrian Rebels enter the outskirts of Aleppo for the first time since 2016

And for sure, if the Taliban was ever seen to be a threat to Pakistan, would be interesting to see how long they would last.. ( Apropos of nothing, if for any reason the Afghan Pashtun's ever decided to join up with their Pakistani cousins, that would be more than a headache for Pakistan….)

They have always been a threat to Pakistan imo, the ISA was keeping them straight and pointed at the US/ Afghani government.

Your willingness to lie so brazenly, when the truth is easily searchable, channels the Israeli Spirit perfectly.

You did it before when you told us all, that the Arab delegation was not part of the 1948 negotiations, but then you conceded the fact that they themselves boycotted the negotiations. Oops!

Clearly reading comprehension is challenging for you. They weren't a party to the negotiations, because they boycotted them. Perhaps less time spent posting and more time reading would serve you well.

The deal that was offered was a Palestinian state and they would have control over their borders, airspace and seas. Israel wanted assurances over access in emergencies and the like.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit

Territory

The Palestinian negotiators indicated they wanted full Palestinian sovereignty over the entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip, although they would consider a one-to-one land swap with Israel. Their historic position was that Palestinians had already made a territorial compromise with Israel by accepting Israel's right to 78% of "historic Palestine", and accepting their state on the remaining 22% of such land. This consensus was expressed by Faisal Husseini when he remarked: "There can be no compromise on the compromise".[15] They maintained that Resolution 242 calls for full Israeli withdrawal from these territories, which were captured in the Six-Day War, as part of a final peace settlement. In the 1993 Oslo Accords the Palestinian negotiators accepted the Green Line borders (1949 armistice lines) for the West Bank but the Israelis rejected this proposal and disputed the Palestinian interpretation of Resolution 242. Israel wanted to annex the numerous settlement blocks on the Palestinian side of the Green Line, and were concerned that a complete return to the 1967 borders was dangerous to Israel's security. The Palestinian and Israeli definition of the West Bank differs by approximately 5% land area as the Israeli definition does not include East Jerusalem (71 km2), the territorial waters of the Dead Sea (195 km2) and the area known as No Man's Land (50 km2 near Latrun).[14]

Based on the Israeli definition of the West Bank, Barak offered to form a Palestinian state initially on 73% of the West Bank (that is, 27% less than the Green Line borders) and 100% of the Gaza Strip. In 10–25 years, the Palestinian state would expand to a maximum of 92% of the West Bank (91 percent of the West Bank and 1 percent from a land swap).[14][16] From the Palestinian perspective this equated to an offer of a Palestinian state on a maximum of 86% of the West Bank.[14]

According to Robert Wright, Israel would only keep the settlements with large populations. Wright states that all others would be dismantled, with the exception of Kiryat Arba (adjacent to the holy city of Hebron), which would be an Israeli enclave inside the Palestinian state, and would be linked to Israel by a bypass road. The West Bank would be split in the middle by an Israeli-controlled road from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, with free passage for Palestinians, although Israel reserved the right to close the road to passage in case of emergency. In return, Israel would allow the Palestinians to use a highway in the Negev to connect the West Bank with Gaza. Wright states that in the Israeli proposal, the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be linked by an elevated highway and an elevated railroad running through the Negev, ensuring safe and free passage for Palestinians. These would be under the sovereignty of Israel, and Israel reserved the right to close them to passage in case of emergency.[17]

Israel would retain around 9% in the West Bank in exchange for 1% of land within the Green Line. The land that would be conceded included symbolic and cultural territories such as the Al-Aqsa Mosque, whereas the Israeli land conceded was unspecified. Additional to territorial concessions, Palestinian airspace would be controlled by Israel under Barak's offer.[17][18] The Palestinians rejected the Halutza Sand region (78 km2) alongside the Gaza Strip as part of the land swap on the basis that it was of inferior quality to that which they would have to give up in the West Bank.[14]

Territorial contiguity

In the proposed Palestinian state, Gaza Strip would be discontinuous from the West Bank. The degree to which the West Bank itself would be dis-contiguous is disputed. Noam Chomsky writes that the West Bank would have been divided into three cantons and Palestinian East Jerusalem would have constituted the fourth canton; all 4 cantons would be separated from one another by Israeli territory.[19] Other sources also said that the proposed West Bank would be divided into three cantons.[20][21][22] By contrast, Ehud Barak said the West Bank would only be divided by a wedge of Israeli territory stretching from Maale Adumim to the Jordan River, but would otherwise be continuous.[23]

The Palestinians reacted strongly negatively to the proposed cantonization of the West Bank into three blocs, which the Palestinian delegation likened to South African Bantustans, a loaded word that was disputed by the Israeli and American negotiators.[24] Settlement blocs, bypassed roads and annexed lands would create barriers between Nablus and Jenin with Ramallah. The Ramallah bloc would in turn be divided from Bethlehem and Hebron. A separate and smaller bloc would contain Jericho. Further, the border between West Bank and Jordan would additionally be under Israeli control. The Palestinian Authority would receive pockets of East Jerusalem which would be surrounded entirely by annexed lands in the West Bank.[25]

