Message #50222

[Mark]

In Newly Uncovered Audio, Young Senator Joe Biden Slammed Previous Administrations for Pressuring Israel to Make Concessions to Arabs

 

When Ronald Reagan was president and Joe Biden was a senator from Delaware, Biden criticized the Republican administration and President Jimmy Carter for pressuring Israel to make concessions that could threaten the Jewish state’s very survival, newly uncovered audio shows.

Israel’s Army Radio on Friday first reported on the existence of the recording from the mid-1980s in which Biden emphasized Israel’s delicate position in a hostile Middle East, comparing the Jewish state to a farm pig about to be slaughtered for breakfast ham.

TheBlaze has obtained excerpts from Biden’s speech which were found in the archives of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem.

Though almost three decades old, Biden’s remarks are noteworthy, because the Obama administration’s current push for a Middle East peace agreement spearheaded by Secretary of State John Kerry is predicated on Israel making wide territorial concessions to the Palestinian Authority.

Then-Senator Biden warned in his speech to Los Angeles Jewish leaders of the “grave injustice” were Israel to be pushed into a position where it had to say “no” to concessions, while he dismissed the notion that the Palestinian issue was key to tranquility in the Middle East, a worldview that has been promoted by Obama officials.

As the recent round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks floundered before they wrapped last week with no agreement, Kerry and President Barack Obama appeared to lay the blame on Israel.

The Daily Beast last week published quotes from a recording it obtained of Kerry warning that Israel could become an apartheid state or face concerted new Palestinian violence if it does not move toward a two-state solution.

President Obama in March suggested in a Bloomberg View interview that Israel could face international isolation and the prospect of losing its Jewish majority if it did not agree to the peace framework promoted by Kerry.

But Biden three decades ago said, “When we push Israel into a position where she has no alternative but to say no, we do a grave injustice to Israel.”

“It is very easy for us, sitting in the security of this country, whether we are Christian or Jew, to conclude that Israel – now being the military Goliath of the David and Goliath team – is in a position to do more than she has been willing to do, when in fact Israel cannot afford to make mistakes. There is little or no margin for error on the part of Israel,” Biden said in his speech.

rest+audio: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/05/04/in-newly-uncovered-audio-young-senator-joe-biden-slammed-previous-administrations-for-pressuring-israel-to-make-concessions-to-arabs/