This president refuses to understand that the majority of Palestinines DON"T want peace....they want the DEATH AND DESTRUCTION OF ALL JEWS....Now, you tell me how you make peace with that?....and as a little history lesson.....In 1967, the Israelis fought the bloody 6 days war to secure the Golon Heights; TO EXPECT THE ISRAELIS TO GIVE THIS AREA BACK TO PALESTINE IS UNTHINKABLE. There would be NO way for them to protect themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DMXzgBfQyc&feature=player_embedded

Why is it I keep coming back to the bible to get my confusion added to?

Take Israel. Doesn’t the bible have it all laid out? Doesn’t the bible already have the final 2,000 years prophesized? IF all these people that argue about what to do about the Israel/Palestinian problem really DO believe their bible as they claim to, then why worry about it? How it all ends is already all laid out, right? Something doesn’t wash, does it?

BUT- as far as Republican criticism yesterday of Obama’s position, what does it matter? If Obama’s position is that the Earth revolves around the Sun, they would come out in droves to heap ridicule on THAT, too. And you know it. All of you.

(BTW- TA, I think I heard 'with land swaps' in the proposal, that would be intended to provide a way to keep security safeguards for Israel in place, vs. a flat-out 'like it was in 1967' deal....)

I know what you and I heard yesterday DBO but TA and those like him only heard "I hate Israel". So what he said has been in the mix for at least 25 years but as soon as Obama said it, it was brand new and obviously wrong.

Is it the fact that Obama has been honest about things and even tho there are still somethings left undone, he has been the best President we've had in a long time that just drives the right crazy?

I cannot belive the complaining I've heard from the right about the same things they advocated recently.

I, for one, feel that if Israel is going to demand that the Palestinians recognize THEIR Nation and right to exist, then Israel needs to acknowledge the Palestinian's right to exist and to have their own Nation, untrammeled by the Israeli military and unoccupied by the settler's enclaves, which have broken the West bank into small pieces.

I also see that peace, true peace for the Israelis and Palestinians will not come until the Hardliners on both sides are removed from power. It is in the interest of the Hardliners, on both sides, to keep the conflict going, through any means possible so as to continue the artificial "State of Emergency" which has become a "Permanent Emergency." The Hardliners in Israel keep their own people SCARED of the Palestinians, and keep the Palestinians inflamed at them, thus giving a reason for the Israeli people to be scared. The Hardliners thus get their power, and keep it, by terrorizing both the opposite side as well as their OWN side and perpetuate the status quo for their own ends and profit. The Palestinian Hardliners mirror the Israelis for much the same reasons. There are no innocents amongst the Hardliners, on either side.

In order for this to cease, the Israelis need to completely Leave ALL of their settlements that do not conform to the 1967 Border and the Palestinians need to acknowledge Israel's right to exist and forswear military action UNLESS THEY ARE THEMSELVES ATTACKED. Any Nation MUST have the right of self-defense, but the Palestinians MUST also NOT attack Israel, either with military force or through terrorism. Likewise, Israel needs to reign in it's own hardliners, Zionists and Colonial Settlers and ALLOW the Palestinians to live in peace. If you want safety and security, you have to assure the other side of their own safety, security and sovereignty. Without this, there will not be peace for either side.

Israel has the Largest, Most Modern and Best Armed military in the area and also posses nuclear arms and now with their Iron Dome anti-missile defense they should be able to defend themselves from the home-made rockets and even the few of higher tech (still woefully behind anything that Israel has) rockets that Hamas or other agencies have smuggled in as well. To say that the 1967 Border is undefensible is a bunch of BULL, especially with the strength of the Israeli Military Machine.

The typical response of Israel to the usually ineffective rocket fire from Gaza is like smashing a fly with a sledgehammer, massive over use of force against a captive population, and even with their high precision armaments, they usually kill women, children and non-combatants when they try to get the 'militants' that they are after.

Please understand, I do not, and never have, condoned the terrorism, that is, the attacking unarmed women, children and non-combatants through bombings or rocket fire. However, it is also true that BOTH sides are conducting this type of operation, the Palestinians with what little resources that they have, and the Israelis with their vastly superior force. Look at the use of white phosphorus during the Operation Cast Lead and the fact that the Israelis kill OVER 100 Palestinians for every Israeli killed. This HAS to stop, from BOTH sides! It is not just one side making war against the other, the settlements are blatant military occupation of the Palestinian's lands and the Palestinians are rightfully mad about it and trying to fight back with any means possible, as they can plainly see that the Israelis are taking ALL of their best farm lands, their sources for fresh water and confining them to the desert areas and strictly limiting their movement while at the same time, exploiting them as a cheap source of labor that has no rights.

