Thanks, but ‘no,’ Joe! by Sarah Honig

...Esteemed tendentious commentators claimed to be shaken to their sensitive cores by the wagging finger and bitchy barbs of the harsh critic who, with that trademark mischievous twinkle ever-present in his eyes, kept declaring his undying love for Israel. But upon cooler reflection, they might have realized that in effect Biden warned that if we don’t rush to slash our own throats our enemies might shortly decapitate us.

US Vice President Joe Biden:  “If you
were attacked and overwhelmed,
we would fight for you.”

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
30 April '15..

How can any Israeli just not be charmed by good ole’ Joe Biden? Time and again, especially when courting Jewish voters or when appearing on behalf of his boss Barack Obama before Jewish audiences, America’s Vice President has ebulliently let us know that some of his best friends are Zionists.

He has even famously stated: “I am a Zionist.” He instantly then added straight-faced: “You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.” We might never have grasped this elusive truth, had he not enlightened us.

During the 2008 Vice-Presidential debate, Biden announced that “no one in the United States Senate has been a better friend to Israel than Joe Biden. I would have never, ever joined this ticket were I not absolutely sure Barack Obama shared my passion.”

Of course, it’s up to the listener to decide whether Obama is as friendly to Israel as Biden says or whether Biden has grown as unfriendly as Obama. One thing is indisputable – Biden has placed himself and Obama in the identical category.

Whatever we may think of it, Biden clearly considers what he hypes as his “Israel’s staunchest ally” status to be a license to tell us off when he deems us deserving of rebuke. After all, bosom buds accrue special privileges. This dates way back to long before his March boycott of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the joint houses of Congress.

Back 1982, Senator Biden (D-Delaware) threatened to cut off aid to Israel. In subsequent years he hotly denied this but Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s late right-hand man Yechiel Kadisha’i unequivocally confirmed Biden’s bullying in many conversations we held.

Biden lost it on June 22, when Begin spoke at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Kadisha’i described Biden as behaving “like a meshuggner.” Biden railed against settlements and banged excitedly on his desk to accentuate his verbal admonishments.

More recently, in 2010, Biden warned us (at Tel Aviv University) that “the status quo is not sustainable.” Obviously doubting our abilities to comprehend so weighty a message, he slowly and deliberately reiterated the portentous mantra with extra emphasis on the really important syllables, so that even dim-witted vassals can get the point and get scared.

Our left-leaning media did all it could to amplify the implicit intimidations. Opinion-molders prone to running with the pack and going with the flow were duly aghast with angst.

Considering that, on average, historical memory in our midst isn’t retained beyond two-weeks’ worth, most of us tend to forget how big a deal it was five years ago. Esteemed tendentious commentators claimed to be shaken to their sensitive cores by the wagging finger and bitchy barbs of the harsh critic who, with that trademark mischievous twinkle ever-present in his eyes, kept declaring his undying love for Israel.

But upon cooler reflection, they might have realized that in effect Biden warned that if we don’t rush to slash our own throats our enemies might shortly decapitate us.

WH Visitor Logs Suggest J Street Contributed To U.S.-Israel Diplomatic Crisis

Lenny Ben-David
pajamasmedia.com
22 August '10

Last month the White House pulled out the red carpet to welcome Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but the charm campaign is a new phenomenon. Less than six months ago, the U.S.-Israel relationship was in deep trouble.

On March 9, Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Israel and was told of an administrative announcement by the Ministry of Interior approving one of the first stages toward the construction of 1,600 apartments in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in northern Jerusalem. The announcement represented no dramatic change of policy or diplomatic message. But the Americans responded as if it was a deliberate high-level slap in the face, and the Israeli government apologized profusely.

After two days of condemnations from the White House followed by Israel’s profuse apologies, it appeared that the crisis was over. On March 11, the Associated Press reported that Biden “attempted to soothe tensions in a speech extolling the countries’ close relationship, signaling the U.S. wants to move beyond an embarrassing diplomatic spat over settlements that tarnished his three-day visit.”

Biden noted that the prime minister had “clarified that the beginning of actual construction on this particular project would likely take several years. … That’s significant because it gives negotiators the time to resolve this as well as other outstanding issues.” Press accounts reported that Netanyahu had called Biden on Thursday morning, “and both agreed the crisis is behind them.”

