below is an interactive map of Israel
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&ved=0CGEQFjAK&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eyeonisrael.com%2FIsrael-touring-map.html&ei=H-9JUZ3IMsbD4AOEtIFg&usg=AFQjCNEeivdP5lxMUAVgwyZGshWlRixNow&sig2=tkg17y59wUPOzB-tk21TVA&bvm=bv.44011176,d.dmg
The map of the Middle East displayed in an Obama administration video released days before President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel shows the Jewish state dispossessed of substantial parts of its current territory, including its capital.
The map of Israel, displayed repeatedly during the video, shows the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, northern Israel, and areas surrounding what is currently the West Bank as non-Israeli territory. The Golan Heights is shown as part of Syria; Jerusalem is shown as part of the West Bank; and northern Israel is shown as part of Lebanon.
The itinerary on the White House website also implies that Jerusalem is neither Israel’s capital nor even part of Israel.
The president’s schedule lists two stops in “Tel Aviv, Israel” and one in “Amman, Jordan” but his activities in Israel’s capital city are identified as taking place only in “Jerusalem” — with no country name attached. This keeps with a reluctantly-acknowledged administration policy of denying that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital or even a part of Israel.
Obama has apparently secured Israeli and Palestinian
pledges to restart so-called land-for-peace talks that aim to see Israel
relinquish the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, according to informed Israeli
and Palestinian Authority officials.
The officials disclosed the Obama
administration told both sides the talks would be aimed at creating a
Palestinian state in what is known as the 1967 borders, meaning an Israeli
retreat from some of the strategic West Bank and possibly some eastern sections
of Jerusalem.
According to the informed officials, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed that once the talks begin, there will be a
silent, undeclared freeze on all Jewish construction in the West Bank and
eastern Jerusalem with the exception of what are known as main blocs – Maale
Adumin, Ariel and Gush Etzion.
The officials said the White House was adamant
that Israeli talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas begin
regardless of the position of Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
Still, the U.S. is supporting Qatar, Egypt,
Jordan and Turkey in back-door efforts to broker a national unity deal between
Abbas and Hamas during the same time period that the Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations are set to take place, the officials said.
There is already close coordination between
the White House and members of Netanyahu’s government coalition, who are known
to be sympathetic to creating a Palestinian state, primarily former opposition
leader Tzipi Livni.
Livni and former
Minister Haim Ramon are currently coordinating the renewal of talks with the
PA’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat.
Regarding Jerusalem, the informed Israeli and
Palestinian officials said the White House has been nonspecific other than to
champion talks based on what is known as the Clinton parameters.
The formula, pushed by President Bill Clinton
in the Camp David talks in 2000, called for Jewish areas of Jerusalem to remain
Israeli while the Palestinians get sovereignty over neighborhoods that are
largely Arab.
The informed officials, meanwhile, said the
White House expects the issue of Jerusalem to be a key impediment to reaching a
deal and is therefore discussing the formation of an international committee to
help smooth the process.
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