Thursday August 12, 1982: Ronald Reagan, the popular Republican president is in the White House. He watches the TV news from Beirut. Israel has bombed the city for months. The aim is to destroy the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and take the life of its leader Yasir Arafat. Israeli troops surround Beirut in June 1982, before launching their intensive bombardment of the western part of the city. Photo: CASTELNUOVO / AP Reagan sees something that particularly upsets him. The image of a seven-month-old baby with its arms torn from its body. Reagan picks up the phone to talk to his Israeli friend, Prime Minister Menachem Begin. But Begin doesn’t answer. Reagan tries repeatedly. Finally, the Prime Minister answers the phone. The conversation that then unfolds is historic: Ronald Reagan on the left with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1981. Photo: AP Reagan: – Menach: this is the holocaust. The Israeli prime minister, originally an Ashkenazi Jew from Poland, is deeply hurt by the president’s comparison. He himself lost his mother, father and brother during the Second World War. Two of them in the German concentration camps. Begin replies to Reagan: – Mr. President – I know what a holocaust is. But Reagan stood his ground, insisting on the “imperative” need for a cease-fire in Beirut. Shortly after, Begin calls back. He informs Reagan that he has ordered his military leader Ariel Sharon to stop the hostilities. November 11, 1982, one month after the historic phone call, Begin makes a state visit to the United States. Photo: Ron Frehm / AP Reagan himself was surprised by the response. After the conversation, he says to the others in the room: – I didn’t know I had that kind of power. Marte Heian-Engdal, assistant. Mr. at the Center for International Conflict Resolution, NOREF Photo: Private Reagan’s threats to Begin were completely in line with American interests, Middle East expert Marte Heian-Engdal believes: – This was not a purely emotional policy. It was clearly in America’s interest that Reagan stopped Israel from destroying Beirut. It was the Cold War, and a US ally Israel bombing another country in the region was not in US interest. – Bibi, what the fuck? A visibly furious Joe Biden held a press conference shortly after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 last year. 1,200 Israelis had been killed and 250 captured. Biden condemned Hamas and compared them to IS. At the same time, he warned Israel: Netanyahu hugs Biden when he arrives in Tel Aviv 11 days after the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP – Even if you feel the rage, don’t let it overwhelm you. After 9/11, we were filled with anger in the US. And while we sought justice and received justice, we also made mistakes. Israel nevertheless launched an all-out war against Gaza, mostly with American military equipment and ammunition. Gaza in ruins: By analyzing satellite images from Gaza, the research laboratory Conflict Ecology has concluded that almost 60 percent of the buildings in Gaza are destroyed. Photo: Omar Al-Qatta / AFP According to a new book coming out next week, journalist Bob Woodward describes how Joe Biden has outwardly defended Israel’s right to defend itself, despite strong international criticism. In private, the president has reacted far more explosively, sometimes with profanity, to Israel’s actions. Joe Biden behind the same desk in the Oval Office as his predecessor Ronald Reagan. Photo: LEAH MILLIS / Reuters – Bibi, what the fuck? Biden shouted to Netanyahu, according to the book, after an Israeli airstrike killed Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr, and several civilians, in an attack near Beirut. In addition, Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was killed by an Israeli bomb during a visit to Iran. – You know that the perception of Israel around the world is increasingly that you are a rogue state, an unruly actor, Biden told him, according to the book. – This is Haniyeh, Netanyahu replied. – One of the leading terrorists. A horrible guy. We saw an opportunity and took it. Despite a deteriorating relationship between Biden and Netanyhau, the president has only once put hard against hard. In May, Biden halted a shipment of 3,500 bombs to Israel out of fear that they would be used in the Rafah operation and cause excessive civilian casualties. But, shortly after, the US sent another shipment of bombs to Israel. People stand over a crater after an Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza on November 12, 2023. Photo: MAHMUD HAMS / AFP People killed since October 7, 2023 Close Sources: Hamas-controlled health authorities in Gaza / UN Office for the Coordination of humanitarian effort (OCHA) / Israeli authorities Disclaimer: Figures from the Hamas-controlled health authorities in Gaza do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, and may periodically be delayed. Figures from Israeli authorities show that around 1,200 civilians and soldiers were killed in connection with the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. 348 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 27, 2023. None of the figures have been confirmed by independent sources. The Palestinian figures are updated daily. Figures from Israel are updated at least twice a week. Close More information about the numbers When Netanyahu nevertheless continued with the invasion of Rafah, according to the book, Biden is said to have told his advisers that Netanyahu was a liar. He added that “18 out of 19 people who work for him” were also liars. He questioned Netanyahu’s motives, saying he “doesn’t care” about Hamas, but “only about himself.” The USA is losing face Sofie Høgestøl, associate professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo. Photo: Amanda Iversen Orlich / n653058 USA expert Sofie Høtestøl believes that Biden is being humiliated in the worst way by Netanyhau: – It is very clear that Netanyahu reads the political landscape in the USA as if Biden is not important to him. Biden is what in the USA is called a “lame duck”. He’s president, but everyone knows he’s going to step down. Middle East researcher Heian-Engdal is also surprised by Biden’s casualness towards Netanyahu: – It makes the Americans look weak as a great power. And that in a period of great power rivalry between the United States and China. It is very negative for American power projection. The US’s most important foreign policy priority is China. Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping during a G20 meeting in November 2022. Photo: Alex Brandon / AP – Why doesn’t Biden put his foot down for Netanyahu? – This is where many of us have problems understanding the last year of American Middle East policy. Too much of that policy is so obviously at odds with other American interests. Heian-Engdal believes that part of the explanation lies on a personal level for Biden: – He is a hardened, old Zionist. A man who has grown up in politics with the story of a small, vulnerable Jewish state that needed America’s support. The Israeli suffering does not need to be explained to him. He has an intuitive understanding of it. – The Palestinian suffering, on the other hand, must be “proved”. It is simply a longer road for him to understand the trauma of the Palestinians. Heian-Engdal refers to statements from Biden in which he has cast doubt on photographic evidence from Gaza, and has questioned the Palestinian health authorities’ death toll. Harris and Trump’s Israel policy Trump had a 50-minute conversation with Netanyahu this week about how to respond to Iran’s missile attack. Photo: Reuters So what will Biden’s successor do with Israel? Eirik Løkke in the Civita think tank believes that Trump’s return to the White House will mean good news for Netanyahu: – There will be much stronger support for Israel. There’s not going to be any real danger of criticism or a stop in support or anything. – What about Harris? – I don’t think her understanding or approach is so different from Biden’s, actually. – Even though she and Biden have had major protests within their own party? Eirik Løkke, advisor at Civita Photo: Hanna Johre – Yes, for now I think so. But the question is how long a possible Harris administration can accept that there is a war going on in the Middle East. With brutal images from day to day. Neither Løkke nor Heian-Engdal believe either of the two presidential candidates will do as Reagan did, and threaten Israel into more obedience. Published 13.10.2024, at 21.10
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Reagan called Begin and got Israel to withdraw from Lebanon – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
