Biden on Israel: I'm friends with Netanyahu, too

Vice President Joe Biden.

(CBS News) Underscoring the importance of Jewish voters in the presidential election this fall, Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday told the Rabbinical Assembly that President Obama "deserves the credit" for restoring U.S. influence in the global community, protecting Israel and mobilizing other nations to put pressure on Iran.

"No president since Harry Truman has does more for Israel's security than Barack Obama," Biden said in his keynote address to the group's annual conference in Atlanta.

As Biden took the podium, the rabbi who introduced him told him, "You are with friends, sir."

Obama received 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008, exit polls showed. A recent poll by the American Jewish Committee found that if the 2012 election were held today, 61 percent of Jews would vote for Obama, as opposed to 28 percent who would support presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

Romney is trying to shrink that disparity, in part with hawkish rhetoric against Iran. His longtime ties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are well documented. Last month, The New York Times ran a piece that dubbed the two "old friends" and detailed their 36-year relationship.

Making an implicit point that Netanyahu has more than one friend in the United States, Biden on Tuesday called for a moment of silence for the passing of the prime minister's father, Benzion. Biden - a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- then added an anecdote about once signing a photo for "Bibi" with this inscription: "I don't agree with a damn thing you say, but I love ya."

Biden vowed to "prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon by whatever means we need, period," and talked up the administration's role in winning international support for tough sanctions against Iran. "When we took office, we were the problem; we were diplomatically isolated in the world, in the region, in Europe," Biden said to prolonged applause. Four years ago, he continued, America "was neither respected by our friends nor feared by our opponents. Today it is starkly, starkly different."

The Romney campaign called Biden's remarks reckless and reiterated its charge that Obama is naive. "Vice President Biden's reckless statement today blaming America for -- of all things -- the progress of Iran's nuclear weapons program, has reached a new low," campaign policy director Lanhee Chen said in a statement. "President Obama's naive approach to Iran has given the regime valuable time to get closer than ever before to a nuclear weapons capability. Vice President Biden's comments are wrong and completely inappropriate. Mitt Romney will stand up for America and our allies, and he will not apologize for America's leadership role in the world."

[n_erber]

It is unbelivable what are American politicians are willing to say, promise and do just to get Jewish money, especially now, during presidential campagne. By money, Jewish community and lobby controls politicians, mass media and has unjustified influence on American foreign policy to blindly support Israel.

[BOB-C]

Stop the pandering!

[tvwatcher5345]

the only reason the US has had it with israel, is because people see how AEI and AIPAC the neocons (podhoretz, krystol, feith, wolfowitz, judy miller, senor, pearle, lieberman, friedman, kagan, krauthammer, scooter (i like to call him skippy) etc, etc)pushed for the US to send their kids to war in places like iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 (17 of the 19 hijackers were saudi, number of iraqis zero), so the result was obama elected, a more powerful iran (thanks to the neocons) iran has a lot of influence in iraq now without their arch enemy sadam in power, if nuts-and-yahoo and israel does not like the bed it has to sleep in, it needs to take a hard look at the neocons that made this situation, I can't help but laugh at the neocons (they will lose their minds if obama gets re-elected), but it is sad to think of our soldiers lost and wounded, by the way the neocons from the bush administration are now romney's advisors

[downtowndave1]

It is good for the United States to be a genuine friend of Israel. http://483years.blogspot.com/

[wfw3536]

I did not see Biden explain how he disrespected leaders of Israel when he was there last year, or how Obama did the same thing at the White House a couple years ago. It is clear this administration has closed their eyes to Iran as they develop an atom bomb, which will be a treat to the whole world. How sad, when Israel is our only true friend in the middle east.

[Molly-Pchr]

They've given Iran more time because Mr. Obama will be more flexible, in his words, after the election. After all, that's what counts with all politicians, is the next election.

[Semper_Veritas]

"Underscoring the importance of Jewish voters "

Can we stop with this? The US has more Muslims.

This is about Jewish money. But since the metameme is any true and potentially negative remark about Jews or Israel can be readily smeared as "anti-Semitic" - there is little discussion, conspiracy theories aside, as to whether or not it is 'good for America' to have a tiny minority, many of whom have conflicting loyalties to a perpetually-at-war apartheid colonist state, having such disproportionate influence on American politics.

Shedlon Adelson is but the most vivide example.


There are more stories about 'the Jewish vote' than any other religious or ethnic group. On its face this begs the question - why?

It's not the numbers, nor is it about swing states. It's about money and influence in media and in banking {please spare me the nonsense - look at who's on the federal reserve board of governors, presidents of the federal reserve banks, chair of the council of economic advisors... yourself}.

How about some truth?