The Bush Letter" is U.S. Policy

JINSA
Report #: 1,003
05 July '10

As Prime Minister Netanyahu arrives for his 5th set of meetings with President Obama, the headline in one newspaper is, "Obama mum on Bush's borders for Israel," noting, "The White House has declined to publicly affirm commitments made by President Bush to Israel in 2004 on the final borders of the Jewish state."

Two points: In the April 2004 letter President Bush defines no borders for Israel; and the House and Senate passed concurrent resolutions adopting the President's formulation of the requirements of security for both Israel and the Palestinians.

The "borders" paragraph in the Bush letter reads:

As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.

This puts a lie to the idea floating in the current administration that "everyone knows" what a "two-state solution" would look like and therefore the missing ingredient must be presidential pressure to make it happen - pressure on Israel, as it happens.

The Bush Administration clearly understood that the borders of the two states would NOT look like the 1949 armistice lines (the so-called "Green line" and never the "1967 borders"), and referred back to UNSC Resolution 242 which called for Israel to receive, "Secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."

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