Must Read from NYT's Roger Cohen: Obama Draws the Line

[flpoljunkie]

May 20, 2011
Obama Draws the Line

By ROGER COHEN

LONDON — On the eve of an election year, with Jewish donors and fund-raisers already restive over his approach to Israel, President Obama made a brave speech telling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “the dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation” and urging him to accept Israeli borders at or close to the 1967 lines.

The president got 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008. Perhaps those words will cost him some of those votes — although sentiment toward Israel among American Jews is slowly shifting. But true friends are critical friends. And the American and Israeli national interest do not lie in the poisonous Israeli-Palestinian status quo.

Netanyahu, who will address the U.S. Congress next week, will certainly attempt in response to go over the president’s head to those restive donors and fund-raisers. He’s Israel’s leader, but knows that a core constituency lies in the United States. He will try to outlast Obama, noting that Republican hopefuls like Mitt Romney are already talking of the president throwing “Israel under the bus.” He will try to kick the can down the road. Process without end favors Israel.

Therein lurks the political fight of the next several months. The best Obama and Netanyahu will ever be able to do is position a fig-leaf of decorum over their differences. The worst poison is distrust. These two men have it aplenty for each other.

Obama, in a first for an American president, has now said the border between Israel and Palestine should be “based on the 1967 lines.” Yes, it should. Netanyahu still talks of “Judea and Samaria,” a lexicon that, true to his Likud party’s platform, does not acknowledge those lines but sees one land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Each leader believes Israel’s long-term security depends on his view prevailing.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/opinion/21iht-edcohen21.html?hp

[DCBob]

1. The Israeli argument that they cant defend themselves unless they have all this land as a buffer..

is absurd given the nature of the threats that now exist. Most would agree a nuclear Iran is Israel's biggest threat but no matter how much land they have that will not reduce that threat. However, creating a viable Palestinian state could reduce the tensions in the region and thus reduce the likelyhood of violence.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. A buffer of Israeli settlers?

So Netanyahu accepts setting his own people up as human shields?

It's more complicated than that.

[Igel]

3. It might.

But don't think that one threat makes it unnecessary to protect yourself againat all the other ones.

A meteor might fall on you Monday when you're at work, but that doesn't mean it's okay to leave the keys in the car ignition and your wallet on the front seat, or the front door to your house open. Big and less likely is usually trumped by small and likely. I've always been at greater risk of death from a car crash than from thermonuclear war.

Nuclear Iran is Israel's biggest threat, but it's an unlikely threat. If there's a Palestinian state that's hostile to Israel and Jordan is also hostile, tanks suddenly become the biggest threat if you only have 9 miles from border to beach.

[DCBob]

4. Israel has the most powerful military and security forces in the region..

and the US as their ally. I dont think a few broken down tanks from Palestine/Jordan are much of a threat. Tank wise they have more to fear from Egypt and those borders would not change at all regardless of any deal.