play out here. it happens every friday which is a stark contrast to the opening of the united nations from new york and feels 1 million miles away from here today, but it shows how far this dispute has got to go before it is anywhere close to being sorted. john, thank you so much for that in ramallah, and we appreciate it. do we have abby? ok okay. let s go back to mark ginsberg and i want to pick up on a point that you were talking about and i want to read what the president said when he went before the united nations. he said when we come back next year we can have a agreement that leads to a new member of the united nations, a sovereign state of israel living with palestine and what happened in the interim year? well, thele following, chris,
commitment to being an honest broker, and if there is any telltale hesitation on any part of the constituencies to realize where the president is coming from, once again, he tried to say and reassure both sides that america is prepared to achieve what they want to achieve for themselves which is a safe and secure israel living side by side with a viable palestinian state. ambassador mark ginsberg, thank you very much. this is the beginning of what is an important day for the president in all of this. he has a meeting at 11:00 eastern time, and about ten minutes from now where he will go straight to a bilateral meeting with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and today at 12:25 he will be with owes
perry yesterday criticizing the president s performance and his support for israel. yeah, we should mention obviously that the pictures that people are seeing on the other side of the screen of you, ambassador ginsberg, is the president, obviously, first lady arriving as well and getting ready to address the u.n. assembly and give us a sense of what we are going to hear today. the president is going to try to put the united states back in the middle of saying that only a two-state solution negotiated bilaterally between the parties is the best hope for the palestinians to obtain the viable state they wish, that resorting to the united nations undermining israel s confidence and legitimacy in the united nations is a no-starter and 60 years of diplomacy may not have led the palestinians to a state, but at the same time the united states remains committed as it has been committed to democracy in the middle east and to the support of regimes that want to overthrow dictatorships, so he
ambassador ginsberg, let me start with the comments from prime minister netanyahu after hearing about this. he said that those 1967 borders are, quote, indefensible for israel. based on his strong comments and actually calling for the president to take back what he said, is this idea dead on arrival? it s dead on arrival, there s no negotiation between the palestinians and israelis and that s the problem. the president set this out in a speech and yet at the same time, all of us know that there s been a total breakdown in these negotiations. senator mitchell resigned in frustration. there s no trust left between the palestinians and the israelis and the negotiating table. if the president wants to follow through on this and earn the trust and confidence, he s going to have to commit himself to the process. it s not enough for him to make these statements and leave a sense of distrust among our strongest ally in the middle east. he s going to have to convince the israelis he has a s
settlements. 300,000 people, jewish people, have now populated that area outside of israel s official boundaries. then you ve also got jerusalem, which you can see over there. israel and the palestinians see that as their capital city. that is a point of great contention, a city the palestinians hope to get some claim two in the two-state division and something president obama alluded to in his comments yesterday. that s going to be a hot button issue in his meeting with prime minister netanyahu of israel later today, kiran. absolutely. you illustrated it well by showing that map because you can get a better sense of exactly what we re talking about here when we saw going back to the 1967 borders, joining us to talk more about the president s controversial proposal from washington is marc ginsberg, former presidential adviser on the middle east and also shibley telhami, professor at the university of maryland, my alma mater, by the way. thanks so much for being with us this morning.