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Obama’s New Running Mate: ‘I’m a Zionist’
By the AFP Staff
Sen. Joseph Biden (D–Del.), whom Barack Obama has chosen as his running mate, called Israel “the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East” in a 2007 interview and proclaimed that he is “a Zionist.”
According to The Daily Israel Report, in an interview with Shalom TV, when Biden was still running for the presidential nomination, he said that since the 9-11 terror attacks, “Americans can taste what it must feel like for every Israeli mother and father when they send their kid out to school with their lunch to put them on a bus, on a bicycle or to walk; and they pray to God their cell phone doesn’t ring.”
Biden also boasted of Jewish family connection:
“My son married a young woman whose mother . . . [is from] a very prominent Jewish family in the state of Delaware, the Bergers,” he said.
Biden said Jonathan Pollard, who is in a U.S. jail after being convicted of spying for Israel, deserves leniency. “There’s a rationale, in my view, why Pollard should be given leniency,” he said.
“When I was a young senator, I used to say, ‘If I were a Jew I’d be a Zionist.’ [But now] I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.”
Biden called attempts to link the conflict over the land of Israel and the Iraq war “bizarre.”
Many Jews think Biden is not “Zionist enough.” For instance, Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) Executive Director Matt Brooks cautioned against voting for the Obama and Biden ticket.
“With the selection of Sen. Joe Biden as Sen. Obama’s vice president, the Democrats’ ticket has now become an even greater gamble for the Jewish community,” he said. “Throughout his career, Sen. Biden has consistently been wrong on Iran and his voting record on Israel has been inconsistent.”
(Issue # 36, September 8, 2008)
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