Israel, with pre-1967 borders.
From the Washington Post:
ADL’s Abraham Foxman: Obama didn’t throw Israel under the bus
By Greg Sargent
I just got off the phone with Abraham Foxman, the Holocaust survivor who heads the Anti-Defamation League. He does not agree with the claim by some Republican 2012 presidential candidates and conservative commentators that Obama threw Israel under the bus in his Arab Spring speech yesterday.
The claim by conservatives is based on Obama’s assertion yesterday that an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal must be based on pre-1967 lines with land swaps, which has been widely distorted by the right to mean Obama wants Israel to retreat to pre-1967 borders. Foxman disagrees with that characterization.
“I don’t see this as the president throwing Israel under the bus,” he told me. “He’s saying with `swaps.’ It’s not 1967 borders in the abstract. It’s not an edict. It’s a recommendation of a structure for negotiations.”
Foxman said that the broader characterization of the speech as anti-Israel by some on the right is also off base, citing its insistence on Israel’s right to self-defense, its opposition to the Palestinian statehood at the United Nations, and other matters.
“The speech indicated to me that this administration has come a long way in better understanding and appreciating the difficulties facing both parties, but especially Israel in trying to make peace with the Palestinians,” Foxman said.
Foxman did offer a nuance: He said he doesn’t fault Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for raising concerns about Obama’s decision to articulate the 1967 lines as American policy.
“There is a danger that the 1967 marker, which was always there but has never been stated so directly, may become this year’s settlements issue,” Foxman said. By this he means that he worries that making it central to official U.S. policy could turn it into a core make-or-break issue, just as settlements were, which could make peace tougher to attain.
But Foxman clarified that Obama’s remarks about the 1967 lines were not comparable to Obama’s call for a settlement freeze — which also angered the right — in the sense that the 1967 lines don’t represent a firm proposal. “It’s not an edict — it’s not what he did with settlements,” Foxman said.
Foxman added that all the noise over that one sentence could distract from the fact that much of the speech was positive for Israel. “He said a lot of good things,” Foxman said. “All these things were overshadowed by one phrase. And even that, he put in context.”
“I see a lot of positive,” Foxman concluded. “I see changes in American understanding.”
By Greg Sargent | 03:25 PM ET, 05/20/2011
Unfortunately. there are too many people out there who would let politics stand in the way of peace.All modern discussion must have a starting point. Presidents Clinton and Bush understood this.
Abe Foxman is a good man, and I respect his opinions. But I will wager that you will never get the Israelis to retreat from their critical defensive positions lying on the other side of the 1967 line, not even with so-called “swaps.” Obama’s speech is being parsed and reparsed and intepreted and reinterpreted ad nauseum. It may be a “starting point” but one that would be quickly left in the dust if real talks start. And I am not sure you will see real talks until the dust of the “Arab Spring” settles more — especially in Egypt and Syria, as well as Jordan. If I was an Israeli, I sure as Hell wouldn’t want to give up the current defensive advantage in the Golan Heights and go back to the former vulnerability in that sector, as just one example.
@Wolverine,
Nor would I. However, the starting point is always at the pre-67. I mean, where else would you start? That is the land that continues to be in dispute.
If I were an Israeli I would build a huge wall with concertina wire on top. But that’s just me.
Turn Gaza into a UN protectorate. Tell everyone that wants to be in a Palestinian state to move to the West Bank. Everyone else, disarm.
Israel then sets up its borders. Everything outside that border is the Palestinian state.
One of the major problems is trying to connect the West Bank to Gaza. Take Gaza out of the equation.
It can’t be done. That was Arrafat’s big issue, that the lands weren’t continguous.
This isn’t a simple issue. I don’t know how we talk about borders without going back to the land acquired in the 6 days war, especially since that seems to be the land in contention.
I went back and re-read what the president said. He was not suggesting that Israel cede all that land back to Palestine. However, our right wing and our right wing news station, Faux News, is certainly leaving everyone with that suggestion.
And if we make sure everyone is stirred up enough, nothing will ever get done. Clinton couldn’t do it nor could Bush. I doubt if Obama can either but let’s give him a fighting chance.
I think I would cut that foreign aid by a billion this year just because Netanyahu got so lippy. I don’t think he dipsticked the political climate correctly. He talked to our president like he was some rube. I sort of felt the same way about the guy who threw the shoe at Bush.
Once Net. apologizes for his petulance,, then they get the other billion. You don’t talk smack to someone giving you that much effen money. Israel isn’t an entitlement.
We are dumping 5 billion into Israel and Egypt annually. With that kind of money floating about, learn to be polite.
@Moon-howler
So, then its ok if the Chinese be rude to us because they own our debt? Because Obama started the rudeness during Net’s first visit. And then, he pre-empted the visit by speechifying about what he thought the starting point should be.
