Israel agrees to discuss 1967 line border with Palestine

PanARMENIAN.Net - In a dramatic policy shift, Israel's prime minister has agreed to negotiate the 1967 borders of a Palestinian state based on the cease-fire line that marks off the West Bank.

Up to now, Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to spell out his plan for negotiating the border. A senior Israeli official would not confirm outright that the prime minister was now willing to adopt the cease-fire line as a starting point, but said Israel was willing to try new formulas to restart peace talks based on a proposal made by President Barack Obama.

In a speech about the Middle East in May, Obama proposed negotiations based on the pre-1967 line with agreed swaps of territory between Israel and a Palestinian state. Netanyahu reacted angrily, insisting that Israel would not withdraw from all of the West Bank, though that was not what Obama proposed.

Now Netanyahu is basically accepting that framework, according to Channel 2 TV, offering to trade Israeli territory on its side of the line for West Bank land where its main settlements are located.

The cease-fire line that marks the West Bank dates to the 1949 end of the two-year war that followed the creation of Israel. It held until June 1967, when Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, claimed by the Palestinians, according to Associated Press.