The Democrats' choice of having octogenarian Joe Biden go up against Donald Trump, who is only four years younger but far more pugnacious, will be debated for a long time. In fact, it is not so much the age of the incumbent White House occupant that is questioned as his repeated and embarrassing blunders. In April, for example, the American president urged Benjamin Netanyahu not to attack... Haifa. He was confusing the major port in the north of Israel with Rafah, the town in the south of the Gaza Strip where more than half the population of the Palestinian enclave has taken refuge, on the border with Egypt.
In any case, it doesn't matter, because the most powerful man on the planet has not even been able to prevent the ongoing operation against Rafah. If Biden only raised his voice to Netanyahu after seven months of carnage, it is because his loyalty to Israel is rooted in a founding experience that goes back more than half a century.
The American leader, born in 1942 in Pennsylvania, was brought up by his two Catholic parents with a deep respect for the state of Israel. Elected at the age of 30 as a Democratic senator from Delaware, he visited Egypt and Israel in August 1973 on his first foreign trip as a member of Congress. Disappointed at having only been received by low-ranking officials in Egypt, he considers his meeting with the head of the Israeli government, Golda Meir, as "one of the most consequential" of his life.
A fervent 'Zionist'
Biden would later often tell how the prime minister had revealed Israel's "secret weapon" to him: "We have no place else to go." Meir, who spoke perfect English thanks to her years of education in the United States, insisted in the American media at the time that the "Palestinian nation" did not exist any more than the "Palestinian people." But the prime minister also said that she could not "forgive the Palestinians for forcing [them] to kill their children," a quote much used today in Israel.
The young Senator Biden returned from his stay in Israel so enthusiastic that he began to declare himself a "Zionist," a fervent commitment that he reiterated many times in public, specifying each time that "I don't believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist." In June 1982, he supported Menachem Begin's government in its invasion of Lebanon, despite the huge number of civilian casualties. This support was so enthusiastic that the Israeli prime minister himself had to temper Biden, reminding him that all belligerents were under an obligation to spare women and children. Four years later, Biden ardently defended the colossal military aid to Israel in Congress: "It is the best $3 billion investment we make. If there weren't no Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region."
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