At one point, while being threatened for it's existence, Israel was totally in the right defending itself. However, now it is the Palestinians who are in the right trying to defend themselves from a greatly superior military that is taking the best of what they have and leaving them the scraps, confining them to unsuitable lands and denying them the right to have a full, unfettered existence.

You would think that the Israelis, who have continually guilt tripped the entire world about the Holocaust for generations that had NOTHING to do with that horror, would recognize that THEY are the aggressors now, that the Palestinians had nothing to do with that horror and to inflict similar horrors on an otherwise defenseless people is just as bad as what happened to them. No, there are no ovens and cyanide showers, but a slow lingering death on the other side of a wall that cut your farmland to pieces, roads that separate you from your family, the best lands and the water being taken by a military occupation and not being able to move about freely for over 60 years now, is just as bad in the scale of human suffering.

Israel, if it TRULY wants a lasting peace, is going to HAVE to make the first moves and evacuate their settlements and remove themselves back to the 1967 Borders and tear down the wall where it does not conform to that border. It is that or they will continue to be considered the aggressors in the situation that they now hold. It is up to them, continue to be the huge bully, or hold out the hand and make the true moves towards peace.

And the liberals accuse the right of wanting to "live in the past" while obama insists that we turn back the clock to 1967.

What is next for obama, Russia reconstituting the Sviet union so we can have a return to the arms and space race?. I know, lets return China back to the type of rule they had under Mao. That would take care of all those pesky imports from China.

Rather than thinking forward, obama seems to now want to think backwards.

Thanks for your ignorance and arrogance. You're a lot of help.

American, You have to think backwards when your leading from behind.

What I had hoped the President would say was:

"Recent events in the Middle East have developed quite rapidly. Their outcomes are hard to predict. The situation in many areas of the region will continue to remain fluid."

"I want to convey to you our best assessment of (a) what's going on, (b) the importance of each situation to the region, the globe and our own national interests, (c) the overarching principles that shape our policies and (d) how, within the context of the unique circumstances each situation presents, we must remain flexible in our response yet true to our core principles."

"If it were easy, all I'd have to do would be to pull a solution out of a Middle East Instruction Manual; but events in the region are far from easy. They're complicated and they're complex. What I want to do today is to help us all make better sense of a confusing state of affairs fraught with considerable risk but also impressive opportunity."

(and then go on to lay out an overall plan whereby the US is "there to help" people in need; using a broad array of financial, military, political and social resources - according to the unique situation each case presents and its potential risk & reward to us as a nation).

I think that's what the President was attempting to do. If so, I'm not sure he accomplished that goal - i.e. I'm not sure he was effective toward explaining the nature and scope of the situation and his rationale for doing what he planned to do.

Kind of like a Chinese meal without the fortune cookie at the end.

To me, the most important part of this whole deal should be that "we're here to help - if and when requested - and not to impose our will on anyone."

I don't know what the title "Summer of 67" means, but the Palestinians have lived into a menacing "winter since 1967!" And that is because the Israelis control the U.S. government. And ironically they do that by regurgitating back some of the $ 3.5 BILLIONS [with capital letters!] we give them as "free aid" annually - plus military aid, to buy influence in the U.S. congress and from the presidential candidates. This is the kick-back scheme of the century that we prefer to sweep under the rug, and it is also the hook that the Israelis have used to pull a superpower by the nose! And whenever someone has exposed that insidious bribe and conquer Jewish policy, they just dismiss him or her as an “anti-Semitic” person.

No one, however, can dismiss the fact that they have used our aid money to build all the good land in the West bank for Jewish settlers, and they have surrounded it with a 35 feet high cement wall. Now they are building feverishly in Palestinian East Jerusalem, while they kill time with phony negotiations until they finish their sinister expropriation of that land too. And when they have expropriated and walled all the good West bank land and East Jerusalem, they can probably offer the creation of a Palestinian state in the remaining rocky hills and arid land. Even goat herders won't be able to scrape a living there!

