May 20, 2011

President Barack Obama

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

Thank you for your courageous remarks on Thursday, May 19, 2011, about the importance of arriving at
a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a rabbi with family in Israel and a lover of Israel,
I wholeheartedly support the vision you set forward in your speech: a peace agreement guaranteeing
Israel as a Jewish homeland, Palestine as a Palestinian homeland, and final boundaries to be negotiated
based upon the 1967 borders with mutually agreed land-swaps (that will in all likelihood enable Israel to
retain the largest settlement blocs in the Jerusalem area). I also appreciate that for the second time
since you took office, you made a major address to the Arab world in which you unequivocally affirmed
Israel’s right to exist and defend itself, and that spoke out against efforts to delegitimize Israel’s
existence.

Your speech was fair and profoundly pro-Israel. I am dismayed by the way that certain politicians and
pundits have been distorting your words. Their biggest lie is their erroneous claim that you insisted that
Israel’s final borders would be the actual 1967 borders. If anyone simply read your actual words, they
would plainly see that you advocated a formula for negotiations that begins with the 1967 borders as a
basis for talks and concludes with some land swaps that shift those borders. This is exactly the formula
for peace that previous Israeli Prime Ministers have openly acknowledged is the path to an agreement,
and it is obviously the same blueprint for peace that the last two U.S. Administrations have advocated.

I know that you are committed to Israel’s right to exist and to her security, and I also know that simply
by saying the number “1967” you’ve opened yourself to a barrage of misleading attacks that are being
made by people who may in fact be openly opposed to a two-state solution in any format. I hope you
will continue your brave stand for peace despite the lies and distortions being hurled at you, and I hope
you will trust that many of us in the Jewish community of this nation support your vision. Without a
two-state solution, I don’t see how Israel can survive as a Jewish, democratic state for another 50 years.
We need you to be strong in your convictions and politically skillful to work for the two-state dream.

Shalom,

Rabbi Maurice Harris