The UN resolution ending the 1967 Six-Day War called for scrapping the 1948 Partition lines and the 1949 Armistice lines – they had led to two wars – and new, secure and defensible borders for Israel were envisioned. Significantly, while the resolution spoke in vague terms of an eventual Israeli withdrawal from some of the territory it had just won, there was no mention of any “swaps of land” by Israel. And since Israel had won those territories in a defensive war with Egypt, Syria and Jordan, there certainly was no thought of any of the land being relinquished to the Palestinians.
In principle, this seems to be the wedge issue between President Obama and the Republicans. The latter seem to be comfortable with the notion of an Israel without contrived borders and appear to accept Israel’s retaining the population centers it has built up.
The long list of legitimate criticisms of the president over his Mideast policy suggests that some concern about his post-election Middle East plans is in order. Despite his undeniable support of Israel’s military needs, it’s his administration’s problematic conception of what constitutes true security for Israel that will continue to bedevil him with significant numbers of Jewish voters.