“So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, and a secure Israel. The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. 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. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.”
The problem with Obama’s statement is that HE stated what it should be: “should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps,”
Either he believes this or he needs to fire his speech writer.
And “mutually agreed swaps?” Does he actually believe for one moment that either side could actually agree on land swaps?
Again, if he had left this line out, it would have been a great speech. But his arrogance makes him believe that lecturing is a good thing. Even if he believes this, he should have kept quiet. He gave support to the terrorists with that statement, implying that any continued “occupation” outside those lines is illegitimate.
The only state that the Palestinians want is this one: http://www.eyeontheun.org/print/default.asp?http://www.eyeontheun.org/view.asp?l=21&p=182
The only land swap that they will agree to is the entirety of Israel for them and a grave for the Israelis.
Cargo makes a good point about the Gaza Strip – there is a UN Force along the Israel-Egypt Border since the war. Had several Army buddies pull a tour of duty there.
Moon, your right it isn’t a simple issue – that total land area has been indispute as in any area where there are various historical tribal people. Moses led the folks out of Egypt, and started kicking tush to reclaim all the lands. Tussles have been going on in that region since the dawn of time, me thinks.
I said nothing about China. I don’t see where China has anything to do with Israel.
The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps
Cargo, I guess that Palestine gets out of Gaza if they want continguous lands.
There have been land swaps discussed many times. The one that almost went through as Clinton left office involved swaps. Arrafat nixed it. He was not very far thinking.
Unfortunately, your points are so clouded by hatred of Obama that discussion is difficult. I listened to Obama and didn’t think he was arrogant. You want him whimping?
Natanyaho is a member of a very conservative political group. He might have over-played his hands with Americans and in particular, American Jews.
Obama wasn’t rude or arrogant.
I don’t believe there will ever be peace in the middle east, esp. in Israel. On the other hand, I never thought I would see Queen Elizabeth in Ireland.
If you talk to decent Palestinian folks, they tell a different story than what you see in the streets from the thugs. They tell a story of personal loss and some real loss of who they are as a country. The only people I know have immigrated to America.
On the other hand, I just finished my usual spring study of the Holocaust through reading and film. It is perfectly obvious why the establishment of the state of Israel happened and why their safety is of top importance. The Jews must have their own land. Unequivocally.
They cannot live in constant danger.
So where is the answer? That is the difficult part of the equation that Israel’s allies have struggled with for 6 decades. If it were me, I would wall off my own country and put concertina wire on the top of the wall and shoot any outsider who comes in. But that’s the me who just finished watching War and Remembrance.
Moon, if someone makes a suggestion to me that I had better be prepared to give up my positions of defensive strength against an enemy which has vowed to grind me into the dust and end my very existence, I would be as pissed off as Netanyahu is. It would not be America’s back against the wall. It would be the backs of the Israelis. And given our spotty record in foreign wars over the past 70 years since WWII, as well as the current acute divisions within our own domestic political sphere, a promise that America will be there for you in any situation of very dire distress does not carry the weight it once did.
Moreover, as I mentioned in the previous post, the dust of the “Arab Spring” is far from settled. No one can predict what Egypt, Syria, and Jordan will look like when and if that dust settles; and it would be military folly to agree to a significant change in your own established defensive capabilities and posture at a time when you do not know what form the potential threat may take in the future.
In my own opinion, the answer to bringing peace to Palestine can only come from one thing: an agreement among the Palestines and their supporters throughout the Islamic world that Israel has a right to exist and to stop calling for the extermination of the Jewish state. Then we can all discuss the modalities of a permanent peace. If such a basic agreement does not come, I would say that, if the Israelis were ever to back down without it, they would be taking on extreme risk to their own continued existence.
Not everyone has called for the elimination of the Jewish state. Broad brushing doesn’t solve anything.
No one, including the president, has suggested that Israel turn the other cheek or back down. During negotiations, there is usually a little give and take.
There are land issues and the Palestinians want their own state. They may or may not get it.
I would say that those who represent the principal concern for Israel from a security standpoint are the ones who want to see that Jewish state disappear into the ash heap of history. It is a longstanding demand from Israel that these people drop that stated goal so that some real strides can be made in resolving the Palestinian problem. That is not broadbrushing anything. It is fact.
I am afraid the Israelis may feel like they are facing that old negotiating tactic long used by the Soviets: “What’s mine is mine. What’s yours is negotiable.”
