Joe Biden: Israel's Fake 'Friend'
A long destructive track record of undermining
Israeli security.
By
FrontPageMag.com
Joe Biden has made a habit of describing himself as
a loyal, stalwart friend and ally of Israel. At a
campaign stop earlier this month, for instance, he
declared: “I’m so proud of
the Obama-Biden administration’s unprecedented
support for Israel’s security.” But a careful
examination of Biden's track record reveals his long
and extremely troubling history of undermining
Israel's security and public image. Some lowlights:
1982: Biden's Angry Exchange with Menachem Begin
At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting on
June 22, 1982, an animated Senator Biden, banging
the desk in front of him with his fist, warned
then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin that if Israel
did not stop establishing
new Jewish settlements in the West Bank,[1] U.S. aid
to that country might be cut off.
Begin responded forcefully:
Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will
not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am
a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history.
Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas
chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we
were striving to create our country. We paid for it.
We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by
our principles. We will defend them. And, when
necessary, we will die for them again, with or
without your aid.
And with regard to Biden's theatrical
furniture-banging, Begin said:
This desk is designed for writing, not for fists.
Don’t threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think
that because the U.S. lends us money it is entitled
to impose on us what we must do? We are grateful for
the assistance we have received, but we are not to
be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three thousand
years of culture are behind me, and you will not
frighten me with threats. Take note: we do not want
a single soldier of yours to die for us.
1995-2020: Biden's Stance on the Relocation of the
U.S. Embassy in Israel
Biden voted for
the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which recognized
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and required the
U.S. president to relocate the American embassy from
Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, though the law allowed the
president to waive the move every six months if he
believed that a delay would further the interests of
national security.
When he ran for vice president with Barack Obama in
2008, Biden said:
“I think we should move the embassy, but you don't
have a [Israeli] government asking us to move the
embassy there. Let them make the judgment.”
Throughout the eight years that followed, the
Obama-Biden administration never even hinted that it
might contemplate relocating the U.S. embassy.
Indeed, the administration refused even to affirm
that Jerusalem was Israel's capital. For example,
in March 2012, an Obama-Biden State Department
spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, told a gathering of
journalists: “With regard to our Jerusalem policy,
it’s a permanent-status issue. It’s got to be
resolved through the negotiations between the
parties.... We are not going to prejudge the outcome
of those negotiations, including the final status of
Jerusalem..... [O]ur embassy, as you know, is
located in Tel Aviv.”
When Donald Trump announced in December 2017 that he
not only recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital
but also planned to move the embassy to that city,
Biden remained silent.
Nor did he issue a statement when the embassy was
actually physically relocated in May 2018. More
recently, in a November 2019 interview with PBS,
Biden was asked if he, as president, would reverse
Trump's move. He replied:
“Not now. I wouldn't reverse it. I wouldn't have
done it in the first place.”
2009-2017: The Obama-Biden Administration's Strained
Relationship with Israel
No American presidential administration ever had so
strained a relationship with Israel as did
Obama-Biden. As Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren said in
2010, “Israel’s ties with the United States are in
their worst crisis since 1975 … a crisis of historic
proportions.” Author and scholar Dennis Prager concurred,
“Most observers, right or left, pro-Israel or
anti-Israel, would agree that Israeli-American
relations are the worst they have been in memory.”
In the spring of 2011, David Parsons, spokesman for
the International Christian Embassy
Jerusalem, lamented that the “traditional, special
relationship between America and Israel” was being
thrown “out the window in a sense.” And in October
2012, Israeli lawmaker Danny Danon, chairman of
Likud’s international outreach branch, said that
the Obama administration's policies vis-a-vis Israel
had been “catastrophic.”
2010: The Obama-Biden Administration Criticizes
Israeli Settlements:
While Vice President Biden was visiting Israel in
March 2010, a Jerusalem municipal office announced
plans to build some 1,600 housing units for Jews in
a section of that city. In response, Biden told Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that this development
“endangers regional peace” in the Middle East. In a
separate statement, Biden added,
“I condemn the decision by the government of Israel
to advance planning for new housing units in East
Jerusalem,” calling it “precisely the kind of step
that undermines the trust we need right now” for
constructive peace talks.
Ten days later,
Netanyahu traveled to Washington in an effort to put
the U.S.-Israel relationship back on more solid
footing, but as the Wall Street Journal reported,
the prime minister “was snubbed at a White House
meeting with President Obama — no photo op, no joint
statement, and he was sent out through a side door.”
