Israel Matzav

Joltin' Joe Biden says Israel has the right to strike Iran

It's back to 2009 with Joltin' Joe Biden telling the Conservative movement's Rabbinic Assembly that Israel has the right to strike Iran militarily.

Let's go to the videotape. The key part is between 32:00 and 34:00 (sorry - I know how to make a video start late - I don't know how to make it end early).



Here's more.

US Vice President Joe Biden declared Tuesday that the window had not yet closed on an Israeli military strike against Tehran, but that the window for sanctions and diplomatic efforts to halt Tehran's nuclear program would soon shut.

Biden also stressed Israel's right to take the action it sees necessary and that Israel's security is a "fundamental national interest" of the United States, criticizing some in the American Jewish community for questioning the Obama administration's commitment to the Jewish state.

"The window has not closed in terms of the ability of the Israelis if they choose on their own to act militarily. But diplomacy backed by serious, serious sanctions and pressure," he said, "on that score the window is closing in the near term."

Speaking to the Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement during the group's 2012 convention in Atlanta, Biden related a conversation he had had with­ Defense Minister Ehud Barak in which the vice president told him, "Were I an Israeli, were I a Jew, I would not contract out my security to anyone, even a loyal, loyal, loyal friend like the United States."

Biden said he conveyed the White House's perspective that, "If Israel reached the conclusion, based on the facts as they can best determined them, that Iran was on the verge of eliminating their ability to respond physically, to set that program back two to five years, I understood. We were not telling them [what] Israel could or could not do."

Hmmm.

Labels: Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:28 AM