Let’s be charitable. Let’s consider the best case to be made for Biden “as a friend of Israel,” which just appeared from a veteran Israeli journalist, Raphael Ahren: “Biden a veteran friend of Israel, settlement critic, may be at odds over Iran,” by Raphael Ahren, Times of Israel, November 7, 2020:
…“He has a deep feeling for Israel,” said Michael Oren, who served as Israel’s ambassador to the US when Biden was vice president. Oren opposed almost all of the Middle East policies championed by Biden and his boss, Barack Obama, especially on Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian question. Still, he annually attended Biden’s Rosh Hashanah party, and asserts that the former Delaware senator is genuinely concerned about Israel’s well-being.
According to former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren, Biden has a “deep feeling for Israel” and is “genuinely concerned about Israel’s well-being.” That’s good to know, but along with that “deep feeling” and “genuine concern,” a lot more intellect needs to be applied – that is, Biden needs to acquire a detailed knowledge of Israel’s history, its legal rights, the security threats the Jewish state has beaten back but will always have to confront, whatever agreements it reaches with Arab states. It’s nice that he has a warm feeling for Israel, but it would be even nicer if Biden knew why Israeli settlements are legal, built on land — Judea and Samaria, a.k.a. the West Bank — that by right belongs entirely to Israel. Read the Mandate for Palestine, Joe, especially Article 6, where the U.K., as the holder of the Mandate, is instructed “to facilitate Jewish immigration” and “close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.”
The U.K. was, as the holder of the Mandate, duty-bound to “facilitate Jewish immigration” and “close settlement by Jews on the land.” What land is that? Look at, study, commit to memory, Joe – you can do it! — the Mandate maps, that show that land which was set aside to become the future Jewish state. It extends from (roughly) just beyond the Golan Heights in the north, to the Red Sea in the south, and from the Jordan River in the east, to the Mediterranean in the west. The West Bank (a.k.a. Judea and Samaria) is entirely within that Jewish state.
It would be heartening, too, if Joe Biden fully understood the meaning of U.N. Resolution 242, which offers an independent basis – beyond that conferred by the Mandate for Palestine — for Israel’s right to retain territory that it won in the Six-Day War, territory that it needs to hold onto in order to have, in the language of the resolution, “secure [i.e. defensible] and recognized boundaries.” I suspect that in Biden’s nearly fifty years in Washington, despite the hundreds of times he must have spoken feelingly about Israel, he has never read either the Mandate for Palestine or U.N. Resolution 242, as explicated by its author, Lord Caradon. Now is the time for him to do both.
“Biden is from a generation that remembers 1967 and 1973,” Oren said, referring to the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, respectively. “He has Israel in his heart. He actually gets it. He gets Israel.”…
Oren opposed almost all of the Middle East policies of Obama and Biden, which were dangerous to Israel, including the Iran deal, attempts behind the scenes to persuade Israel to stop settlement building, and even the shameful abstention – the first time for the U.S. — on a U.N. vote condemning Israel’s settlements as “illegal.” So why does he insist that Biden “has Israel in his heart. He actually gets it, He gets Israel”? What does that mean? Does he “get” that Israel has a legal right, superior to all other claims, to the entire West Bank? Does he “get” that Israel cannot possibly return to the 1949 armistice lines, with that nine-mile-wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea, which Abba Eban once described as the “lines of Auschwitz”? Does he “get” that instead of seeking, in vain, for a “solution” to the Arab Muslim war on Israel, as generations of peace-processors have tried, we should recognize that this Jihad against Israel is not a problem to be solved but, rather, a situation to be managed? Does Biden understand that the best way for Israel to manage this situation is through a strategy of deterrence, which requires that Israel continue to control, at a minimum, the Jordan Valley and the five large settlement blocs in the West Bank (a.k.a. Judea and Samaria)?
“Biden has known every Israeli prime minister since Golda Meir, “and more than just casually,” he [Ambassador Oren] noted.
“He has retold many times the story of his meeting with Meir in the summer of 1973, during his first overseas trip as a young senator: The Israeli premier showed him maps and told him about the militarily precarious situation her country found itself in. Biden looked depressed, but Meir cheered him up, telling him that Israelis have a secret weapon against the Arabs: They have nowhere else to go.
