TJP

The boss of the US, Israel, has categorically rejected the US position on the 1967 borders. And, Netanyahu before leaving to visit his “junior partner” ordered the building of more settlements in occupied Palestine.

According to the Washington Post, Netanyahu said that the US (Obama) holds an unrealistic view of how to achieve peace in the Middle East. But, many US citizens believe that it is unrealistic to provide Israel with more than three billion dollars a year in US taxpayers’ funds.

They know that money is fungible and therefore US taxpayers’ funds are indirectly used for settlement expansions. Settlement expansions are tantamount to thievery of Palestinian lands.

It is clear that peace between Palestine and Israel would be a disbenefit to Israel. Peace would imply that overtime the US would not continue to fund Israel’s war machine.

Obama should be given credit for telling Netanyahu that the basis of negotiating peace with Palestine is the 1967 borders.

Gideon Levy from Haaretz said that Obama in Friday’s speech exposed the naked truth that Netanyahu does not want peace. Levy also notes that Israel is not a true friend of the United States and many US citizens knows this to be the case.

Ari Shavit, however, argues that Obama should have firmly established the 1967 borders as the end of the process and not a starting point. Thus, he believes that the speech was bad for peace.

Obama in his speech to AIPAC sought to reassure Israel of ironclad US support. However, it is this support that leads to Israel’s intransigence. Why make peace when without it Israel is assure of US taxpayers’ money and military support?

The US should let Israel know, with no uncertainty, that Israel’s misbehavior puts US citizens at risk and adversely affects the world’s view of US foreign policy.

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