US pushing for a two state solution with ’67 lines as the border

T. Belman. Kerry said at same conference:

“Despite the fact that we have spent time and effort to try to get there for these past few years I can tell you that for these next nine months we will not stop working to find a way,”

“And so we will continue to advance the two-state solution as the only solution, because anything else will not be Jewish and it will not be democratic,”

In her pre-state days, Israel embraced the doctrine of taking the war to the enemy, i.e., playing offense, not.defense. The same doctrine should apply in the diplomatic wars.

Instead of reacting to all the initiatives of the PA or the international community, Israel should go on offense, and declare that she will never accept the ’67 lines as the border, even with swaps. She should define the border she will support. Thus the debate will shift from whether the two state solution should be imposed to where the border should be.

Since Bibi accepted the two states for two people, there would be nothing new here except that he would be setting out another demand to add to the demands for a demilitarized state and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

Bibi has failed to mount an offense on the location of the border or even a defense. Israel must take this issue on, not hide from it, by not making our own claims.

Not only should we mount an offense on the borders, we must act like we mean it by building within the land we claim, just as we are doing on the Golan.

By REUTERS

VP Joe Biden on Monday acknowledged “overwhelming frustration” with the Israeli government and said the systemic expansion of Jewish settlements was moving Israel toward a dangerous “one-state reality” and in the wrong direction.

Addressing the J Street lobby group in Washington, Biden said despite disagreements with Israel over settlements or the Iran nuclear deal, the United States had an obligation to push Israel toward a two-state solution to end the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

“We have an overwhelming obligation, notwithstanding our sometimes overwhelming frustration with the Israeli government, to push them as hard as we can toward what they know in their gut is the only ultimate solution, a two-state solution, while at the same time be an absolute guarantor of their security,” Biden said.

A two-state solution envisages a Palestinian state on most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, lands Israel captured in a 1967 war, and an Israeli state that absorbs some of the settlements Israel built on occupied land in return for mutually agreed land swaps.

Biden said his recent meetings with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas left him discouraged over the prospects for peace at present.

“There is at the moment no political will that I observed among Israelis or Palestinians to move forward with serious negotiations,” Biden said, “The trust that is necessary to take risks for peace is fractured on both sides.”

He said both Palestinians and Israelis needed to tamp down rhetoric that fueled violence and actions that undermined confidence in negotiations.

Efforts by the Palestinian Authority to join the international criminal court were “only damaging moves that take us further from the path to peace,” he said.

For Israel’s part, Biden said the “steady, systematic expansion” of Jewish settlements on occupied land wanted by the Palestinians moved “Israel in the wrong direction.”

“They are moving toward a one-state reality and that reality is dangerous,” Biden said, warning that moving in that direction would mean an endless cycle of conflict and retribution.

Biden condemned the bombing of a bus and attack on another in Jerusalem on Monday by “misguided cowards” and offered prayers to the injured and their families.