Since 1975, successive United States administrations have been committed to the principles in President Gerald Ford's letter to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin backing Israel's stance that any peace agreement must be predicated on Israel remaining on the Golan Heights.
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As they presented it, Obama's assertion that peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be based on the 1967 lines with agreed swaps does not mark a substantive departure from the positions adopted by his predecessors in the Oval Office.
The main one, they say, is not that Israel can be defeated by guerrillas inspired by faith, but rather that Israel can never impose peace on its own terms, by force of arms.
It was Obama, not Abbas, who first stipulated that future "peace" negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must be predicated on Israel's prior acceptance of the indefensible 1949 armistice lines as a starting point for talks.
In the end, peace must be built on national consensus, which includes the preservation of Israel's core values.
But the common assumption is that it is intended to be an eventual international border and that the Jewish settlements on the Palestinian side, with some 70, 000 residents, will be evacuated in a peace deal, along the lines apparently on offer by Israel at Camp David in 2000.
Israel can have peace -- that is, peace will be available to Israel -- only if attitudes, policies and politics change on the Arab side.
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When, as part of the implementation of the Oslo peace process with the PLO, the government of Israel allowed for an Arab armed force to be deployed on the outskirts of the city, fear returned to Jerusalem.
Arafat must clamp down on the Hamas militants, the Israeli peace lobby must be more vigorous in its condemnation, and the US must use its not inconsiderable influence on Israel to create a solid ceasefire for the time being.
Some suggest that, while Israel's peace treaty with Jordan is reasserted, a buffer zone could be drawn up on the eastern side of the Jordan river, perhaps monitored by peacekeepers from NATO or the UN, to protect Israel against an invasion from the east and to enable it to withdraw from the West Bank.
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On Thursday, the two presidents will be joined by top officials from Turkey and Qatar for talks on Lebanon and Syria's indirect peace talks with Israel.
Though the Middle East peace process will be on the agenda when he visits Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Mr Kerry will not visit Israel or the Palestinian Territories.
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