Today in Cairo, Hillary Clinton held a joint news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Ali Aboul Gheit, in which she was asked about the “shape of the Palestinian state in the U.S. opinion.” Here is the first part of her response:

Well, I can repeat to you what President Obama said in his speech at the United Nations and what he said here in Cairo — that the United States believes that we need a state that is based on the territory that has been occupied since 1967. And we believe that that is the appropriate approach. It is what has been discussed when my husband was president with Yasser Arafat, and it is what has been discussed between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the Bush Administration when President Abbas has been there. [Emphasis added.]

In fact, that was not the position of either the Clinton or the Bush administration. On the contrary, both administrations provided Israel with explicit written statements (in 1997 in a letter from Secretary of State Christopher, and in 2004 in a letter from President Bush) that the peace process must provide Israel with “defensible borders” — which no one can reasonably argue means the 1967 ones.

Hillary is aware, or should be, that the words “the territory” or “all of the territories” are loaded diplomatic phrases. They are the phrases the Soviet Union unsuccessfully attempted to insert in UN Resolution 242 in 1967, which the U.S. explicitly rejected.

The U.S. insisted that the resolution refer only to a withdrawal from an unspecified portion of “territories.” Immediately after the Six-Day War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had drawn up for President Johnson a map of defensible borders for Israel — with a memorandum describing why, from a military standpoint, Israel would need to retain the “commanding terrain” and other “key terrain” east of the 1967 borders. No rational state would trade strategic military land for a paper promise of peace, particularly when that land has been used multiple times to launch a war against it.

Today the Egyptian Foreign Minister capitalized on Hillary’s answer, immediately asking if he could “follow up” on what she had just stated:

… this position that was just stated by Secretary Clinton — we say that we approve it and we are in agreement totally with it. We support it fully, we support fully this U.S. position because it reflects a conviction that — of a Palestinian state that is capable, that will be on all of the territories that were occupied in 1967 and that will be a hundred percent of those territories, because a hundred percent of those territories goes to the Palestinians despite the (inaudible) that would happen.

And with this, also East Jerusalem is for the Palestinians. With this, this is clear and with this such position, we support the U.S. fully. [Emphasis added.]

Hillary did not seek to clarify or modify Gheit’s summary of the U.S. position.

An Israeli withdrawal from “all of the territories” on the West Bank is inconsistent with the governing document of the peace process, inconsistent with the policies of prior U.S. administrations, inconsistent with written assurances those administrations provided Israel, and inconsistent with President Obama’s frequent pledges of “unwavering support” for Israeli security.

In his 2008 “Let Me Be Clear” speech to AIPAC, Obama said that “any agreement” with the Palestinian people must provide Israel with “defensible borders.” It will be important to hear what he has to say about this subject (among others) when he addresses several thousand Jewish activists next week at the General Assembly.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 5:06 PM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.