Middle East Speech

Several posts on Obama's 1967 Middle east speech

A couple from the Booman Tribune

[Booman 1] [Booman 2] Including this..

Jeffrey Goldberg should have an unassailable pro-Israel reputation and he's saying that Obama didn't say anything new by insisting that the 1967 borders should be the basis for negotiations between Israel and Palestine. If you make an exception for the city of Jerusalem, I think it's indisputable that America has been consistent in saying that Israel must give up all the land they acquired in the 1967 and 1973 wars, and that any exceptions must be accounted for with equivalent and mutually-agreed upon swaps of land.
Now, recently Netanyahu has been saying that the 1967 borders are indefensible. I find that assertion odd. Israel defended those borders quite successfully in 1967. In the intervening years the main thing that has changed is that Israel has become hundreds of times more powerful relative to its neighbors. Israel is fully capable of defending itself. It can use nuclear weapons if it finds itself particularly hard-pressed.

The text of the speech [Obama's "1967-Borders" Middle east speech]

[Juan Cole's take]

From the Israeli paper Haaretz: [Haaretz 1]  [Haaretz 2 - What some Europeans think]

The most level headed response from [No More Mister Nice]

From the [BBC]

A good post from [Mondoweiss] including this..

Of course the 1967 lines have always been the starting point for discussion – they were in Barak’s “generous” 2000 offer at Camp David, the more promising Taba negotiations in 2001 that were cut short due to the impending Israeli election of the rejectionist Sharon, and in Olmert’s 2008 “even more generous” offer.

Why the uproar now? What was Obama supposed to say - that the starting point was complete Israeli control from the river to the sea, and that Israel could expect concessions for each square kilometer that it graciously yielded? Even in our poisoned political atmosphere, that would never fly. The 1967 lines are the only logical starting point. The devil has always been in the details, and Obama explicitly included those devilish details in his speech.

A couple from tnb....

It's amazing to see the US media treating Netanyahu and Israel better than the President.

I think the best response Obama could give would be something like "OK, we give up. Work out your own god-damned peace agreement. Oh, and we're cutting all aid to all sides". Netanyahu might change his priorities a little if he didn't have those billions in US aid coming in.

tnb