Israel will never return to its 1967 lines, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told about 10,000 members of a U.S. pro-Israel organization in Washington.
Netanyahu said he would reveal his vision for peace with the Palestinians in a speech Tuesday to a joint session of the U.S. Congress.
The outcome of the 1967 Six Days War resulted in Israel taking control of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and the West Bank and Sinai Peninsula.
Netanyahu says Israel will not agree in peace talks to return to the lines it had before that war.
Any peace agreement "must leave Israel with security and therefore Israel cannot return to the indefensible 1967 lines," The Jerusalem Post quoted Netanyahu as telling the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Monday night.
"Israel is the cradle of our common civilization, crucible of our moral ideals. The Jewish state was founded on these eternal values. This is why Israel's more than 1 million Muslim citizens enjoy full democratic rights," Netanyahu said. "This is why the only place in the Middle East where Christians are completely free to practice their faith is in the democratic state of Israel. And this is why only Israel can be trusted to ensure freedom for all faiths in our eternal capital, the united city of Jerusalem."
Support for Israel doesn't divide America, Netanyahu said, "It unites America."