Alex Massie Alex Massie

1967 And All That

How do you reconcile these comments?

Argument A: “Abbas and co have had a laughably free pass despite their serial aggression, bad faith, reneging on treaties and repeated expressions of exterminatory aggression and incitement to hatred and murder of Jews. Yet it’s Israel alone upon which Obama has dumped, by expecting it to make suicidal concessions to its attackers. At best, Obama remains even-handed between Judeophobic exterminators and their victims; that puts him on the side of the exterminators.”

Argument B: “Obama offered the Palestinians nothing.”

They’re from the same post. If B is true then A seems odd; if A is true then B seems even odder.

Meanwhile, it’s worth observing that most people in Israel (or rather most people who think there can be some kind of solution) are much saner than the hysterics in the United States Congress who cannot hear the magic digits 1967 without losing whatever grip on reality they may previously have been thought to enjoy. If you think a Palestinian state of some kind is a necessary part of any peace agreement and if you think Israel must end the Occupation at some point and do so because the Occupation is toxic for Israel itself then the 1967 borders are, almost by definition, where you begin the discussions. But adding land swaps makes it clear the 67 lines are just the broad outline for a settlement. Something like 70 to 80% of the settlements will end up in Israel.

Moreover, it’s apparent that Netanyahu is playing his own game. He has not objected to people talking about 1967 in the past. All this foot-stamping in Washington this week, then, is either daft or a ploy to pretend or persuade people to believe that when Bibi accepts the 67 lines as the outline for renewd talks (if they ever happen) that he’s making some grand and significant concession rather than, as will actually be the case, beginning from the same place as everyone else.

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