Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) took aim at President Joe Biden with an attempt to tattoo Biden with a longstanding anti-Israel stance. Biden’s point in both instances is a recognition of impediments to America’s continued support for Israel’s war in Gaza, and is trying to keep Israel in a spot where it can continue to receive U.S. support.
With news breaking that Biden would withhold offensive weapons — especially the 2,000-pound bombs used to take cities — from Israel to dissuade an Israeli invasion of Rafah, Cruz responded “Biden has been doing this for a long time.”
Cruz references a story from 1982, when a 39-year-old Senator Biden “lectured” Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, reportedly threatening during a private Senate Foreign Relations Committee session to withhold aid to Israel as it fought a war with Lebanon. Begin, according to witnesses, slammed Biden in response, saying “Don’t threaten us with cutting off aid to give up our principles” and “I’m not a Jew with trembling knees.”
Biden has been doing this for a very long time.
Menachem Begin was right. https://t.co/jfYX4KYAOJ
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 9, 2024
Loosely sketched from witnesses on hand, the record quotes Begin telling Biden: “I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”
Cruz bookends Biden’s statement on pausing weapons this week with his threat to withhold Israel aid back in 1982 — and the circumstances are similar in that political realities today, as then, make it harder for the U.S. to support Israel if it continues down certain paths.
In 1982, Sen. Biden castigated the 68-year-old Begin over the Israeli settlements, acknowledging that America’s ability to support Israel was being compromised by the politically unpopular settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. Today, an invasion of Rafah by Israel is deeply unpopular, and Biden again is warning that America’s ability to support Israel will be compromised if Israel pursues the invasion.