Biden Reaffirms U.S. Commitment to Israel at AIPAC conference
EmailABC News’ Karen Travers reports: Vice President Biden said today that even though the Obama-Biden administration arrived in Washington with the promise of change, one key principle that they will not waiver from is the United States’ commitment to Israel. “With all the change you will hear about, there is one enduring, essential principle that will not change; and that is our commitment to the peace and security of the state of Israel,” Biden said to several thousand attendees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual policy conference in Washington. “That is not negotiable. That is not a matter of change. That is something to be reinforced and made clear.” Today, President Obama and Vice President Biden met with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the White House. Biden said the president believes that the U.S. must be engaged and must take risks in order to achieve peace in the region. “The president is strongly and personally committed to achieving what all have basically said is needed — a two-state solution, with a secure Jewish state of Israel living side by side in peace and security with a viable and independent Palestinian state,” the vice president said. Biden outlined three key factors that the administration thinks are necessary in order to achieve a sustainable and lasting peace in the Middle East: first, the U.S. believes that Israel’s security is non-negotiable; second, all parties have obligations to uphold, including commitments that Israel and the Palestinians made in the development of the road map and third, the global community must make clear to Hamas that it will only achieve legitimacy when it renounces violence, recognizes Israel and adheres to past agreements. Biden took a few shots at the Bush administration’s handling of the Middle East, saying that the “status quo of the last decade has not served the interests of the United States or Israel very well.” “All the good intentions of the last decade have not resulted in a more secure, more stable Middle East; a more secure, more stable Israel; a more secure, more stable United States,” Biden said. The vice president said that the Obama administration is working to change that by ending the war in Iraq, refocusing American efforts on Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat al Qaeda and bringing all countries in the region into the discussion, including countries that the U.S. has “overwhelming disagreements” with, like Iran. Biden said a nuclear Iran poses a risk of an arms race in the region and would threaten every nation’s security. Biden said that the previous administration’s efforts with Iran “has obviously not worked” and the Obama administration will take a different approach. “The United States will approach Iran initially in the spirit of mutual respect. We want Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations, politically and economically,” he said. “That’s a path that the Islamic Republic can take if it so chooses. Or that government can choose a different future: one of international pressure, isolation; and one which nothing is taken off the table.” — Karen Travers
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Rick Santorum's Full Speech at CPAC 2012
How much is this going to cost.. quick someone in D.C. .. run and get the checkbook!!
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | May 5, 2009, 3:04 pm 3:04 pm
Rahm Emmanuel has made it clear: The Obama administration won’t do anything to stop Iranian nukes, until Israel concedes more in Gaza and the West Bank.
Posted by: Scare Force One | May 5, 2009, 3:57 pm 3:57 pm
Biden:
Do you mind if we call this a “crisis”?
Because that way taxpayers are more willing to fork over their money.
Posted by: nick | May 5, 2009, 4:15 pm 4:15 pm
Scare Force One..you beat me to it..under Obama, Israel is on thin ice, Rahm has lowered himself to threats now, they better make their move against Iran soon…. on their own, or they will cease to exist
Posted by: How am I doing now Comrades | May 5, 2009, 4:17 pm 4:17 pm
“Rahm Emmanuel has made it clear: The Obama administration won’t do anything to stop Iranian nukes, until Israel concedes more in Gaza and the West Bank.”
Rahm’s Israel credentials are significant. Remember that there is much more to diplomacy than meets the public eye.
Posted by: Silky | May 5, 2009, 4:24 pm 4:24 pm
The President will let Israel deal with Iran (militarily). He’ll then blame them for doing it (lightly, as we did when they bombed Iraq’s reactor).
That will give him cover until the next admin comes in and has to deal with them when they build up their nuclear capacity again.
Posted by: J House | May 5, 2009, 4:58 pm 4:58 pm
“The President will let Israel deal with Iran (militarily). He’ll then blame them for doing it (lightly, as we did when they bombed Iraq’s reactor).”
So what is your suggestion?
Should we invade Iran?
Massive military strike?
What?
