From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Biden stands by identification as a Zionist as Israel-Hamas war drags on
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
US President Joe Biden says he identifies as a Zionist — a distinction he hasn’t publicly highlighted since February as the Israel-Hamas war drags on.
“You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and a Zionist is about whether or not Israel is a safe haven for Jews because of their history of how they’ve been persecuted,” Biden says in an interview with Complex Networks’ Speedy Morman on “360 with Speedy.”
“If there weren’t an Israel, every Jew in the world would be at risk. There’s a need for it to be strong, and there’s a need… after World War II… for Jews to have a place that was their own,” Biden says.
Biden has voiced these beliefs before, but he indicates that he has not moved away from them amid recurring spats with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government before and after the outbreak of the war.
Asked if he identifies as a Zionist, Biden responds that he does, but then laments that the term is often misinterpreted.
“Now, you’ll be able to make a lot of that because different people don’t know what a Zionist is,” he says, before asking the interviewer whether he even knows what a Zionist is. Morman smirks and declines to answer.
Biden stresses that he continues to supply Israel with defensive weapons while denying Jerusalem 2,000-lb (900-kg) bombs that he fears would be used in civilian areas.
