President Barack Obama is set to deliver a hotly anticipated speech tomorrow to "argue that the political upheaval [in the Arab world] raises the prospect for progress on all fronts, and will offer 'some specific new ideas about U.S. policy toward the region,'" the New York Times reports. And according to a report in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronoth, Obama will "call upon Israel to withdraw to the 1967 lines, with border alterations that will be agreed upon with the Palestinian Authority"--a move that would "disturb" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But perhaps Netanyahu has little to worry about. The Obama administration has already backtracked on the 1967 borders in private meetings with Palestinian officials, according to documents released by Al Jazeera as part of the "Palestine Papers." The backtracking on the 1967 lines came despite an an affirmation in the Bush administration-backed "Road Map" on Middle East peace that the '67 borders would be the border for Israel and a Palestinian state.
Analysis by Ali Abunimah for Al Jazeera indicates how little a commitment to the 1967 borders by Obama in his speech Thursday could mean:
In apparently contentious meetings between Mitchell and Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat and their respective teams in September and October 2009 -- whose detailed contents have been revealed for the first time -- Mitchell claimed the Bush administration position was nonbinding. He pressed the Palestinians to accept terms of reference that acquiesced to Israel's refusal to recognize the 1967 line which separates Israel as it was established in 1948 from the West Bank and Gaza Strip where Palestinians hoped to have their state...
At a critical 21 October 2009 meeting, [George] Mitchell read out proposed language for terms of reference:
"The US believes that through good faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome that achieves both the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state encompassing all the territory occupied in 1967 or its equivalent in value, and the Israeli goal of secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meets Israeli security requirements."
Erekat's response was blunt: "So no Road Map?" The implication of the words "or equivalent in value" is that the US would only commit to Palestinians receiving a specific amount of territory -- 6258 square kilometers, or the equivalent area of the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- but not to any specific borders.
Alex Kane, a freelance journalist based in New York City, blogs on Israel/Palestine and Islamophobia at alexbkane.wordpress.com, where this post originally appeared. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.
It is hard to know what “same value” means. “Value” to whom? “Same” as determined by whom? When would “same” and “value” be determined? And by whom?
Is empty land of the same value as the same land area with massive buildings and other infrastructure on it? Would the land upon which various Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem (in occupied East Jerusalem) are built be of equal “value” if the buildings and other infrastructure were first removed (per UNSC-465 (1980))?
Is land at the tops of hills, where, generally, Israel built its settlements, of the same value as lower land?
Would land (inside pre-1967 Israel) with Jewish Israelis living on it be offered as of “same value” as land upon which no-one was living? To keep the “neighborhoods”, would Israel trade land elsewhere (that is, inside pre-1967 Israel) upon which an equal number of Jewish Israelis (and no Arab Israelis) are now living, the people to be cleared off as part of the peace deal?
To what extent does this remarkable formula regarding “equal value” amount to saying that Israel may keep what it illegally appropriated during occupation?
What would this formula amount to in practice, if Israel were required to remove all settlers, the wall, and the settlements (buildings) BEFORE any trades were made? Would Israel still want to exchange land if there were no buildings (or Israeli people) on it?
I think land “value” in this context is to some extent a subjective measure referring to the value that the respective sides attach to it. Two pieces of land are swappable when the value that one side attaches to one is equal to the value the other side attaches to the other, regardless of what is standing on them. For example, Israel wants the Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem. In return, it proposed in 2008 to make a land swap for them. The Israelis said it was making a fair offer because it was offering a swap on a 1:1 basis. The PLO said in principle it would entertain land swaps for all Israel’s E. Jerusalem settlements (except for the ones that would make Palestine’s contiguity impossible, ie Jabal Abu Ghneim & Ras al Amoud) but it wouldn’t accept this particular swap, because the land that was being offered comprised a bunch of sand dunes abutting the Gaza Strip. Israel argued that all land is equal, but Condoleezza Rice – may God forgive me for putting her in a good light – agreed with the Palestinians that all land is not equal. In answer to the question of what is Jerusalem land equal to, she came up with the formula that Jerusalem is equal to Jerusalem. So for everything Israel wanted to keep of what it had seized in E Jerusalem, it would have had to give up something on the Western side, which is a different kettle of fish altogether from a bunch of sand dunes. What the PLO wanted if Israel had accepted that formula was the land in the W Jerusalem area which Zionists had depopulated in 1947/8 but not subsequently developed. Economically, it might not be a good deal for them to swap developed land for undeveloped, but to the PLO the “value” of that particular land lay in the fact that it gave thousands of refugees a literal right to return to their former homes, which made it prime real estate. So the “value” of a piece of land isn’t necessarily about the price of land or the cost of buildings or infrastructure, but is also a more subjective thing to do with the significance one side or the other attaches to it.
