US Senator for Texas Ted Cruz has said that “antisemitic voices in the far-left” of the Democratic Party will have a strong role in the party’s agenda with Israel should Democratic candidate and former vice president Joe Biden win the presidential election in November. Speaking at The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference which is being broadcast online today (Thursday), Cruz, a Republican, strongly criticized the stance taken by the Obama administration towards Israel, and accused former president Barack Obama and Biden of having orchestrated the UN Security Council Resolution 2334 which stated that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem are illegal. He also asserted that President Donald Trump’s decisions to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and to pull out of the Iranian nuclear deal helped spur the recent normalization agreements between the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain with Israel. During his interview, the US senator argued that the Iran nuclear deal signed in 2015 between the Iran, the US and five other world powers had badly politicized the US relationship with Israel.To view the full conference, click here >>“When the Obama administration told congressional Democrats you either stand with Israel or you stand with the congressional Democratic Party, far too many democrats chose to stand with their party,” said Cruz. “That dynamic is dangerous. If you look at the Democratic Party, there are some vocal antisemitic voices on the far left that are in the ascension, that if Biden wins will have a serious and vocal role,” he claimed. And he alleged that both Obama and Biden had helped advance the UN resolution against Israeli settlements, during the transition period between Trump’s election victory and his inauguration, claiming that this could presage similar moves under a Biden presidency. “It spoke volumes that after the 2016 election, the outgoing step that president Obama and Biden took was to orchestrate UN Resolution 2334, a blatantly anti-Israel resolution, predicated on a mountain of laws, claiming much of modern Israel is illegally occupied territory, claiming the Jewish quarter of [the Old City of] Jerusalem and the Wailing Wall is illegally occupied territory. “That should never have happened. A strong American should have vetoed it. Not only should Obama and Biden have vetoed it, behind the scenes they quietly orchestrated it.Those are the voices that would be in ascension in a Biden presidency and I worry about it.”Cruz also praised Trump’s relationship and policy towards Israel, saying that the recent signing of the Abraham Accords with the UAE and the normalization of relations with Bahrain was “the fruit” of the embassy move and the withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear agreement. “The State Department, and the Defense Department said ‘don’t move the embassy, it would enrage Israel’s enemies and would impede the cause of middle east peace’,” said Cruz. “I disputed that, I argued to the president that if we move the embassy it will be heard by our friends and enemies that we are unequivocally showing that we stand with Israel, period, the end. That clarity is the necessary precondition for peace. It is prerequisite for peace.“Clarity is power. In the Middle East people respect strength not weakness. If you can be bullied militarily or by The New York Times and CNN then you’re not respected.”Heather Stone, Chair of the Democrats Abroad Israel rejected Cruz’s comments, saying it was the Republican Party that politicized the relationship in 2015 in the political fight over the Iran nuclear deal. “Trump has cynically turned Israel into a political football to serve his own political needs with certain constituencies, like the Christian Evangelicals and ultra Orthodox Jews. He actively tries to make Israel a wedge issue in American politics,” she said in response to the Senator’s claims. “Senator Cruz should clean house in his own Republican Party of virulent anti-Semites, including those associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory, before lobbing claims at members of the Democratic Party.” Stone said that Biden got into the presidential race “because President Trump failed to clearly call out racists, white supremacists, and anti-Semites who marched in Charlottesville chanting ‘Jews will not replace us’,” She said that the recent agreements with the UAE and Bahrain were “an opportunity to expand the circle of peace in the region,” and that Biden would seize those opportunities, by bringing in additional Arab states and fostering renewed momentum in Israeli-Palestinian talks to keep a two-state solution alive, so Israel can retain its Jewish and democratic character.”Stone asserted that Biden would “always stand resolutely for Israel’s right and ability to defend itself” against a hostile Iran, and condemned the slated sale of the advanced F-35 stealth fighters to the UAE. “That includes ensuring Israel’s qualitative military edge, which Trump treated so cavalierly by promising to sell F-35 aircraft to Arab states, in contrast to the Obama-Biden administration, which reserved that capability for Israel.”
