Contributors

Friday, August 05, 2011

Pre-1967?

Remember all that hoopla a while back about President Obama throwing Israel under the bus?

TV: Israel agrees to negotiate over pre-'67 lines

Oh, really?

In a dramatic policy shift, Israel's prime minister has agreed to negotiate the borders of a Palestinian state based on the cease-fire line that marks off the West Bank.

Up to now, Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to spell out his plan for negotiating the border. A senior Israeli official would not confirm outright that the prime minister was now willing to adopt the cease-fire line as a starting point, but said Israel was willing to try new formulas to restart peace talks based on a proposal made by President Barack Obama.

As I suspected a couple of months back, there was (and still is) a lot of local Israeli politics involved in this and not the "throwing to the wolves" that was inaccurately relayed by the faux outrage machine of the right.

As much of an Israeli supporter as I am, they need to budge a little on these issues and they are the ones right now that are holding up serious movement towards peace in the region.

1 comment:

Nikto said...

This is welcome news.

Israel has to do something, and fairly soon. In another 10 or so years Israelis will be outnumbered by Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Territories. A democracy cannot be a permanent occupying force, denying more than half the people under its rule basic democratic rights, and still be considered a democracy. For almost 50 years now Israel has been an apartheid regime along the lines of South Africa.

There's really no other choice other than to base the new borders on the '67 boundaries. Too many people are still alive and can remember exactly what happened then to sweep the facts under the rug and pretend that Israel somehow deserves to keep all the land they have stolen over the years.

And in the grand scheme, the details of Israel's creation are far too similar to the Palestinian's desire for their own country for Israel to deny them this basic right.

Many Arab countries are undergoing internal revolutions that may blossom into real democracies, so it's a perfect time for Israel to go forward and score a lot of points. A non-antagonistic Israel may well give the moderates in Arab countries a leg up in their elections, undercutting the rhetoric of Muslim extremists, and may make Israel far safer in the long run.

If Israel does the right thing they could be surrounded by countries that have become politically similar to Jordan and Turkey, instead of contemporary Iran and Syria.