Pro-Israel advocates are overjoyed at the prospect of Joe Biden becoming the Democratic nominee for president this week. They say there has Never been a nominee from any party who is so pro-Israel, that Joe Biden personally wrote the Democratic platform that is “straight down the line” behind Israel, and that his choice of Kamala Harris as veep reflects his love of Israel. And as for the “hypercritical” new members of Congress, that attitude will be “defeated” under Biden.
“We’ve actually never had a nominee on any side of the aisle for president who has a longer and stronger record than Joe Biden,” Halie Soifer of the Jewish Democratic Council of America said on an American Jewish Committee zoom call yesterday. “He was elected in 1972 to the Senate and has been working on these issues with nine Israeli prime ministers ever since. There is no one with a stronger record on Israel to run for president than Joe Biden and we can all rest asured that as president he would only strengthen the relationship.”
Former Florida congressman Robert Wexler, now head of the pro-Israel group the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, said that Joe Biden had written the Democratic Party platform plank on Israel, which eliminates any reference to occupation (and that some have said is to the right of Israel’s Likud Party).
The Democratic platform… it’s not a coincidence that it’s a pro Israel straight across the line platform. It was literally written by Joe Biden himself. He made the decision in terms of whether or not to include the type of language that illustrates decades of strong Democratic Party and bipartisan consensus favorable to Israel.
The Kamala Harris choice shows Biden’s love of Israel.
Even if four decades of solidly straightline pro Israel activity wasn’t sufficient for you, his most important pick in terms of what he’s doing now is his vice presidential nominee, and Senator Harris clearly stands in the Biden wing of the Democratic Party in terms of Israel, so I don’t know what more VP Biden could possibly do to engender the type of confidence that he has built up over four decades of being one of Israel’s strongest, staunchest supporters day in day out in every circumstance. … His pick for vice president is exactly like him in staunchly supporting Israel.
Wexler recalled that when Israel insulted Biden by announcing settlements when he arrived in Israel in 2010, some said he should get on a plane and go home. But no! “The Vice President stayed and he met with his friend, long term relationship– Prime Minister Netanyahu– and they talked things through, diplomacy in action.” Of course the settlements stayed…
Wexler said a Biden administration would “create conditions where lives are improved for Israelis and Palestinians,” and there would be progress toward negotiations between the sides, and this would remove the desire of progressives to criticize Israel. Those critics will be “defeated.”
When people see the progress from an administration that is committed to engaging both Israelis and Palestinians from a position of strength there won’t be a need as there is today where people perceive a one-sided or a more one-sided American policy to strike out in a hypercritical way towards Israel. Hypercritical, punitive language and prospective policies toward Israel must be defeated. There’s no question about that. And they will be defeated.
Wexler was surely referring to Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke characterizing Netanyahu as racist, and many progressives seeking to condition aid to Israel over its settlement project.
An AJC rep asked the pols about the concern that Bernie Sanders and his ilk will insert their thinking into the Biden administration.
Florida Congressman Ted Deutch said not to worry.
There is this enormous amount of attention paid… to a very tiny percentage of the Democrats in the House.
While Soifer, who has advised Harris and who served in the Obama administration under Samantha Power at the U.N., said that Biden will restore an era when no one publicly argues about Israel.
When it comes to support of Israel there is no question that Donald Turmp has politicized it, and with Biden we will see an increase in the bipartisan aspect of the relationship.
“Biden is most pro-Israel nominee ever”
The author may well be right in that claim.
However, it is important to keep in mind that Biden is trying to defeat the President who literally has given away everything he can give to Israel, including all respect for the rule of law.
You could hardly take a fair-minded stance towards Israel.
Israel’s powerful lobby would go into a state of siege if they thought the Giveaway President of All Time was threatened by an opponent with even a hint of doubt.
Even Biden’s choice for VP in part reflects this immense influence.
Nothing about Israel is allowed to be fair-minded. A lot of people work hard and with great resources to keep things that way.
The election choice on this important human issue is just one more stark piece of evidence for terrible poverty of American democracy.
It actually isn’t even correct to use that term, “American democracy.” It is fully as meaningless as the term “Israeli democracy.”
The American people are never given any meaningful choice on matters of brutal empire, which includes Israel, and the unholy military-intelligence complex.
What American voters are on their knees for is just to get rid of a foul-mouthed psychopath representing their country.
If they get that bit of relief, they’ll be grateful for a little interval. That is all you can expect from an American national election. The realities are that extreme.
I’ve said it many times, but it is worth repeating one of what I regard as the most fundamental truths.
You can have an empire, or you can have a decent society. You cannot have both.
The people really running America made their choice many years ago.
And that’s why the country remains like a fly stuck in amber with no fairness or decency in its own society, no fairness in its international policies, and spends $1,000,000,000,000 a year pushing around and assaulting others.
Trump is the biggest pro Israel candidate/president. He even moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, to please Netanyahu, something no other President ever wanted to do. He also cut off the aid to the Palestinians, which no other President of late ever did. Biden and Harris are two peas in a zionist pod, and will continue America’s love affair with an occupier and human rights violator, and will make sure those billions of dollars keep going uninterrupted.
Americans genuinely interested in seeing the Palestinians end their suffering, will once again be disappointed that their president is no different to the others before him, where Israel is concerned.
Interesting analysis:
https://www.redressonline.com/2020/08/uae-recognition-of-israel-whither-the-arab-and-the-muslim-world/
“UAE recognition of Israel: Whither the Arab and the Muslim world?” August 18/20,
Redress Information and Analysis.
“Pleasing the American far right, targeting Iran”
EXCERPT:
“The UAE and Israel see their relations with the United States and the perceived threat from Iran as bigger fish to fry.
“Both countries hope that an upgrading of their relations will keep the US engaged in the Middle East, particularly given that it puts pressure to follow suit on other Gulf states that have similar concerns and have engaged with Israel but not to the degree that the UAE has.
“The UAE and Israel further worry that a potential victory by presumptive Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the US November presidential election could bring to office an administration more willing than President Donald Trump to seek accommodation with Iran and emphasize human rights and basic freedoms.
“The establishment of diplomatic relations strengthens the UAE’s position as one of the United States’ most important partners in the Middle East and allows Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to argue that his hardline policy towards the Palestinians does not impede a broader peace between the Jewish state and Arab nations.
“Netanyahu is, however, concerned that his argument may resonate less with a Biden administration that potentially could be less empathetic to Israel’s annexationist aspirations on the West Bank as well as with the rightwing in Israel that may not feel that the UAE is worth surrendering what they see as historical Jewish land.”
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Trump is the worst ever panderer to the lobby, but Uncle Joe isn’t far behind. At least Joe is opposed to criminalizing BDS – or, at least, he’s not opposed to the clause in the Democratic platform protecting our rights to support BDS. That’s not insignificant.
In the end, he may wag a finger at times to scold Israel for one of its war crimes, but he will stand by and let Israel do whatever it wants with the Palestinians without holding the Jewish state accountable. And Kamala will stand by and watch.
There’s a lot of reasons to say Trump is more drastically pro-Israel. Biden won’t return the US embassy to Tel Aviv, nor object to annexation of Golan Heights Trump rubber-stamped.