Love of the Land: But President Obama— There is No Such Thing as ‘Israel’s Pre-1967 Borders’

But President Obama— There is No Such Thing as ‘Israel’s Pre-1967 Borders’

Jeff Dunetz
bigpeace.com
19 May '11




Today President Obama called for any Israeli/Palestinian peace agreement to be based on the pre-June 1967 borders:

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.

Forgetting for a moment whether Obama was right or wrong for making that declaration, there is a serious problem with his statement…the pre-June 1967 borders do not exist!

What President Obama refuses to admit is that there is no such thing as pre-1967 borders. That “green line” running through the West Bank is the 1949 Armistice Line. The armistice line was created solely because that’s Israeli and Arab forces stopped fighting at the end of the War of Independence (with some added adjustments in certain sectors). It was if the whistle blew and everyone dropped their gear. That 1949 line, that people call 1967 border, is really only a military line.

But don’t believe me, believe the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan:

Article II of the 1949 Armistice Agreement with the Jordanians explicitly specified that the line that was designated did not compromise any future territorial claims of the two parties, since it had been “dictated by exclusively by military considerations.” Of course the Jordanian rationale for that clause is to allow them to claim territory inside the armistice line for their very own.

Even the “famous” UN Resolution 242 which was passed by the UN Security Council five months after the Six-Day War recognized that the 1949 Armistice line was not supposed to designate final Israeli borders.

(Read full 'But President Obama— There is No Such Thing as ‘Israel’s Pre-1967 Borders’")

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Love of the Land: But President Obama— There is No Such Thing as ‘Israel’s Pre-1967 Borders’

Love of the Land: Obama’s Partition Plan: A Trap for Israel

Obama’s Partition Plan: A Trap for Israel

David M. Weinberg
A Citadel Defending Zion
20 May '11

http://davidmweinberg.com/2011/05/20/obamas-partition-plan-a-trap-for-israel/


Over the past twelve hours, most news outlets and commentators have focused on President Barack Obama’s partition plan: the 1949 (or “1967”) armistice lines for Israel and Palestine. This is of course a significant departure from US policy and great achievement for the Palestinians. (Read Robert Satloff’s analysis of this matter).

What may be worse than this, however, is Obama’s suggestion to immediately negotiate borders and security arrangements, and delay discussions on core issues such as Jerusalem and refugees.

This is a trap for Israel!

The very impatient Obama is demanding that the Palestinians “urgently” get a West Bank state without settling the conflict with Israel; a Palestinian state that will not be at peace with Israel.

According to Obama, first Israel withdraws – a “full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces” to allow for “a sovereign and contiguous Palestinian state” – then the Palestinians continue to struggle for Jerusalem and refugee return. This, of course, means continuation of the conflict and no real recognition of Israel’s right to exist. It will provide another opportunity for Palestinians to swarm the 1949/1967 lines and to ramp up BDS and lawfare efforts until Israel accepts suicide through refugee “return” or the division of Jerusalem.

This is not a recipe for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Obama even left open the possibility that the US would support some sort of refugee return! Where was the standard US statement – previously quite clear — that Palestinian refugee rights would have to be satisfied in the context of a Palestinians state or though resettlement elsewhere in the Arab world? Why introduce doubt into what was previously a settled topic and thus allow the Palestinians to continue dreaming of drowning Israel with refugees?

Note also that Obama did not repeat the Quartet’s established stance on Hamas: that it cannot be a partner for peace unless it recognizes Israel, accepts past agreements, and forswears terror. Instead, he mumbled something about how the Fatah reconciliation with Hamas “raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel.”

Apparently the “questions raised” – what a weak formulation for referencing the genocidal Hamas platform regarding Israel! – don’t bother Obama all that much, since he just commanded Israel to facilitate a 1967-borders-state for the Palestinians including Hamas – without an end-of-conflict situation for Israel.

