Semantics.... with a little rephrasing there would not be quite such a kerfuffle over his latest speech. Maybe he needs a new speech writer, or to get someone that has a bit of experience in the geopolitical world. There is little place for dreamers in foreign politics, especially when your every word is held to beck and call by thousands around the world.
Right ideas said in the wrong way. Or saying things that are best kept for the discussion table.
We will see if he will learn. NO, probably not, its three years now and still his policy naivete is astonishing. Here's to Hope, not Obama's, but our hope.
update, seems like a few people agree:
Josh Block, the former AIPAC spokesman and a pro-Israel stalwart now at the Progressive Policy Institute, this morning emailed over quotes from several pro-Israel Democratic legislators unhappy with the White House move to formally embrace the 1967 lines around Israel as the basis for future negotiation.
He also suggested language with which Obama could "make clear" something that, unless you're very close to the page, already seemed fairly clear: That he's not proposing withdrawal to the '67 lines.
The language Block suggests:
Everyone understands the lines as they were in 1949/1967 are not defensible, and no one can expect Israel to accept them as final borders, but they can form the basis for negotiation, as they have in the past. As I have said, changes must be mutually agreed, and swaps should compensate for territory exchanged.
22/05/2011:
So to update, at AIPAC conference he admits he was wrong, and changes the lines of the border issue:
“By definition, it means that the parties themselves – Israelis and Palestinians – will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. It is a well known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation. It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years, including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides.”
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