All Americans, nay, all English speakers should read this blog. It appears that the English language has changed nearly overnight because the same comments by President Barack Obama on Sunday garnered a substantially different reaction than those nearly identical remarks on Thursday. Either the English language morphed over the weekend, or Obama critics simply weren’t listening the first time.
On Thursday at the the State Department, Obama outlined his vision for U.S. policy toward the Middle East, which included a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace process and would be centered on the creation of a Palestinian state with Israel pulling back to 1967 borders. Obama added, though, that demographic changes on the ground would permit changes to those borders via a land swap and the final status of Jerusalem, which would be bifurcated by the 1967 border, would be determined later during negotiations.
Obama struck the wrong cord, leading Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to reportedly make an angry call to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But that wasn’t it. A slew of congressmen and right-wing pundits derided the president for, in their eyes, proposing a policy that would lead to Israel’s destruction. From the reaction to Obama’s speech, you would have thought he had committed a capital crime on camera. In reality, Obama was merely articulating the same basic premise of peace negotiations as has been considered for over a decade.
But, a major shift occurred on Sunday morning when Obama spoke to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at its annual conference. He articulated his vision for an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, with borders based on 1967 lines, including land swaps based on new demographic realities. He added that the final status of Jerusalem would be determined at a later date.
Following Obama’s Sunday speech and his meeting with Netanyahu, the concerns of both Netanyahu and Israel supporters were, not completely, but somewhat assuaged. His peace proposal as articulated on Saturday was met with more fanfare and less skepticism, with many critics of the Thursday plan hailing the Saturday proposal as drastically improved.
There’s one problem, though. The Obama policy articulated on Saturday is the same policy mentioned on Thursday — 1967 borders with land swaps and Jerusalem reserved for future debate.
The policy didn’t change. Either the English language or perception did.
Assuming the English language has not been drastically amended over the weekend, different criticism of Obama’s original proposal to the policies articulated on Saturday are wholly unfounded and demonstrate pure partisanship that assumes an Obama proposal is inherently flawed, at best, or even plain old evil, at worst.
Obama’s plan deserves to be scrutinized for its merits, including a return to 1967 borders, give or take. But aside from 1967 borders, there are no other viable borders for the establishment of a Palestinian state. The U.S. government has for decades supported a two-state solution and that border has been envisioned to be based on the 1967 line. Before critics of Obama’s plan leap to oppose it, they should either acknowledge that they in fact do not support a two-state solution or propose a different border. The fact is there is no other viable border, and to speak of a two-state solution is to consider the 1967 border with amendments.
The policy debate on that 1967 border and the two-state solution is worth having, but it’s impossible to have a true discussion when some pundits and policymakers spin every statement from a particular party as unconscionable instead of assessing that policy on its merits.
The shift between the Thursday and Sunday reaction exemplifies just that. On Thursday the response was, by definition, viscerally against the plan. But, once the actual contents of the policy were assessed, reactions were much more temperate and grounded in reality.
For the peace process to ever come to fruition, the actual proposals and their merits must be assessed, so that words one day don’t mean anything different the next.
Map from here.
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