Biden’s duplicitous history against Israel

US-Israel relations are not helped by a President expressing a Hamas-supporting narrative.

By Barry Shaw, Israel Institute for Strategic Studies

Joe Biden is, once again, at loggerheads with Israel.

This has been brewing for decades. Biden infamously admitted telling Benjamin Netanyahu, “Bibi I love you, but I don’t agree with a damn thing you say.”

Biden seems to have learnt nothing from his personal contentious relationship with Israel going back decades. Biden’s animus towards Israel has not been confined to Netanyahu.

Biden’s long and contentious relationship with Israel goes back to June 1982 when, as a Senator, Biden threatened another Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, with holding back US aid to Israel which caused Begin to respond,

“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.”

Senator Biden reportedly banged on the table with his fist, to which Begin retorted,

“This desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don’t threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think that because the US lends us money it is entitled to impose on us what they think 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.”

It seems Biden failed to learn from that experience.

As a fledgling senator, Biden made his first visit to Israel in 1972, just days before the Arab attack against Israel in the Yom Kippur War.

Biden visited a worried Golda Meir having come from Egypt and, according to one official who was present at that meeting, Biden told a tense Israeli Prime Minister that Egypt was not preparing for war against the Jewish state because, as he put it, they accepted Israel’s military superiority.

Biden was wrong. Forty days later, Egypt, Syria and Jordan launched their war against the Jewish state on Judaism’s holiest day.

Biden had been deceived by the Arabs and brought a deceptive message to Israel. Some people are saying he is doing the same today.

As Vice President in the final days of the Obama presidency, Biden played a key role in delivering the anti-Israel votes in the UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of 23 December, 2016 which, in its deceptive language, cast Israel as illegally occupying land in1967 that had been illegally occupied by Jordan since the Arab war of 1948 on territory that had been granted to Israel by virtue of a majority vote for the UN Partition Plan Resolution 181 of 29 November,1947 and on which the State of Israel was established the following year.

This was Obama’s stab in Israel’s back as they were preparing to leave the White House after their defeat at the hands of Donald Trump.

Obama had been upset by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s vocal challenge to the Obama-Biden disastrous appeasement policy toward a nuclear-ambitious Iran.

Biden’s role in this duplicitous diplomatic move was delivering the votes for Obama who deliberately failed to apply the US veto to a damagingly anti-Israel bill they actively introduced.

When I heard Biden repeatedly say, immediately after the genocidal Palestinian Hamas horrors of the 7th of October, that he had our backs, I preferred to reserve judgment.

Biden repeated that message when he said on 18 October that he had told Israel’s War Cabinet, “We will continue to have Israel’s back as you continue to defend your people.”

I wrote at that time that given Biden’s character and two-face history, that Biden’s support would be temporary based on his inconsistent relationship with Israel.

Now Biden has proved me right in my assessment as we see Biden playing to his electoral base as he heads toward an election in which he is trailing in the polls.

Biden’s political career has centered on personal advancement. There has been no defining issue or matter of principle on which he has pinned his fate. He blows in the direction that will advance him personally and, right now, he needs votes.

His pro-Palestinian base is screaming for an end of the war in support of Hamas. So now he is raising his voice and making threats to stop Israel from completing its mission in Gaza, the eradication of Hamas and the release of our hostages, some of whom, Biden seems to have forgotten, are American.

Biden knows that Israel is setting up a safe zone for Gazans leaving Rafah. He knows that Israel is preparing a humanitarian corridor for them to travel safely. He knows that Israel will give the Gazans in Rafah early warning with instructions where to go to.

In fact, many people are already leaving. But Biden fails to publicly support Israel’s efforts. Instead, he warns against an Israeli invasion into Rafah as if these humanitarian steps are not being organized by us.

This is disingenuous.

Biden’s behavior is becoming erratic. In a hot mike moment, Biden is heard telling Anthony Blinken and Pete Buttigieg that, “I told him, Bibi, that you and I are going to have a ‘Come to Jesus’ meeting.”

This insensitive comment smacked of anti-Semitism from a Catholic President against the Jewish Prime Minister of the Jewish State, given the past history of Catholic Expulsions and Inquisitions, did not go down well in Israel, or with Jews worldwide. Sephardi and Mizrahi Israelis are descendants of that dark Catholic period.

Biden’s behavior has changed.

Recently, he maliciously imposed Presidential Executive Orders against four Israelis who killed no one accusing them of being “violent Israeli settlers,” while staying silent about the hundreds of Palestinians that have murdered thousands of Israelis, not counting the victims of 7/10.

US-Israel relations are not helped by a President expressing a Hamas-supporting narrative while inviting opposition leader, Benny Ganz, to the White House.

This was a deliberate display of divisive politics; a malevolent act designed to split Israeli public opinion and bring down Israel’s democratically elected government at a time when we have reached a critical stage in our war against a lethal enemy.

Israel expects the US Administration fully supporting our justified efforts to destroy the Hamas regime. Instead, we see Chuck Schumer, the Democrat Senate leader, following Biden’s lead.

Biden and Schumer are hitting on Israel to pacify their radical base ahead of a crucial election.

The polls do not look good for Biden and Schumer, but that should not be the reason for them to stab us in the back. In fact, it will lose them even more votes given that 82% of Americans support Israel, according to a recent Harvard poll.

Both Biden and Schumer have warned they could stop vital arms supplies to Israel. This constitutes a treacherous and existential threat to Israel.

If they go through with his threat, Israel may not be able to complete its mission in Gaza. Also, Israel will be unable to deal with the Hezbollah threat from Lebanon that is preventing a hundred thousand displaced residents from returning to their homes and businesses in the north of Israel.

Furthermore, Iran could use the opportunity of an under-supplied Israel to order their Lebanese Hezbollah proxy to unleash their massive arsenal of 160,000 powerful and precision-guided rockets that could destroy the coastal heartland of Israel in a blitzkrieg of epic and devastating proportions.

Israel needs to finish the job in Gaza, reject Biden’s vindictive punishment of individual Israelis with his iniquitous Executive Orders, and resist his efforts to reward Hamas and Fatah with the creation of a “technocrat” Palestine state.

Barry Shaw, Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

Benjamin NetanyahuHamasHezbollahJoe Bidentraitor