Prior to 1948, the leaders of what would become Israel offered peace to the Arabs and a unified state. The Arabs refused, and the armies of 5 Arab nations invaded Israel on literally it’s first day of existence, and tried to destroy it and massacre it’s Jewish residents only 3 years after the end of the Holocaust. No settlements existed then.
In 1960, the PLO was formed, with the explicit goal of wiping out Israel - it is in their charter, it is on their flag, it is taught in their schools. No settlements existed then.
In 1967, Egypt, Syria and Jordan prepared to invade Israel and “drive it into the sea” (presumably with those of its citizens that hadn’t yet been killed or evacuated). No settlements existed then.
This is PROOF - METAPHYSICAL PROOF - that the obstacle to peace in that part of the world is NOT settlements of Jews in the ancient homeland of their fathers, but instead those Arabs who utterly refuse to recognize the right of Jews to live in a self-governed state in that part if the world, on the land seized from their ancestors by the Romans, prior to those same Romans forcibly removing virtually all Jews from that land. One would have to be willfully blind to not know that...
...which brings me to my last point:. FUCK YOU JOHN KERRY, YOU ANTI-SEMITIC PRICK!
“In 1960, the PLO was formed, with the explicit goal of wiping out Israel - it is in their charter, it is on their flag, it is taught in their schools. No settlements existed then.”
That was in ‘64, but same difference.