That whole “border alterations” is such a farce.
It’s akin to telling someone, “Look, I’ll give you all your money back”…
- All my money back?
- That’s right, all your money back.
- All $25?
- Yes. All $25.
- Ok. So, what do I have to do?
- All you have to do is pay me a one-time $20 processing fee.
- What?
- A $20 proce…
- Yes I heard you. Are you out of your mind?
- Look, pal, that’s my offer. Take it or leave it.
- OK, ok. Here’s your $20 processing fee. Now, can I have my $25 back?
- OK. Here’s the thing; I gave my brother $20 of the money I took from you. But, as soon as he’s back from his trip to Cambodia, I’ll ask him about the money. OK? In the meantime, here is the $5 I have left of those $25.
- You have got to be kidding me.
- No. But, I’ll call you as soon as I get the money from him, OK?
- Well, in the meantime, give me back the $20 processing fee I gave you.
- Ummm no, sorry. A deal is a deal. See ya.
Can anyone guess which party in this exchange is Israel?
The “peace process” is a joint criminal enterprise concocted to find some plausible way for Israelis and Americans to get around the prohibitions contained in the Fourth Geneva Convention (Articles 7, 8, and 49) against population transfer and against the conclusion of any “special agreement” with an occupying power that would surrender the rights of displaced Palestinians.
The whole endeavor is mental masturbation. Any final settlement agreement which attempts to do that will be null and void from the outset in accordance with the law of treaties codified in the Vienna Convention of 1969.
While we are at it, the UN General Assembly has recognized the State of Palestine and its borders. It has already:
*Acknowledged the 1988 Declaration of the State of Palestine in line with “the exercise of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people” to self-determination. See resolution 43/177;
*Said that Palestinian statehood is not subject to the peace process or to any veto. See operative paragraphs 1 & 2 of resolution 55/87
*Adopted UN reports and resolutions on credentials that mention “their State, Palestine”. They describe the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 as “their territory” and say that “the credentials of the delegation of Israel do not cover that territory”. See A/58/L.48, 15 December 2003; General Assembly 58/292, 17 May 2004.
*The verbatim record of the General Assembly discussion of resolution 58/292 indicates the words “pre-1967 borders” had replaced the words “Armistice Line of 1949”. See <a href="The “peace process” is a joint criminal enterprise concocted to find some plausible way for Israelis and Americans to get around the prohibitions contained in the Fourth Geneva Convention (Articles 7, 8, and 49) against population transfer and against the conclusion of any “special agreement” with an occupying power that would surrender the rights of displaced Palestinians.
The whole endeavor is mental masturbation. Any final settlement agreement which attempts to do that will be null and void from the outset in accordance with the law of treaties codified in the Vienna Convention of 1969.
While we are at it, the UN General Assembly has recognized the State of Palestine and its borders. It has already:
*Acknowledged the 1988 Declaration of the State of Palestine in line with “the exercise of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people” to self-determination. See resolution 43/177;
*Said that Palestinian statehood is not subject to the peace process or to any veto. See operative paragraphs 1 & 2 of resolution 55/87
*Adopted UN reports and resolutions on credentials that mention “their State, Palestine”. They describe the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 as “their territory” and say that “the credentials of the delegation of Israel do not cover that territory”. See A/58/L.48, 15 December 2003; General Assembly 58/292, 17 May 2004.
*The verbatim record of the General Assembly discussion of resolution 58/292 indicates the words “pre-1967 borders” had replaced the words “Armistice Line of 1949”. See <a href="link to un.org
The United Nations Economic and Social Council recognizes the State of Palestine:
*The ESCWA forms part of the United Nations Secretariat and, like the other regional commissions, operates under the supervision of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. “ESCWA comprises 13 States, viz., Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Republic, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. See page 5 of link to escwa.un.org
The Human Rights Council recognizes the State of Palestine:
*The Palestinian follow-up actions to the Goldstone report included a decree signed by the President of the State of Palestine. See Report of the Secretary-General, UN Document A/64/651, 4 February 2010 para 5 and Annex II
*Resolution A/HRC/16/L.31 indicates “Palestine*” is a non-member State of the Human Rights Council.
Ages ago a YNet News report “Abbas: Palestinian state an existing fact” stated that during a public rally President Abbas had said, “An independent Palestinian state is a truth recognized by the world, and we are now leading a battle to have its border recognized.”