Washington Post columnist and Middle East expert
Jackson Diehl wrote that
“Netanyahu is being treated as if he were an
unsavory Third World dictator.” And ambassador
Michael Oren called Israel's
rift with America “the worst with the U.S. in 35
years.”
2010-2015: The Obama-Biden Administration's Repeated
Leaks to the Press About Israel
In 2010, the Obama-Biden administration – determined
to do everything in its power to turn public opinion
against a possible Israeli military strike targeting
Iranian nuclear facilities – leaked information
about a covert deal between
Israel and Saudi Arabia, whereby the Saudis had
agreed that they would allow Israel to use their
airspace in order to wage an attack against Iran and
its nuclear facilities.
On March 22, 2012, the Obama-Biden administration leaked to
The New York Times the results of a classified war
game which predicted that an Israeli strike against
Iran's nuclear facilities could lead to a wider
regional war and result in hundreds of American
deaths. Institute for National Security Studies
analyst Yoel Guzansky interpreted the motives behind
the Obama-Biden leaks as follows: “It seems like a
big campaign to prevent Israel from attacking. I
think the [Obama-Biden] administration is really
worried Jerusalem will attack and attack soon.
They’re trying hard to prevent it in so many ways.”
In a May 29, 2012 column in the Israeli newspaper
Yedioth Ahronoth, longtime defense commentator Ron
Ben-Yishai noted that the leaks would “make it more
difficult for Israeli decision-makers to order the
IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] to carry out a strike,
and what’s even graver, [would] erode the IDF’s
capacity to launch such strike with minimal
casualties.”
On April 8, 2012, the New Yorker reported that
according to information leaked by the Obama-Biden
administration, the Israeli intelligence agency
Mossad was helping to fund and train the Iranian
opposition group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK). This
revelation was intended to portray Israel as being
unwilling to negotiate in good faith with the
government in Tehran, and to thereby undermine any
moral authority that Israel might claim in the event
of a future military strike against Iran.
In early May 2013, two Obama-Biden administration
officials leaked classified information to the media
indicating that Israel was behind a May 3rd
airstrike against a shipment of advanced
surface-to-surface missiles at the airport in
Damascus, Syria. Israeli security analysts said that
the leak could not only endanger any Israeli agents
who were still on the ground in Syria, but could
also increase the likelihood that Syrian President
Bashar Assad would retaliate against the Jewish
state. Again, the purpose of the leak was to paint
Israel as an unnecessarily aggressive, bellicose
nation.
For similar purposes, in early November 2013 an
Obama-Biden administration official leaked to
CNN the fact that Israeli warplanes had attacked a
Syrian base in the port of Latakia. The planes were
specifically targeting Russian-made SA-8 Gecko
Dgreen mobile missiles, so as to prevent their
delivery to the terrorist organization Hezbollah.
Israeli officials called the leak “scandalous”
and “unthinkable.”
In January 2015, the Obama-Biden administration --
which opposed the notion of imposing any new
economic sanctions against the Iranian regime --
leaked information indicating that an unnamed Mossad
official had recently acknowledged that the
enactment of such sanctions would be akin to
“throwing a grenade into
the [nuclear negotiation] process.” The leak's
implication was that the Mossad official was
privately opposed to sanctions. But approximately 12
hours later, that official – Mossad leader Tamir
Pardo – stepped forth and, by means of a written
statement issued by his office, clarified exactly
what he had said and meant:
Contrary to what has been reported, the head of the
Mossad did not say that he opposes imposing
additional sanctions on Iran.... Regarding the
reported reference to 'throwing a grenade,' the head
of the Mossad did not use this expression regarding
the imposition of sanctions, which he believes to be
the sticks necessary for reaching a good deal with
Iran. He used this expression as a metaphor to
describe the possibility of creating a temporary
crisis in the negotiations, at the end of which
talks would resume under improved conditions.
