Biden to US Jews: Israel is our dearest ally

US vice president hosts Jewish leaders, political rivals for Rosh Hashana toast, says 'Israel is America's closest, dearest, most morally-based friend'

WASHINGTON – At an annual event held at the US Vice President's residence in honor of the Jewish New Year, US Vice President Joe Biden said that "Israel is America's closest, dearest, and most morally-based friend".

Among the guests present at the event were Biden's political rivals from the Republican Party, such as House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor, as well as leaders of the American Jewish community, including Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Biden, who hosted the Jewish leaders as in every year, told his guests that he is worried by the attempts to de-legitimize Israel.

Last week, The New York Times reported that Biden met with 15 rabbis in Florida and commented on his reluctance to release Jonathan Pollard, who was imprisoned in 1986 after he was convicted of spying for Israel.

How about these:

Sunday, October 02, 2011
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/10/biden-hillary-clintons-about-faces.html

“Biden, Hillary Clinton’s about-faces under Obama

From the New York Times:
In the middle of a meeting with 15 rabbis in Boca Raton, Fla., last week, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. took a punch meant for his boss.

One of the rabbis asked why Jonathan Pollard, the Israeli spy convicted in 1986, was still in prison. Mr. Biden, on a mission to shore up support for President Obama, replied forcefully, according to several people at the meeting.

“President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, ‘Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time,’ ” Mr. Biden said. “If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life.”

Yet in 2007, Biden said that he supports leniency for Pollard:

This is not the only recent public about-face done by an Obama 2008 presidential opponent turned employee.In Hillary Clinton’s position paper on Israel in 2007 it says:

Hillary Clinton believes that Israel’s right to exist in safety as a Jewish state, with defensible borders and an undivided Jerusalem as its capital, secure from violence and terrorism, must never be questioned.
This was a restatement of what she said during her 1999 Senate campaign: “I personally consider Jerusalem the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel.”

But last week she was singing a decidedly different tune:

We believe that this morning’s announcement by the government of Israel approving the construction of housing units in east Jerusalem is counter-productive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties. As you know, we have long urged both sides to avoid any kind of action which could undermine trust, including, and perhaps most particularly, in Jerusalem, any action that could be viewed as provocative by either side.

Which means that she no longer believes in an undivided, Jewish Jerusalem, and she thinks that Israel must let all new Jewish neighborhoods built over the past 44 years that “everyone knows” will end up in Israel under any peace agreement must remain stagnant indefinitely, lest a Jew adding a bathroom to his house be considered “provocative.”

(h/t Avi Mayer tweet via JW)

Or how about this one:

State Department insists no part of Jerusalem is recognized as Israel; US Supreme Court to rule

Posted by Israel Insider on August 11, 2011 at 10:30am
http://israelinsider.net/profiles/blogs/state-department-insists-that-no-part-of-jerusalem-is-recognized-

The American policy that Jerusalem-born babies cannot list Israel as their country of birth will be challenged in the US Supreme Court in November.
According to the State Department, no part of Jerusalem is recognized as belonging to Israel, including the western sections previously believed to be non-controversial. The State Department just issued the following press release:

QUESTION: What is the State Department’s position regarding American persons born in Jerusalem who wish to have passports issued that indicate their place of birth as Israel?

ANSWER: Current U.S. Government policy is that U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem may not have “Israel” listed in their passports as their place of birth. See the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Affairs Manual 7 FAM 1300 Appendix D for further details.

The relevant appendix reads as follows:

f. Birthplace in Jerusalem: For a person born in Jerusalem, write JERUSALEM as the place of birth in the passport. Do not write Israel, Jordan or West Bank for a person born within the current municipal borders of Jerusalem. For applicants born before May 14, 1948 in a place that was within the municipal borders of Jerusalem, enter JERUSALEM as their place of birth. For persons born before May 14, 1948 in a location that was outside Jerusalem’s municipal limits and later was annexed by the city, enter either PALESTINE or the name of the location (area/city) as it was known prior to annexation. For persons born after May 14,1948 in a location that was outside Jerusalem’s municipal limits and later was annexed by the city, it is acceptable to enter the name of the location (area/city) as it was known prior to annexation.

The ruling against listing as a Jerusalem newborn as being born in “Israel” is now being challenged and the case will be heard in November. In an unprecedented lawsuit that could affect over 50,000 Jerusalem-born Americans, the Court agreed to hear the case of a Jerusalem-born American boy whose parents are demanding consular officials record Israel as his country of birth on official documents.

American olim and Jerusalem residents Ari Z. Zivotofsky and Naomi Siegman Zivotofsky have been fighting for their son Menachem Binyamin’s passport and other documents to show Israel as his birth country even since he was born in Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital eight years ago. Currently, in line with US policy, Menachem Binyamin’s passport and Consular Report of Birth Abroad (equivalent of a birth certificate) only show that the boy was born in Jerusalem – but omit the country, his parents say.

As Menachem Binyamin’s parents are both Americans, he is automatically a US citizen and entitled to a US passport and other official documents. US State Department policy is to record the city and country of birth on these documents for US citizens born overseas. However, this rule does not apply for American citizens born in Jerusalem, as the Zivotofskys discovered when they applied to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv for a passport and a Consular Report of Birth for their newborn son back in 2002.

Menachem Binyamin’s mother, Naomi, says she specifically requested that consular officials list her son’s place of birth as Israel. Consular officials refused this request, the Zivotofskys say. Instead, Menachem Binyamin’s passport shows only that he was born in Jerusalem. “If a US citizen is born in Tel Aviv, his passport will designate his place of birth as Israel. But in the case of Jerusalem, the US Consular Department will not give the country of birth as Israel,” Menachem Binyamin’s father told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
Read more in the Jerusalem Post.

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