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Love of the Land: Obama’s Partition Plan: A Trap for Israel

Love of the Land: The Myth of the 1967 Borders

The Myth of the 1967 Borders

Dore Gold
29 April '10

In rejecting, the proposal for a Palestinian state with temporary borders, that Haaretz reported last Friday, Abu Mazen insisted that the only basis for any future political arrangements with Israel is "the 1967 borders". He is not the only one today talking about the 1967 lines. President Carter's, national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, just wrote an article in the Washington Post on April 11, along with former congressman Steve Solarz calling for a territorial solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "based on the 1967 borders." Brzezinski had recently been invited to discuss the Middle East with the President Barack Obama's National Security Adviser Jim Jones.

Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to slip by using the same language during a visit to Bahrain on February 4, 2010: "we believe that the 1967 borders, with swaps, should be the focus of the negotiations over borders." That sentence contradicted the formal policy of the Obama administration, that she carefully crafted herself, which said that the U.S. believed that it was possible to reconcile the Palestinian position demanding the 1967 lines with the Israeli position calling for secure boundaries, which took into Israeli security requirements and realities on the ground. Clinton subsequently corrected herself.

In short, the 1967 lines are coming back as a common reference point when many officials and commentators talk about a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is increasingly assumed that there was a recognized international border between the West Bank and Israel in 1967 and what is necessary now is to restore it. Yet this entire discussion is based on a completely distorted understanding of the 1967 line, given the fact that in the West Bank it was not an international border at all.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: The Myth of the 1967 Borders

Love of the Land: Can the Palestinians Recite Them, Too?

Can the Palestinians Recite Them, Too?

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
12 November 09

In a letter to the International Herald Tribune, J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami urges the U.S. to finally close an Israeli-Palestinian deal, “the parameters of which we can all recite in our sleep.” So if everyone agrees on the parameters, how is it that 16 years of negotiations have yet to produce a deal?

The answer, of course, is that there is no such agreement — not on the parameters, and still less on the pesky details.

For instance, “everyone knows” — even Ben-Ami — that any deal requires the Palestinians to abandon their demand to resettle millions of descendants of refugees in Israel, as that would spell the end of the Jewish state. Everyone, that is, except the Palestinians, who have yet to budge on this demand.

And “everyone knows” that any deal must give the Palestinians control over the Temple Mount. (Well, actually, most Israelis disagree, but that doesn’t seem to matter to anyone — even their own prime ministers.) Yet every time Israel offers them the Mount, the Palestinians refuse to accept it, because they insist that it be accompanied by an Israeli renunciation of any Jewish connection to Judaism’s holiest site, to which Jews have prayed three times a day for millennia. In other words, they insist that Jews deny their history, religion, and cultural and spiritual heritage as the price of a deal.

Hence they rejected even the ridiculous and totally unenforceable Clinton compromise of Palestinian sovereignty atop the Mount and Israeli sovereignty underneath. That effectively gave the Palestinians full control, since if they control the top, nobody can prevent them from doing what they please underneath — nor can Israel gain access to exercise its underground rights. But since this compromise did acknowledge an Israeli connection to the Mount, even it was too much for the Palestinians.

They also rejected Ehud Olmert’s proposal last year that the Mount be controlled by a five-member international panel composed of “Palestine,” Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and Israel, on which Israel would obviously be permanently and automatically outvoted. But its very membership would acknowledge an Israeli connection to the Mount, and that was unacceptable to the Palestinians.

And then there’s the issue of borders. “Everyone knows” (except the Israeli majority, which doesn’t count) that the border must be based on the 1967 lines, with 1:1 territorial swaps for a few settlement blocs, since relocating 300,000 settlers is unfeasible. Yet the Palestinians rejected exactly that when Olmert offered it last year. Olmert proposed swaps equivalent to 6 percent of the West Bank, but the Palestinians say their maximum is 2-3 percent. It’s not enough for them to get the equivalent of 100 percent of the territory; they want the satisfaction of making Israel suffer by having to throw hundreds of thousands of Israelis out of their homes.

So it really doesn’t matter whether “everyone” knows the parameters or not. Because until someone manages to convince the Palestinians that Israel’s cultural, spiritual, and physical suicide isn’t part of the deal, there isn’t going to be one.

Love of the Land: Can the Palestinians Recite Them, Too?