2013: The Obama-Biden Administration's Secret
Negotiations with Iran
In early November 2013, it was reported that
the Obama-Biden administration had begun softening
U.S. sanctions against Iran (vis-a -vis the latter's
nuclear program) soon after the election, five
months earlier, of that country's new president,
Hassan Rouhani. This move set the stage, in turn,
for the United States -- in conjunction with
Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany -- to propose a
short-term “first step agreement”
with Iran at a November meeting in Geneva. The deal,
which sought to freeze Iran’s nuclear program for
approximately six months in order to create an
opportunity for a more comprehensive and lasting
bargain to be negotiated later, required Iran to
stop enriching uranium to a weapons-grade level, to
refrain for six months from activating its plutonium
reactor at Arak, and to stop using its most advanced
and powerful centrifuges. “In
return,” said the London Telegraph,
“America would ease economic sanctions, possibly by
releasing some Iranian foreign exchange reserves
currently held in frozen accounts. In addition, some
restrictions affecting Iran’s petrochemical, motor
and precious metals industries could be relaxed.”
On November 8, 2013, the Israeli government, which
the Obama-Biden administration had not informed of
the negotiations, was stunned to learn of the secret
talks with Iran. News of the agreement led to the canceling of
a joint media appearance between U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu. One Israeli official was quoted saying
that “the Iranians are leading the Americans by the
nose.”
Netanyahu, outraged at the prospect of this
agreement, said that
the Iranians “got everything … they wanted” – most
notably “relief from sanctions after years of a
grueling sanctions regime” – “and paid nothing.”
“It’s the deal of a century for Iran,” Natanyahu added,
“it’s a very dangerous and bad deal for peace and
the international community.”
Eventually, this 2013 agreement would evolve into
the famous Iran Nuclear Deal of 2015 – officially
known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA) – where the Obama-Biden
administration joined the governments of Britain,
France, Russia, China, and Germany in signing an
accord with Iran.
2014: The Obama-Biden Administration Threatens to
Shoot Down Israeli Fighter Jets
In 2014, not long after Israel had discovered that
the U.S. and Iran had been involved in the
aforementioned secret negotiations regarding Iran’s
nuclear program, the Netanyahu government prepared a
military operation designed to destroy that program.
The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported that
when an unnamed Israeli minister revealed the attack
plan to Secretary of State John Kerry, President
Obama threatened to shoot down the Israeli jets
before they could get within striking distance of
their targets in Iran.
2014: The Obama-Biden Administration Tells Israel to
Stop Assassinating Iranian Nuclear Scientists
On March 3, 2014, the Associated Press reported that
the Obama-Biden administration had told Israeli
authorities to stop their targeted killings of
Iranian nuclear scientists. According to AP:
“Israel's Mossad spy agency has supposedly taken out
[mostly with car bombs] at least five top Iranian
nuclear experts in an attempt to slow the country’s
nuclear program … An unidentified U.S. official
disclosed the program to CBS while claiming [that]
the … administration is leaning on its Middle
Eastern ally to stop the targeted killings and wait
for the current deal to disarm to play out.”
2015: The Obama-Biden Administration Is Enraged by
Netanyahu’s Acceptance of John Boehner’s Invitation
to Address Congress
On January 21, 2015, Republican House Speaker John
Boehner invited Israeli
Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was strongly oposed to
the emerging U.S. agreement with Iran regarding the
latter’s nuclear program, to speak (on March 3) to a
joint session of Congress about the security threat
posed by Iran. In response to Boehner’s action, an
outraged Obama-Biden administration accused the
House Speaker of having violated “protocol” by
extending the invitation on his own initiative
instead of asking the executive branch to extend an
invitation.
When it was subsequently announced that Obama would
not be meeting personally with Netanyahu during the
latter's March 3rd visit, the president offered
this explanation: “We don’t meet with
any world leader two weeks before their election. I
think that’s inappropriate.” “As a matter of
long-standing practice and principle,” added White
House officials, “we do not see heads of state or
candidates in close proximity to their elections,”
so as to “avoid the appearance of influencing a
democratic election in a foreign country.”
The Obama-Biden administration also urged members
of the Congressional Black Caucus to boycott
Netanyahu’s speech, and to speak out against it
publicly as well. Vice President Joe Biden, for his
part, vowed to
skip the speech.
In early February 2015, it was learned that the
Obama-Biden White House’s tale of having been
blindsided by Boehner and Netanyahu was a lie.
This was made evident by a correction added to a New
York Times article that
stated: “Correction: An earlier version of this
article misstated when Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu of Israel accepted Speaker John A.
Boehner’s invitation to address Congress. He
accepted after the [Obama-Biden] administration had
been informed of the invitation, not before.”
