Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, San Diego, May 2, 2017. Photo: Courtesy of Brainstorm Health/Flickr
Gerald A. Honigman | Exclusive to Ekurd.net
Former Vice President Joseph Biden is considering a run for the presidency against President Trump in 2020.
On the face of it, when compared to the new crop of hijab-wearing overt anti-Semites, Socialists, and other Democrats making the news, many observers will likely suggest that he is too passe and yesterday’s news…and is also known for a bit too many faux pas involving his mouth.
Yet, as a Florida NPA registered Independent with no particular allegiance to any major political party, I can perhaps more objectively than some others appreciate his better attributes as well.
Take our much used and abused friends and allies, for example, the Kurds, who have done most of the fighting and dying for us against assorted jihadis in the Middle East. Unlike most others in the region, these folks actually tend to like America.
As someone who has done substantial work for almost five decades now involving these 38-40 million truly stateless people, I can say that Biden stands out as a source of relative reason and knowledge among his colleagues on this subject. He’s to be commended for at least his professed continuous concern for these people who, too often, have been betrayed by Washington (and others) big time over and over again.
Still, regardless of Biden‘s alleged interest and that of some others over the decades, I remain at a loss trying to explain how tens of millions of Kurds still have no “roadmap” of their own towards independence, with virtually no media or other support in academia to speak of, while Biden and his recent boss, President Obama, repeatedly pressured and insisted that Israel cave in to virtually all that Arabs demand for the creation of their own 22nd state. That would be the latter’s second, not first, by the way within the borders of the original Mandate of Palestine that Great Britain received on April 25, 1920. What would later be named “Jordan” has sat on almost 80% of that total area since 1922 as a gift to Arab nationalism, in one of its many stripes, by Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill. This occurred around the same time that London was shafting the Kurds in the Mandate of Mesopotamia as well. Scores of millions of them remain stateless to date as a result. Check out whose efforts have been used by many others on this very subject.
For all of his supposed concern, I can’t recall any real force or effort exerted by Biden on the Kurds‘ behalf during his decades in the Senate or as Vice President for eight years. .
Contrast this with Biden’s approach to demands he’s made upon Israel.
Except during periods of campaign fundraising–when the time arrives for many to milk Hebrews for all the gelt they can deliver–as Vice President, Biden served, along with Secretary of State John Kerry, as one of President Obama’s major attack dogs against Jews who refused to grossly endanger themselves and Israel for the sake of creating that 22nd Arab state. A forced return to the ‘49 “Auschwitz”/armistice lines imposed upon Israel by the UN would do just that. From 1949 until the June ‘67 Six Day War–started with an Arab blockade of Israel and other overtly hostile actions–Israel was made a 9-15 mile wide sardine can, ghetto of a state, where most of its population, international airport, parliament (Knesset), infrastructure, and so forth were squeezed into. At the end of that war, the final draft of UNSC Resolution 242 promised that Israel would not have to return to those Auschwitz lines and would receive a territorial compromise in the disputed lands instead. So, guess where the “settlements” (i.e., Jewish towns—often built on land where Jews have much history) are located and why…
Here’s Britain’s Lord Caradon, one of the key architects of the final draft of 242, on this subject:
” We didn’t say that there should be withdrawal to the ’67 lines; we did not put the word ‘the’ in; we did not say ‘all of the territories’ deliberately (when discussing eventual withdrawal, in the context of true treaties of peace, not ceasefires)… We all knew that the boundaries (’49 armistice lines) of ’67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers, that they were merely ceasefire lines of a couple of decades earlier…We did not say that those ( pre-) ’67 boundaries must be forever.”
President Lyndon Johnson June 19, 1967:
” A return to the situation on June 4 (the day before the outbreak of hostilities) was not a prescription for peace, but for renewed hostilities.”
President Ronald Reagan, September 1, 1982:
” In the pre-’67 borders (sic), Israel was barely 10-miles wide…the bulk of Israel’s population within artillery range of hostile armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again.”
Secretary of State George Shultz, 1988:
” Israel will never negotiate from nor return to the ’67 borders.”
