Israel’s Pre-1967 Borders

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.

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Sat. May 21–End of the World?

Is this what singer Skeeter Davis was talking about when she sang “The End of the World” when I was a kid?

I feel like I am watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Buffy has to save the world from the forces of whatever.  What is this all about?  Who is Mr. Camping other than someone who graduated from college before I was born, thus making him one terribly old dude.  What does the rapture mean?  What time does it start?  What happens if Sunday comes and we are all still here?  How does the End of the World group explain that?  The New York Times is slipping. 

From the NY Times:

Mr. Camping, whose ministry is fundamentalist Christian but not affiliated with mainstream churches, described Saturday as the beginning of five months of hell on earth: the Rapture. Beginning by time zone until the world is encompassed, the relative few saved by God will ascend to heaven, while seven billion will be left to suffer and die.

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