Israel: Obama address AIPAC conference

Haaretz

Obama addressing AIPAC conference with Mideast speech
U.S. President criticized by Netanyahu for supporting a Palestinian state within 1967 borders; speaking earlier, Obama says unilateral recognition of Palestinian state would be purely 'symbolic.'
By Haaretz Service Tags: Middle East peace Barack Obama

U.S. President Barack Obama is addressing the AIPAC conference in Washington on Sunday, where he is expected to try to stave off further deterioration in U.S.-Israeli relations.

BBC later Sunday ahead of his AIPAC speech, reaffirmed his commitment to the 1967 borders as a peace-talks guideline, he warned the Palestinian against appealing to the UN for recognition of a Palestinian state, urging the future Fatah-Hamas unity cabinet to make a decision on their stance toward peace talks with Israel.

"They've got to make a decision, first of all, in what is the official position of a unified Palestinian authority about how they're dealing with Israel," Obama said, adding that "if they can't get past that barrier, it's going to be very hard for a negotiation to take place. I also believe that the notion that you can solve this problem in the United Nations is simply unrealistic."

The U.S. president said that he had already told Palestinian officials that "whatever happens in the United Nations, you are going to have to talk to the Israelis if you are going to have a state in which your people have self-determination, adding: "You are not going to be able to do an end run around the Israelis."

"And so I think that, you know, whatever efforts they mount in the United Nations will be symbolic, he said, adding that the world has "seen a lot of these sort of symbolic efforts before. They're not something that the United States is going to be particularly sympathetic towards, simply because we think it avoids the real problems with that have to be resolved between the two parties."

The U.S. president also reiterated his support of the 1967 borders functioning as a negotiations starting point, adding that "the truth is that we were stating what I think most observers of the long history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict recognize as the obvious - which is that if you're going to have any kind of peace, you're going to have two states side by side."

For video, go to:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/obama-addressing-aipac-conference-with-mideast-speech-1.363351