Worse yet, for Palestinians, is the fact that Israel has made it clear that it will control the borders of any Palestinian state, as well as control its airspace, and roads leading to it, plus it will have the right in the “declaration of any Palestinan state" to send in its army to make arrests to any suspected anti-Israeli elements! The Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan has called that kind of state "an open air prison." Plus, Palestinians refugees won't be allowed to return and settle there. Such a state will be like an Indian Reservation here - but without our federal funding that sustain the reservations. The Palestinians will have to beg their Arab brothers for funding to survive. And that is "ALL" the Israelis have offered the Palestinians since the 1667 Arab Israeli war, and since the 1993 Oslo Accords! Does anybody see a "SUMMER of 67“ in Middle East now?

Obama's speech doesn't do anything to help the Palestinians. The "land swap" he is demanding the Palestinians to accept presupposes the concept that the Israelis will keep the illegally expropriated fertile Palestinian land and offer them rocky hills as a swap on a "take-it-or leave it basis!" Palestinians already cannot harvest most of their olive trees in their occupied land, and many trees are destroyed by Jewish settlers who claim the land as theirs! They cannot plant new olive trees on arid land, not they can raise sheep and goats in it!

Obama's speech, therefore, is not a relude to a "Summer of 67," but a stunt to scuttle the Arab initiative to have the U.N. General Assembly vote for the declaration of a Palestinian state. That vote will not create a Palestinian state, but it will expose the U.S. collusion on the "grab-and-built the Palestinian land" policy of Israel with U.S. funding, and it will also prove that about 90% of the U.N. members states are on the Palestinians side! And such a vote will also blow away the U.S. and Israeli propaganda that the “international community” is on their side, while the Palestinians - and Muslims in general- are either terrorists, or prone to terrorism if they dispute the U.S. and Israeli hegemony on Middle East. Nikos Retsos, retired professor

So this article's comment section has pretty much turned into a minefield of stupid.

The Bottom line it's time for both parties to work out their mess, religious factions?? and we are not going to send our children to fight and die to resolve their issues it's like a bunch of teenagers fighting for a zillion years.

For some this is a big issue however, they don't live in the middle east, have no idea what the real problems are and love to opine.

Bottom line it's Jesus's country and if they, God's chosen people can't figure out how to handle this mess and make peace neither can the Monday Morning Quarterbacks!

There is something known as 'shared sacrifice'. This means that everything is on-the-table. That may have to include less foreign aid to Israel. This doesn't mean that the United States is 'turning its back' on a long time friend and ally; or, throwing Israel 'under the bus'. Instead it means a need for open dialogue with its neighbors may be necessary for Israel to survive.

Now, I can't say that when Admiral Halsey re-created a sovereign state for the Jewish people he took-in all future possiblities for unrest and wars. Obviously he didn't. But the Israeli people have shown time and time again that they have the capacity to deal with challenges. I see no loss of that resolve today. The time has come for Israel and its people to take a step; possibly in a new direction, with regards to establishing peace and mutual respect between itself and its neighbors. Make no mistake, the United States will never waver in its support for the Israeli people.

The analogy, Germany hates France, and vice versa. Germany goes to war in 1871 to take back land, Alsace-Lorraine, which the French had taken under Louis X1V. (Strasbourg is hardly a French sounding name). The French and the Germans continue to maintain large armies because of mutual distrust. The French government want French women to have more babies out of fear they will be over run by a German population. Then you had a crazed anarchist, a dying monarchy, and an assassination in a far away place, and you get WW1. The Germans, now without Alsace - Lorraine, still hate the French, and vice versa - and you add a crazed unemployed painter to the mix? I think every president since LBJ has thought, but not said out loud, that in the modern age you can't expect peace based on retaining conquered territory. The state of Israel is a fiction, and so is the state of Palestine. The former was created by map drawers, the later never existed. Europeans and much later the US have meddled in the Middle East for hundreds of years. If you count the Crusades, the excellent adventures go back even further. Our strategic interests are seeing a stable Middle East. That isn't possible if we play favorites or pretend that we didn't create and allow to perpetuate some of the fictions that exist there.

People? Anyone that's been on the earth a while already know that peace in that part of the world is next to impossible.

Another thing we know is that when it comes to this topic - no one really wants to hear the honest to goodness TRUTH.

