Courting political prejudices at the time, Joe Biden tried to threaten and humiliate Israel's elected leader. It did not work very well, as he got cut short and exposed, as a big mouthed blow hard ! PM Begin's reply (in brown)was classic..
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/joe-biden-and-jews-trembling-knees-frontpagemagcom/ PARTIAL TEXT;
Before the Democratic Party’s lurch to the Left and his selection by Barack Obama, Joe Biden saw himself as a quasi-Dixiecrat. In his first try for the Democratic Presidential he bragged that he had received an award from George Wallace and boasted that “Delawareans were on the side of the South in the Civil War.”
In 1982, as he was probably beginning to plan that campaign, Biden thought he could appeal to the perceived nativism of the Dixiecrats by publicly threatening to cut off aid to the Jewish state. In July of that year, he used an appearance of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin before the Senate Finance Committee to threaten to cut off aid to Israel. After enduring Biden’s fist-pounding tirade, Begin responded with the eloquence that was his trademark. Looking directly at Biden, he said
“Don’t threaten us with cutting off aid to Israel. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”The always proper and dignified Begin then lectured Biden on his manners. Looking directly at him he said, “This desk is designed for writing, not for fists.” Biden’s behavior was so out of line that immediately after Senator Moynihan approached the Jewish Prime Minister and praised him for his cutting remarks.
