Obama Endorses 1967 Borders for Israel
President Barack Obama speaks about the role of the US in the Middle East from the State Department in Washington on May 19, 2011. Obama spoke broadly about the change in the Middle East and North Africa, announcing that the U.S. would provide economic aid to Egypt and Tunisia as well as continued involvement in talks between Israel and the Palestinians. (Photo: Doug Mills / The New York Times)
Washington - Seeking to harness the seismic political change still unfolding in the Arab world, President Obama for the first time on Thursday publicly called for a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would create a non-militarized Palestinian state on the basis of Israel’s borders before 1967.
“At a time when the people of the Middle East and North Africa are casting off the burdens of the past, the drive for a lasting peace that ends the conflict and resolves all claims is more urgent that ever,” he said.
Although Mr. Obama said that “the core issues” dividing Israelis and Palestinians remained to be negotiated, including the searing questions of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees, he spoke with striking frustration that efforts to support an agreement had so far failed. “The international community is tired of an endless process that never produces an outcome,” he said.
The outline for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement came in what the president called “a moment of opportunity” after six months of political upheaval that has at times left the administration scrambling to keep up. The speech was an attempt to articulate a cohesive American policy to an Arab Spring that took a dark turn as the euphoria of popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt gave way to violent crackdowns in Bahrain and Syria, a civil war in Libya and political stalemate in Yemen.
ALSO SEE: President Obama Speaks on US Policy in Middle East and North Africa
It required a delicate balance, reaffirming support for democratic aspirations in a region where America’s strategic interests have routinely trumped its values. While Mr. Obama pushed for Hosni Mubarak’s exit in Egypt, he has backed up the Bahraini royal family’s effort to cling to power. While he called for the resignation of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and supported a bombing campaign against Libya with that ultimate goal, he vacillated as Bashar al-Assad of Syria turned tanks and troops on his people, authorizing sanctions against him only on Wednesday.
Mr. Obama said the events in the region reflected an inexorable desire for democracy that nations — both friend and foe of the United States — could not suppress. He bluntly warned Mr. Assad that Syria would face increasing isolation if he did not respond to those demanding a transition to democracy. “President Assad now has a choice,” Mr. Obama said. “He can lead that transition, or get out of the way.”
He was no less blunt in the case of Bahrain, a close ally that has brutally crackdown on protests there. “The only was forward is for the government and opposition to engage in a dialogue, and you can’t have real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail.”
Mr. Obama, in his remarks, reaffirmed that the Middle East is a complex place, where different countries demand different responses, though. It was a marked contrast to his landmark speech in Cairo in June 2009, when he addressed himself to the Islamic world as a whole, trying to heal a rift with the United States.
He conceded bluntly that the United States had not been a central actor in the uprisings, but he sought to cast America’s role in the Middle East in a new context now that the war in Iraq is winding down and Osama bin Laden has been killed, in part, a primary goal of the war that began in Afghanistan nearly a decade ago.
Mr. Obama’s aides and speechwriters labored on his remarks until the last hours before he delivered it in the stately Benjamin Franklin Dining Room on the eighth floor of the State Department.
Until the end, for example, his aides debated how Mr. Obama would address the conflict that has fueled Arab anger for decades: the division between Israelis and Palestinians. A senior administration official said that Mr. Obama’s advisers remained deeply divided over whether he should formally endorse Israel’s pre-1967 borders as the starting point for negotiations over a Palestinian state.
That he did so sent a strong signal that the United States expected Israel — as well as the Palestinians — to make concessions to restart peace talks that have been stalled since September.
Mr. Obama is to meet Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the White House on Friday against the backdrop of the region’s tumult, which reached Israel itself on Sunday when thousands of Palestinians stormed border crossings from Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank. The Arab uprisings have sharpened security concerns in Israel, intensified animus toward it and given momentum to global recognition of a Palestinian state.
American and Israeli officials are struggling to balance national security interests against the need to adapt to a transformative movement in the Arab world. Mr. Netanyahu prepared to arrive in Washington with a package that he hoped would shift the burden of restarting the peace process to the Palestinians.
The debate around Mr. Obama’s remarks, which the White House has billed as a major address, is made even more significant since the speech will serve as the beginning of what promises to be several intense days of debate over American policy in the region, its support for Palestinian statehood, and how far Mr. Obama is willing to push Israel and the Palestinians.
Mr. Netanyahu plans to spend four days in Washington, addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby, on Sunday and a joint session of Congress next week. Mr. Netanyahu, his aides say, is planning to tell Mr. Obama that Israel wants to keep a military presence along the Jordan River and sovereignty over Jerusalem and the settlement blocs — three major stumbling blocks for the Palestinians — but that it would be willing to negotiate away the rest of the West Bank, more territory than Mr. Netanyahu has been willing to specify in the past.
He has one condition — the Palestinian government cannot include Hamas, which rules Gaza. Mr. Netanyahu knows that the Palestinians will find this condition unacceptable, particularly since Fatah, the main Palestinian movement, just signed a unity pact with Hamas. But since the United States labels Hamas as terrorists, Mr. Netanyahu is betting that he will appear more forthcoming than ever.
