Former Vice President Joe Biden denounced conditioning aid to Israel on their treatment of the Palestinians, an idea that has been backed by other Democratic presidential candidates.
Biden, 76, explained that he’s “opposed to” Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but also called the suggestion of using aid to leverage the foreign ally a “gigantic mistake.”
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“Look, I have been on record from very early on opposed to the settlements, and I think it’s a mistake, and President Netanyahu knows my position. But the idea that we would draw military assistance from Israel on the condition that they change a specific policy I find to be absolutely outrageous,” he said while speaking to reporters Thursday in Fort Dodge, Iowa.
The idea of using aid to Israel to change their treatment of the Palestinians was first suggested by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sanders, who is Jewish, said that Israel would need to “fundamentally change” their relationship with the Gaza Strip in order to receive aid.
“We cannot give it carte blanche to the Israeli government,” he told a convention hosted by J Street earlier this week, a progressive Jewish advocacy group. “What is going on in Gaza right now is absolutely inhumane, it is unacceptable, it is unsustainable.”
Fellow presidential candidates Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren shared that sentiment with the former saying that the United States should ensure that aid to Israel “does not get turned into U.S. taxpayer support for a move like annexation.” Former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro did not rule the idea out either but said it “wouldn’t be my first move.”
A number of the Democratic presidential candidates have spoken out against the Israeli government, mainly Netanyahu.
