Today the LA Times ran four letters about President Obama’s Middle East speech. Here’s how three of them started:
Howard Karlitz: In his speech explicitly stating America’s friendship with Israel and our commitment to its security, President Obama urged the Israelis to return to their 1967 borders as a means of securing peace….
Kenneth L. Zimmerman: Setting the borders for a Palestinian state the way they were before the 1967 war is the only reasonable solution….
Mike Sacks: Given the logic of Obama’s proposal that Israel return to the pre-1967 borders, the following should also occur….
Obama, of course, didn’t propose that Israel return to its 1967 borders. I would like to repeat that for posterity while there’s still a chance that someone might believe me:
In his speech on Thursday, President Obama didn’t propose that Israel return to its 1967 borders.
How is it that this has seemingly become conventional wisdom in just a few short days? Obama’s formulation, after all was crystal clear and only 19 words long: “We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” Israelis and Palestinians have been negotiating on those exact terms for decades.
I don’t really know what’s happened here. Is it the power of Fox News? The power of AIPAC? Just the age-old power of people to hear what they want to hear and believe what they want to believe? I dunno. But it’s really pretty stunning to see this kind of historical revisionism become so widespread so fast.
