11/16 Links Pt2: Meir Soloveichik: The Prime Minister and the Minyan; A UN Seminar Teaches Antisemitism, Encourages Bias; Israeli company on the edge of finding diabetes cure

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: The Prime Minister and the Minyan

While Jabotinsky’s own appreciation of civic religion may have grown over time, there was no guarantee that the nascent Israeli right in 1948 would have been sympathetic to the Jewish state being a place that cherished traditional Jewish faith. It was Begin who, as prime minister three decades after the founding, first demanded kosher food when making state visits abroad; and it was Begin who, as prime minister, first insisted that Israel’s airline not fly on the Sabbath. He argued, as Yehuda Avner recounts in The Prime Ministers, that “one need not be pious to accept the cherished principle of Shabbat. One merely needs to be a proud Jew.” It was Begin, in other words, who understood the role religious tradition would play in the Israeli future.

This understanding has been vindicated. Much has been written on the various and very different views of the members of Israel’s newest government. But less focus has been given to the remarkable fact that this seems to be the first Israeli coalition with a majority made up of Orthodox Jews. This includes not only the members of the religious parties themselves but also those MKs from the Likud who are part of the Orthodox community. And this is an accurate representation of what the country has become. As Maayan Hoffman noted in an article titled “Why the Israeli Election Results Should Not Be Surprising,” the makeup of the future Knesset reflects plain sociology: “Around 80% of Israel’s population is either traditional, Religious Zionist or ultra-Orthodox, according to official reports.”

Begin was a singular figure in Israel’s history—one who seamlessly joined deep familiarity with, and knowledge of, Jewish tradition, a personal, natural faith in the God of Israel, and a Zionism that defended both Western democratic traditions and the Jewish right to the Land of Israel. But there is no question that Israeli society today reflects the fact that only Begin among the nation’s founders sensed what the future of Israel would be.

No one, under the new government, will be forced to eat gefilte fish. But all future successful political leaders will have to understand and address the central role that traditionally religious Israelis are now playing in the country’s polity. In the ministerial offices of Israel’s 37th government—and its 47th, and its 57th—there will be many more minha minyanim yet to come.

Time for an Israeli victory, end 100 year rejections against Israel - opinion

ALL OF the polls undertaken by the Israel Victory Project show growing support for the idea that peace will only become possible when the Palestinian leadership recognizes that it has lost its fight against Israel, and that Israel is here to stay.

This is reflected in a growing acceptance among politicians and even senior IDF officials that Israel has to return to winning wars and not be continually stuck in a cycle of violence with no way to escape the loss of life and bloodshed.

It is not a simple task to defeat Palestinian violent rejectionism as it has been allowed to fester for generations but as with all wars throughout history, once the will of the antagonist to continue fighting has been broken and that their war aims will not be reached are accepted, the war can finally end.

This is the strategic solution that the government must reach now.

It might be painful and difficult but it is the only one that will finally end the conflict for the good of both Israelis and Palestinians.

It will be good for Israelis because the country will finally see peace without the threat of endless military operations and can focus on potentially greater threats like those posed by a nuclear Iran. It will allow Israel to dictate the terms for peace that will ensure its permanent security needs.

For the Palestinians, it will free them of hate that unrelentingly permeates so much of their lives, whether in the media, the education system or in the mosques. It will free up the budget of violent rejectionism that incites and pays for mass murder which can then be freed up for social welfare, education, health and public services. This will mean a better future for Palestinian society which is being crushed by its own crucible of hate and rejectionism. It will ensure that Palestinians elect leaders who do not distract and deflect from allowing greater progress, development and democracy for their people by constantly blaming Israel for all of their ills. It is a win-win for all.

Just as importantly, the international community is starting to understand that wars are still simply won and lost, and diplomacy, unfortunately, isn’t enough when one party insists on playing a zero-sum game.

A UN Seminar Teaches Antisemitism, Encourages Bias

So, who does control the media and the “strong machine,” according to Marai, a featured panelist at the UN seminar?

