The New York Times: Washington - Seeking to harness the seismic political change still unfolding in the Arab world, President Obama for the first time on Thursday publicly called for a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would create a non-militarized Palestinian state on the basis of Israel’s borders before 1967.
“At a time when the people of the Middle East and North Africa are casting off the burdens of the past, the drive for a lasting peace that ends the conflict and resolves all claims is more urgent that ever,” he said.
Although Mr. Obama said that “the core issues” dividing Israelis and Palestinians remained to be negotiated, including the searing questions of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees, he spoke with striking frustration that efforts to support an agreement had so far failed. “The international community is tired of an endless process that never produces an outcome,” he said.
A senior administration official said that Mr. Obama’s advisers remained deeply divided over whether he should formally endorse Israel’s pre-1967 borders as the starting point for negotiations over a Palestinian state.
That he did so sent a strong signal that the United States expected Israel — as well as the Palestinians — to make concessions to restart peace talks that have been stalled since September.
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