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Today the LA Times ran four letters about President Obama’s Middle East speech. Here’s how three of them started:

Howard Karlitz: In his speech explicitly stating America’s friendship with Israel and our commitment to its security, President Obama urged the Israelis to return to their 1967 borders as a means of securing peace….

Kenneth L. Zimmerman: Setting the borders for a Palestinian state the way they were before the 1967 war is the only reasonable solution….

Mike Sacks: Given the logic of Obama’s proposal that Israel return to the pre-1967 borders, the following should also occur….

Obama, of course, didn’t propose that Israel return to its 1967 borders. I would like to repeat that for posterity while there’s still a chance that someone might believe me:

In his speech on Thursday, President Obama didn’t propose that Israel return to its 1967 borders.

How is it that this has seemingly become conventional wisdom in just a few short days? Obama’s formulation, after all was crystal clear and only 19 words long: “We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” Israelis and Palestinians have been negotiating on those exact terms for decades.

I don’t really know what’s happened here. Is it the power of Fox News? The power of AIPAC? Just the age-old power of people to hear what they want to hear and believe what they want to believe? I dunno. But it’s really pretty stunning to see this kind of historical revisionism become so widespread so fast.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

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