That would be the “Center of Powers,” declared Marai, who confided to the audience it makes him “scared to say anything” because of unfair accusations of antisemitism the “Center” employs against people like him. The same Center also targets Palestinian journalists “even out of Palestine,” he added.

Marai’s cited evidence for the existence of this monolithic media-controlling entity is the case of several Deutsche Welle journalists who lost their jobs after CAMERA exposed their promotion of anti-Jewish terrorism and tropes, including their claims of Jewish control and “fabricating” the Holocaust.

Conveniently omitting the journalists’ own objectionable rhetoric, Marai suggested they lost their jobs over unproven allegations of antisemitism and that this, in turn, is evidence of a shadowy “Center of Powers” that controls the media by weaponizing antisemitism for its own nefarious purposes.

The moderator of the panel, Director of the UN Information Service Alessandra Vellucci, did not challenge any of Marai’s conspiratorial and bigoted rantings. Rather, she expressed her gratitude towards Marai for his remarks, thus imitating earlier silent acquiescence by other UN officials to such claims of “Jewish lobby” control during the July 2022 anti-Israel UN Commission of Inquiry.

One might forgive Marai for conspiratorial thinking regarding media control, given that he works for an outlet controlled by the repressive Qatari government. However, many inside the UN seem all too comfortable with suggestions that a manipulative Jewish cabal controls the levers of power.

Meet @UN_HRC's @FranceskAlbs, the "new favorite" rapporteur of the Syria regime and who believes Jews should be murdered, because Israelis don't have a right to self-defense against Palestinian terror. https://t.co/uDI26rrWeR

— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 15, 2022

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The sky isn't falling, there is no plague of locusts, and Israel isn't becoming a fascist theocracy

The headlines in Haaretz alone makes one wonder when they will be predicting a plague of locusts in the wake of the Likud bloc victory.

All of these are from today.

Yes, Bibi has destroyed Judaism!

The thing is, we've seen this before. We saw similar warnings from the media, pundits, "experts" and American Jewish leaders every single time a right wing government won an election in Israel. 

Yet is was the Israeli Right that made peace with Egypt, the helped drive the Abraham Accords, that has given record amounts of monetary support for Arab Israelis.

I cannot predict what this government will do. However, the fears are quite clearly overblown, and too many people are buying into the insane and inane predictions.

Here's what I do know:

* Israel is a strong democracy with checks and balances in its government. It cannot turn fascist because of a minister or two.

* Netanyahu is a brilliant politician and the leader of the largest elected party. He will make deals to keep his larger agenda moving, but if there is something he opposes, it will not happen.

* Netanyahu already has a long record of leadership. We know his opinions and positions. The concern that he will suddenly change his political opinions - which have been quite moderate, despite the media coverage - is ridiculous.

* Newspapers and pundits gain readers by making up predictions that are extreme, and they rarely get punished for being wrong - so there is little incentive for sober analysis in the the more prominent outlets.

My opinion of Netanyahu has gone down since the previous election, but he has made his positions and vision clear. He is not going to be manipulated by any other MK or minister - he's the one who manipulates them. Things will largely be the way they were during his previous terms, which were largely pragmatic.

The sky isn't falling, and those making the overblown predictions are as unreliable as the ones that predicted Begin and Sharon were going to start wars. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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10/25 Links Pt2: The New Progressivism Makes No Room for Jews; How did a radical Islamist fool the West?; Adidas drops Kanye West

From Ian:

The New Progressivism Makes No Room for Jews

In 2016, as “intersectionality” escaped from academia to become a progressive buzzword—and came to to signify a doctrine that all just causes are linked and complementary—David L. Bernstein began to suspect that it was apt to be used against the Jews. As he pointed out in an article published that year, activists argued under the banner of intersectionality that anyone opposed to racism in the U.S. should also oppose the existence of Israel. He thought, however, that there was hope:
While I didn’t say so explicitly, I’d come to believe that the mainstream Jewish community needed to find a way to include the Jewish narrative in the intersectional matrix—to complicate it—so that Jews and Israel were not viewed as the perennial oppressors and Palestinians the perennial victims. Concerned about the growing backlash to my article, I used the opportunity [to participate in a panel discussion with some of my critics] to soften my stance on the topic, stating “I still have much to learn,” and that “intersectionality is a complex, interesting, and nuanced phenomenon that we need to understand, not just from the perspective of the pro-Israel community, but from its own perspective as well.”