Also in February 2015, it was learned that the
Obama-Biden administration's claim that its decision
not to meet with Netanyahu in Washington was based
on a desire to avoid “inappropriate[ly]” influencing
the upcoming Israeli election, was also a lie. This
was evidenced by the fact that during the weekend of
February 7-8, Vice President Biden and Secretary of
State John Kerry traveled to Munich, Germany to meet with
Israeli Labor leader Isaac Herzog, Netanyahu’s
opponent in the election.
2015: Declassification of a Document Revealing
Israel's Nuclear Program
In early February 2015, – when the Obama-Biden
administration was enraged by the recent
announcement that Prime Minister Netanyahu would
soon be addressing a joint session of the U.S.
Congress regarding Iran's nuclear program -- the
Pentagon quietly declassified a
top-secret, 386-page Defense Department document
from 1987 containing extensive details of Israel's
nuclear program. The document was entitled “Critical
Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO
Nations.” As the Israel National News (INN)
explained, the Jewish state's nuclear program was “a
highly covert topic that Israel has never formally
announced [so as] to avoid a regional nuclear arms
race, and which the U.S. until now has respected by
remaining silent [about it].” Added INN: “[A] highly
suspicious aspect of the document is that while the
Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel's
sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections
on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATO
countries classified, with those sections blocked
out in the document.”
2015-2018: Biden & The Iran Nuclear Deal
On July 14, 2015, the Obama-Biden administration –
along with the leaders of Britain, France, Russia,
China, and Germany – together finalized a nuclear
agreement with Iran. The key elements of
the deal were
as follows:
·
Iran would be permitted to keep some
5,060 centrifuges, one-third of which would continue
to spin in perpetuity.
·
Iran would receive $150 billion in sanctions relief
– “some portion” of which, according to Obama-Biden
National Security Adviser Susan Rice, “we should
expect … would go to the Iranian military and could
potentially be used for the kinds of bad behavior
that we have seen in the region up until now.”
·
Russia and China would be permitted to
continue to supply Iran with weapons.
·
Iran would have the discretion
to block international inspectors from military
installations and would be given 14 days’ notice for
any request to visit any site.
·
Only inspectors from countries possessing diplomatic
relations with Iran would be given access to Iranian
nuclear sites; thus there would be no American
inspectors.
·
The embargo on the sale of weapons to Iran would be
officially lifted in 5 years.
·
Iran's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)
program would remain intact and unaffected; indeed
it was never even discussed as an issue in the
negotiations.
·
The heavy water reactor in Arak and the underground
nuclear facility in Fordo would remain open,
violating the “red lines” that Obama had repeatedly
cited.
·
Iran would not be required to disclose information
about its past nuclear research and development.
·
The U.S. would provide technical assistance to help
Iran develop its nuclear program, supposedly for
peaceful domestic purposes.
·
Sanctions would lifted on critical parts of Iran’s
military, including a previously existing travel ban
against Qasem Suleimani, leader of the terrorist
Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
·
Iran would not be required to release American
prisoners like Iranian-American Christian missionary
Saeed Abedini, Iranian-American Washington
Post journalist Jason Rezaian, or U.S. Marine
Amir Hekmati.
·
The U.S. and its five negotiating partner nations
would provide Iranian nuclear leaders with training
courses and workshops designed to strengthen their
ability to prevent and respond to threats to their
nuclear facilities and systems.
·
Iran would not be required to
renounce terrorism against the United States, as the
Obama-Biden administration deemed such an
expectation to be “unrealistic.”
·
Iran would not be required to affirm its “clear and
unambiguous … recognition of Israel's right to
exist” – a requirement that Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu had pleaded for. As Obama-Biden State
Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, “This
is an agreement that is only about the nuclear issue
… [and] doesn't deal with any other issues, nor
should it.”
·
Similarly, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said “we
do not see a need that both sides recognize this
position [accepting Israel's right to exist] as part
of the final agreement.”
·
Whatever restrictions were placed on Iran's nuclear
program, would begin to expire – due to so-called “sunset
clauses” – at various times over the
ensuing 5 to 26 years. Specifically: the ban on
Iranian arms exports would expire in 2020; the ban
on Iran's manufacture of advanced centrifuges would
begin to expire in 2023; unilateral or multilateral
nuclear sanctions against Iran would become
extremely difficult to re-impose after 2023; the cap
of 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz facility
would expire in 2026; and restrictions on the number
and types of centrifuges and enrichment facilities
operated by Iran, would expire in 2031.