Right-wing hasbara news sources complained when Prime Minister Barak admitted that “withdrawal to recognized borders” obviously meant the 1967 borders:
The United Nations Economic and Social Council recognizes the State of Palestine:
*The ESCWA forms part of the United Nations Secretariat and, like the other regional commissions, operates under the supervision of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. “ESCWA comprises 13 States, viz., Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Syrian Arab Republic, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. See page 5 of link to escwa.un.org
The Human Rights Council recognizes the State of Palestine:
*The Palestinian follow-up actions to the Goldstone report included a decree signed by the President of the State of Palestine. See Report of the Secretary-General, UN Document A/64/651, 4 February 2010 para 5 and Annex II
*Resolution A/HRC/16/L.31 indicates “Palestine*” is a non-member State of the Human Rights Council.
Ages ago a YNet News report “Abbas: Palestinian state an existing fact” stated that during a public rally President Abbas had said, “An independent Palestinian state is a truth recognized by the world, and we are now leading a battle to have its border recognized.”
Right-wing hasbara news sources complained when Prime Minister Barak admitted that “withdrawal to recognized borders” obviously meant the 1967 borders:
The link for Barak’s Cabinet meeting remarks and the (mis)quotes and dissimulation of the hasbarists in response is: link to imra.org.il
I’m not sure I agree with the line of reasoning underlying this post. It suggests you can’t believe what Obama says on the 1967 borders because he backtracked on earlier US Administrations’ acceptance of them. There are plenty of reasons not to believe what Obama says on Palestine, but this isn’t a good argument because the previous two administrations didn’t really accept the 67 borders either. As long as the US has managed a peace process that continued regardless of Israel’s settlement program beyond the 67 borders, it has been complicit in undermining them. Clinton also abandoned them behind closed doors at Camp David and Bush II did so explicitly in his “demographic realities” letter to Sharon. (The reference to 1967 in the Road Map was just a bone tossed to a dog, to placate Arab sentiment in the immediate run-up to the invasion of Iraq).
So I think the underlying dynamic is wrong. The point is not that Obama is paying lip service to 1967 but you can’t trust him because he’s privately worse than his predecessors. The point is that Obama, like both his predecessors, was until at least 2009 an enabler of Israel’s erasure of the Green Line, but is now being forced to publicly acknowledge the international consensus on that border, because the US has lost control of the process and is scrambling to get aboard a train it fears it is no longer driving.
The shock to me was the reversal of George Mitchell’s position in the Palestine Papers. President Bush attended the summit that gave Mitchell his original mandate. The Report of the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee (aka “The Mitchell Report”) left no doubt that its members did not accept the Israeli position that “the expansion of settlement activity and the taking of measures to facilitate the convenience and safety of settlers do not prejudice the outcome of permanent status negotiations.” The Mitchell Report called that activity illegal and said that resolution 242 required Israel to withdraw from Arab territory acquired by force:
“During the June War of 1967, Israeli armed forces occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed in 1968, restated the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and applied this international principle specifically to the Israeli occupation of Arab territory. Since then, all serious efforts to end the Israeli-Arab conflict have depended on implementation of this resolution requiring the Israeli withdrawal from Arab territory acquired by force and the subsequent termination of all states of belligerency.
Security Council Resolution 1322, consideration of which forms part of this Committee’s mandate, makes explicit reference to several other Security Council resolutions, all of which emphasize the de jure applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention (“Convention”) to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the illegality of Israel’s unilateral annexation of Jerusalem and of the steps Israel has taken to change the city’s character. The international community, including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, has repeatedly affirmed that the Convention applies de jure to the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the International Court of Justice has noted that the Geneva Conventions are customary international law as well. Israel itself originally recognised the Convention’s de jure applicability but subsequently reversed itself.
The Committee’s recommendations are in line with the Convention, and appear directly linked to the Convention’s application. Israel’s settlement policy, for example, is “illegal under international law” precisely because of the application of Article 49 of the Convention which prohibits the transfer of an Occupying Power’s civilian population into the territory it occupies.” …
“CONCLUSION
Israel’s emphasis on security considerations alone, while taken very seriously by the Palestinians, cannot dictate the course of peace talks or attempts to end the current crisis. The PNA has repeatedly expressed its desire to resume security cooperation with Israel within the context of those elements necessary to make such cooperation sustainable. The Committee has correctly identified that security cooperation is not sustainable without meaningful political negotiations and that such negotiations cannot exist while Israel continues to colonise the territory from which it is ostensibly negotiating a withdrawal.”
