IPCRI - Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information. PRIME homepage - Peace Research Institute in the Middle East. Middle East Progress » The Bulletin. Heard on the Street Prioritizing The Two State Solution By Matt Duss TEL AVIV- While President Obama’s speech yesterday wasn’t particularly groundbreaking, I thought it was an important (and overdue) statement of recognition of the deep significance of the Arab uprisings, both for the peoples of the Middle East and for the future of U.S. policy in the region. I’ll confine my comments here, though, to the president’s remarks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There has been a lot of attention paid to the president’s statement that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” To be clear, no one is saying that Israel will be forced to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines.
This really shouldn’t be as controversial as it probably will be. In a speech of some 5600 words, almost 1200 of them — 20 percent — were devoted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Again, this shouldn’t be surprising. Background Basics more. Israel Policy Forum | Principled. Pragmatic. Pro-Israel. Institute for Palestine Studies - Home. International Center for Religion and Diplomacy | Bridging the political and religious spheres in support of peacemaking. Foreign Policy Articles by Subject - FPRI.