(Sunday 1am: update below)
There has been a lot of discussion about Obama’s endorsement of Israel and Palestine’s returning to “1967 lines with mutually agreed [land] swaps.”
Conservatives (e.g. Charles Krauthammer) interpreted Obama’s statement as basically just an endorsement of returning to 1967 borders, and then liberals (e.g. Will Saletan) criticized the conservatives for ignoring the “mutually agreed swaps” that Obama called for. Liberals are right and conservatives wrong on the narrow point they are debating — of course you can’t simply ignore the clause “mutually agreed land swaps.”
But both conservatives and liberals missed the far more important point: Obama’s endorsement of “pre-1967 borders, with mutually agreed swaps” is exactly as useful as a civil judge’s declaration that “the defendent must return the stolen sofa to the plaintiff, but there also need to be further mutually agreed furniture exchanges between the defendent and plaintiff (which may or may not include swapping the stolen sofa back to the defendent).” In other words, it is not useful. The judge would have just as well declared “the plaintiff and defendent need to arrive at a mutually agreeable resolution to their furniture dispute,” as Obama could have simply explained “Israel and Palestine need agree on borders.” Any borders separating Israel from Palestine can trivially be constructed as equal to “pre-1967 borders” plus “swaps.” Why bother involving Obama in the first place?
Obama is a former community organizer. I wonder whether he often found it useful, when mediating a 2-party dispute, to put forth a resolution and then declare that that resolution should be further modified in an unspecified way (to be determined through “further negotiations” by the parties themselves). I certainly would not have appreciated this approach if I were a member of his community.
Update: I also should have mentioned that we should be too unhappy with Netanyahu and the conservatives for basically ignoring the “with mutually agreed swaps” clause. The reason is that it is that clause which renders Obama’s statement useless. Netanyahu and the conservatives misunderstood Obama as having said something substantive, perhaps due to a human tendency to err on the side of interpreting a statement as having substance. Obama then basically had to go to AIPAC and emphasize the “with mutually agreed swaps” clause, i.e. emphasize that in fact he takes no position whatsoever on the borders. If he’d simply said “I take no position on the borders,” Netanyahu surely would have understood the first time.
Also I should mention that this argument probably applies just as much to Bush and some other presidents as well, as I have read that Obama’s statement is consistent with that of previous administrations.
I agree with you that the importance of the “land swaps” clause is that it means Obama is not, after all, setting a precedent by showing less favor on Israel than previous administrations used to do. We also agree that the clause means Obama is not attempting to elevate himself to the judgement seat of Solomon where he can personally “split the baby” (1 Kings 3:16-28), but (for reasons I can’t imagine) this seems to bother you. You seem to feel Obama is abdicating responsibility in announcing that he will not be the final judge, but will only to give his blessing to the decision-makers. Notwithstanding what you claim you would want Obama to be if you were a member of Chicago’s 1980s black community, no one in the Middle East wants Obama to be King Solomon.
Morgan:
Do you disagree with this statement: The declaration that Israel and Palestine need to agree on borders equal to 1967 borders plus swaps is logically equivalent to the declaration that Israel and Palestine need to agree on borders, any of which will do. In addition, do you agree that such a statement is not useful?
Your comment seems like it would be more directly relevant to my argument if I had stated “Obama needs to specify exactly what the borders should be.” I did not say that. I do not require that Obama put forth a complete solution. I have a much lower standard when it comes to what Obama’s contribution to the discussion of where the borders should be is: that it not be nil.
An example of a statement Obama could have made that would have counted as a non-empty contribution, but that would be far from a full solution, is “I endorse a Jerusalem at least partially held by Jews.” Another would have been “I want the land currently occupied by Beitar Illit settlers to be given to the Palestinians.” Instead Obama made a statement which seemed to have some relevance to where the borders should be, but which instead was logically empty.
If you are curious what Solomon might have done in order to make a non-empty contribution while not actually fully resolving the dispute, he might have said “I do not endorse any solution involving murdering the baby.”
I agree, Obama’s statement grammatically means only that he supports borders of some unspecified kind, that Obama is not technically making a judgement, and that he is not saying anything that should greatly affect negotiations. I am not ready to Obama’s words have “no effect” on negotiations because some Israelis who would ultimately support the 1967 borders would have liked to frame any discussion of a return to 1967 borders as a major concession by the Israelis, made only after extended haggling. Under these conditions it would be easier to arrange “mutually agreed swaps” that would be more favorable to Israel. Obama has not helped the cause of Israelis who would have liked more haggling when Obama offered a starting position that closely resembles what everyone knows Israel’s ending position will be.
You make much of the fact that “mutually agreed swaps” in the statement “I advocate a return to the 1967 borders with mutually agreed swaps” opens the door for the statement to be technically consistent with any final borders. But do you agree that Obama’s statement implies that the 1967 borders would be fair and reasonable, and that only minor changes to these borders are necessary?
I don’t know if Obama’s statement is useful, but is plausible that it will affect parameters for negotiations, partly because it interjects a purportedly unbiased opinion into the haggling conversation, and partly because it functions as a blessing of the negotiating process. Even if Obama had uttered an actually meaningless statement regarding borders (rather than a grammatically meaningless statement which is naturally interpreted as having a meaning), it might have been useful. If Obama had said, “There are two peoples in living in land controlled by Israel, and borders need to be set which honor the history of these two peoples,” this would have served *only* as a blessing, and might have brought negotiations closer. It wool mean America is not willing to endorse the status quo, and is willing to facilitate the preace process.
You say: “But do you agree that Obama’s statement implies that the 1967 borders would be fair and reasonable, and that only minor changes to these borders are necessary?”
No, I do not agree with that. As Obama clarified to AIPAC, “By definition, [my statement] means that the parties themselves — Israelis and Palestinians — will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967.” Stating as fact that the future borders will necessarily be different from the 1967 borders would be an odd way of expressing the view that the 1967 borders are fair and reasonable (in any case, if the borders must be different from the 1967 borders, whether they are fair and reasonable is no longer relevant). I agree with you that the quick interpretation of the statement might suggest that he believes the 1967 borders are fair and reasonable, and that is why he needed to clarify his statement multiple times, reminding Netanyahu and others that in fact this interpretation was wrong.
If he had made a statement that clearly indicated no preference for where the borders would lie, such as the one you made up, then Obama would not have needed to spend time clarifying his stance. And maybe explicitly taking no position on the borders is the right thing to do.