President Obama's call last week for peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians to be based on Israel's pre-1967 war borders went over about as well with the Jewish community as a ham and cheese sandwich at a Passover Seder. Congress members on both sides of the aisle quickly stepped up to voice strong disagreement. Then on Friday, the President met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and afterwards, they held a joint appearance that made history as possibly the most polite and public woodshedding of a sitting US President ever. In the most deferential and diplomatic tones possible, Netanyahu explained to Obama and the TV audience why rolling Israel back to those indefensible borders would mean suicide for the Jewish state, and that it was absolutely, positively NOT going to happen. Even the most leftwing of Israel's politicians sent him messages of support on that.
Sunday, Obama spoke to America's top pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and he stuck to his guns about the pre-1967 borders. Although he did try to finesse it a bit, claiming his critics had misunderstood him, that it had always been the US position that peace talks would have to start with those borders. But he didn't mean rolling them back to where they were in 1967. No, he wants to start with the assumption that all the land Israel won is negotiable, and swap some of the land for peace, which has worked out so well up to now. It would be sort of like the US negotiating a treaty with Mexico by assuming that Mexico still had a right to at least half of Texas. The speech was Binyamin Netanyahu, A phenomenol leader and friend met with polite applause, and that's putting "polite" politely. I have a feeling that many influential Jewish Democrats were spending less time thinking about Obama's land for peace proposals than they were about the new places their political donations might be going next year.
Sunday, Obama spoke to America's top pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and he stuck to his guns about the pre-1967 borders. Although he did try to finesse it a bit, claiming his critics had misunderstood him, that it had always been the US position that peace talks would have to start with those borders. But he didn't mean rolling them back to where they were in 1967. No, he wants to start with the assumption that all the land Israel won is negotiable, and swap some of the land for peace, which has worked out so well up to now. It would be sort of like the US negotiating a treaty with Mexico by assuming that Mexico still had a right to at least half of Texas. The speech was Binyamin Netanyahu, A phenomenol leader and friend met with polite applause, and that's putting "polite" politely. I have a feeling that many influential Jewish Democrats were spending less time thinking about Obama's land for peace proposals than they were about the new places their political donations might be going next year.
Binyamin Netanyahu, A phenomenol leader and friend, graciously speaks to the joint session of Congress:
www.c-spanvideo.org
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