Joe Biden took on the role of being the
administration's leading public promoter of
the Iran deal. He casually dismissed the
concerns of critics – most notably Netanyahu – who
warned that the sunset clauses for key parts of the
agreement would “pave Iran’s path to a bomb.” Those
people, Biden said, simply “don’t get it, they’re
wrong.”
2017-2020: Biden Opposes Trump's Withdrawal from the
Iran Nuclear Deal
After President Trump decided to pull America out of
the Iran nuclear deal, Biden characterized Trump's
strategy as “a self-inflicted disaster” that would
make “military conflict” and “another war in the
Middle East” much “more likely.”
During a January 2020 presidential campaign event,
Biden called on
Trump to rejoin the Iran agreement. “The seeds of
danger were planted by Donald Trump himself on May
8, 2019 — the day he tore up the Iran Nuclear Deal,”
said Biden, forgetting that the date on which the
U.S. withdrew from the agreement was actually May
8, 2018.
Biden added that Trump had “turned his back on our
closest European allies” by selfishly “decid[ing]
that it was important to destroy any progress that
the Obama-Biden administration did.”
2015: The Obama-Biden Administration Criticizes
Netanyahu for Seeming to Abandon Support for a
Two-State Solution
The Obama-Biden administration was angered in March
2015 when Israeili Prime Minister Netanyahu, late in
his re-election campaign, told the
Israeli news outlet Maariv that he would not allow
the creation of a Palestinian state on his watch --
a position which Obama-Biden viewed as a shift away
from Netanyahu's previous assertion (in 2009) that
his “vision of peace” included “two free peoples” --
i.e., Israelis and Palestinians -- living in
separate, independent, adjacent states.
Responding to Netanyahu, State Department
spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: “The prime minister's
recent statements call into question his commitment
to a two-state solution. We're not going to prejudge
what we would do if there was a U.N. action” --
implying that Obama-Biden might depart from
America's customary practice of vetoing United
Nations Security Council resolutions opposed by
Israel.
Netanyahu subsequently clarified that
he remained open to a two-state solution, but only
if “the Palestinian leadership [would agree] to
abandon their pact with Hamas and engage in genuine
negotiations with Israel.” Notwithstanding the prime
minister's clarification, White House spokesman Josh
Earnest stated that
“[w]ords matter” and that there could be
“consequences” for Netanyahu's initial remarks in
this instance.
2016: Biden Publicly Ridicules Israel After a
Terrorist Bombing Wounds 21 Jews
Just a few hours after an April 18, 2016 terrorist
bus bombing in Jerusalem had wounded at least 21
people, Vice President Biden delivered a speech to
the Israel advocacy group J Street, an organization
that traces the Mideast conflict chiefly to the
notion that “Israel’s settlements in the occupied
territories have, for [many] years, been an obstacle
to peace.” In the course of his talk, Biden said:
“I firmly believe that the actions that Israel's
government has taken over the past several years --
the steady and systematic expansion of settlements,
the legalization of outposts, land seizures --
they're moving us, and, more importantly, they're
moving Israel in the wrong direction.” “The present course
Israel’s on is not one that’s likely to secure its
existence as a Jewish, democratic state,” Biden
added. Conversely, he singled out for praise a young
left-wing member of Israel's parliament, Stav
Shaffir, who was a harsh critic of Benjamin
Netanyahu: “May your views begin to once again
become the majority opinion in the Knesset,” Biden
said to Shaffir.
2016: The Obama-Biden Administration Urges Israel to
Exercise “Restraint” in the Wake of Palestinian
Terror Attack
In the immediate aftermath of a June 7, 2016
terrorist attack in which two Palestinian gunmen had
shot nine Israelis (killing four) in a Tel Aviv
shopping complex, the Obama-Biden State Department
cautioned the Israeli government to “exercise restraint”
in carrying out its vow to increase security control
over the West Bank and its residents.
2016: The Obama-Biden Administration Again Condemns
Israeli Settlements
In the summer of 2016, the Obama-Biden
administration renewed its attacks against Israeli
settlements. In what journalist and scholar
Caroline Glick characterized as
a “shockingly hostile assault” against Israel, the
State Department issued the following statement:
We are deeply concerned by reports today that the
government of Israel has published tenders for 323
units in East Jerusalem settlements. This follows
Monday’s announcement of plans for 770 units in the
settlement of Gilo. We strongly oppose settlement
activity, which is corrosive to the cause of peace.
