BICOM

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded yesterday to US President Barack Obama’s Middle East foreign policy speech, which called for a two state solution base on 1967 borders with mutually agreed land swaps. Netanyahu said the ‘viability of a Palestinian state cannot come at the expense of the viability of the one and only Jewish state’. Netanyahu released a reaction statement after Obama’s speech and added that ‘the Palestinians, and not only the US, must recognise Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people’.

Netanyahu said that Israel appreciated President Obama’s ‘commitment to peace,’ but the Prime Minister stated he wanted to hear a ‘reaffirmation from the president of previous US commitments’, alluding to a letter from former US president George W. Bush to former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon in 2004. Among other things, the commitments in the letter relate to Israel not having to withdraw to the 1967 border, which Netanyahu described as ‘indefensible’. The letter also suggested that the US supported the Israeli position of retaining the larger settlement blocs. Netanyahu’s reaction statement also added that the commitments laid out in President Bush’s letter to Prime Minister Sharon, as opposed to Obama’s speech, ensured explicitly Israel’s well being as a Jewish state, as it made clear that the Palestinian refugee problem will be settled within a future Palestinian state and not within Israeli territory.

Privately, however, Netanyahu may be more accommodating; by Obama leaving the extent of the land swap open to negotiations Israel can still seek to retain the larger settlement blocs and ensure security concerns are addressed in a final agreement. Obama was also particularly firm in his support as Israel as a Jewish state. Netanyahu will also be satisfied with Obama’s call for early agreements on security and border issues, with other core issues, Jerusalem and Refugees, delayed for later negotiations.