That's was all the President said in his speech was the TRUTH. Now whether or not two parties want peace is completely up to the leadership of those parties - not the POTUS.

It's all about the TRUTH and if people still want death and destruction over having a true means of securing peace - then to me- it has become part of their culture; their fate may lie solely their hands.

After all, one can support for awhile and hope for change, can give counseling for awhile and hope for change, can provide security and money for a long while and hope for change.

But eventually - something has to change - or supporters, friends, allies will just have to give up and leave one on its own.

It called tough love...

TRUTH - not CRAP

Thank you and GOD BLESS AMERICA

UN peacemakers who are forcing Israel to return to its Pre-67 borders have only a short term solution. Eventually Israeli`s will have to face charging Muslim armies who are shouting: GOD IS GREAT. But after that bloody battle is over, God will be cursed, and Atheists will bring peace to a secular Middle-East.

The biggest thing I see concerning Obama wnating to return to the 67 borders is that Isreal was attacked multiple times by the arabs and Isreal kept the lands the took during these wars. Now lets look at America. We had a war with Mexico and at the end of that ware the USA kept the lands we occupied, New Mexico for example. So if we applied the Obama logic to ourselves, we would need to give back those states.

The point is, when 2 countrys go to war, some one is going to lose and the victor says who gets what if any thing.

sonmanvb,

No worries, Mexico already has one foot in the door.

Very interesting position Mr. President on a very tough issue. The timing of the speech could have been better, and suggesting to change borders back to a very violent time in Middle Eastern History was not well thought out. Israel is our only and true ally in this part of the world, and the the violent nations around it still want to genocide the people of Israel. This is unacceptable! What is your rational Mr. President for your position? I strongly suggest Mr. President that you explain your position clearer, and quickly. If you role back the borders of Israel to Pre 1967 borders is not practical, and their was too much blood of Israel spilled in 1967. Who the heck was advising you on this issue Mr. President? The President of Israel is going nuts for a very good reason Mr. President! Most of the people of Israel were exterminated by a Nazis Government. Supported by the very Terrorist Groups of Palestine that are active today. THINK!!

Mr. President you need to read the history of the Summer of 1967 a little closer. This was a war of genocide on the people of Israel, and under your very own policy Mr. President. You would have sent in missle strikes to stop the evil intent of the Pro Nazis Governments of the Arab World. The people of Israel are in a very poltically violent situation, and economically they are very fragile. The State of Israel was created on the ashes of the Holocaust, and that crap can never happen again. The Arab World no matter how they want Democracy and Capitalism still deeply with the destruction of Israel. That is historical fact!

Mr. President this was the position of the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration to set the 1967 borders as a point for peace. These Presidents were wrong in their understanding of the history concerning this part of the world. The bottom line is very simple. All terrorist attacks on the State Of Israel must end first, and then peace talks can begin. No talks of peace can occur when the people of Israel are still bleeding in their own nation from the force of hatred.

The President is following the same path that the Clinton Administration started, and that the Bush Administration was too ignorant to continue. The diplomatic failures of the "Brainless Bush" Administration were too numerous to help the peace process in the Middle East. President Bush did not have the diplomatic smarts to settle any conflict however, his Administration was very good at starting conflicts. President Obama is smart enough to settle this conflict if the following still wasn't true. One. The Palestine Political situation is still very unstable, violent, and not trustworthy. Two. Their obsession to destroy Israel is still too powerful. Three. The attacks on the State of Israel are still occuring, and there is no end in sight. The questions are many concerning this situation. What nation would enforce moving the borders back to Pre-1967 conditions? Would it be the UN? Would it be NATO? Would it be an Arab Coalition? Do you expect Israel to do this faithfully? Do you expect the Palestine Terrorist Organizations to do this? Will US ground troops be needed to make this change in borders possible? How do you move the settlers in these areas that they now have to move back? Yes Mr. President. You sure opened up a big poltical hornets nest, and I hope this does not come back to sting you politically. The "Hoodlum's On The Hill" have no plan of their own, and they have their share of Alzheimer's Moments. They do not historically comprehend that it was President Bush that said what you said first. This in not an original thought because there is no answer right now. The President Clinton and Bush had unrealistic views concerning this idea of moving the borders back. The wounds of war, and genocide are still too fresh. Maybe the next generation will be able to make such a deal but not in this current poltical/economic situation.