“Border alterations” large enough to drive through any number of trucks and trains. Obama just has to clear it with Netanyahu on how big to make these alterations,
say 99 and 44/100 % of the land that hasn’t yet been stolen, for starters. Plunder comes easy, especially easy to those politicians who calls themselves liberal.
Israel is not doing as well as the hasbaradim would have us think
This is funny and a sign of the times.
It’s a session at the AIPAC conference.
Israel has shot itself in the foot with Turkey, it has lost Egypt and it is a sworn enemy of Iran. Some analysts reckon these countries are going to grow exponentially over the next few decades.
Israel is now exploring links with Greece ! Greece is in the middle of a debt crisis.
Israel and the World – Building New Alliances
As geopolitical realities in the Middle East and the Mediterranean evolve, so too do Israel’s strategic relations in the region. While the Jewish state’s ties with Turkey have strained in recent years, its alliances with countries such as Greece, Bulgaria and former Eastern Bloc states have strengthened. Our panel delves into Israel’s warming relations with its regional partners
Israelis can’t not boast even when they are desperate. My son the failed medical student syndrome.
Israel turning to Greece and Bulgaria. Kind of makes sense. Its policy has been to Balkanise the Middle East, so now that’s starting to fail, where better to turn to than the Balkans themselves? Probably best not to mention that it’s a graveyard of empires.
More seriously, it’s good to have posts like seafoid’s above that look towards the future of the Middle East and remind us how weak Israel’s strategic position really is.
The Zionist posters here tend confirm this strategic weakness by their inability to even look ahead 10 years and say where Israel will be (literally in the sense of its borders). The usual excuse is that it’s to be negotiated with the Palestinians. That’s like the US saying its strategy in Latin America depends on what can be negotiated with Cuba.
Ironically, it looks like the future of Israel is in the hands of the Palestinians. Just not in the way the Zionists would like to have us think.
If I was a bond investor I’d be worried. It’s all very well pumping up Greece and Bulgaria but what sort of extra trade is Israel going to manage and is it justified by all that is going to be lost by giving Turkey the 2 fingers?
What’s funny now, although I suppose it’s only the next logical development of the U.S. being so totally captured by Israel-firsters, is how the U.S. is now quite clearly not just being forced to support Israel, but also to then save it from itself.
That Palestinians, for instance, have clearly said that they are going to move for UN recognition, and all but the craziest Israelis have said this can mean lots of bad things for Israel. (With even the craziest just saying bring it on.)
But, the P’s have also clearly said (stupidly in my view for being so meek), they will not so move for UN recognition if a peace process merely starts up again with the Israelis putting a freeze on developments.
So what does Netanyahu do? Says nope, no freeze even, and we gotta have troops eternally on any Palestinian land along the Jordan, and blah blah blah.
And thus … it’s the U.S. now in the form of Obama pushing Israel to save itself from the UN recognition.
Here’s hoping he fails: The UN does then recognize a Palestinian state, the U.S. opposes it maybe but in any event loses and in any event then has to do more to work to staunch and lessen all the impacts of same on Israel thus increasing the obvious costs to the U.S. of its subservience to Israel, and perhaps hastening the day it all stops.
Two words….International Law.
Einstein said that problems and answers should be stated as simply as possible.
Israel has worked for 60 years to make sure that Israel and I/P isn’t reduced to it’s simple essence.
I/P should go back to where it came from–the UN, and they should refer it to a body of international law attorneys to settle. Period.
Britain agreed to an Israel as a response to their own Jewish political problem in the UK. Then they tossed it to the UN after WWII and then they washed their hands of it and withdrew from trying to oversee and implement the immigration and creation in Palestine.
It has been the US’s problem ever since because the majority of Jews outside of Israel live in the US.
The simplest, most fair, most just settlement of I/P would be the application of international law to the conflict and claims.
I don’t know how long it’s going to take for the US to completely tank but perhaps when that happens it will force the politicos to wash our hands of this and toss it back where it came from.
If I/L were allowed to play a role, the VERY first thing that would happen (or would have happened long ago) is that the law-enforcer (UNSC or UNGA organizing a loose coalition of states for BDS purposes) would ensure Israel’s removal of all settlers once for all; removal of all settlements (buildings) and the wall. See UNSC-465 (1980): it called for removal of settlers and dismantling of all settlements. HOWEVER, it had no enforcement provisions and Israel ignored it.
Merely stating the I/L is not enough. It must be enforced and it will require sanctions of some kind to do that.
it doesn’t realy matter if obama or any other president want to reconize Israel on the 67 borders. the recognizition would be invalid as it would be unconstitutional.