“During his decades in politics Biden — who has Jewish grandchildren, as two of his three children married Jews — met countless world leaders. But he still describes his interaction with Golda Meir as “one of the most consequential meetings I’ve ever had in my life.”
“Less known is a meeting with her successor Menachem Begin a few years later, which The New York Times at the time described as a “highly emotional confrontation.”
In June 1982, a few days after the start of the Lebanon War, known as Operation Peace for the Galilee, Begin met with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington. Several lawmakers grilled him over Israel’s alleged disproportionate use of force.
“A young senator rose and delivered a very impassioned speech — I must say that it’s been a while since I’ve heard such a talented speaker — and he actually supported Operation Peace for the Galilee,” Begin told Israeli reporters after he returned to Jerusalem.
The senator — Biden — said he would go even further than Israel, adding that he’d forcefully fend off anyone who sought to invade his country, even if that meant killing women or children.
“I disassociated myself from these remarks,” Begin said. “I said to him: No, sir; attention must be paid. According to our values, it is forbidden to hurt women and children, even in war… Sometimes there are casualties among the civilian population as well. But it is forbidden to aspire to this. This is a yardstick of human civilization, not to hurt civilians.”
“But while Biden had sympathy for Jerusalem’s actions in Lebanon, he let it be known that he opposed Israel’s West Bank settlement enterprise. He warned Begin that Israel “was losing support in this country because of the settlements policy,” according to The Times.
Biden was right. Israel has been “losing support” because of its “settlements policy.” But that doesn’t make that policy wrong. The decline in support is merely testimony to the deficiencies of Israel’s hasbara, and the success of Palestinian and other Arab propaganda efforts. “War is deceit,” Muhammad said, and the Palestinians are past masters at this kind of warfare. Apparently those efforts won over Biden himself. Instead of accepting what he has been fed by those propagandists, he owes it to the Jewish state that he keeps insisting he feels so deeply about, to investigate the moral, historic, and legal claims of Jews to the West Bank (a.k.a. Judea and Samaria) on which those settlements have been built.
“He hinted — more than hinted — that if we continue with this policy, it is possible that he will propose cutting our financial aid,” Begin recalled. “And to this I gave him a clear answer: Sir, do not threaten us with cutting aid. First of all, you should know that this is not a one-way street. You help us, and we are very grateful for your help; but this is a two-way street: We do a lot for you. And also in recent battles we did a lot for the United States.”
Begin, in his own telling, warned the young Delaware senator that “if at any time you demand of us to yield on a principle in which we believe, while threatening to cut aid, we will not abandon the principle in which we believe.”
It was “a lively discussion” that he thought was “very helpful,” Begin concluded.
Begin, a noble and also tragic figure (for the way he was treated with such hostility and contempt by Jimmy Carter at Camp David, while Anwar Sadat, who was getting back the entire Sinai, was seen by Carter as a veritable Prince of Peace) stood his ground at Biden’s implied threat of a cut in aid. And his performance likely made a deep impression on Biden, for since that exchange with Begin, Biden has always said that he would never cut aid to Israel to force a change in its policy. We’ll soon have a chance to see if he still means it.
owensgate says
A determined plan to stuff the U.S. Federal Government with anti-Israel Mussulmen does not strike me as being “Israel friendly”.
mgoldberg says
Biden threatened the Ukraine just a few yrs ago publically, bragging about this, to save his son, and his money. And their necks. The dems have no interest in exposing any of that. Obama and biden tried to overthrow Netanyahu and this was documented, but again, dems were not interested. The very hard work done, by President Trump to get the peace agreements between arab states, overturning decades of intransigence for practical realities, was monumental. President Trump has received no credit, let alone help to further this utterly dramatic demonstration of his negotiation skills. He literally turned down the threats of attacks in the middleast by assisting these substantive beginnings of national sovereignty within the middleeast. And what will happen under Biden/Harris- they will increase funding to the Iranians, increase the probabilites of terror attacks with their funding and the creating of nuclear capability rather than hindering it as
Pres Trump has so ably done…….
owensgate says
And if that isn’t enough, the World will not allow his “Peace Prize” nominations to get anywhere near to actually being awarded.
mortimer says
A friend of Iran is not a friend of Israel.
gravenimage says
So true, Mortimer.