Bernstein, at the time still president of the left-leaning Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), soon learned that there was little room for such a compromise position:
[In 2020], the JCPA pulled together a Zoom meeting for a coalition called Jews for Criminal Justice Reform, which included top Jewish criminal-justice activists from around the country. After an inspiring talk by Paul Fishman—a former federal attorney from New Jersey—on the need to end mass incarceration, we broke up into smaller groups to discuss next steps. A lawyer named Jared, the group facilitator for my breakout session, asked, “What do you all think our criminal-justice reform priorities ought to be?” Ariella, a young professional staffer from a Jewish civil-rights organization, interjected, “Before we talk about strategy, there’s a lot of internal work we have to do in the Jewish community. We need to recognize our complicity in white supremacy and ensure we have black Jews at the forefront of these efforts.”

More and more, that’s how it is now: a young staff person holding the work process hostage until we recite some prescribed litany of woke pieties. What, pray tell, did Ariella think all this self-reflection would do to help black people get out of being jailed for low-level drug charges? I suspect she didn’t have a clue. And as things turned out, our breakout session never discussed a single criminal-justice reform measure.

In short, Bernstein discovered that there is no room in this brand of progressive ideology to see Jews as anything but oppressors, and for Jews to do anything but proclaim their own imagined sins. This discovery is the subject of his newly published book, Woke Antisemitism.

How did a radical Islamist fool the West? - analysis

Many articles written about Qaradawi after his death emphasized his condemnation of al-Qaeda and ISIS and his moderate rulings permitting certain Western conduct for Muslims living as minorities in Western countries.

These articles portrayed him as many Westerners wanted to see him: a widely accepted authentic Islamic scholar who wanted to dialogue with the West and rejected violence.

However, the intelligence center noted that many of these articles left out that he helped shape “the concept of violent jihad,” especially justifying “carrying out terror attacks, including suicide bombing attacks, against Israeli citizens, the US forces in Iraq, and some of the Arab regimes.”

Qaradawi supported violent jihad and suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians. He was a source of supreme religious authority for Hamas at a time when many Islamic scholars still prohibited suicide of any kind.

Qaradawi claimed that violence was a legitimate expression of the so-called “resistance” and that Israel was a militaristic society in which every civilian is a potential soldier, said the report.

His antisemitism was not limited to Israel, with the report saying he frequently expressed antisemitic statements worldwide and even issued a fatwa authorizing attacks on Jews around the world.

In that fatwa, “he claimed that there is no essential difference between Judaism and Zionism, and therefore every Jewish target equals an Israeli target,” according to the report.

‘The Squad’ urges Biden administration to negotiate ceasefire in Ukraine

30 Democratic US Congressmembers – most notably the young progressives who have become colloquially known as “The Squad” – penned a letter to President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday in which they ask the administration to avoid direct military conflict and attempt to bring Russia and Ukraine to a ceasefire.

“Given the catastrophic possibilities of nuclear escalation and miscalculation, which only increase the longer this war continues, we agree with your goal of avoiding direct military conflict as an overriding national-security priority,” the letter read. A call for diplomacy

The congress members noted the difficulties involved in a settlement, particularly with the issue of annexed territories in the east of Ukraine, though they also mentioned Biden’s commitment to end the war. While no concrete plan of action was presented in the letter, the congress members suggested that easing sanctions against Russia would be a natural step to take.

“Such a framework would presumably include incentives to end hostilities, including some form of sanctions relief, and bring together the international community to establish security guarantees for a free and independent Ukraine that are acceptable for all parties, particularly Ukrainians.”

