US President Joe Biden has a favorite story about his longstanding relationship with Israel. For decades, he spoke publicly about his 1973 meeting with then Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, which he described in 2015 as “one of the most important meetings of my life.”
But parts of the story Biden told on Wednesday at the White House as the menorah was lit for Hanukkah was inaccurate. Most of Biden’s details on Wednesday were identical or very similar to those in his earlier statements. Biden said that Meir constantly pointed to a set of maps, that future Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was present, that Meir offered to take a picture with Biden, and that she painted a grim picture of Israel’s security situation but then reassured him. that Israel had “Shri’s weapon” in the fight against the neighbors: “We have nowhere else to go.”
But two elements of Biden’s version on Wednesday were different from the norm, and both of those changes were wrong. Apparently one of the lies was an accidental slip of the tongue. The other one is more significant.
Biden began Wednesday like this: “And during the Six Day War, I had the opportunity – she invited me to come because I was going to be the link between her and the Egyptians around Suez and so on.” Later in the story, he notes that Meir referred to him as “Mr. Ambassador” during the meeting.
First the facts:
Biden made a mistake in the date of the meeting with Meir. The meeting took place about five weeks before the Yom Kippur War (October 6), 1973, and not during the 1967 Six Day War. More importantly, Biden exaggerated his importance to Israel at the time. There is no evidence that Meir intended to use him as some kind of “mediation” between Israel and Egypt. During the Six Day War in 1967, Biden was still a law student and Meir was not yet prime minister.
Biden’s “mediation” claim is vague, but experts on the 1973 war say it’s also clearly untrue. Although Biden visited Egypt in 1973, shortly before his visit to Israel, and told Meir what Egyptian officials told him, there is no indication that Meir wanted to use the 30-year-old US citizen who had never visited Israel before. to become an intermediary. in dispute Complicated and dangerous after only 9 months of his Senate membership.
Indeed, a written account of the meeting, compiled by an Israeli government official, said that Biden seemed inexperienced and that Meir flatly rejected his proposal for Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from a certain area as a move towards peace.
A White House spokesman suggested to CNN Thursday that Biden’s assertion that “she invited me to come because I would be the liaison between her and the Egyptians in Suez” was simply a reference to the fact that he met with Egyptian and Israeli officials. persons on the trip in 1973 to discuss relations between the two countries.
But Biden’s words, which the Republican National Committee on Thursday called wrong, gave the impression that Meir was keen to use him in an important diplomatic position. At the same time, experts say that this is actually unreasonable. Uri Bar-Joseph, professor of political science at the University of Haifa, stated in an email that there is “nothing” in the Israeli report on the August 31, 1973 meeting, not even the “suggestion” that Meir had invited Biden as moderator.
“As far as I know, there is no evidence to suggest that it will be a link between the two sides,” Asaf Senifer, associate professor of international security at the University of Birmingham and editor of Yom Kippur. War, the email says.
In Biden’s account of the story on Wednesday, the only one we could find in which he spoke of the role of “communication,” he said of Meir: “She looked at me and said, ‘Mr Ambassador, would you like a photograph.’ ?”
But in some other versions of the story, Biden said that Meir referred to him before or during the photo opportunity as “Senator’s son” rather than “Mr. Ambassador.”
Meir died in 1978, and it’s impossible to know exactly what was said between her and Biden 48 years ago. But the Israeli summary of the 100-minute meeting, an internal memo written by a then-government official, contains useful information. The summary, which was discussed in Israeli media in 2020 and is available online at the Israeli State Archives, said that Biden admitted that he was not an expert on Egypt, said that Biden was warmly received during his trip to Egypt, but met with second row (from officials) Simple.
Officials said Meir made extensive remarks objecting to Biden’s proposal for Israel to seek peace by withdrawing from a certain area that he believed had no strategic value. (The summary did not indicate which area Biden was referring to, but said it was not the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, or Sharm el-Sheikh.)
The Israeli official who wrote the summary, Gideon Yarden, eventually gave his personal assessment of Biden. He wrote that Biden was full of admiration and appreciation for Meir, and went on to say that he came to study, “but on the other hand,” he spoke in a way that reflected his “age and diplomatic experience.” Ironically, Yarden put the word “experience” in quotation marks.
Another part of the Israeli account of the meeting differs from what Biden gave in 2015.
In a speech marking Israel’s Independence Day, then-U.S. Vice President Biden said he told Meir and Rabin during the meeting, “I thought they (Egypt) were preparing to attack again.” “And everyone, including my army and the Israeli military, thought I was crazy,” he added.
The Israeli summary does not mention any of Biden’s comments. Instead, the briefing reported, Biden said that of all the officials he met in Egypt, no one denied Israel’s absolute military superiority, and that officials said Egypt could no longer go to war against Israel. In fact, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in early October 1973. This attack also took Israel by surprise.