-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
President Obama’s middle east speech contained this exact quote: “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.”
So started the insanity. The fact that this has been the U.S. policy over several administrations seems to be lost on the outraged.
Even the NY Times is getting into the act. In one sentence they claim that “using the 1967 boundaries as the baseline for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute” is a first by an American president, and just two paragraphs later quote President George W. Bush using the phrase: “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,” another way of describing the 1967 boundaries. Those two statements, by Obama and Bush, convey the same concept.
In 2009 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said:
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.
Where was the manufactured outrage then?
In 2008 President George W. Bush, on a middle east trip, said:
I believe that any peace agreement between them will require mutually agreed adjustments to the armistice lines of 1949 to reflect current realities and to ensure that the Palestinian state is viable and contiguous.
In 2005 President George W. Bush, at a White House meeting, said:
Any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties, and changes to the 1949 Armistice lines must be mutually agreed to.
President Obama is following the same policies put forth by George W. Bush. To claim that Obama’s speech represents some departure from previous U.S. policy is absurd.
Andrew Sullivan notes the immediate hysteria and hypothesizes that “it was the Israelis who immediately got their US media mouthpieces to spin the speech as some sort of attack.”
Anonymous Liberal tweeted:
I never cease to be amazed by the right-wing’s ability to – in unison – decide that a previously uncontroversial position is now anathema
H/T: Kevin Drum, Walter Russell Reed (cool image at bottom), Jeffrey Goldberg, Charles Johnson.
rending of garments?
biblical hyperbole may only be used in support of israel.
pres bush
All of Bush’s statements stress adjustments to the armistace line agreed to by all parties, taking current realities into account
pres obama
simply referred to the 1967 border with some territory swaps
too bad pres bush couldn’t have been that eloquent on his own
so how are they different?
You know, if this were uttered by an actual conservative, the reaction would be much howling, rending of garments, and gnashing of teeth over the RAAAAAAACIST! sterotyping and lack of trans-national, multi-cultural, sensitivity.
But since it’s deployed in service to President Obama? Well, that’s different; as always, by any means necessary…
Mr. Obama’s pronouncement was completely incongruent with what Bush said. All of Bush’s statements stress adjustments to the armistace line agreed to by all parties, taking current realities into account. Mr. Obama simply referred to the 1967 border with some territory swaps. No matter how much they are parsed, spun, or massaged after the fact in order to assert they are the same, they are not.
And the assertion of some Jewish cabal in the media is insulting to all Americans who support Israel, and object to the treatment of our closest allies in the middle east by this administration.
http://jstreet.org/blog/j-street-commends-president-obamas-middle-east-speech/
Obama: ’67 borders reflects long-standing policy
AP – President Barack Obama arrives to speak at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention …
By BRADLEY KLAPPER, Associated Press – 36 mins ago
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama warned America’s pro-Israel lobby on Sunday that the Jewish state will face growing isolation without a credible Middle East peace process. He defended his endorsement of a future Palestine based on Israel’s 1967 boundaries but subject to negotiated land swaps as a public expression of long-standing U.S. policy.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110522/ap_on_re_us/us_obama
Morning, Blouise….
Correction: both Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs are given a voice.
“and no one has come up with a suitable plan as to what to do with the displaced Palestinians.”
That’s the heart of the matter.
Nobody wants them. Israel does not and is not willing to accept a 2 state solution, and from there springs all the rhetoric. The surrounding Arab countries already have some numbers of Palestinians living among them, but nobody wants roughly 4 million mostly uneducated and agricultural Arabs.
I would like those Palestinians to move to the U.S. I reckon it would cost less than we’ve already spent our godawful wars, and be the spring from which all sorts of goodness flows.
Even if Israel were to accept a 2 state solution, the geography of the land that would be given to the Palestinians would be the junk part. Israel is both tiny and 55% desert.
Here’s a good documentary in torrent format. It’s 2GB and free. Both Jews and Palestinians are given a voice, and there are some jewels in the things they say in bringing light to the matter.
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4494217/Route_181_-_Fragments_of_a_Journey_in_Palestine-Israel_(2002)
morning, AY
“History is a myth agreed upon.” (Napoleon Bonaparte)
Most of what I read is obviously meant to convince rather than to inform. Presenters, so intent on finding points to support their side, will quickly bury a piece of truth that doesn’t fit their position.
