Bibi Ready to Talk Palestine Borders

In a major change of policy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is saying for the first time that Israel is ready to discuss the borders of a Palestinian state, using 1967 ceasefire borders as a rough starting point, reports the Telegraph. The offer depends on Palestinians accepting Israel as a Jewish state and backing down from their plan to have the UN recognize Palestine as a state with the pre-1967 borders.

Netanyahu angrily criticized President Obama when he said in May that the 1967 borders should be the starting point of peace negotiations, with new land swaps negotiated, but he seems to have come around to Obama's position. “We are willing in a framework of restarting the peace talks to accept a proposal that would contain elements that would be difficult for Israel and we would find very difficult to endorse,” an Israeli official says. (More Benjamin Netanyahu stories.)