Many others understood all the above as well–the need for a reasonable territorial compromise–including America’s last leader, President George W. Bush. He spelled this out in letters given to Israel’s Ariel Sharon during its unilateral withdrawal from Gaza…yet another test that Arabs would flunk with flying colors.
Judeans–Jews–lived and owned land in Judea (the West Bank) clear up to the 1920s and 1930s–when Arabs massacred them. After Arab Transjordan seized the west bank of the Jordan River when it joined other Arab states in attacking a reborn Israel in 1948, it formally made Judea “Judenrein.” Holding both banks, it soon renamed itself “Jordan.” This issue is not just one of history. How it is dealt with is important for the future of any proposed peace between Arabs and Jews as well.
Unfortunately, if the past is any indication of what can be expected from Biden when it’s not fundraising time, “moderate” Joe won’t be much better than the Jihadis’ new American Democrat Congressional Representatives, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and their various other Left of Lenin pals (Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, etc.) on such matters.
I hate bullies…don’t you?
In well-documented reports, in addition to later being one of Obama’s attack dogs, Biden used similar strongarm tactics with Israel’s late Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, back in 1982–banging on the desk with his fists and so forth, to try to intimidate Begin into relinquishing his nation’s barest security needs to American State Department, oil-tainted “no friends, just interests” policies…the same ones still shafting Kurds to this very day.
I know that Biden has called himself “pro-Israel,” and when compared to his former boss, President Obama, he has at least sometimes appeared to be.
But I never wished that, as an American senator or vice president, Biden would be “pro-Israel.”
America should be as objective as possible and strive for good relations with all nations.
I just don’t want the various Joes to unfairly place the sole, minuscule, resurrected State of the Jews in a vise because it refuses to accept all that they want to shove down its throat on behalf of Arabs and others who would have it dead in a heartbeat if they could. And a forced return by Israel to the suicidal ’49 armistice lines–what the “Settlement” issue is largely all about–would be a step in that direction.
Do Neville Chamberlain, Czechoslovakia, “peace for our time,” the Sudetenland, and Munich 1938 ring any bells here?
Nations fight wars and obtain territories that they have no former ties to thousands of miles away from home. Does the conflict over the Falkland Islands, over 8,ooo miles away from Great Britain, ring any more bells? And hundreds of others like it
Has Biden ever banged on the table or threatened Arabs over their far worse murderous, rejectionist attitudes and intransigence?
To this day, even his “moderate,” latter day Arafatian buddies of Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah insist that they will never recognize Israel as a state of the Jews, regardless of its size. And they talk still of Trojan Horse ceasefires…not real treaties of peace with “their” “kilab yahud,” Jew dogs.
So, hey Joe, here’s not what you know, but what I know…
Peace–real peace, not that of the grave, the one which Arabs still have in store for Israel–will never come by forcing a Israel to forsake its concrete, minimal security needs in return for promises by Arabs which can (and will) be broken tomorrow.
When peace is made between enemies, for it to last (the lesson of what happened regarding Germany after World War I), a reasonable compromise addressing the needs of both parties must be reached. No one side gets all that it wants at the expense of the other. That kind of stuff only gives rise to problems down the road. Supposedly, President Trump’s long-awaited plan will resemble this approach. Time will tell…
In the past, taking the lead from Biden’s chief, President Obama, himself, Arabs simply stated–repeatedly and recently as well–that their obligation in “negotiations” (i.e., Hebrew arm-twisting) would be to simply receive what Israel would be forced to give.
To such folks–whether the bad cops of Hamas or (until President Trump) the Washington whitewashed good cops of Abbas, Israel owes nothing.
When Senator Biden tries to make himself appear to be Israel’s good buddy compared to other Democrat hopefuls in 2020, it’s best to keep all of this in mind…
Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has done extensive doctoral studies in Middle Eastern Affairs. He has created and conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been published in dozens of newspapers, magazines, academic journals and websites all around the world. You can visit his website at geraldahonigman.com Gerald A. Honigman is a longtime senior contributing writer, from 2007, and columnist for Ekurd.net. Honigman has published a major book, “The Quest For Justice In The Middle East–The Arab-Israeli Conflict In Greater Perspective.” For more see below.
The opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Ekurd.net or its editors.
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