While it is a rare day, I believe I must agree with Wolfie. As to “give and take”–nothing has changed since 1947, reinforced by 1967. We continue to support Israel come rain or shine and one thing futher–Israel is the only nation that gets their foeign aid in one lump sum to do with as they see fit. You want Netanyahu to STFU–cut off ALL aid to Israel. I think they might get the message. Until then, as in the past, nothing has changed and nothing will change nor do I think anything will change. This is the sore that people keep picking the scab off of–it just won’t heal. Oh it may, but remember, the Palestinians may have to wait more than 2,600 years–just like the Jews did. So, we only have something like 2,536 years to go–date not firm.
@George, I would imagine one hothead will always screw things up, regardless of what kind of threaties exist.
The problem is that Obama expects Israel to negotiate from pre-1967 borders, which would be a huge concession from Israel, but no similar huge concessions were asked of the Palestinians. They were not asked to give up the right of return or to concede Israel’s right to exist. So it appears that the U.S. took the side of Israel’s mortal enemy Hamas.
The other little gem that the president stuck in the speech is that the U.S. will no longer guarantee Israel’s existence. He stated that Israel has the right to self defense by itself.
@Kelly,
You sure have put your own spin on there. What other borders do they have to speak from? Its the land Israel acquired then.
Obama wasn’t addressing Hamas.
The US cannot guarantee anyone’s existence. As long as we are giving them $3B they will be fine. I sure heard some different things. Do you have a transcript that contains the ‘you guys are on your own’ text?
The President should be aiming some very tough words at Hamas. Just think how the “peace process” might be given a boost if those Hamas rockets stopped landing on Israeli civilian settlements and the suicide bombers stopped coming to create havoc.
I am sure Hamas is going to stop what its doing and start being a model citizen of the world just because Obama told them to stop being thugs. It sure worked for Bush.
So what it is exactly you all want Obama to do? Is there anything he can do without it being twisted and turned and criticized after the twisting has stopped?
Given past behavior of the Palestinians when Israel has made major concessions and exercised good faith in withdrawing from defensive positions in the West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza, etc. (2000 2nd Infitada during great progress made via Oslo Peace Accord Agreement & 2005 with Israel’s Unilateral Disengagement Plan in Gaza to name a few). How could any reasonable person not be distrustful of the Palestinians this go around (not that I expect anything to happen anytime soon….)? Add to this the “Arab Spring” and the great wave of insecurity of conditions on the ground in surrounding Arab States. Pre-1967 (with mutal land swaps) is a load of horse crap to put it bluntly. Netanyahu and the “extreme, radical right” has every reason to be concerned about their security. Yes, the Pre-’67 border has always been a “start point” in more unofficial terms but there has always been the understanding that the final settlement wouldn’t look anything like this partition.
He could stop giving speeches without adequately considering what the effects of his words may be. This guy is far too much in love with the TV cameras. And, yes, by hammering on Hamas, Obama can perhaps make the other Palestinians understand that, so long as they play games with Hamas extremism, they are not going to get to first base on any of this. It is not Hamas he has to wake up to reality, but the other guys in the West Bank.
And he could also start addressing once again the issue of Iran and nukes. It has disappeared off the radar screen for a long time now; and that, in my opinion, is one of the truly major elephants in the room. We are getting perhaps a bit of a political reprieve because the ayatollahs are pissed off at Ahmedinejad, but that probably won’t last overly long – he could be replaced. But it won’t cause the Iranian nuke teams to cease work.
So, what you’ve got now is Israel facing a potential double whammy: nuclear and nutcake Iran plus the possibility of being surrounded by newly unstable and potentially radicalized regimes. Throw in Hamas in Gaza and Hezobollah in South Lebanon (with their Iranian support), and you have a security nightmare. And what they do not need now is an unsteady and up in the air relationship with their only viable ally — us.
You are missing one enormous detail of the 1967 border. It puts the major religious sites in Jerusalem in Palestinian hands to begin with. That right there is a gauranteed deadlock. Negotiations will not proceed any further than the wailing wall, church of the holy sepulcher and temple mount, period.
For one thing, our government can stop lending or granting money to the Palestinians. Make them decide…bullets…beans…bullets…beans.
I surmise that the way HAMAS and the PLO would decide to stretch food stores is by making more suicide bombers. The PLO just put every palestinian terrorist held in Israeli prisons on a government salary. If we finance ANYTHING in that area, we are indirectly paying those salaries.
He should have stayed the hell out of it and not said anything! Obama single handedly changed the calculus of the negotiation process with his public reference to the “Pre-67 border.” Yes, I know he added the “with mutual land swaps” caveat, but it had the effect he and the people he surrounds himself with (all sharing the same leftist political philosophy) intended for it to have.
His public emphasis on the pre-’67 border (which true has always been a starting point) only serves to add more steel and determination on the Palestinian side to insist and demand a border settlement that will be completely unacceptable to Israel. Fatah has slowly come to the realization that Pre-’67 in an unachievable goal and have tacitly expressed this in the past. So much for that now! I think Abbas was recorded as saying he can’t agree on the latest prevailing border agreements as they existed before Obama’s remarks, lest it would look like the American president was acting as bigger proponent for the Palestinians than himself!