It wasn’t.

(Read full story)

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Will the Palestinians Just Declare a State?

P. David Hornik
Frontpagemag.com
08 April '10

In the aftermath of last month’s diplomatic ruckus—Israeli bureaucrats referred, with Vice-President Biden in town, to building apartments for Jews in East Jerusalem; the Obama administration took severe umbrage; the Palestinians pulled out of the nascent proximity talks—things, at this moment, remain stuck. Does that mean no progress toward the administration’s cherished goal of a Palestinian state, and frustration all around?

Not necessarily. Moshe Elad, a columnist for Israel’s largest daily Yediot Aharonot, notes that the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, and prime minister, Salaam Fayyad, have been talking about unilaterally declaring such a state in 2011—and that while “in the past, such statements would anger the Americans…this time around, even if we heard a response from the White House or the State Department, it was rather meek.”

Palestinians, Elad reports, have been setting aside their traditional anti-Americanism and “taking pleasure in feeling that ‘America is with us’”; and are “coordinating with the Americans the building of infrastructure across the West Bank as preparation for economic independence and detachment from Israel’s hold.” Elad goes on to ask “What will Israel’s position be in respect to the long list of guests invited to the ceremony that will seek to land in Ben-Gurion Airport?”—that is, if and when the Palestinians declare their state next year and invite many of the world’s dignitaries to honor the event.

Yaakov Katz, military correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, describes Israel as “extremely worried” about the prospect “because it may lead to a third intifada, during which Israel would be fighting a 20,000-strong militia”—much of which would be American-trained.

(Read full article)
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Obama's Rage and the Palestinians' 'Days of Rage'

Marty Peretz
The New Republic
18 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

They are not unconnected. They are not unconnected at all.

Now, presumably the president didn't want to provoke the rage of the Palestinians. (Although, then again, he might just have anticipated it.) But Palestinian rage is very easy to provoke. Snap your fingers and, there, you have it. You don't even have to rent a mob. It comes free will, so to speak.

The fact is that Obama did more than snap his fingers. He sent out very top members of his administration to beat up on Israel and they did. First, Joe Biden who had the sense to protect himself and his soul by speaking his inner feelings about Israel. Then, Hillary Clinton, who may or may not have a soul, launched her shrill assault on both Bibi Netanyahu and Israel's ingratitude for her favors. Last but not least (and actually a true instance of effrontery) was the dispatching of David Axelrod, (who in 2004 was behind John Edwards, "Bill Clinton without the sex") who knows nothing about foreign policy, but maybe being a Jewboy thinks he is more than credentialed to chastise the Jewish state. The fact is that he is an ignoramus on these matters. An "insult," indeed.

What exactly did the Obami think? Maybe that the president would beat up on Israel and the Palestinians would fall into line and modify their demands. My guess, to be entirely frank, is that Obama does not think they have any significant demands to modify, let along give up. And, if I'm right which admittedly I may not be, my counsel to the Israelis would be to stall until the next president comes along. James Baker said, "Fuck the Jews...they don't vote for us anyway." Well, Jews do vote Democrats and did vote for Obama, more than any other voters but black voters (who may not come out to vote so massively this time.) Israel is not all that matters to voting Jews. But it does matter. (Someone at breakfast this morning suggested to me that Obama is like Col. Lindbergh. See Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. But, unlike Lindbergh, whose presidential ambitions collapsed, Obama's succeded.)

(Read full article)
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The rationale behind censorship: “Moderate” Palestinian leadership honours mass terrorism as Joe Biden leaves town. And the BBC’s response is?

Robin Shepherd
robinshepherdonline.com
14 March '10

So, let’s just accept that Israel’s handling of the Ramat Shlomo settlements announcement during US vice-president Joe Biden’s recent visit was cack handed and self-defeating. Prime Minister Netanyahu has admitted as much by apologising. It was a diplomatic faux pas, and it provoked a torrent of protest from the State Department to the Palestinian Authority. It also received saturation coverage in every major outlet in the western media. Hold that thought.

