BICOM

In an address to the State Department on US Middle East foreign policy yesterday, US President Barack Obama devoted a considerable amount of time to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Obama called for the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be negotiated with the outcome being a viable Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel. Obama added that he believed the borders of Israel and a Palestinian state should be based on the 1967 borders with mutually agreed swaps in order to create secure and recognised borders.  

The US president said that his country cannot impose a solution, but what America and the International community can do is ‘state frankly what everyone knows – a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples: Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people’. 

On the Palestinian side, Obama said that the Palestinians should have a ‘sovereign and non-militarised state’ and that provisions be made to stop terrorism and weapons smuggling to ensure secure borders. The description of Palestine as a ‘non-militarised state’ will fuel concerns in Jerusalem that the president may not support Israel’s stated objective of an IDF presence along the Jordan River. Instead, Obama called for a fully phased withdrawal by the IDF coordinated with the Palestinians. Adding that moving forward with security and territorial conditions now would provide the foundation to resolve the more emotional and core issues of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees at a later stage.

The address, Obama’s first major speech on the region since he visited Cairo in June 2009, is seen as an effort to raise US’s involvement in the peace process since the Palestinians left direct talks last year. It also comes at a time when the Palestinians intend to seek UN support for a unilaterally declared Palestinian state. Obama strongly rejected this policy in his speech, saying that ‘efforts to delegitimise Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent state. …Palestinians will never realise their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist’.

Obama’s speech starts a busy week of Middle East diplomacy in Washington, with a meeting between President Obama today, speeches at AIPAC conference on Sunday by Obama and by Netanyahu on Monday, and a rare speech to a joint meeting of Congress by Netanyahu on Tuesday. Together, they will set the agenda for US policy in the region in the build-up to the 2012 presidential elections.