“The alternative to diplomacy is a protracted war, with both its attendant certainties and catastrophic and unknowable risks,” the letter continues.

The signers of the letter also pointed to the food and commodity crises brought upon by the war as reasons to seek an end to the war. “Economists believe that if the situation in Ukraine is stabilized, some of the speculative concerns driving higher fuel costs will subside and likely lead to a drop in world oil prices.”

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The King David Hotel Bombing—What Arab Terrorist Ever Warned a Jew, First? (Judean Rose)

Ninety-one people were killed in the King David Hotel bombing of July 22, 1946. Fifteen of them were Jews. One of those Jews was my 28-year-old cousin, Yehuda Yanovsky. He’d gone to the hotel that day to invite his former co-workers to his engagement party, to be held that evening.

Yehuda had clerked for the British, a fact that made him a reviled figure in the eyes of much of the family. They saw him as a traitor compared to say, his Aunt Leah who went to America and on her return, smuggled in guns for the Etzel, under her clothes. Yehuda didn’t care. He’d hitched his star to the Brits to the point that after some years at his desk job at the King David, Yehuda had volunteered for the RAF. Now home from the war, he was all set to marry his sweetheart.

It was not to be.

Yehuda Yanovsky 1918-1946.

That, however, was not the fault of the Etzel (Irgun Tzvai Leumi). Headed by Menachem Begin, the paramilitary organization founded by Zeev Jabotinsky had done everything in its power to minimize casualties. Warning calls were made to the Palestine Post (today the Jerusalem Post), the French Consulate, and the hotel desk, 22 minutes before the bombing. The Palestine Post subsequently reported the warning to the police. The French Consulate, located next door to the hotel, heeded the warning and as directed, opened the windows to prevent them from shattering in the blast. The Etzel itself herded the hotel staff into the kitchen and shooed them out the door, ten minutes before the bombing occurred. But whoever was manning the hotel switchboard that day, chose to ignore the warning and as a result, 91 people died that day, including my cousin Yehuda.

Casualty list from the Palestine Post, July 24, 1946.

From that day forward, Menachem Begin would forever be branded “that terrorist” by those on the Israeli left. The Likud Party, too, the party founded by Begin and headed today by Benjamin Netanyahu, was (and in some quarters still is) thought of as a party of terrorists. Outside of Israel, the anti-Israel crowd loves to point to the King David Hotel bombing as the perfect example of Jewish terror, which they say, is no different than Arab terror, except the diabolical Jews get a pass in the eyes of the world.

Wanted by the British. Menachem Begin at upper left.

You might be tempted to point to the sheer number of Arab terror attacks (and attendant casualties) as the thing that distinguishes them from this single episode of a Jewish hotel bombing. But that is not what makes them different. For while the antisemites like to pretend that the King David Hotel bombing is no different than, for example, the Arab bus bombings of the 1^st Intifada, or the Sbarro Pizzeria Massacre, they aren’t fooling anyone. Go ahead, recite the death count of the King David Hotel bombing all you want, but no Arab terrorist ever gave a Jew advanced warning prior to an attack. No one told Malki Roth to leave her pizza and run. Unlike Menachem Begin’s Etzel, which gave multiple warnings to multiple parties and evacuated the hotel’s personnel to safety.

Menachem Begin was no terrorist. The British were the terrorists. They turned their backs in Hebron and Safed as Arab terrorists murdered innocent men, women, and children, including my husband's cousin Jacob Wexler. They imprisoned Jews and hung them when they tried to defend themselves against Arab terror.

 If only the world would mind its own business and leave the Jews alone.

But they won’t and they didn’t. And so the Etzel decided to make a show of might and force. And a show—albeit with a landmark building destroyed—it would have been, had the call to the hotel not been ignored. In his book, “The Revolt: Story of the Irgun,” Begin quotes a British official who refused to evacuate the building: “We don’t take orders from the Jews.”

 

But this is the attitude the Jews had long encountered under the British the British. As far back as 1929, Rabbi Yaakov Slonim of Hebron was attacked in the street, by Arabs with knives and stones, as Jews watched on from their windows, helpless. 