Now consider the response to the Palestinian Authority’s decision last week to celebrate the worst terrorist atrocity ever perpetrated inside Israel (the 1978 bus massacres which left 38 dead including 13 children) by naming a central square in Ramallah after its perpetrator, Dalal Mughrabi. That was a statement of values and intent, glorifying mass terrorism and signalling to Israel and the world that the Palestinians can never be trusted to abide by civilised norms. It tells you everything you really need to know about Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and why peace with them has proved elusive for more than six decades. What follows is a list of the western news outlets that have covered what, I repeat, is an immensely significant and illustrative story:

1. The New York Times. 2. Nobody… That’s right, every other major media outlet in the western world has effectively censored it. Apart from the New York Times (and I am grateful to Tom Gross
for pointing that out) the story has been ignored.

If you really want to understand the reason why Israel faces such appalling demonisation and defamation across the western world, stop and think about this for a moment.

(Read full post)
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Biden: Obama Made Me Do It

Marty Peretz
The New Republic
11 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

I am a little embarrassed to be so self-referential this morning, but I am going back to my Spine from yesterday, “The Relentless Facts of Palestine.”

Vice President Biden knew he had to calm the waters in Israel a bit. And he did. So, to an audience at Tel Aviv University--said by some to be comparable to Cairo University, where President Obama delivered his June 4 speech, and which saying tells you how little most people understand the real differences among universities--Biden delivered the reassurances that probably nobody expected: “U.S. president Barack Obama and myself know that the U.S. has no better friend in the community of nations than Israel.” That is certainly the case, across the board politically and philosophically. And aesthetically, too, by the way. These two countries are the epitome of humanistic modernity.

Sill, in the back of everyone’s mind in the audience was Biden’s use of the word “condemn” when speaking about the release of a newly approved Israeli plan for building 1,600 new apartments in what he called East Jerusalem. Just a minor point here: The designated units would be in North Jerusalem, not in the eastern part of the city that carries the yolk and passion of holiness--a troublesome yoke and a troublesome passion.

(Read full post)
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Biden in Public and Private

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
11 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

Joe Biden delivered his much-anticipated (and we are told, tweaked) speech in Israel today. It was the usual mix of what we have come to expect from the Obami — broad declarations of support for Israel mixed with an obsessive desire to move forward on the “peace process” and a fixation on building activity. On Iran, Biden pronounced, “The United States is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, period.” But how, and what options remain? He didn’t say. As for East Jerusalem, the vice president harped on what he deemed the “hardest truth.” That is parlance for the Obami’s insistence that it is building in Israel’s capital, not the persistence of terrorism or the refusal to recognize the Jewish state, that serves to “undermine trust.” As skewed and as unwelcome as much of that public message was to many onlookers here and in Israel, what went on in private was jaw-dropping. We are told:

(Read full post)
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Israel in the Hot Seat Again — for Building Homes

P. David Hornik
Pajamasmedia.com
11 March '10

Here we go again. What has Israel done now? With Vice President Joe Biden here for a visit, the Israeli Interior Ministry “announced that approval had been granted to build new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox community of 20,000 north of downtown Jerusalem, which borders the Palestinian village of Shuafat.” Biden reacted to the shocking news with: “I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in east Jerusalem. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of [Israeli-Palestinian] proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I’ve had here in Israel.”

Other condemnations followed like clockwork. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman made known that “the secretary-general condemns the approval of plans for the building of 1,600 new housing units in east Jerusalem.” Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said that “it is now clear that the Israeli government is not interested in negotiating, nor is it interested in peace.” He added that “massive American pressure is required in order to compel Israel to abandon its peace-destroying behavior.”

(Read full article)
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No wonder he's smiling...

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
10 March '10

Israel is in the doghouse with America because it revealed during the visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden that it was building more houses for Israelis in east Jerusalem. According to Biden and outraged western received opinion, this ‘undermines peace efforts’.

Why? To be more precise, why does this initiative – or indeed any of the ‘settlements’ -- undermine peace efforts while the actual reason for the absence of peace, the fact that the Abbas administration has said it will never accept a Jewish state of Israel and refuses to renounce the Arab aim of ending Israel's existence, the sole reason for eight decades of aggression, terrorism and war in the Middle East, is not even mentioned?

Biden also said:

the Palestinians deserve a ‘viable’ independent state with contiguous territory

Why? What have they done to deserve it?