East Jerusalem

One of the most significant obstacles to an agreement was the final status of Jerusalem, especially the status of Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Al-Aqsa or Haram al-Sharif. Clinton and Barak insisted that the entire area be placed under Israeli sovereignty, while Palestinians could have "custodianship". Arafat insisted on Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram. As this deadlock could not be resolved, the summit ended.[2]

Leaders were ill-prepared for the central role the Jerusalem issue in general and the Temple Mount dispute in particular would play in the negotiations.[26] Barak instructed his delegates to treat the dispute as "the central issue that will decide the destiny of the negotiations", whereas Arafat admonished his delegation to "not budge on this one thing: the Haram (the Temple Mount or Al-Aqsa mosque) is more precious to me than everything else."[27] At the opening of Camp David, Barak warned the Americans he could not accept giving the Palestinians more than a purely symbolic sovereignty over any part of East Jerusalem.[18]

The Palestinians demanded complete sovereignty over East Jerusalem and its holy sites, in particular, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, which are located on the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif), a site holy in both Islam and Judaism, and the dismantling of all Israeli neighborhoods built over the Green Line. The Palestinian position, according to Mahmoud Abbas, at that time Arafat's chief negotiator, was that: "All of East Jerusalem should be returned to Palestinian sovereignty. The Jewish Quarter and Western Wall should be placed under Israeli authority, not Israeli sovereignty. An open city and cooperation on municipal services."[28]

Israel proposed that the Palestinians be granted "custodianship," though not sovereignty, on the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif), with Israel retaining control over the Western Wall, a remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Temple Mount, the most sacred site in Judaism outside of the Temple Mount itself. Israeli negotiators also proposed that the Palestinians be granted administration of, but not sovereignty over, the Muslim and Christian Quarters of the Old City, with the Jewish and Armenian Quarters remaining in Israeli hands.[28][29][30] Palestinians would be granted administrative control over all Islamic and Christian holy sites, and would be allowed to raise the Palestinian flag over them. A passage linking northern Jerusalem to Islamic and Christian holy sites would be annexed by the Palestinian state. The Israeli team proposed annexing to Israeli Jerusalem settlements within the West Bank beyond the Green Line, such as Ma'ale Adumim, Givat Ze'ev, and Gush Etzion. Israel proposed that the Palestinians merge certain outer Arab villages and small cities that had been annexed to Jerusalem just after 1967 (such as Abu Dis, al-Eizariya, 'Anata, A-Ram, and eastern Sawahre) to create the city of Al-Quds, which would serve as the capital of Palestine.[30] The historically important Arab neighborhoods such as Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan and at-Tur would remain under Israeli sovereignty, while Palestinians would only have civilian autonomy. The Palestinians would exercise civil and administrative autonomy in the outer Arab neighborhoods. Israeli neighborhoods within East Jerusalem would remain under Israeli sovereignty.[14][29] The holy places in the Old City would enjoy independent religious administration.[31] In total, Israel demanded that Palestine's territory in East Jerusalem be reduced to eight sections including six small enclaves according to Palestine's delegation to the summit.[32]

Palestinians objected to the lack of sovereignty and to the right of Israel to keep Jewish neighborhoods that it built over the Green Line in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claimed block the contiguity of the Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.

Israel has no intention of allowing the creation of a fully independent Palestinian state. They wanted a weak and hobbled neighbor that they could dominate.

In no universe is it a fair condition, for one state to claim sovereignty over another's territory in the manner that Israel wanted. To say that Israel is justified in its fear of Palestinians, in the face of their unending murder and destruction is laughable. Go look at the respective numbers killed and see how ludicrous a claim that is. The only threat the Palestinians pose is a moral one, in that their continued existence highlights the fundamentally unjust nature of the Israeli state. Even a horrific terror attack like Oct 7th is a mere blip next to the tens of thousands killed by Israel.

You said nothing at all, just empty words giving legitimacy to Israels criminal actions.

I mean, you do understand that Israel is a legally recognised country, and that it was the neighbouring Arab states' refusal to accept this that led to the 1948 war, that they then LOST?

And that Israel has several times won land in that war and in others, and then given it back once it was relatively content that its security would not be compromised by doing so?

So Israel has proved several times over that it is interested in ensuring its safety rather than in a land grab for the sake of it. Otherwise it would never have handed the Sinai back to Egypt for example.

What is the value of legal recognition? It's a rubber stamp of might makes right. The USSR was a legally recognised entity, after it had annexed all of eastern Europe. Apartheid SA and Rhodesia were legally recognised countries. Northern Ireland is a legally recognised entity. The UN imposed the creation of a Jewish state on the native Arab population living there. That was a naked act of colonisation and disenfranchisement. If you put such value in legal recognition by international bodies, I presume you place equal weight in the multiple resolutions that have found them in illegal occupation of territory, and the recent ICC declaration that they are engaged in a Genocide against the Palestinians?

Israel has always had the long term goal of expansion. That has been made abundantly clear over the last year, and moreso with its bombing and land seizure in Syria.