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Obama's Middle East speech

BeachBumDeac

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12:51 p.m. ET - Obama: "Ultimately, it is up to Israelis and Palestinians to take action. No peace can be imposed upon them, nor can endless delay make the problem go away. But what America and the international community can do is state frankly what everyone knows: a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples. Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people; each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace."
 
Somehow I don't see Israel returning to the 1967 borders.
 
Netanyahu Objects To Obama's Talk Of A Return To '67 Borders

And from the article that one is based on:

Netanyahu said he expected to hear from Obama a re-affirmation of the 2004 letter from President George W. Bush to Ariel Sharon that did not call for a return to the 1967 lines, and recognized that any agreement would take into account the changed realities on the ground -- a line interpreted by Israel to mean a recognition that Israel would hold on to the large settlement blocs.

It will be interesting to hear what comes out of the meeting tomorrow.
 
http://www.theatlantic.com/internat...ders-should-guide-peace-talks-updated/239162/

I'm amazed at the amount of insta-commentary out there suggesting that the President has proposed something radical and new by declaring that Israel's 1967 borders should define -- with land-swaps -- the borders of a Palestinian state. I'm feeling a certain Groundhog Day effect here. This has been the basic idea for at least 12 years. This is what Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat were talking about at Camp David, and later, at Taba. This is what George W. Bush was talking about with Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. So what's the huge deal here? Is there any non-delusional Israeli who doesn't think that the 1967 border won't serve as the rough outline of the new Palestinian state?



more links:
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/the-big-lie-obama-hates-israel.html
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/the-big-lie-obama-hates-israel-ctd.html
 
Yeah, I nearly fell out my chair when he said '67 borders.
 
Yeah, I nearly fell out my chair when he said '67 borders.

I'm a bit crappy this morning, but did you read anything I just posted? The '67 borders have long been considered the starting point for discussions. I have no clue why everyone is flipping out over this (well I do, but I was hoping that folks wouldn't just believe all the bs that talking heads spew)
 
Here is what Hillary Clinton said in 2009: "We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements."

http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=221021
 
In 2005, Geoge W. Bush stated that it is "unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949" (the 1967 boundaries of Israel, in other words). Today, Barack Obama said that he believes "the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states." I take this to mean that Israel would retain its major settlement blocs; that it would retain the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, and that it would take West Bank land needed to thicken it at its most narrow point, in exchange for land adjacent to the Gaza Strip and the southern West Bank. I also interpret the saying "mutually agreed upon" to mean, well, "mutually agreed upon." In other words, these boundaries would not be set without Israel's approval.

I understand that Prime Minister Netanyahu is interpreting this as a major policy shift, and I understand that much of the media is going along with this interpretation. For what it's worth, I don't see a huge gap in the way these two Presidents framed the core issue.

http://www.theatlantic.com/internat...-say-something-so-different-from-bush/239184/
 
The Israeli-Palestinian arrangement Obama outlined consisted of self-evident components. Any child knows this is what the arrangement would be, with some nuances. Obama rewarded Bibi with two points: his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state - i.e. the end of the conflict - and his unequivocal statement against a unilateral UN declaration of Palestinian statehood in September.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-editio...anyahu-in-the-dark-on-mideast-speech-1.362896
 
Here's Tim Pawlenty on the speech, misreading a crucial passage:

"President Obama's insistence on a return to the 1967 borders is a mistaken and very dangerous demand. The city of Jerusalem must never be re-divided. To send a signal to the Palestinians that America will increase its demands on our ally Israel, on the heels of the Palestinian Authority's agreement with the Hamas terrorist organization, is a disaster waiting to happen. At this time of upheaval in the Middle East, it's never been more important for America to stand strong for Israel and for a united Jerusalem."

President Obama didn't "insist" that Israel return to its 1967 borders. He said the 1967 borders should form the basis of negotiations, and that Israel and Palestine should swap land, land swaps that would bring settlement blocs and East Jerusalem Jewish neighborhoods into Israel proper.
 
But if Abbas was remaining tight-lipped, other Palestinians were not so circumspect.
Israelis may have pointed out that Obama's comments about the 1967 lines marked the first time that, as Gilboa said, a US president had emphasized this point in this particular way, but some Palestinians think the remarks did not go far enough.
'Obama did not say the 1967 borders will be the borders of the Palestinian state. He said the state will be within the 1967 borders with some land swap. Therefore there is nothing new in this,' Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee, told dpa.
Bassam Salhi, head of the People Party and also a member of the PLO executive committee, thinks the speech showed total bias toward Israel.
'Obama wanted in this speech to stop the Palestinians from going to the UN in September and to put obstacles in the way of reconciliation,' he said.
As Gilboa notes, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have become a zero-sum game, where each side seizes on the points it dislikes as an excuse to reject everything else

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/n...-Palestinians-say-Obama-did-not-go-far-enough
 
Then there were the gray parts, where different Israelis would have differing interpretations as to whether his speech was positive or negative. He said the partition would be based on the line of 1949-67. Many of us recognize that this may not be historically, legally or morally the case, but practically, it is. Like it or not, that's the line the negotiations have been focusing on for years, and as the man said, there will be adaptation of it, but it does serve as the base of the negotiations.

http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2011/05/obama-on-middle-east-again.html
 
http://www.theatlantic.com/internat...e-dont-speak-to-my-president-that-way/239199/

For whatever reason, I tend to react strongly when a foreign leader disrespects the United States, and its President. I didn't like it when Hugo Chavez of Venezuela insulted President Bush; I don't like listening to Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan lecture the U.S. on its sins, and I'm not happy when certain Pakistani leaders gin-up righteous indignation about American behavior when it was their country that served as a refuge for the greatest mass murderer in American history.

And so I was similarly taken aback when I read a statement from Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday that he "expects to hear a reaffirmation from President Obama of U.S. commitments made to Israel in 2004, which were overwhelmingly supported by both House of Congress."

So Netanyahu "expects" to hear this from the President of the United States? And if President Obama doesn't walk back the speech, what will Netanyahu do? Will he cut off Israeli military aid to the U.S.? Will he cease to fight for the U.S. in the United Nations, and in the many international forums that treat Israel as a pariah?

I don't like this word, "expect." Even if there weren't an imbalance between these two countries -- Israel depends on the U.S. for its survival, while America, I imagine, would continue to exist even if Israel ceased to exist -- I would find myself feeling resentful about the way Netanyahu speaks about our President. Netanyahu had an alternative, of course: He could have said, as he got on the plane to Washington, where today -- awkward! -- he will be meeting with President Obama: "The President today delivered a very fine speech. His condemnation of Hamas and Iran, his question about whether the Palestinians actually seek peace; his strong language against Syria; his recognition of Israel as a Jewish state; his re-assertion of the unshakeable bond between our two nations -- all of this and more brought joy to my heart. There are a couple of points in the speech, having to do with borders and refugees, that I would like to clarify with the President when I see him, and I'm looking forward to a constructive dialogue on these few issues."

Of course, he didn't say this. Instead he threw something of a hissy fit. It was not appropriate, and more to the point, it was not tactically wise: If I'm waking up this morning feeling that the Israeli prime minister is disrespecting the President of my country, imagine how other Americans might be feeling. And, then, of course, there's this: Prime Minister Netanyahu needs the support of President Obama in order to confront the greatest danger Israel has ever faced: the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran. And yet he seems to go out of his way to alienate the President. Why does he do this? It's a mystery to me.
 
Well I feel more informed now.
 
I think we should all look on the bright side of this issue: the world is ending on Saturday!:D
 
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