Biden is most pro-Israel nominee ever (and he will ‘defeat’
‘hypercritical’ voices in the party)
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 a 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 assured 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 straight line 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 Trump has
politicized it, and with Biden, we will see an increase in the bipartisan aspect
of the relationship.
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