ICYMI: 1967 with Swaps Has Been Basis of Talks through Bush, Clinton

Washington, DC - During President Obama’s speech today, he reiterated the American position that the “borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” The same basis and approach was used previously during the Obama Administration, and by Presidents Bush and Clinton before in their negotiations between the parties, as noted by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic below.

As The Atlantic reported:

I’m amazed at the amount of insta-commentary out there suggesting that the President has proposed something radical and new by declaring that Israel’s 1967 borders should define—with land-swaps—the borders of a Palestinian state. I’m feeling a certain Groundhog Day effect here. This has been the basic idea for at least 12 years. This is what Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat were talking about at Camp David, and later, at Taba. This is what George W. Bush was talking about with Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. So what’s the huge deal here? Is there any non-delusional Israeli who doesn’t think that the 1967 border won’t serve as the rough outline of the new Palestinian state?

Secretary Clinton discussed similar principles in February 2010:

‘The United States is working with the Israelis, the Palestinians, and our Arab partners to re-launch meaningful negotiations as soon as possible and without preconditions. We believe that through good faith negotiations, the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.’