Netanyahu Nails It. Amazing Speech To Congress

In a speech to Congress Israel's prime minister says he is willing to make painful compromises to achieve  peace.   

"Now this is not easy for me. It's not easy, because I recognize that in a genuine peace we will be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland,'' he said, referring to the occupied West Bank.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared such borders to be "indefensible." Influential U.S. lawmakers hold that same opinion and have faulted Obama for staking out his position.

Israel, which enjoys strong bipartisan backing in Congress, has been rattled by President Obama's support for drawing the future borders of a Palestinian state and a Jewish state on the basis of Israel's pre-1967 war frontiers.

But Obama has not called for a return to the exact borders Israel held before capturing east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip in June 1967. He is open to land swaps so Israel can hold on to settlements it built after the 1967 war.

The Palestinians have said little in response to Obama's recent speeches. They have embraced his support for the 1967 lines as the basis of the final borders between Israel and a future Palestine, but largely ignored Obama's other key proposals.

Among them: His opposition to their plan to ask the U.N. to recognize their independence; his criticism of a Palestinian power-sharing deal that would bring the Hamas militant group into the government; and his calls that Israel be formally recognized as the homeland of the Jewish people. Acceptance of the "Jewish state" is seen as a rejection of the demands of Palestinian refugees to return to lost properties in what is now Israel.