In 1982, Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin visited Washington, DC. Israel had invaded Lebanon, where various Palestinian factions were then headquartered, and the world was watching bloodshed in the Middle East.
Normally, Israeli prime ministers can expect a warm greeting when they visit the United States. As with Israel’s war in Gaza now, though, some American politicians were angry at the belligerence of Israel’s actions and wanted de-escalation.
Some reports at the time (and since) suggested that one of the angry doves in 1982 was Senator Joseph Biden. The truth seems to be more complicated.
Begin met with Biden, and vague reports described some sort of angry exchange. Begin’s recollections of that meeting were reported at the time in a mainstream Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Aharonot. Some of the details of what Begin recalls Biden telling him are genuinely shocking, but they seem to now be largely forgotten in Israel — especially a hypothetical Biden floated about the United States bombing cities in Canada. “If attacks were launched from Canada into the US,” Biden remarked, “everyone here would have said, ‘Attack all the cities of Canada, and we don’t care if all the civilians get killed.’”
As far as I can tell, these details have never been reported in the English-language press — until now.
When Biden Clashed With Begin
Writing in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks after the 2020 presidential election, presidential historian Tevi Troy recounts the meeting between Biden and Begin. Troy doesn’t quote Biden’s side of the conversation, although he vaguely talks about the future president “lectur[ing] the 68-year-old Begin about the settlements” Israel was building in occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank and warning Begin that Israel might be in danger of losing support in the United States. Instead of giving us any real details about Senator Biden’s perspective, he talks a lot about the theatrics of the meeting — fingers jabbed, fists pounded on the table — and quotes Begin taking umbrage at the senator challenging him in any way. “I am not,” Begin told Biden, “a Jew with trembling knees.”
Without quoting any of his specific comments, Troy says that Biden warned Begin that “eroding support for Israel” might endanger future US aid. Begin seems to have taken this as a threat to cut off aid if Israeli policy didn’t change, and Troy quotes him railing that Israel would “stand by” its “principles . . . with or without your aid.”
Honestly, though, everything we know about the way Senator Biden positioned himself on the issue at the time makes it more likely that he was speaking as a supporter of US aid worried that he and his friends wouldn’t be able to deliver it in the future. But what exactly was his concern?