According to eyewitness testimony:

A Jewish woman who was at the rabbi’s house, dared to go out to the British Chief of Police (who participated in egging on the mob), and begged him to save the rabbi. His answer was: “This is no matter for a dumb, Jewish woman. Go home and stay there. Usually, it is the Jews who are to blame in these cases.”

Though these remarks were said in English, the mob heard and was encouraged by them.

The rabbi’s daughter Rivka Slonim, having survived the pogrom, relates what happened next:

Soon after my father and I shut ourselves up in our home, our neighbor Abu-Shaker appeared on his white horse.

He tied up his horse and sat down on our doorstep. From what he told us – that the British police were aiding the rioters, standing aside when the mob stormed Jewish houses and slaughtered their inhabitants – we knew our final hour had come.

After the massacre, the British made a show of conducting an investigation:

The investigative committee sent out by the British Colonial Office accepted testimony from Arabs only, as well as the infamous police chief Cafferata and Governor Abdullah Kardos.

Jews were not permitted to present their version to the committee, with the exception of Rabbi Yaakov Slonim, the father of the murdered E. D. Slonim.

Rabbi Slonim related the events of the two days in Hebron, of the murder of at least 67 Jews, the destruction of approximately 80 Torah scrolls, and the responsibility of the authorities, particularly Cafferata and Kardos who failed to prevent the pogrom. The committee disallowed Rabbi Slonim’s testimony.

On October 15, 1929, the trials of the murderers began. Sheik Marka, leader of the mob in Hebron, received a two-year prison term which was changed to house arrest, and everything “fizzled away."

Two of the four who murdered Rabbi Meir Shmuel Castel were acquitted due to “lack of evidence.” The two others were sentenced to death. The trials were a show for the gallery. Almost all the murderers went free and kept what they had plundered and stolen. This drove the Jewish community into a deep depression. The clear, positive attitude the British had towards the killers was visible. For most of the trials, a date for proceedings wasn’t even set. . .

. . . The British reaction to the pogrom was to expel about 1,000 Jews out of Hebron.

This is what happened in Hebron with the British in charge. Under their watch, the “City of Forefathers” became a Jew-free zone in 1929. Only in 1967 were the Jews able to return.

British complicity in the 1929 riots in Hebron and in Safed, too, was illustrative of British feeling toward the Jewish population of Mandate Palestine. The Brits were indulgent with the Arabs, but scorned, sneered at, and persecuted the Jews. What happened in Hebron was one very large piece of evidence—evidence of British hatred for the Jews they ruled.  For in essence, the British assisted the Arabs in emptying out the Jews from an entire Jewish city—the city that until today houses the remains of the Jewish forefathers. 

Why should anyone with even a smattering of understanding of what it was like for Jews living under these people in their own land, imagine that they would just shut up and take it—just lie down and die because to the British, like so many other antisemites, the Jews are only so much vermin?

Grave of Yehuda Yanovsky, Mount of Olives Cemetery, Jerusalem

For some Jews—proud Jews like Menachem Begin—that was impossible. No Jew should be treated like that, have to live like that, on Jewish soil. The balance of power was out of whack. So the Etzel bombed a building. But they first told the people to leave: the occupants of the hotel and the people next door at the French Consulate. The Etzel gave advance notice of the bombing to the English-language paper of record and personally evacuated the hotel workers.  

No one was supposed to be hurt. But the Brits didn’t think the Jews had it in them. So they failed to leave the building and save themselves. They also failed to share that information with others in the building who were loyal to them, such as my cousin Yehuda, who clearly made the wrong choice.

This is not terror. This is stupid people who hate and underestimate the Jews so much they won’t leave a building about to be bombed, even with advanced warning. 

When someone calls to alert you on the phone, telling you exactly what is going to happen when, and leaving you plenty of time to leave--that’s not terror. It’s the world once more refusing to mind its own business and leave the Jews alone. Especially within the borders of Eretz Israel. 