Rbla says
Biden is not good but there is worse waiting in the wings. I give Dementia Joe two, three months at the most before they officially dispatch him to the ‘home’. They can’t keep pumping him up with drugs much longer.
gfmucci says
And yet Israel/Netanyahu prematurely congratulates Biden for his “victory.” Are you serious? Even Russia is waiting for official results!
Rarely says
There appears to be very little, if any, doubt that Biden has won the Presidency. It is totally appropriate that he be congratulated in a timely fashion. Even Dubya has sent his congratulations.
If, on the other hand, some unforeseen miracle proves the election results to be otherwise then congratulations can be sent to Trump.
It’s hardly “premature” and does no harm.
James Lincoln says
Rarely says,
“There appears to be very little, if any, doubt that Biden has won the Presidency.”
That certainly is the position of the mainstream media – but that is far from official.
There will be much litigation, starting with Pennsylvania…
somehistory says
Dick Morris says Trump is makings gains in GA and AZ.
Guess the fat lady hasn’t sung yet. Gag the woman till the rest of the legal votes are counted and the fraudulent ones are thrown out.
Rarely says
It’s an incredibly steep uphill battle.
The fat lady is clearing her throat and testing the mike.
don vito says
obiden’s values start and stop with $ signs. Grifting his way through 45-50 years in the federal government, selling the ability to gain access to a law maker in the Senate and VP.
Much of his grifting remains hidden to this day. Big paydays coming for obiden, Think the presstitutes will keep a tally and make it public? Me either. (Spit) president reject joe $ obiden
ELI says
Netanyahu wasted no time in congratulating Biden. He does not seem to think that the election was stolen.
gravenimage says
Netanyahu sees how things are going. This does not mean that he prefers the Islamophilic Biden to Trump. Biden has already vowed to send more taxpayer dollars to the “Palestinians”, which will as always be used for Jihad terror against Israel.
somehistory says
The whole world is going to begin seeing the “biden effect.’ My phrase…maybe others have thought the same…for the evil, the crimes, even plain rude behavior coming our way due to what he and harris stand for.
Lawlessness…only those not committing crimes will be prosecuted. Much like when harris went afterr the single mother of two, holding two jobs and living in a homeless shelter with her children…because the kids were truant.
Everyone knows the names of the ***real****criminals in CA.
No good will be visited upon anyone…not here, not in Israel. If he makes it to swear at the people in January, the biden effect will be in full force.
Walter Sieruk says
Joe Biden would be nothing to State of Israel but a curse
This is because to obtain the Presidency Biden promised in install Muslims at every level of his administration. We may\be sure that this is one promise that Biden will keep . The problem with this is that such action on Biden’s part it the will open the door wide for Muslims to enter every part of the Federal government who are also dedicated stealth jihadists .
They will easily control and manipulate weak and feeble minded old Joe to use him as their “useful idiot ” Biden , will be easily swayed to will of the stealth jihadists in his administration as well as by the Muslims in power overseas in that “mullah tyranny” of Iran .After all , Biden has already embraced the Marxist- Islamic alliance ,which is also known as the “Red /Green alliance.”
In addition, the Biden disaster doesn’t stop at this.. That old fool as President Biden would old stop the border control wall and then a flood of gangsters as MS -13, would invade the USA and likewise no border control would open the to the door the invasion and infiltration of highly dangerous jihadists, as Hezbollah and Hamas, into the United States of America.
Biden if he becomes President ,in spite of his taking part in election fraud , will end up being a disaster to both the State Israel and the USA
Patrick says
Biden would be America’s and Israel’s worst enemy.
gravenimage says
What Would a Biden Presidency Mean For Israel?
……………………….
Nothing good…
R Russell says
The Globalists, of which Biden is one, are determined to destroy Israel. They don’t seem to know that Israel will never again be put out of their land. It doesn’t seem to stop them trying and it will come to an awful end in the not too distant future – I don’t think the elderly Biden will live long enough to be part of it.