Obama calls for 1967 Israel-Palestine border debate

[h4mza]

US President Barack Obama has insisted that the "1967 border" must be the "basis for negotiations" to set up a future Palestinian state.

In a Middle East policy speech on the state department on Thursday, Mr Obama said the issue was key to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Read more...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13464282

 

[JenGiove]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13464427

Jonathan Marcus BBC Diplomatic Correspondent

A formal US statement that peace must be based on the "1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps" reflects the same language that Hillary Clinton used during comments in Bahrain in February 2010.


At the time she was widely seen as having strayed from her script, though her remarks were taken as a signal of the direction in which the Obama administration was going.


Now it is explicit.


In formal terms, this is a plus for the Palestinians and a blow to Benjamin Netanyahu's government.


The nature and scope of these land swaps that has been one of the central problems in negotiations for a number of years.
Israel has one list of settlement blocks that it wants to retain; the Palestinians not surprisingly, have a more limited list of the settlements that they are prepared to see incorporated into Israel in return for territory elsewhere.