These steps by Israeli authorities are the latest
examples of what appears to be a steady acceleration
of settlement activity that is systematically
undermining the prospects for a two-state
solution.... We are also concerned about recent
increased demolitions of Palestinian structures in
the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which reportedly
have left dozens of Palestinians homeless, including
children.... This is part of an ongoing process of
land seizures, settlement expansion, legalizations
of outposts, and denial of Palestinian development
that risk entrenching a one-state reality of
perpetual occupation and conflict. We remain
troubled that Israel continues this pattern of
provocative and counter-productive action, which
raises serious questions about Israel’s ultimate
commitment to a peaceful, negotiated settlement with
the Palestinians.
2016: The Obama-Biden Administration Abstains on
U.N. Vote Regarding Israeli Settlements
On December 24, 2016, the Obama-Biden administration
– in a major departure from traditional U.S. policy
– abstained from
voting on a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning
the existence and construction of Israeli
settlements in the West Bank. The resolution also
declared that all of eastern Jerusalem – including
Judaism’s most sacred site, the Temple Mount – was
“Palestinian territory” that was being illegally
“occupied” by Israel in “a flagrant violation under
international law.” The Obama-Biden abstention
allowed this resolution to pass, prompting Israeli
Prime Minister Netanyahu to condemn the
administration's “shameful betrayal.” “From the information that
we have,” Netanyahu added, “we have no doubt that
the Obama administration initiated [the abstention],
stood behind it, coordinated on the wording, and
demanded that it be passed.”
2019: Biden Draws a Moral Equivalence Between Israel
& the Palestinians
During his current presidential campaign, Biden,
drawing a moral equivalence between the Israelis and
the Palestinians, has stated that
“neither the Israeli nor Palestinian leadership
seems willing to take the political risks necessary
to make progress through direct negotiations.”
2019: Biden Reaches Out to J Street
In November 2019, Biden sent a video
message conveying his support and
friendship to a conference of the aforementioned
organization J Street. One of the featured speakers
at this conference was Osama Qawasma, a spokesman
for the terrorist Fatah organization created by the
late Yasser Arafat, mass murderer of Jews. Qawasma
is also a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council;
an advisor to the Palestinian Authority's current
anti-Semitic president, Mahmoud Abbas; and an opponent of
“the American-Israeli attempts to denounce Hamas as
terrorist.”
Another Islamic
extremist who spoke at the J Street conference which
Biden saluted was Saeb Erekat, Secretary-General of
the PLO Executive Committee, who has openly defended
Hamas and the funding of Islamic terrorists.
2019-2020: Biden Demands a Two-State Solution and
Condemns the Israeli “Occupation”
Biden today maintains that
“there’s no answer” to the Arab-Israeli conflict
other than “a two-state solution,” adding that “I
think the [Israeli] settlements are unnecessary.”
Asked if he considers the “occupation” to be “a
human rights crisis,” Biden replies, “I think
occupation is a real problem, a significant
problem.” He reaffirms that “I will insist on
Israel, which I’ve done, to stop the occupation of
those territories, period.”
2020: Biden Again Draws a Moral Equivalence Between
Israel & the Palestinians
On March 1, 2020, Biden called on
both Israelis and Palestinians “to work together to
address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza,
because it is a crisis.” “And we’re not going to
achieve that future if we don’t condemn steps on
both sides that take us further from peace,” he
added. By Biden's telling:
Palestinians need to eradicate incitement on the
West Bank. Eradicate it. They need to end the rocket
attacks from Gaza. Stop it. And Israel, I think, has
to stop the threats of annexation and settlement
activity, like the recent announcement to build
thousands of settlements in E1 [an undeveloped area
outside Jerusalem]. That’s going to choke off any
hope for peace. And to be frank, those moves are
taking Israel further from its democratic values,
undermining support for Israel in the United States
especially among young people in both political
parties.
2020: Biden Dismisses Trump's Mideast Peace Plan
Without Even Reading It
When President Trump in February 2020 unveiled a new
Mideast peace
initiative, Biden, claiming to have
“spent a lifetime working to advance the security
and survival of a Jewish and democratic Israel,”
characterized the plan as nothing more than “a
political stunt that could spark unilateral moves to
annex territory and set back peace even more.” He
based his opinion not on having read the full plan,
but on merely having read “some outline” of it.