What I do know for certain is that archeologists have found hybrid Emmer wheat at Jericho dating from before 8,000 B.C., making it one of the oldest sites of agricultural activity in the world. Many peoples have fought each other to control this pile of dirt … the Israelis and Palestinians are simply the latest contenders.
Quite frankly, the Israelis won a long time ago. It’s been 44 years since the 1967 6-day war and no one has come up with a suitable plan as to what to do with the displaced Palestinians.
Perhaps if all concerned spent even 1/2 the energy on solving the problem as they do on building the myth around the problem, peace could be reached.
Until the next set of dirt contenders appears …
Good Morning to all…..
From the article eniobob quotes:
“If Netnayahu has a better strategy to achieve peace, it’s time to hear it.”
Netnayahu has no interest in peace is a huge part of the problem. His interests are solely in the neocon definition of victory. A victory which in no way allows for a Palestinian state.
Sorry, Nal. Should have put that on the corrections page…
Correction to my correction…
Nal,
It’s missing the “a”… (Forget the quotation mark.)
Anonymous Liberal tweeted:
I never cease to be amazed by the right-wing’s ability to – in unison – decide that a previously uncontroversial position is now anathem
Nal,
…missing the “a” and closing quotation mark…, but it’s the perfect ending.
It seems that whatever is the word for the day….lol
From my local paper:
” By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press
In the Oval Office, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu discusses Israel’s issues with President Obama.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to think that America’s role in the Mideast should be to keep quiet while sending huge amounts of aid to Israel and guaranteeing its security no matter what.
The arrogance is breathtaking. And the lack of gratitude for the sacrifices America has made to protect Israel, with money and political capital, is infuriating.
In his speech Thursday on the Mideast, Obama restated a policy that has been a basis of American diplomacy through several administrations, both Democratic and Republican — that a final settlement must establish two secure states with a border that roughly follows the lines that existed before the 1967 war.
After the two men met Friday, Netanyahu responded with a pompous lecture in the Oval Office that distorted Obama’s statement. Israel, Netanyahu said, can never return to the 1967 borders because so many Israelis now live in Jewish settlements on the Palestinian side of the divide.
But Obama never said Israel should retreat to precisely those lines. Like other American presidents, he recognizes that the only reasonable solution is for Israel to absorb the most densely populated settlements, and to compensate the Palestinians by swapping land that is now on the Israeli side of the line. Given that about 80 percent of Jewish settlers live within five miles of Israel proper, such a compromise is possible.
Why Netanyahu would distort the president’s position is anyone’s guess. But it’s likely that he saw a tough televised speech in the Oval Office as a chance to throw red meat to restive hard-line members of his coalition in Israel. Republican Mitt Romney, always an opportunist, accused Obama of “throwing Israel under the bus” for political reasons of his own.
The criticism is entirely unfair. In fact, the last time Israel made a reasonable offer of peace was in 2000, in the waning days of the Clinton administration. At that time, Israel had agreed to precisely the sort of swap that Obama is suggesting.
No, Israel is not the main barrier to peace. The Palestinians are. They rejected that reasonable offer in 2000, a historic blunder. And Palestinian voters later handed power to Hamas, a terrorist group whose charter calls for the elimination of Israel and whose idea of legitimate military action is to fire rockets into civilian neighborhoods in Israel.
The Palestinian Authority’s recent embrace of Hamas underscores how dysfunctional the Palestinian polity has become.
But Israel still needs to leave open a path to peace, and that has to include a willingness to negotiate a map along the lines Obama suggests.
Territorial compromise is not even the hardest part. The two sides will have to settle the status of Jerusalem, sacred ground to both. The Palestinian demand that refugees from the 1948 war be allowed to return to their homes in Israel, and the Israeli demand to keep troops in the Jordan River valley present huge hurdles as well.
The truth is leaders on both sides can’t make concessions on those tougher issues until they condition their people to accept them. A territorial compromise might start to build the necessary good will.
If Netnayahu has a better strategy to achieve peace, it’s time to hear it.”
It doesn’t appear that the nuttiness will get any better. It is likely to get worse.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2011/05/warriors-press-for-propaganda-2.html
Why should the US have a position in the conflict at all? Because we’ve funded both sides of it for decades?