"Israel, for its part, rejects the 1967 borders as insufficiently defensible for its security."
This is spurious reporting.
First, there were no "1967 borders." Rather, there were only armistice lines from Israel's War of Independence in 1949, inasmuch as Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon refused to recognize Israel prior to the Six Day War and to negotiate borders.
Second, Israeli prime ministers Barak and Olmert both offered their Palestinian counterparts, Arafat and Abbas, respectively, peace agreements along the 1967 lines with land swaps.
Given the range of the rockets and missiles in the Hamas arsenal in Gaza (for example, over 60 kilometers with respect to the Fajr-5, placing Tel Aviv well within range) and the proximity of Israeli population centers to the West Bank (Israel is some nine kilometers wide at its waist, where much of its population resides), any borders today will not provide Israeli population centers with sufficient distance from Palestinian missiles. Rather, the primary obstacle to a negotiated peace remains the Palestinians' intractable refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and not Israel's refusal to agree to borders approximating the 1967 lines, as this New York Times article seems to suggest.
Will Hamas now amend its charter, which rejects negotiation with Israel and calls for the murder of all Jews, not just Israelis, as the result of prodding from Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood? Don't hold your breath.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration is restoring the annual $1 billion in aid it provides to the Egyptian army, notwithstanding the attempt by the Egyptian army, backed by the Brotherhood, to arrest 43 NGO workers seeking to encourage Egyptian democracy, and notwithstanding the Brotherhood's persistent threats to review Egypt's 1979 peace treaty with the "Zionist entity."
[I have asked that The New York Times correct this article. Let's see if they bother responding.]
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