Why not negotiate on the basis of the 1967 lines?

WE’RE going to negotiate a new order for African Americans in America.

The parties themselves, in their negotiations, will decide where they want to go. But here’s where blacks and whites will start: Before Jan. 1, 1863 — before the Emancipation Proclamation.

Today, in 2011, the blacks will start as slaves.

We’re not saying this is where they have to end up. It’s just the starting point for the negotiations. There will be some rights swaps along the way.

That’s what President Obama told Israel last week.

Go back to before June 5, 1967 — when Jews could not get to the Western Wall.

When Jews were cut off from their most sacred site.

When Jews, for 19 years, could only stand at the Mandelbaum Gate, gaze at an empty field and then an Old City wall, and merely imagine the Western Wall, a mile distant, blocked by hundreds of houses and alleyways.

But it’s OK.

Not to worry.

Because that’s only where the negotiations will start.

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With Jews like slaves.

With Jews back in 1967, banned by the Jordanians from exercising the most fundamental Jewish right of all, the right to pray at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.

I am not making this up. This is exactly, precisely, connotatively, what the “pre-June 5, 1967” lines mean: no Jewish access to the Western Wall.

We’re also going to negotiate a new order for Texans in America.

The parties themselves, in their negotiations, will decide where they want to go. But here’s where Texans and Mexicans will start: Before 1846 — before the Mexican-American War.

Today, in 2011, the Texans will start as Mexicans.

We’re not saying this is where the Texans have to end up. It’s just the starting point for the negotiations. There will be some land swaps along the way.

That’s what President Obama told Israel last week.

Go back to before June 5, 1967 — before Israel controlled the Golan Heights, when the Syrians bombarded Israel from the Heights unimpeded.

When residents of northern Israel (inside the 1967 lines) were cut off from safety.

When Israelis, for 19 years, could only stand helplessly on their farms in the Galilee as the Syrians shot at them at will from the Golan Heights above.

But it’s OK.

Because in negotiations Israel doesn’t necessarily have to end up without the Golan Heights. It just has to start without them, as a basis for negotiations.

So says President Obama.

I am not making this up. This is exactly, precisely, connotatively, what the “pre-June 5, 1967” lines mean: no Israeli control of the Golan Heights.

I have never seen so much collective outrage in the Jewish community as I did on May 19 when President Obama — in 10 seconds of a 45-minute speech — called for Israel to negotiate on the basis of the pre-Six Day War “lines.” (They weren’t borders; they were the 1949 armistice lines).

The outrage erupted spontaneously.

It encompassed Democrats and Republicans, young and old, men and women.

No one planned it.

Why the outrage?

It’s worse than what I just wrote.

Worse than telling the Jews to start from a position of having no right to go to the Western Wall.

Worse than telling the Israelis to start from a position of being open to Syrian bombardment.

It’s this: Alive in 1967 or not, every adult Jew knows that in the weeks leading up the Six Day War it felt like the Holocaust all over again.

Jews abandoned.

President Johnson of the US telling the Israelis that they were on their own.

The UN’s U Thant withdrawing peacekeeping forces from the Sinai Peninsula, leaving Israel exposed to the massive Egyptian Army.

France cutting off the delivery of Mirage jet aircraft to Israel.

Tiny Israel — tiny, that is, because it was inside the 1949 lines — facing millions of Arabs alone.

Twenty-two years after the ovens of Auschwitz closed down, Israel, squeezed within what Abba Eban later called “Auschwitz borders,” stood alone.

Israel, nine miles wide at its border, told by Egypt’s Nasser that it would be thrown into the sea, stood alone.

That is what pre-June 5, 1967 lines mean to Israelis.

And to the Jewish people.

This is why the outrage erupted in telephone calls, emails, personal conversations, all around the US.

Let me report on just a one of these countless conversations.

It occurred last Sunday when a Holocaust survivor, 90, called me. She arrived in the US just before Israel was declared a state in 1948.

She called it the happiest day of her life.

She told me:

“The US started with 13 states. When I came to this country there were 48. Now there are 50. Where did they get all of those extra states? Did they ever give any of them back?

“Israel — the whole country — is nine miles wide under the 1967 borders. It is small enough already.”

Obama is clueless.

Or, maybe he is not. Maybe he gets it, but other things are more important to him.

Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News