Conclusion
Joe Biden routinely tells the American public that
he is a devoted friend of Israel. The evidence
presented in this article demonstrates that he
clearly is not. While he is by no means the open
anti-Semite that, say, Bernie
Sanders has proven himself to be, Biden
has a long history of being unduly critical of
Israel; conspiring in secret to undermine the
security and public image of the Jewish state; and,
in the case of his open and passionate support for
the abominable Iran nuclear deal, laying the
groundwork for Israel's ultimate destruction at the
hands of a genocidal Islamist regime that has
repeatedly declared its commitment to wiping the
Jewish state off the face of the earth.
If that's a friend … well, you know the rest.
NOTE:
[1] The Basic Facts About Israel's “Settlements”
and “Occupation”: The
term “settlements” as it pertains to Israel has
evolved into a politically charged word whose
meaning is widely misunderstood. The following brief
excerpts from the Jewish Virtual Library (JVL) serve
to clarify:
·
“The term 'Settlements' usually refers to the towns
and villages that Jews established
in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and the Gaza
Strip (prior to the 2005 disengagement)
since Israel captured the area in the Six-Day War of
1967. In some cases, the settlements are in the same
area where flourishing Jewish communities have lived
for thousands of years.”
·
·
“Following Israel’s resounding victory over the
[invading] Arab armies in the Six-Day War, strategic
concerns led both of Israel’s major political
parties … to support and establish settlements at
various times. The first settlements were built …
from 1968 to 1977, with the explicit objective to
secure a Jewish majority in key strategic regions of
the West Bank … that were the scene of heavy
fighting in several of the Arab-Israeli wars.”
·
·
“The overall area in dispute is very small.
According to one organization critical of
settlements, the built-up areas constitute only 1.7%
of the West Bank. That is less than 40 square
miles.”
·
·
“The idea that settlements are illegal derives
primarily from UN resolutions and the International
Court of Justice (ICJ), which is an arm of the UN.
The UN does not make legal determinations, only
political ones.”
·
·
“The ICJ opinion that the settlements violate
international law … was largely based on a
fallacious interpretation of the Fourth Geneva
Convention, which says an occupying power 'shall not
deport or transfer parts of its own civilian
population into the territory it occupies.' The ICJ
presupposes that Israel is now occupying the land of
a sovereign country; however, as [Jerusalem Center
for Public Affairs president] Dore Gold notes,
'there was no recognized sovereign over the West
Bank prior to Israel’s entry into the area.' The
area had previously been occupied by Jordan.”
·
·
“A country cannot occupy territory to which it has
sovereign title; hence, the correct term for the
area is 'disputed territory,' which does not confer
greater rights to either Israel or the Palestinians.
The Palestinians never had sovereignty in the West
Bank, whereas the Jews did for hundreds of years.”
·
“UN Security Council Resolution 242 gives Israel a
legal right to be in the West Bank. According to
Eugene Rostow, a former undersecretary of state for
political affairs in the Johnson administration,
'Israel is entitled to administer the territories'
it acquired in 1967 until 'a just and lasting peace
in the Middle East' is achieved.”
Regarding Israel's so-called military “occupation”
of the West Bank in particular, it began after the
Six Day War of 1967, in which five Arab nations
joined forces to attack Israel in a failed but
brutal war that was intended to permanently destroy
the Jewish state. Scholar David
Meir-Levi explains:
Even one of the most critical of Israel’s
historians, Professor Avi Schlaim, acknowledges that
Israel was the victim of Arab aggression in the
Six-Day War. This is an important point with regard
to the issue of Israeli settlements in and
sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
International law is very clear. Had it been the
aggressor, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and
Gaza Strip would have been illegal, as would all
future expansion of Israeli population into these
territories. However, as the victim of aggression,
Israel’s legal position is exactly the opposite.
As blogger Rochelle Kipnis elaborates:
“Israel’s presence in the West Bank is a result of
self defense during a war on Israel’s right to
exist. The West Bank cannot be considered 'occupied'
because there was no previous sovereign in the area.
While it is considered a 'disputed territory,' it’s
not 'occupied.'”
Nor is there currently any “occupation” of Gaza. By
September 2005, the Israeli government had evacuated
every single Jew who had been living in the Gaza
Strip, so as to give the inhabitants of the region
an opportunity to freely govern themselves. They
responded by electing a terrorist government run by
the genocidal madmen of Hamas, and by constructing a
vast network of secret subterranean tunnels for the
storage and transport of weaponry and terrorist
operatives.