The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized the reported  pre-negotiation offer of the Obama Administration to Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) that, if it doesn’t break off negotiations with Israel because of the end of the Jewish construction freeze in Judea and Samaria, the U.S. will explicitly support the Palestinian demand that Israel withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines and a Palestinian state be created throughout Judea and Samaria (Mark Landler, ‘Risks and Advantages in U.S. Effort in Mideast,’ New York Times, October 5, 2010).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We are appalled at the this abject offer by the Obama Administration to Mahmoud Abbas and the PA that the U.S. will back the Palestinian demand for a complete Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines if the PA remains in the negotiations rather than withdrawing as it has threatened to do. One would have thought that negotiations in which Palestinian statehood is on the table is something that the PA would want and wouldn’t need to be offered concessions by the U.S. at Israel’s expense to achieve. Moreover, why should Arabs be rewarded for starting a war in 1967 and for perpetrating thousands of suicide attacks that have murdered and maimed many thousands of Jews?

“We also see here the ineptitude of the Obama Administration. It was solely on account of this Administration originally demanding that Israel stop building homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria that the Palestinians adopted the position that they would not negotiate without a freeze on Jewish construction. Previously, throughout the Oslo period, the PA negotiated with Israel and Jewish construction continued, as indeed was entirely consistent with the Oslo Accords.

“In this absurd and desperate Obama offer to the PA in order to preserve fledgling negotiations that one would think is a Palestinian interest in any event, we also see the collision of two essentially conflicting, long-standing U.S. positions: that it is for the parties to negotiate a peace agreement that addresses issues of borders and so on, and that the U.S. supports Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines with minor rectifications. These positions are contradictory – either the parties address that question in negotiations or they do not. Now, the Obama Administration is casting to the winds its commitment to leave negotiations to the parties, in return for Abbas and the PA merely agreeing not to walk out of negotiations because of homes being built for Jews in Judea and Samaria.

“Two years ago, when running for president, then-Senator Obama reneged on his stated support for an undivided Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty on the grounds that this was an issue to be negotiated by the parties. Today, however, he offers to adopt the Palestinian position on borders and ignores the principle of leaving negotiations on this and other issues to the parties. It is becoming more and more clear that President Obama’s own ideology and principles regarding the Arab war on Israel are far closer to the Arab positions that to that of Israel.”