(Read full post)

Related: Nobody deserves a murderer-state
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Poor Old Joe & the Palestinian Status Quo

David Calling
National Review Online
10 March '10

Vice President Joe Biden arrives in Israel, and the very next moment some Israeli minister announces that they'll be building 1,600 more homes in East Jerusalem. Poor old Joe! Settlements! More of those darned things! And just when he was going to play the conjurer, say abracadabra, and shake peace out of his sleeves. So upset is the VP that he turned up ninety minutes late for dinner with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Was he telephoning the geniuses in Washington who think these settlements are the key to the Middle East, or sobbing in the men's room?

Indirect negotiations, proximity talks, the Road Map, the Quartet, shelf agreements, the freelancing of Senator Mitchell and Tony Blair, and the drills of General Dayton have exhausted the lexicon of diplomacy and the ingenuity of lawyers. The reason for this should be crystal clear. The Palestinians are happy with the way things are; they see no reason for change; the present situation is playing profitably into their hands. If they'd really wanted a state, they could have had one any time since the 1992 Oslo Accords. Israel, the United States, the European Union, and even Saudi Arabia implore them to have a state.

But why should they? All these well-wishers are pumping money to them, and a state would force them to spend it on administration rather than themselves. They also have the pleasure of observing everyone — and specially Washington — putting pressure on Israel and making it unpopular. Sixteen-hundred more settlements gives them grounds for 1,600 more complaints, and then sitting down and rubbing their hands in expectation of commiseration and rewards. A state would oblige them to pull their own chestnuts out of the fire.

(Read full post)
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Jerusalem: It’s All in the Timing

David Hazony
Contentions/Commentary
10 March '10

The New York Times has taken the plunge. In a report today about the Israeli government’s decision to build 1,600 housing units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood — which, like most of Jerusalem, lies across the “Green Line” separating pre- and post-1967 territory, the NYT headline proudly refers to the “new settlements” that are, according to another NYT headline about the responses to the declaration, “clouding” the visit of Vice President Biden to the Middle East, who had arrived to announce the renewal of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians. An earlier version of the piece, which has since been edited, described Jerusalem as home to “thousands of settlers.” This whole terminology is fairly new, but we can hardly blame the Times. It is, after all, the official position of the U.S. government.

Netanyahu is denying that he knew of the decision, and the NYT piece takes him at his word. Many commentators in Israel are not so quick to believe it, seeing in his denial a classic Bibi move to fake Left, go Right, deny and obfuscate whenever it serves his purposes. Assuming he really did know about the decision, why did he do it? And if he didn’t, why doesn’t he intervene to stop it?

The NYT puts the blame on his coalition partners: ”when he formed his coalition a year ago,” we are told, “he joined forces with several right-wing parties, and has since found it hard to keep them in line.” This is, of course, a bizarre distortion: Netanyahu chose his coalition partners as a product of their strength, which in turn reflects what the voters actually wanted on issues like these. It’s also a distortion because the left-wing Labor party, which is in the coalition, doesn’t seem to be pulling out any time soon. And it’s a distortion because the Kadima party, the leading opposition party and the only alternative to Netanyahu’s coalition partners, was founded on a platform that included the indivisibility of Jerusalem.

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I Hate That Verb "Stand By"

Batya Medad
Shilo Musings
10 March '10

And I consider the idea of "taking risks for peace" a very dangerous oxymoron. Yes, you have to be quite a moron to think that there will be peace if you take risks like the ones those American politicians keep demanding from us. Yes, they promise to "stand by" us and watch the #!%#&!! fly.

Biden: U.S. will always stand by those who take risks for peace

As a certified/diploma-ed (not cuckoo) English teacher I know that there are idioms which don't mean what the words taken separately mean. That's no comfort when I hear American politicians promising to "stand by Israel," because one of that verb's accepted meanings is just to observe:
I don't want the world to watch us being attacked and then debate suitable response, judge who's guilty and then sympathize with our enemies. We all know that the world--including the United States of America-- is more concerned with satisfying the Arabs than defending our needs.

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The Middle East Peace Scam

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
09 March '10

For nearly twenty years the great sham of the Middle East Peace Process has dragged on. And this despicable scam has consisted of only one policy, only one platform and only one plan. Pressuring Israel for more concessions.

