22 | OCTOBER 29 • 2020 

Daniel Shapiro tells the JN how the VP’s 
stance on Israel would diff
 er from Trump’s.

ANDREW LAPIN EDITOR

Biden’s Israel Plans

A

Joe Biden presidency 
would “treat Israel 
as a matter of bipar-
tisan consensus,
” says Daniel 
Shapiro, a Biden campaign 
surrogate who served as the 
U.S. ambassador 
to Israel under the 
Obama adminis-
tration from 2011-
2017.
Shapiro, now a 
visiting fellow at 
the Institute for 
National Security Studies in 
Tel Aviv, spoke to the JN from 
Israel. He said the former vice 
president would continue to 
push for a two-state solution 
as a “guide star” for U.S.-Israel 
policy; discourage any uni-
lateral settlement, annexation 
or “sovereignty” actions by 
Israel; and oppose the Boycott, 
Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) 
movement in the U.S. 
Shapiro added that Biden 
“welcomes” the Abraham 
Accords, the normalization 
agreements between Israel, 
Bahrain, Sudan and the UAE 
that Trump facilitated. He said 
Biden would “work to expand 
the circle of peace” between 
Israel and its neighbors. 
Biden also intends to keep 
the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, 
according to Shapiro.
Israeli Prime Minister 
Benjamin Netanyahu had a 
testy relationship with Shapiro 
and the Obama administration 
and has made no secret that 
he prefers Trump in the White 
House. Trump, in turn, has 
often touted his friendship with 
the PM and his own achieve-
ments in Israel on the cam-
paign trail. Many Detroit-area 

Jews have said Trump has been 
better for Israel than previous 
administrations.
Shapiro, noting that Biden 
has known Netanyahu since the 
1980s, said the candidate would 
pursue his plans for Israel “no 
matter who the Israeli prime 
minister is.
” However, Shapiro 
said, “he will certainly discour-
age any steps, especially uni-
lateral steps by either side, that 
will make [a two-state solution] 
harder to achieve.
” 
Trump withdrew from the 
Iran nuclear deal brokered by 
the Obama administration. 
Shapiro said, as a result, “Iran 
has moved much closer to a 
nuclear weapon” and is “in a 
more dangerous place” than 
when Trump took office. In a 
recent Miami Herald op-ed, 
Shapiro argued that Trump’
s 
stance on Iran was one reason 
why his administration had 
“put Israel in greater danger.
”
He said a Biden administra-
tion would work to put “mul-
tilateral” pressures on Iran to 
make it “come back into com-
pliance with its commitments 
under the Iran nuclear deal.
” 
Biden himself said he would 
re-enter the deal if Iran agreed 
to return to “strict compliance;” 
Iran was recently revealed to be 
behind malicious emails target-
ing U.S. voters in an attempt to 
influence the election.
Shapiro also said Biden 
would be more aggressive in 
addressing antisemitism in 
America than Trump and push 
for “increased security for reli-
gious institutions,
” including 
synagogues. “Unfortunately,
” 
Shapiro said, “that’
s more nec-
essary than it’
s ever been.
” 

Daniel 

Shapiro 

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Rabbi Levi 

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teaching a 

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ERETZ

