The Hill News

So much for President Obama’s constructive attempt to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to attempt a peace deal based on the principles of land swaps around the pre-war 1967 border and security, which would leave the thorniest issues of the status of Jerusalem and the return of refugees until later.

In his speech to the joint session of Congress today, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu was back to his old statements of principles. He included his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and provided an energetic explanation of why his government would not accept a return to “1967 lines” that would leave Israel “half the width of the Washington Beltway,” or nine miles wide. He emphatically ruled out any division of Jerusalem, which he said “must remain the united capital of Israel.”

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