By Barry Shaw
Israel Hayom
September 3, 2020
Presidential candidate, Joe Biden, appealed to American Jewish voters with a promise not to condition US aid to Israel, but his word, based on past history, is disingenuous.
Biden, a Catholic, promising Catholic voters that he would represent their ethics and values even as he endorses pro-abortion rights and selected a Vice President who has built a political career funded by the pro-abortion lobby represented by Planned Parenthood.
Biden says one thing but does the opposite. Senator Biden in 1982 threatened to cut off US aid to Israel. In a heated exchange with Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, Biden banged on the table and delivered his threat to which Begin undiplomatically replied,
"Don't threaten us with cutting off your aid. 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."
A December 29, 2015 Wall Street Journal article detailed how the Obama administration conducted surveillance on Israeli officials to discover how the Israeli government would react to their bad Iran nuclear deal. This broke the decades-old bipartisan US policy toward Israel.
Biden has pledged to revive Obama's Middle East policies, particularly his highly criticized Iran nuclear deal which allowed Iran to develop not only its advanced missile program but also more sophisticated centrifuges buried in Iran's underground facility at Natanz, scene of a mysterious explosion in August. These centrifuges will speed up the enrichment of uranium needed to produce a nuclear warhead at a time of Iran's choosing.
The disastrous fallout of this awful deal was a failure in not understanding that the Iranian regime would not use the money on its people but on broadening its malevolent regional intentions. The Obama-Biden generous gift of potentially $150 billion plus an additional $1.5 billion cash payment enabled the Islamic regime in Tehran to extend their violent hegemony, directly and via their proxies, through Iraq, into Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and further south in Yemen.
This has left the Sunni Arab world with a dire sense of vulnerability.
Inadvertently, it has driven moderate Arab states to first develop covert contacts with Israel and now, with the advent of the Israel-UAE peace deal, with open relationships and partnership.
One of the unsung benefits of UAE's decision to normalize their relationship with Israel was their official renunciation of a 47-year boycott policy against Israel.
In effect, this act killed the infamous boycott, divestment and sanctions movement at a stroke of the UAE pen. How is it possible for radical Left activists, as well as certain members of Congress, to promote boycott campaigns against Israel when Arab states are not only dropping their boycotts but actively signing trade deals with Israel?
It is worth noting that although an attempt to oppose an anti-boycott bill in Congress was defeated, seventeen Democrats continued to support such measures and a further ten abstained from the vote. Two Democrat presidential hopefuls absented themselves from the vote, as did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Although Democrat representatives do attend the annual AIPAC Conference to show their support of Israel, the jury is out as to whether they do so to appeal to their Jewish and Christian constituents, rather than an affirmative love of Israel. The doubt stems from the failure of any Democrat Congress member to attend the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem. They also swerved the Israel Embassy celebration party in Washington DC.
But the unkindest cut of all was when Obama-Biden stabbed Israel in the back as they were leaving the White House. A vindictive out-going president, backed by his vice president, failed to impose the United States veto in UN Security Council Resolution 2334 that decreed, wrongly, that Israeli communities beyond the Green Line were an illegal occupation.
More recently, Biden has said he does not support the extension of sovereignty to Jewish settlements that are the homes, universities and workplaces of 600,00 Jews.
He went further by saying he would renew US funding to the Palestinian Authority ignoring their "Pay to Slay" reward payments to Palestinian terrorists and killers of Israelis.
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, privy to important policy issues emanating from the Oval Office, famously said that Joe Biden has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.
On the campaign trail, Biden has become an embarrassment. His faux pas and mumbling thoughts are a matter of concern for the Democrat faithful. Even the Chicago Sun Times, a paper that has endorsed the Democratic Party, fears that Biden's diminished faculties will handicap their election chances. But Biden was never elected to affirmatively lead the country but to be the front man for the growing radical wing of the party. In an act of national deception, the Democrats try to project themselves as moderates in an effort to keep their traditional voters on board. In truth, the party has changed beyond recognition. It belongs to the Red-Green alliance, the Marxists and Islamists that control the party Establishment to the point that their elderly leaders take the knee to their demands and, should they take power, their policies.
One example of this change is personified in Rep. Ilhan Omar. Omar projected herself as the shining face of a culture sensitive public when she won her Minneapolis seat. She was supported by the Jews of her district as representing their progressive values. That was before the mask came off and she revealed her real self as an anti-Semitic Israel hater.
More recently, Omar has called for the dismantling of the police. She also called to "tear down the system." This radicalism shows where the heart of the Democrat Party lies.
Omar is portrayed as the future of the party. As a member of The Squad alongside Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez, they drive its agenda.
It was not by accident that Joe Biden went public asking for a Million Muslim Vote. He spoke the words, but the campaign strategy was decided elsewhere. Biden has yet to go public and ask for a Million Jewish Votes. He won't. That is not where the party is today.
But the Democrat radicals in Congress are far more numerous than this quartet. As mentioned earlier, thirty of them followed their anti-Israel lead when it came to a vote. And their numbers will grow in the next Congress. Elliot Engel, one of the dwindling pro-Israel Democrats was easily defeated by a new radical in a recent primary.
This is the force what will set policy, not Biden. He will be a figurehead president, rolled out to sign policies, read speeches off teleprompters, and be seen shaking hands with visiting dignitaries. The business of government will be executed elsewhere.
Where the party will be, policy-wise, should they win the 2020 election, is reflected in Ilhan Omar. They elected her to sit on the US Foreign Affairs Committee failing to demote her following her numerous anti-Jewish and anti-Israel remarks.
They failed because this is where the power of the party is today.
Imagine a Democratic administration with Ilhan Omar promoted to chair the US Foreign Affairs Committee.
What do you think will be the United States position on Israel?
1 comment:
"Rules For Thee But Not For Me" is a basic liberal mantra. The "special people" believe they should not have to live by the same rules us peons live by.
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