Hillary Clinton makes it clear that Israel
can’t go back to pre-67 borders

New York — Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has recently reiterated a position she originally enunciated in 1999 when she stated that, “I personally consider Jerusalem the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel” and also called for secure, defensible borders for Israel. Senator Clinton’s office has issued a paper, ‘Hillary Clinton: A Long History of Strong and Steadfast Leadership for the U.S.-Israel Relationship,’ which states that “Hillary Clinton believes that Israel’s right to exist in safety as a Jewish state, with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, secure from violence and terrorism, must never be questioned” ( New York Sun, September 17).

Senator Clinton’s stance is in line with Congressional support for the indivisibility of Jerusalem. In 1995, the U.S. Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act, which calls for the U.S. Embassy to Israel to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Regrettably since that time, both Presidents Clinton and Bush have exercised waivers to defer implementing this law, passed by overwhelming 90% plus majorities in both Houses of Congress.

Senator Clinton’s support for defensible borders for Israel is also important and consistent with the way these were explicitly defined by the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In his last address to the Knesset, delivered on October 5, 1995, one month before his assassination, Prime Minister Rabin said that in his peace vision, the

State of Israel … will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state … “The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines … The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term … [Israel will undertake] the establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria … The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.