WITH FRIENDS LIKE JOE BIDEN, ISRAEL DOESN'T NEED ANY ENEMIES

I don not blame Vice President Joe Biden for being angry that Israel announced it would build 1,600 additional housing units in East Jerusalem just after he had arrived in the Jewish state. The timing of the announcement was awful in that it was an embarrassment to the VP and appeared to be an affront to the United States. But did it merit the severe condemnations and demands that were heaped on Israel by the Obama administration?

Biden was quoted by Yediot Aharonot last week as telling Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in an angry exchange over the Ramat Shlomo incident, that “This is starting to get dangerous for us.” He went on to tell Netanyahu that “What you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace.”

Biden’t caustic remarks about endangering our troops may have been based on the fact that, according to Foreign Policy magazine, Gen. David Petraeus, sent a briefing team to the Pentagon at the beginning of the year “with a stark warning: America’s relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America’s soldiers.”

Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and Israeli settlements do NOT endanger our troops! It’s America’s wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan that endanger our troops. Those wars were waged in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the U.S. And while the terrorists may have been inspired by America’s support for Israel, the attacks were an outgrowth of fundamentalist Islam’s longstanding war against the West.

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and that includes East Jerusalem. Its capital must remain undivided. Jerusalem's status is nonnegotiable. That gives Israel every right to construct new housing in that city. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking for the Obama administration, is treating Israel like a vassal state, not as a sovereign nation, when she demands that any plans to build 1,600 new housing units be rescinded and that Israel must make other concessions to the Palestinians.

Biden has always claimed and seemed to have been a good friend of Israel. But because Biden’s remarks about endangering our troops were made in the heat of anger, they were made without any aforethought. The media pounced on this story immediately after it learned of what Biden had told Netanyahu. TV talking heads asked every government official they could find if Israel’s settlement policy was endangering the lives of our soldiers.

If Biden’s angry remarks gain any traction with the American public, as they very well might, they will undermine the public’s longtime support for the State of Israel. If that happens, Israel will have received a serious blow in its fight against enemies that have vowed to destroy it and continue to vow that there will be only one (Palestinian) state “from the river to the sea.”

The Obama administration must be doing handsprings over Biden’s intemperate remarks. If those remarks gain any traction with the public, Obama can stop all pretenses about America’s bond with Israel being “unshakable.”