| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
WIll he say something to Abbas? ? Statement by US VP Biden at Start
[IMRA: Will VP Biden follow up on this with Mahmoud Abbas???? "But the
kind of violence we saw yesterday, the failure to condemn it, the rhetoric
that incites that violence...has to stop"]
Statement by US Vice President Joe Biden at the Start of his Meeting with
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser)
US Vice President Joe Biden, this morning (Wednesday, 9 March 2016), issued
the following statement at the start of his meeting with Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu:
“It’s true that Prime Minister Bibi and I go back a long way. I joked some
time, a long time ago when you were at the Israeli consulate, we met outside
of a, in a parking lot outside of a restaurant where I was meeting with some
American Jewish leaders, and we became close friends and I later signed a
picture for you that I, as a joke I said ‘Bibi, I don’t agree with a damn
thing you say, but I love you.’ And the joke was, I would have been a member
of the Labour party, not the Likud party. We were joking about what party we’d
be in. We’ve been friends, our families have been friends, you have come to
know my sons, my daughter you’ve met, and I have made it an important part
of my family’s life that as my children and grandchildren approach the age
of 15, the first place I’ve taken them is in Europe, to Dachau, the second
place is to Israel. And my deceased son Beau who died eight months ago – and
thank you for your great personal concern, and I know you knew him – I
brought along his two children who are ten and twelve, whose grandmother is
Jewish and got raised in a Jewish family, their mum, because I want them to
see that they’re not too young to understand all of what you talked about:
that this is a commitment that goes deeper than security, and I appreciate
your welcome. And my granddaughter, love of my life named after my deceased
daughter Naomi, she’s coming, she’s on a visit here with her boyfriend whose
family lives here, she’s a senior at Penn.
But all kidding aside, it’s been a close relationship. And it’s been one
that is of consequence not only for Israel but for the United States and for
freedom loving people all over the world. But as you said, we started our
discussion about the most recent heinous terrorist attack yesterday in Jaffa
and Jerusalem and Petah Tikva, my wife and my two grandchildren and
granddaughter are having dinner on the beach not very far from where that
happened. I don’t know exactly whether it’s 100 meters or 1,000 meters, and
it just brings home that it can happen. It can happen anywhere at any time.
And what Bibi and I talked about was not just the death of Taylor, Taylor
Force who served two tours, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, West Point
graduate, a brilliant future. But we talked about the other wounded and the
students he was with, and our instinct was the same. We both said ‘Let’s go
to the hospital. Now. Let’s go see them. Let’s go see the families and meet
with them.’
The reason I cite that, and as a personal note, is the instinct is the same
‘Let’s go see; let’s go touch; let’s go let those families know how much we
care about them; let them know that that expression ‘if you don’t go get the
terrorist, they’ll come to you.’’ And we’re dealing with it all over the
world. So my condolences to Taylor’s family and all those who were victims
of the attack yesterday and every day.
Let me say in no uncertain terms: the United States of America condemns
these acts and condemns the failure to condemn these acts. This cannot
become an accepted modus operandi. This cannot be viewed by civilized
leaders as an appropriate way in which to behave even if it appears to inure
to the benefit of one side or the other. It’s just not tolerable in the 21st
century. They’re targeting innocent civilians, mothers, pregnant women,
teenagers, grandfathers, American citizens. There can be no justification
for this hateful violence, and the United States stands firmly behind Israel’s
right to defend itself as we are defending ourselves at this moment as well.
That’s why we’ve done more to bolster, help bolster Israel’s security than
any other administration in history. Across the board we’ve raised our
security cooperation and military intelligence fields to unprecedented
levels. And we’ve provided a historical amount of security assistance. We’ve
ensure Israel has the most advanced weapons, including one of the most
effective missile defense systems in the world. At the same time we are
struggling to increase our missile defense capability because of the threat
from North Korea.
It doesn’t mean we don’t disagree, but you never need to doubt that the
United States of America has Israel’s back. And we know Israel has our back
as well, I might add. It’s not a one way street. We’re committed to making
sure that Israel can defend itself against all serious threats, maintain its
qualitative edge with a quality, a quantity sufficient to maintain that. And
it’s critical because Israel lives, as Bibi knows better than anyone, lives
in a very, very tough neighborhood – a tough and changing neighborhood.
Living some little sense of hope, but an awful lot of consternation.
All has changed since I started coming here when I first met with Golda
Meir, and her assistant, a fellow named Rabin. I sat across the desk for an
hour as she flipped those maps up and down, chain smoking, telling me about
the Six Day War. And I had just come from Egypt and I was one of the few
people allowed to go to the Suez Canal, I’m still not sure why. And all this
activity was occurring in the desert, they kept telling me it was sand
storms. And I came back and I said to the Prime Minister, I think there’s
going to be another war. I think they’re getting ready to go to war again.
Well, several months later the Yom Kippur war occurred. I was just a rooky;
I had no idea what it was. But I’ll never forget from that moment on, the
intensity of the relationship has grown, but the face of the enemy has
changed. The face of the enemy has changed and morphed in many ways.