“On the one hand, the Palestinians are moving toward Hamas while on the other, the prime minister is showing a real willingness to make far-reaching territorial compromise,” a top Netanyahu aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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Brother Unknown
Fri, 2011-05-20 10:31
Obama endorses Syrian government's killing Syrian citizens. Offers them the Golan Heights as a reward so they can kill Israeli citizens.
Gordon Clack
Fri, 2011-05-20 10:15
Well said Messrs Zollner and Russell but Sorry Stacy, you are talking idiotic and blinkered c..p.
At last an American president is thinking what is RIGHT to do about this problem and actually having the guts to say it whereas his predecessors were guilty of appalling sanctimonious hypocrisy. Whether he also has the guts to actually DO anything about it is another matter and we shall all wait with baited breath.
If Saddam Hussein had said that his illegal occupation of Kuwait was "indefensible", would that have prevented his eviction? Netanyahu's statement that the pre-1967 borders are "indefensible" is in itself indefensible. The plain fact is that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem is ILLEGAL by right of UN resolutions and International Law. While a solution for this problem has dragged on and on, Netanyahu & Co have persisted in extending the illegal settlements while the US and rest of the world have shamefully looked on and done nothing.
If there is ever to be peace for both Israel and the Palestinians and a just two-state solution, Israel must withdraw to the pre-1967 borders and by doing so could well persuade Hamas to accept Israel's existence but only if we (the EU, UK,US) grasp the nettle and are prepared to talk to them.
It is extremely unlikely that Israel need have any fear from Jordan and a fair and just solution to the opposing claims to Jerusalem should not be beyond the realms of possibility, with guaranteed access to the religious sites for all sects.
NOW IS THE TIME! We are waiting for ACTION rather than mere words, Mr President.
ACT I
Fri, 2011-05-20 08:55
What are Obama's words worth? (A rhetorical question!)
mysterioso mysterioso
Fri, 2011-05-20 06:57
Oh no, the Israels must be so ascared now.
Karl Zollner
Thu, 2011-05-19 19:29
It is time for the charade of a peace process to finally come to an end. The "peace process" has become a euphemism, not unlike the recently coined "kinetic action", for a horrific period of human history where Palestinians have been subjected to continuous human rights abuses, sanctioned by the US. As much as the Palestinians have suffered-Israel, it's culture, it's society has paid an unbelievably heavy price, not in the first instance in blood, but in an equally substantial way-it's values and it's humanity.
Israel has become it's own worst enemy. The Judaic people have long suffered oppression at the hands of tyrannous majorities, which constituted themselves by marginalizing Jews as the "Other", a minority, upon which all negative attributes could be projected, externalized. Israel as the purported home of the Jews now does to the Palestinians what has been done to them since the exodus. The Palestinians are the Jew's Jews.
The process by which this happens is inherently racist and to the extent that the economy profits from this political, institutional and cultural racism it is fascist. No society in history has ever found the elusive purity of unity of identity, except by demonizing, scapegoating and persecuting some "Other", some minority. As a ethnic/religious/cultural identity the Judaic people lay claim to more first hand experience of this truth than any other people in the world, which is why it is so painful to see Israel rape itself in it's quest for purity. Israel is defacto an apartheid state today.
Peace for Israel and the Palestinians can only begin with Israel coming to terms with what it has become and choosing a different path and the two state solution is nothing more than a detour, avoiding the painful recognition of the price that has been paid in Israel's quest for a Jewish homeland. When Israel says no to apartheid, ripping down the walls and laws which concretize and institutionalize the racist policies of it's reactionary political class, and begins to dismantle the economic juggernaut that is the military-security complex, which utterly dominates the Israeli economy, there will be ample opportunity for peace with the Palestinians.
Israel did not become this way by itself. Lebanon, Syria and Jordan provided Israel with limitless sanctioning of it's mistreatment and abuse of Palestinians by treating refugee Palestinians in much the same way as Israel does. Egypt, under Mubarak, conspired directly with Israel against the Palestinians. The "right of return" is such an issue to this very day because Israel's neighbors have mistreated and abused the Palestinians for over 40 years now.
Lebanon, Syria and Jordan are each guilty of apartheid. In Lebanon Palestinians are systematically excluded from virtually every aspect of Lebanese society. In Syria, not only are Palestinians also systematically discriminated against, but also the 1.7 million Kurds living there. The Palestinians in Jordan only fair slightly better. Any critique of Israel must also take Lebanon, Syria and Jordan to task.
R C
Thu, 2011-05-19 17:10
If muslims and arabs attempt a claim for Jerusalem, then jews get to go to Mecca and Medina? Cool!!
Charles Temple
Thu, 2011-05-19 15:52
"Historical reality"?
Sure, go ahead and live in the past instead of dealing with "current reality", which is that Americans are waking up to the truth.
We've been manipulated for far too long with no progress, and most Americans are getting to the point where, if Israel doesn't get serious, they're not going to care anymore.
Stacy Madison
Thu, 2011-05-19 15:24
"Abbas seeks a Palestinian state in order to continue the conflict with Israel rather than end it.”