Obama’s circumlocution to AIPAC was utter rubbish. I’ve never seen a finer example of a man that can talk out of both sides of his mouth. You’re right Wolverine. Obama needs to draw attention to Iran’s nuke program which is about to begin bearing fruit, if it hasn’t already. The US has been bombing the wrong area of the Mediterranean. We need to focus “regime change” on Syria which will weaken Iran’s foothold in the region, namely its proxy Hezbollah and Hamas. They are using the cover of the Palestinian Cause for their own ulterior motives…all of which spell bad news for Israel.
And let’s not forget how this totally undermines our credibility in the world. We had an agreement with Israel inked out in 2005, among it was our resolve that there be a settlement reached between the two parties that would offer Israel a modicum of security with respect to his defensibleness. Pre-’67 or anything close to that expression of a past geographic reference is a non-starter. The world will take note at the folly of entering into agreements with the United States only to have the rug pulled out from underneath them by a different administration.
And so the beat goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on….
Obama has said nothing different than Clinton said back when they were so close to an agreement between Echud Barak and Arafat.
Oh yes Elena, let’s discuss how very close we were to realizing a real peace plan after years of great progress when out of nowhere Arafat skewered the entire peace plan vis-a-vis Oslo Peace Accords with his 2nd Infitada. Arafat had much more to gain with seeing the fighting continue as did Iran’s proxies of Hamas and Hezbolla (and close cooperation with Syria) in the region who have and are using the Palestinian Cause to hide the ulterior motives. Time after time Palestine does not deliver on it’s agreed upon promises of security and, as such Israel can and will never allow Pre-67 to be anywhere near what the eventual border wind up being.
@Moon-howler
Might and money do not make right. Netanyahu was polite, but right. He should not have pulled punches and he did not. I am sure he preferred truth over the blackmail of withholding aid. This is about national survival, not money.
For peace to reign, someone needs to actually win the war going on between Israel and its enemies.
Stop! Welcome newcomers. You are assuming that Elena and I are not supporting Israel and that we want the borders set at pre-1967 locations. That is not true.
We are trying to encourage discussion and to see a variety of points of view.
Netanyahu is addressing the joint meeting of Congress as we speak.
@Moon-howler
Newcomers…
Elena and Moon support Israel. I happen to be even more of a hard-a…um, core supporter….
THEY tend to be more civilized.
Moon, are you getting comments or something that make it seem that we think you don’t?
From Maggie’s Farm blog:
“I would have said “fine. We’ll take the lines from 1967. June 13th, 1967. We can negotiate from there. As we did with Egypt.
Been nice visiting with ya, Barry. I must be going now.”
@Wolverine
Even if Hamas stops Rockets, I am not sure if Israel wants to rid of those as it is the basis for all their aggression and arrogance. Who knows.. they might even have their own intelligence people firing couple of rockets from the other end.. they just need some rockets to fall to continue their status quo and keep Hamas etc away from the negotiating table. It’s very easy to do these things when you have media in your control.. Everyone knows that Israel is at the position where they simply do not want to give away any land. So best thing is for them is to not to come to the table at all with one or other reason so they can hide their weakness of not being able to be fair..
@Cargo, I think a few folks have me confused with Abraham Foxman. 😉
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. (Genesis 12:3)
“During negotiations, there is usually a little give and take.”
When was the last time the countries that keep attacking Israel ever gave anything? Ever?
@Prakash
Really….Al Jazeera and Reuters is under Israeli control.
And, apparently you didn’t watch Bibi’s speech. They’re willing to negotiate land away. But now they have put out the bottom line. Access to the Jordan River, keep the Golan Heights and other security areas, and Jerusalem is not split.
The idea that Israel might be firing rockets at themselves to keep the status quo is right up there with the 9-11 truthers. Its a disgusting idea. I’m going to stop now before I get even more upset.
To Cargosquid, Edna, and Moonhowler you’ll have to forgive me. This is a subject I’ve always been passionate about. I guess I picked up on a certain naivety with respect to Obama’s Arab Spring speech, the timing of it, and its strategic intent. Obama is NOT a friend of Israel, nor are most of the people he keeps company with.
I was jumping up and down during BiBi’s address to Congress. He “brought it!” How OWNED that chamber during his address! Always liked the man. It’s too bad he wasn’t PM in 2006. I dare say things would have been different with the Hezbollah operation. Things would have been a lot different if Ariel Sharon hadn’t of tried to play Nevil Chamberlain with that damn unilateral disengagement plan and form that cursed Kadima Party!!!