The two face solution

President Obama’s statement of the obvious yesterday–that the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine should be based on Israel’s 1967 borders, with agreed land swaps–has created a furor.  This is difficult to understand. All the serious talks on borders have started with 1967 as the basis, even if that hasn’t been explicitly endorsed by American presidents and secretaries of state.

Rob Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs waxes passionate but incoherent on the subject:

The idea of land swaps, which may very well be a solution that the parties themselves choose to pursue, sounds very different when endorsed by the president of the United States. In effect, it means that the U.S. view is that resolution of the territorial aspect of the conflict can only be achieved if Israel cedes territory it held even before the 1967 war.

Yes, that’s right, if Israel wants to preserve some of the settlements on the West Bank, it will have to give up land it held before 1967, precisely the idea that the Washington Institute explored thoroughly in a January 2011 publication and one of its stalwarts supported in an op/ed yesterday.

So why do Prime Minister Netanyahu and his supporters get so upset when the President says something that other Israeli prime ministers accepted long ago?  The answer, I am afraid, is that Netanyahu is not like other Israeli prime ministers.  It is not just the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiation that he rejects.  He also rejects the idea of a two-state solution.  He has occasionally talked the right talk, under strong pressure and with caveats about recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, but he does not walk the walk.

This is because his attachment to the settlements is far stronger than that of other Israeli prime ministers.  This is apparent from the efforts of his supporters to claim American support for settlement activity that simply does not exist, as explained by former Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer.  Netanyahu has no intention of being the Israeli prime minister who recognizes a viable Palestinian state, because he knows this means abandonment of settlements to which he is committed for ideological and practical reasons:  they make the land of Israel whole and provide him with ample political support.

Obama has called Netanyahu’s bluff.  Netanyahu has demonstrated that he says he supports the two-state solution while in fact trying to block it.  His is a two face solution.