Israel has reportedly told the Palestinian Authority the separation wall cutting through the occupied West Bank will serve as the border of their future state. Palestinian officials have long sought a state within the 1967 borders, before Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The International Court of Justice has previously declared the route of the separation wall illegal for going beyond the 1967 borders to incorporate major Israeli settlement blocs. The Israeli declaration of the separation wall as the future border comes just as Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived in Israel to encourage ongoing U.S.-brokered talks. Kerry spoke after visiting a memorial for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Secretary of State John Kerry: “I come here without any illusions about the difficulties. But I come here determined to work with leaders, with the prime minister, with the president of the Palestinian Authority, to try to find a way forward, so that Israel can live the dream that President Peres and Prime Minister Rabin expressed so eloquently and beautifully in the tragedy of that day here and in many days before that. We will continue to work, and I can promise Israelis that America will stand by the side of Israel every step of the way.”