This statement by Netanyahu is right on.
Brother Unknown
Thu, 2011-05-19 15:09
One more time, what will the Saudi's, who supply the Palestinians, not with jobs or manufacturing centers, but US-supplied weapons and training in warfare, give up?
Obama, the slave of big Oil, the corporate toddy in the clothing of a Democratic, is, at the Saudi's request, not asking the Arabs to give up anything.
And by the way, Christ was a Jew who proposed simplifying Judaic rituals and treating men and women equally.
The 1967 war was fought because the Arabs did invade Israel.
Alan Folsom
Thu, 2011-05-19 14:20
You're right. The 1967 borders are a dead issue, so Obama's "courageous speech" is nothing more than hypocrisy. It's just a lame act to pretend that he is "standing up to Israel." We'll believe that when we see it and not just hear more double-talk about it.
Right now, the assumption is that Obama is a tool of the crackpot Zionists and criminal rich.
David Hamilton
Thu, 2011-05-19 13:51
When did Truthout start taking money from the Democrats and Israeli lobby? There is nothing in that speech that commits the US to supporting the 1967 borders. The real news is that Obama says he won't support their statehood at the UN in September. Hence, no change. The Obama foreign policy is indistinguishable from that of Bush.
john russell
Thu, 2011-05-19 13:46
The tail can wag the dog for just so long. The only nation abetting Israel's defiance is the US. The world community doesn't buy the argument that Israel is a special case and needs more land to defend itself. To call anyone who disagrees with it's policies anti-semitic doesn't make sense. Without the US sugar daddy Israel will have to accommodate the Palestinians. It's time an American president said what everyone knows to be true. Obama is not anti-semitic, not with guys like Axlerod and Emmanuel on his staff. Hamas will not extinguish Israel despite what the fanatics say. Neither will Iran. The hard-liners are in charge currently and that's what's holding up the peace process. Somebody needs to practice some tough love over there.
sharon jarvis
Thu, 2011-05-19 13:41
In the discussion over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I have yet to hear a single person talk about the Jewish refugees from Arab lands. About 750,000 Palestinians fled during the 1948 war; in the years following, an equal number of Jewish refugees also fled Arab lands, and huge numbers had their lands and property confiscated. I remember reading that Baghdad once had 150,000 Jews. When America went into Iraq in 2003, only 27 Jews were left.
Obama obviously doesn't understand why Israel will not give up Jerusalem nor place its people in jeopardy again, after being attacked so many times by so many Arab countries. If there is to be peace, Obama needs to demand the Palestinians give up the notion of killing all the Jews from sea to sea.
Alan Folsom
Thu, 2011-05-19 15:39
There's only one problem with your statement, Sharon. It is common knowledge that the early Zionists did anything and everything to encourage Jews to move to Israel. This is one reason they encouraged the "Holocaust" story, and even invented much of the literature about it.
But as regards Jews fleeing Arab lands, most of that exodus was caused by Zionist terrorism and lies about what the Arabs would do to them if they didn't leave. The Zionists went so far as to bomb Jewish synagogues to scare out the population. Some Jews, like the Iranians, weren't scared, stayed, and nothing happened to them. Here is a place to start your research:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950%E2%80%931951_Baghdad_bombings
stan nadel
Fri, 2011-05-20 02:55
Holocaust denial has now invaded Truthout comments--the moderators need to wake up
Stacy Madison
Thu, 2011-05-19 15:07
You're absolutely right, Sharon.
Robert Ludden
Thu, 2011-05-19 13:12
This is the first really courageous stand I have heard from Mr. Obama. I doubt that the Israelis will accept the '67 borders, but it would go a long way toward peace if they did.
Lots more courage hoped for, Mr President, but sadly, not expected.
Alan Folsom
Thu, 2011-05-19 14:12
"...really courageous stand..." Seriously?
Man, are you gullible.
Garrett Connelly
Thu, 2011-05-19 12:43
If President Obama helps accomplish this, stops the wars, throttles wall street pirates, commits to to health care for all, makes amends in Honduras, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica, rejects nuclear power and stops the killing of wolves; I'll vote for him in a flash.
Mike Aguilar
Thu, 2011-05-19 14:54
Nuclear energy production is the cleanest and easiest method of getting rid of fossil fueled energy production.
Alan Folsom
Thu, 2011-05-19 14:13
Don't hold your breath.
fred lapides
Thu, 2011-05-19 12:36
Won't bother to answer all the hate nonsense that is bound to be posted but just want to say: the 67 border notion already dead as far as Israel concerned. Wonder why? take a look at the map of the 67 borders and then ask why Israel had to go into that war. Never Again, they have learned. You can skip across Israel at the narrowest point on that map and Israel fought to preserve itself and thus knows enough not to take such a risk again.
Now pour out all the venom you will. But that is historical reality. You know, fool me once etc etc
Mike Aguilar
Thu, 2011-05-19 14:56
Fred, the 1967 war was fought because the Arab nations were about t invade Israel. With our presence in the region what it is now, they know they'd be stupid to do it again. Especially when one of our warships doesn't have to be any closer than 200-400 miles to accurately put lead on target.