The Obama Fallacies

President Barack Obama, in his speech today, went where no president has gone before – explicitly and publicly calling on Israel to retreat back to its barely-defensible 1967 borders and end the so-called “occupation” of Palestinian lands.

The timing of this declaration is, of course, stunning. Coming just weeks after an announced Hamas-Fatah unity government, the President’s words essentially reward the Palestinian Authority for joining hands with a declared terrorist organization. Keep in mind that this is the same union that the President of Iran hopes will result in the eradication of Israel.

The President’s announcement rests on two fundamental fallacies: First, that the Israelis are currently “occupying” Palestinian land. Gaza is a terrorist-ruled enclave that Israel withdrew from years ago. No occupation there. The Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank has enjoyed ever-increasing autonomy as it rejects terror -- the less terror, the less the Israeli military footprint. Today, the West Bank is fundamentally self-ruled.

The real “occupation” of Palestinian territories occurred in 1948, when the Arab states rejected a two-state solution, occupied Palestinian land (Egypt took Gaza and Jordan took the West Bank), and launched a war of extermination against Israel. So long as Egypt ruled Gaza and Jordan ruled the West Bank (and threatened Israel with a vast array of conventional military forces), there was no international outcry for the Palestinians. It was only when the Israelis expelled Egyptian and Jordanian military forces that the international community suddenly “discovered” the plight of the Palestinians.

President Obama’s second fallacy rests on his strange assumption that the 1967 boundaries are appropriate and defensible. Take a look at this map, which starkly demonstrates Israel’s security problem. At its most narrow point, pre-1967 Israel faced a nine-mile gap between Jordanian armies and the ocean. In 1973, when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel, Egyptian forces pushed up to 10 miles into the Sinai.

“Land for peace” is a cute phrase, but for military planners facing hostile enemies, land means security. Land means a defense in depth. And “peace”? How is that possible when Hamas rules the Palestinians?

Simply put, President Obama announced as his starting point what is essentially a worst-case deal for Israel. This is unprecedented, shocking, and – worst of all – fundamentally irresponsible.