WHAT' S
Biden And The Jews
Strong ties, friendly disagreements
mark relationship.
Ron Kampeas and Eric Fingerhut
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Denver
B
efore he announced his vice
presidential pick, Barack
Obama said he wanted
someone to spar with but who ulti-
mately would be loyal enough to
create a comfortable working relation-
ship.
No one knew then that Obama had
picked his U.S. Senate colleague Joe
Biden, D-Del., 65, but the Democratic
presidential candi-
date's ad fit Biden's
relationship with the
Jewish community to
a tee.
On Saturday, two
days before the start
of the Democratic
National Convention
here, Obama chose
Biden to be the No. 2
man on the party's
ticket.
Sen. Biden
The loquacious
Biden, a senator since
1973, has sparred
frequently with the pro-Israel com-
munity and with Israelis, particularly
on the issue of settlements. But he
has a sterling voting record on pro-
Israel issues and as chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
has helped shepherd through key pro-
Israel legislation.
His straightforwardness is consid-
ered an asset, even among those sup-
porters who have disagreed with him.
"He's open minded, he votes his
own conscience said Gary Erlbaum,
a Philadelphia-based real estate
developer who is backing Republican
candidate John McCain for president
but has supported Biden's Senate cam-
paigns.
"I don't always agree with him" —
Biden is a staunch critic of the Bush
administration's Iraq policy, Erlbaum
helped found the pro-Iraq war group
Freedom's Watch — but "he does not
try to sugarcoat!'
Biden has been especially sharp
in criticizing the United States and
Israel in their alleged failure to sup-
port Mahmoud Abbas in 2003, when
he was the Palestinian Authority
prime minister attempting to estab-
lish a power base to challenge then-
President Yasser Arafat.
Abbas eventually was sidelined by
Arafat, allowing the Palestinian leader
to continue his policies of corruption
and stasis until his death — and, in
this analysis, creating a vacuum ulti-
mately filled in large part by Hamas
terrorists.
"I've had my shouting matches
over 25 years, privately, in my office
and in the offices
of prime ministers,"
Biden said in a March
2007 interview with
the Forward. "I've had
disagreements. Israel's
a democracy and they
make mistakes. But the
notion that somehow
if Israel just did the
right thing, [the peace
process] would work, I
mean that's the prem-
ise, give me a break!'
In that same inter-
view, Biden firmly
rejected calls for the United States to
distance itself from Israel and assume
a more neutral role in brokering
Middle East peace talks.
"The suffering is real on both sides,
but there is a side that can impact on
ending it:' he said. "The responsibility
rests on those who will not acknowl-
edge the right of Israel to exist, will
not play fair, will not deal, will not
renounce term"
Just two months earlier, Biden took
the lead in the Senate in rejecting
the Iraq Study Group's assertion that
the United States would not be able
to achieve its goals in Iraq unless it
"deals directly with the Arab-Israeli
conflict."
"I do not accept the notion of link-
age between Iraq and the Arab-Israeli
conflict," Biden said during his open-
ing remarks at a Jan. 17,2007, Senate
hearing. "Arab-Israeli peace is worth
pursuing vigorously on its own merits,
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