Year in and year out, new peace conferences were declared and new plans for peace were hammered out. All of them had one thing in common, they carved up Israel for a non-existent peace. When Arafat and his gang of terrorists made a concession, it was to demand 5 percent less of Israel in the current phase of negotiations. When Israel made a concession, it was to turn over another 10 percent of land to its worst enemies in this phase of negotiations... in exchange for them putting off their demands for that 5 percent into the next phase of the negotiations. And this sick charade in which Israel gave and the terrorists took was the peace process.

While this great surrender process was going on, outside the bombs went on exploding, tearing apart buses, restaurants, malls and families-- the politicians and diplomats in charge excused the terrorists and damned Israel if it so much as lifted a finger to defend itself, or erected a single checkpoint to catch at least one of the terrorists on the way to kill a dozen people in Jerusalem.

And now finally the Vice President of the United States arrives in Israel to reaffirm his absolute commitment to Israel's security, a commitment he and just about every other politician who let that phrase trip lightly off their lips, honors by pressing Israel to surrender again the terrorists. He arrives and condemns the greatest impediment to peace. Jewish families living in the capital of their own nation.

Biden did not take the time to condemn Abbas for his failure to hold elections, for his attendance at a funeral for the terrorists in his own militia who murdered an Israeli Rabbi, for his violation of the Gaza Jericho agreement or for his recent threats of a Holy War against Israel. Not even the Palestinian Authority naming a municipal square two days ago after Dalal Mughrabi, one of the Coastal Road Massacre bus hijackers, resulted in any statements of condemnation. Let us for a moment balance the horrifying scene of Jews moving into new apartments in Jerusalem, vs the Coastal Road Massacre in which Fatah terrorists murdered Gail Rubin, an American nature photographer, hijacked a bus, and murdered 38 passengers, 13 of them only children.

(Read full article)
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A "Moment of Real Opportunity"

JINSA Report
#970
09 March '10

So said Vice President Biden as he arrived in Israel. Why? What about this moment-when Palestinians are once again throwing rocks down on Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall; when the Palestinian Authority (PA) negates Jewish historic and religious attachment to the Cave of Machpela and Rachel's Tomb; when Salaam Fayyad and Abu Mazen travel around Europe demanding that countries recognize an independent Palestine when they decide unilaterally to declare one (the Kosovo option); when PA officials are trying to keep Palestinians from working in West Bank industrial zones; when the United States has been asked to demand that Israel scale back its "hot pursuit" of terrorists-what exactly about this moment makes it one of "opportunity"?

And opportunity for what? Not for negotiations, surely. But apparently ripe, according to Sen. Mitchell in The Washington Post, for preliminary proximity talks about the "structure and scope" of the actual proximity talks that in four months (according to the American plan) may yield talks about face-to-face talks. We find ourselves in odd agreement with Yossi Alpher, a very left-of-center Israeli academic, who told The Post, "It's hardly a cause for celebration that after 17 years of direct official talks we are regressing to proximity talks."

Well, said the Vice President, "The interests of both the Palestinians and the Israeli people, if everyone would just step back and take a deep breath, are actually very much more in line than they are in opposition." What interests would those be?

(Read full article)
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Are They Being Smart Yet?

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
09 March '10

Joe Biden arrived in Israel. A ticker-tape parade he did not receive. As this report notes:

Vice President Biden arrived in Israel on Monday to boost U.S. efforts to mediate talks between Israelis and Palestinians amid criticism that the Obama administration has set back the peace process.

Biden’s four-day visit — in addition to reassuring Israeli leaders about the U.S. commitment to curb Iran’s nuclear program — is designed to prod Israel and the Palestinians to get talks moving again. With a speech in Tel Aviv on Thursday, he will also try to court the Israeli public, some of whom felt snubbed in the past year by President Obama, who has visited Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia but has yet to come to Israel.

All George Mitchell could muster were so-called “proximity” talks, indirect discussions between parties that have little to discuss and, in the case of the Palestinians, little authority or willingness to make a “deal.” So the grousing has begun:

After so many years of direct talks that wrestled with the core issues of the future of Jerusalem, borders, security and Palestinian refugees, Mitchell’s announcement felt to some observers more like a setback than a success.

“It’s hardly a cause for celebration that after 17 years of direct official talks we are regressing to proximity talks,” said Yossi Alpher, co-editor of a Middle East blog and a former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Saeb Erekat, the longtime Palestinian negotiator, told Israel’s Army Radio that the indirect talks were a last attempt “to save the peace process.”

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