Obama​ Favor​s (​1949 Borde​r)​ Saudi​ Initi​ative​,​ Divid​ing Jerus​alem

[Mrs. Sharon B. Hodge]

Obama​ Favor​s (​1949 Borde​r)​ Saudi​ Initi​ative​,​ Divid​ing Jerus​alem

by Maayana Miskin Cheshvan 19, 5769 / November 17, '08 http://www. israelnationalnews. com/News/News. aspx/128402

United States President-Elect Barack Obama will support the Saudi Initiative for peace between Israel and Arab nations, the British Sunday Times reported Sunday. Obama told Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, “The Israelis would be crazy not to accept this initiative,” according to the Times.


The initiative calls on Israel to withdraw completely to its 1949 borders in exchange for normalized relations with Arab League countries. It includes a full retreat from the eastern half of Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, and from the strategic Golan Heights in northern Israel.


The Saudi Plan has won limited support from President Shimon Peres, who says it could be used to launch negotiations. Other senior politicians and defense officials have dismissed the plan, saying it wold compromise Israel's security.


Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the heads of the Kadima and Labor parties, have not ruled out the Saudi Initiative completely. However, neither has expressed willingness to give away the Temple Mount or major Israeli population centers located east of Israel's 1949 borders. Approximately 600,000 Israeli citizens live in the areas, including eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem, demanded for the PA under the Saudi plan.


The plan also calls on Israel to find a solution for the plight of millions of foreign Arabs who claim descent from those who fled Israel during the War of Independence. They are considered refugees by Arab governments and continually have been denied citizenship in their countries of birth.


While proponents of the plan have welcomed the plan as a chance to deal with the refugees without granting them Israeli citizenship, some Arab leaders have warned that any alternative to allowing the millions to “return” to Israel is unacceptable. PA-based terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad are among those who insist that every Arab who identifies as a descendant of a former resident of Israel be allowed to live in Israel.


Abbas: Retreat or War

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas addressed a letter to PA Arabs on Saturday saying Israel must retreat to its 1949 borders or face war. “The passage of years... will not force us to abandon or surrender a single inch,” of Judea, Samaria or Jerusalem, Abbas said in the letter, which was published by PA media.


The letter was sent in honor of PA “Independence Day.” While the PA does not rule an independent country, it celebrates “independence” each year in honor of the PA having declared itself an independent entity 20 years ago.





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Obama Going Back to the Future of Middle East Peace
World | Sun, Nov 16, 2008 at 9:06:23 am PST

According to the Times of London, Barack Obama is going to back the Mideast peace plan originally proposed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. This plan gives all the land Israel captured in the 1967 war to the Palestinians (whoever that’s supposed to be; Hamas or Fatah?), gives back the Golan Heights to Syria, and gives East Jerusalem to the Palestinians as their state capital: Barack Obama links Israel peace plan to 1967 borders deal.


Does Israel get anything out of this? Well, yes; they won’t have to accept the so-called “right of return,” otherwise known as the demographic destruction of Israel.


Barack Obama is to pursue an ambitious peace plan in the Middle East involving the recognition of Israel by the Arab world in exchange for its withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, according to sources close to America’s president-elect.


Obama intends to throw his support behind a 2002 Saudi peace initiative endorsed by the Arab League and backed by Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister and leader of the ruling Kadima party. The proposal gives Israel an effective veto on the return of Arab refugees expelled in 1948 while requiring it to restore the Golan Heights to Syria and allow the Palestinians to establish a state capital in east Jerusalem.


On a visit to the Middle East last July, the president-elect said privately it would be “crazy” for Israel to refuse a deal that could “give them peace with the Muslim world”, according to a senior Obama adviser.


Obama apparently has been convinced by his gaggle of mildly to extremely anti-Israel advisers that the best hope for change is to give a one-sided deal concocted by a rabidly anti-Israel, totalitarian religious monarchy another chance.


Putting aside the issue of whether any of the Arab players in this eternally-recycling “land for peace” shell game can be trusted to keep their side of any bargain, there’s always the possibility that the Palestinian side (whoever that is; Fatah? Hamas?) will manage to screw it up, either by making the “right of return” a deal-breaker or by committing some heinous act of mass murder.


UPDATE at 11/16/08 9:27:31 am:

It should be noted that one of the Times’ writers on this piece, Uzi Mahnaimi, has a rather checkered past: Uzi Mahnaimi and his lies about Israel.




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Barack Obama links Israel peace plan to 1967 borders deal

Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv and Sarah Baxter, TIMES ONLINE

Barack Obama is to pursue an ambitious peace plan in the Middle East involving the recognition of Israel by the Arab world in exchange for its withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, according to sources close to America’s president-elect.


Obama intends to throw his support behind a 2002 Saudi peace initiative endorsed by the Arab League and backed by Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister and leader of the ruling Kadima party.


[NO SURPRISE HERE.
ALL LEFT-THINKING PEOPLE ARE SUPPORTING THIS INITIATIVE]

[SEE ALSO: Report suggests Obama press Israel over nuke program ]

The proposal gives Israel an effective veto on the return of Arab refugees expelled in 1948 while requiring it to restore the Golan Heights to Syria and allow the Palestinians to establish a state capital in east Jerusalem.