Posted by: Ryan C | May 5, 2009, 5:13 pm 5:13 pm
George Washington on Israel
“A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.” ~George Washington Farewell Address
“The nation which indulges toward another habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interests.” ~ George Washington
“Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
Posted by: George Washington | May 5, 2009, 5:44 pm 5:44 pm
And then Gibbs came out and said what Biden really meant to say…
Posted by: Mongo | May 5, 2009, 6:36 pm 6:36 pm
Ok.. what order should I fret about these things:
Israel/Iran
Pakistan/Afghanistan/Taliban
Economy/Budget/TALF
Anything to Do with SCOTUS to be
Anything to Do with Arlen or Phil Specter
???????
oh yeah / John/Elizabeth/Reille
Posted by: DontGet818OnMeNow | May 5, 2009, 8:18 pm 8:18 pm
Biden making assurances makes those assurances easily dissmissable.
It’s too easy to do what the administration typically does when Joe speaks: restate what Joe never said and tell us that’s what he really meant.
Posted by: mad | May 5, 2009, 11:42 pm 11:42 pm
Scare Force One: How do you figure Israel could possibly “concede more in Gaza,” when Gaza has already been ethnically-cleansed of all Jewish life to the point of Judenrein (since Aug. 2005) and is controlled by Hamas (since June 2007)?
Posted by: Anne Lieberman | May 6, 2009, 9:01 am 9:01 am
It sounds like Obama is about to reward Iran for their nuclear development.
Barack Obama may counter demands from Israel to confront Iran over their nuclear program by confronting Israel over theirs. The Obama administration is set to force Israel under the umbrella of the non-proliferation treaty, apparently as a condition to getting Iran to surrender their nukes. The effort comes from a 2006 Saudi peace plan that would leave Israel at the mercy of her enemies:
President Obama’s efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons threaten to expose and derail a 40-year-old secret U.S. agreement to shield Israel’s nuclear weapons from international scrutiny, former and current U.S. and Israeli officials and nuclear specialists say.
The issue will likely come to a head when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Mr. Obama on May 18 in Washington. Mr. Netanyahu is expected to seek assurances from Mr. Obama that he will uphold the U.S. commitment and will not trade Israeli nuclear concessions for Iranian ones.
Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller, speaking Tuesday at a U.N. meeting on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), said Israel should join the treaty, which would require Israel to declare and relinquish its nuclear arsenal.
Instead of disarming our allies, maybe we should just concentrate on disarming our enemies.
Posted by: Scare Force One | May 6, 2009, 10:01 am 10:01 am
I just wrote to my congressman and told him to have some backbone and stand up to AIPAC
When half the Congressmen show up at a pro israeli lobby dinner and have to stand up for a “roll call” of support for whatever the current Israeli policy you know who is the puppet and who is pullng the strings.
If America has to beg Israel for permission everytime it wants to breath, we should just pay our taxes to Israel instead of the US government
I for one and tired of the extremist in Israel and Palestine running the show. They’ve had 60 years to settle their differences and they are not a step closer to a peaceful solution. Their methods have failed for the past 60 years.
Time for new solutions
Posted by: Norris Hall | May 6, 2009, 10:54 am 10:54 am
Yes…I’m all for the two-state solution: the Arabs should all move to the existing “Palestinian” state: Jordan. They had Jordanian passports until 1989, when King Hussein realized that he didn’t want anymore militants in his country and revoked them. It doesn’t play quite as well when you’re trying to assert a specious claim, and you’re already a citizen of the state that you claim doesn’t exist. What they want is a SECOND “Palestinian” state, on Jewish land. Let them pack up and go home. Read Mark Twain in 1867, “The Innocents Abroad,” and you’ll see that there were almost no Arabs in “Palestine,” only a few “settlements” and some roaming Bedouin band. The Arabs arrived en masse only after the Jews started making the desert bloom, and they could not find work in Egypt, or Syria, where they came from. Arafat: born in Cairo–an Egyptian! That’s why the Nobel Committee published NO bio (for the first time EVER!) Let’s stop being so easily manipulated by liars and thieves, and remember who our true friends are! Many, many Israelis are American-born, or American citizens, who paid taxes here all of their lives–and many still do, so the “taxpayer dollars” arguments are more than a bit specious and disingenuously shallow.
Posted by: Russell Grayson | May 6, 2009, 1:44 pm 1:44 pm
president obama should realise that the interests of america and israel are inseparable and he should stop applying pressure on israel to stop settlement program.
Posted by: chinmay | August 2, 2009, 10:26 am 10:26 am