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Netanyahu's Distortion

Benjamin Netanyahu has had remarkable success inaccurately portraying President Obama's call for a peace agreement "based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps" as a retreat to the pre-1967 lines. Robert Wexler and Zvika Krieger point out that such an arrangement is highly feasible for Israel:

Since a large proportion of the Israeli settlers live in areas adjacent to and contiguous with the 1967 lines, there are multiple border scenarios that would allow Israel to annex the vast majority of Israelis living beyond the 1967 lines. The president's formulation encompasses solutions ranging from the Geneva Initiative (which brings into Israel 72% of Israelis living beyond the 1967 lines) to maps by David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (which bring into Israel up to 80% of Israelis living beyond the 1967 lines).
There is a finite amount of land that would be reasonable for Israel to swap in exchange for this post-1967 territory. This land should be unpopulated, away from vital Israeli infrastructure, and should not interrupt Israel's geographic contiguity or the living patterns of Israelis. It also shouldn't be near central Israel's "narrow waist," the precariously thin strip of coastal plain—some nine miles wide—between the 1967 lines and the Mediterranean Sea. Fortunately, there is enough land within Israel proper that fits these conditions that would allow the Jewish state to include the vast majority of Israelis living beyond the 1967 lines, as well as to address Israeli security concerns.

Now, obviously, this sort of arrangement isn't what Netanyahu wants. But what Netanyahu wants is driven far more by his attempts to hold together a right-wing political coalition than any plausible vision for Israel's future.