But it also presents some small opportunity. And that is that that’s why it’s
absolutely… we’re united in the belief that a nuclear armed Iran is an
absolutely unacceptable threat to Israel, to the region and to the United
States. And I want to reiterate which I know people still doubt here. If in
fact they break the deal, we will act. We will act. And all their
conventional activity outside of the deal is still beyond the deal, and we
will and are attempting to act wherever we can find it.
And together we’re seeking ways to advance our shared security interests and
address, as I said, the new realities of the region. I just came from two
days in the UAE, I’ll be heading to Jordan, I was at the Camp David
conference, the GCC’s meeting with the President later in April, and as I
said, I spend a lot of time as you do with the King of Jordan, I’m heading
over from here to see him, and I want to make a couple points.
If you had talked in the region as a whole, four years ago, about whether
any Arab states were under some conditions prepared to make peace, real
peace with Israel, it would have been, at least I would have said, there’s
no shot. Common enemies make the, you know, you know, the enemy… Anyway, you
get the torrent. And so I think there are possibilities here. I did not come
with a plan. I just came to speak to a friend and to be able to have an open
discussion in a closed room, where we brainstorm the whole range of things.
But it is not all hopeless. It is not all hopeless. We will crush Daesh. We
will crush ISIS. Together we will crush them. They will not be sustained. I
promise you. It will take time, but they will not be sustained. And they’re
losing ground every day in Syria, but really losing ground – they’ve lost
40% of the ground they had in Iraq. It’s hard. It’s difficult. But it
requires coalitions. It requires cooperation. Most of all, it requires
people realizing what their self-interest is. And as we Catholics say, these
folks have had an epiphany. They’ve realized that they’d rather be in your
orbit than in the orbit of Daesh and ISIS and terrorism, and al-Nusra, et
cetera.
And so, if we’re lucky and smart and tenacious, over the next six months,
year, eighteen months, we can actually make some real progress. But progress
always requires taking a chance and that’s one of the things we’re going to
discuss.
And so, I’m here in the region to discuss shared threats that we face and
how to advance common security. That includes seeking resolutions to the
crisis in Syria and our shared commitment to destroying ISIL. Bibi and I
talked very, just a few moments ago. I doubt that you would have thought
either of us, was saying as old friends, you know, it’s good we’re
cooperating with Russia in Syria. Right? I mean, that would not have come
out of either one of our mouths – at least mine – four or five years ago,
but the truth is Russia has seen the Lord on some of these issues as well.
It also includes our efforts to ensure that Iran complies with its
obligations under the nuclear deal and jointly address the remaining
challenges Iran poses to the region. And I’m also back here in Israel to
talk to Bibi about the great opportunities that exist in the region,
especially new opportunities relating to energy. It’s funny that in the last
five years the United States, North America, has become the epicenter of
energy in the world. Well, guess what? Little old Israel is about to become
the epicenter of energy in this entire region, and can have a profound,
profound positive impact on relationships from Egypt to Turkey to Cyprus to
Greece to Jordan. And it’s not easy getting there, but you have the tools
now to be able to get there. And so, you know, the only way to assure, in my
view, the future of a Jewish, democratic State of Israel – and by the way,
that’s what in ’48 it called for, a Jewish state, okay? We should get over
all of this. It was a Jewish state that was set up – is that the status quo
has to break somewhere along the line here in terms of a two state solution.
Even though it may be hard to see the way ahead, we continue encourage all
sides to take steps to move back toward the path to peace – not easy – and
for the sake of Israel, and I might add, for the sake of the Palestinians in
the region. But the kind of violence we saw yesterday, the failure to
condemn it, the rhetoric that incites that violence, the retribution that it
generates, has to stop. There can’t be, there cannot be unilateral steps to
undermine trust. That only takes us further away, further and further away
from an outcome we know in our hearts is the only fundamental outcome, the
only outcome that is the ultimate guarantor.
So what I want, I urge everyone to work to restore the calm for the Israelis
and you’re already trying it, Bibi, and the Palestinians alike to… so they
can go about their daily lives without fear – easier said than done – so
that the vision of two states and two people can endure.
Bibi, I want to thank you again for your partnership and at a more personal
level for your personal friendship, and I look forward to the discussions we
are going to have today with our teams. On a personal note, I want to say
how much I’m looking forward to my young grandchildren seeing everything
from Yad Vashem to the Wall, the things that are the stuff of which cultures
are made. I want them to understand for themselves that the relationship
between the United States and Israel is more than the relationship of two
governments. It’s a bond between people, forged a link by successive
generations and grounded in an abiding commitment to Israel’s security – a
bond that can never be broken. It’s something that Bibi knows I take
personally and I assure you, so does the President.
So for, as I said, we’ve known each other a long time. We’ll probably, you
know… When we get together, our key staffs have heart attacks, because we’re
supposed to be meeting with all of them and we get talking and we just leave
them all behind. We leave everything for them to straighten out. But it’s
the nature of the friendship and it’s the nature of the relationship, so I
still think, Bibi, there’s a lot we can get done.”
Source:
