June 03, 2011
Obama and the 1967 Borders for Palestine
In a major address on the Middle East last week, President Obama publicly declared American support for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, a major advance in the public position of the American government. This statement was met with outrage by Prime Minister Netanyahu, who criticized Obama for not understanding that the 1967 borders are “indefensible” for Israel, and represent a threat to its security. But it is not Israel’s security that will be jeopardized, rather its colonial grip on the West Bank and its ongoing attempt to grab more and more land from the Palestinians, thereby preventing any Palestinian state whatsoever.
The American position has undergone a glacially slow evolution over the last 25 years. In the 1980s the United States refused to deal with the PLO, and ignored the issue of the fate of the Palestinians and the Occupied Territories of Gaza and the West Bank. After the Oslo Accords there was a shift toward suggesting that the Palestinians would have some sort of “entity”, but no American official would state publicly support for a Palestinian state.
When Hilary Clinton, as First Lady, made mention of that in 1998, it touched off a firestorm. Exactly where Oslo was supposed to head, if not statehood for the Palestinians, was left unspoken, as neither the Israeli nor the American government had any reason to explicitly accept that basic goal and thereby upset the conservatives in Israel and America.
It was at Camp David that Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians a chopped-up Bantustan of a state, which they rejected, but it was the first time an Israeli government offered even that modest step. In 2003 though, the United States actually sponsored a UN Security Council Resolution calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state. This was a big step forward for Bush, but the borders of that state were left undefined, and there was no effort to actually implement the Resolution.
Under Obama, we have had for the first time now a US government calling for Palestine to exist, and defining loosely that its borders should be based on the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed land swaps, the purpose of which would be to allow the Israelis to keep some of the settlements. Currently, 500,000 Israelis live in settlements built in the occupied territory, almost 10% of Israel’s Jews.
The two main objections Netanyahu makes to the 1967 borders is that they are militarily unsound for Israel (he doesn’t care that Palestine has indefensible borders too), and that the 1967 lines leave the 500,000 Israeli settlers outside of Israel’s borders.
The second objection is utterly absurd. It was the policy of Israel’s government to plant those settlers in occupied territories in complete violation of the Geneva Accords, which make them a war crime, and then to argue against making peace because the settlers would be on the wrong side of the border is preposterous. If Jews could move thousands of miles from Europe to make Israel, they can certainly move 10 miles to evacuate the illegal settlements and make peace with the Palestinians.
The other argument - that the borders put Israel at a military disadvantage - is equally specious. If Israel wants to create militarily secure borders, then there can be no Palestinian state on the West Bank. If there is such a state, it would have to include the major Palestinian cities under even the most minimal circumstances, which doesn’t leave any room for adding extra tens of miles to Israel’s width.
In reality, trying to rope the deep settlements of Ariel and Maale Adumim into Israel requires extending little peninsulas of land from Israel into the West Bank; these are hardly sound in any military. But in a broader sense, Israel’s security challenge is not one of defending against massed tank armies. These days the issues are missiles such as those used by Hezbollah in 2007, and adjusting the West Bank border does not mitigate that. Nor does it address Iran’s nuclear possibilities in any way. In the next 40 years, the real security challenge for Israel is demographic. Already, 60% of the youth population in Israel and Palestine combined is Palestinian. By 2050, 60% or more of the total population will be Palestinian. How can most of that land be given over to a “Jewish” state, when there is a solid majority of non-Jews living there?
The rest of the world is tired of Israel’s games and its obvious desire to extend the occupation permanently. In September, the Palestinians will ask for UN recognition of their state based on the 1967 borders. It will likely get a yes vote in the General Assembly; the real question is will Obama veto it in the Security Council. My suspicion is that Obama will not risk a bruising fight with Israel’s supporters and will exercise a veto. But if he wins reelection in 2012, the matter will be reconsidered, and the American veto will not save Israel a second time. Comments can reach me at nail@socal.rr.com.