An Arab terrorist isn’t in the business of making a show. Rather than minimizing casualties, he aims to maximize them. And of course, the Arab terrorist’s biggest advantage is the element of surprise. 

Arab terrorists come through windows and kill little girls like Hallel Yaffa Ariel. They explode pizzerias and kill little girls like Malki Roth. They burst into homes and decapitate babies like 3-month-old Hadas Fogel. They point their rifles at babies in their strollers taking sun in the park, like 10-month-old Shalhevet Pass. They ram into babies in their strollers at bus stops and kill them, like 3-month-old Chaya Zissel Braun.

And they never warn a soul. Because the entire purpose of terror is to terrorize. Which is what Yehuda Yanovsky would be the first to tell you, were he alive today. My cousin was not a victim of “Jewish terror” but of British scorn for the Jewish people. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Did Joe Biden Really Threaten Menachem Begin With Cutting Off Economic Aid To Israel? (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

President Biden likes to recount his face-to-face confrontations with world leaders and how he gave them a piece of his mind.

Biden says that just this past week, he gave Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman a tongue lashing that he will not soon forget:

President Biden said he confronted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) directly Friday about the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, telling him in a “straightforward and direct” way that the killing was unacceptable and “making clear what I thought of it at the time and what I think of it now.”

The crown prince, who is the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, “basically said that he was not personally responsible for it,” Biden recounted. “I indicated that I thought he was.”

That account is from The Washington Post, which then goes on to quote Princess Reema bint Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi ambassador to the US, who confirmed that Biden did in fact bring up Khashoggi's murder, though not in as confrontational a way as Biden claimed:

It was candid, it was honest, it was open. And what I found profoundly refreshing is the president said, "I just need to be clear and direct with you," and the crown prince said, "I welcome you being clear, candid and direct, because that’s the way that we move forward.”

But Fox News quotes the Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel al-Jubeir that Biden did not bring up the topic of Khashoggi at all:

"I didn't hear that particular phrase," al-Jubeir said. "The President mentioned that the US is committed to human rights because since the founding fathers wrote the constitution and he also made the point that American presidents -- this is part of the agenda of every American president."

So -- did Biden directly confront MBS face-to-face on Khashoggi's murder or not?

Writing for The New York Times, Peter Baker writes about Biden's collection of stories about how he has confronted dictators

Mr. Biden is by nature a storyteller with a penchant for embellishment. He has often told the story of meeting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in 2011 as vice president and telling him, “I’m looking into your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul.” Others present at the time had no memory of that specific exchange.

Mr. Biden has similarly described an unvarnished confrontation in 1993 with Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian nationalist leader who unleashed an ethnic war in the Balkans. “I think you’re a damn war criminal and you should be tried as one,” Mr. Biden, then a senator, related having told Mr. Milosevic, according to a 2007 memoir, “Promises to Keep.” Some other people in the room later said they did not recall that line.

Mr. Biden likes presenting himself as standing up to dictators and crooked figures. Another favorite story stemmed from a meeting with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan in 2008, when the Afghan leader denied that his government was awash in corruption. Mr. Biden said he grew so irritated that he threw down his napkin, declared, “This dinner is over,” and stormed out. 

Often, others in the room for such sessions say that some version of what Mr. Biden has described did take place, only not with quite as much camera-ready theatricality.

So when he claims he did not hear Biden berate MBS to the degree the president claims, al-Jubeir is in good company.

Actually, Baker may have forgotten an example.

Here is Biden speaking at the Foreign Affairs Issue Launch on January 23, 2018, talking about his time as vice president when he warned that he would cut off $1 billion in aid to Ukraine:

And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t.

So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a b***h. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time. [emphasis added]

Here too, all we have is Biden's account of events -- and Biden is actually being modest about the pressure he put on Ukraine. According to Tablet Magazine, a highly placed source confirmed that it was also Biden who pressured Ukraine into voting 'yes' on UN Resolution 2334 which declared that Jewish settlements in the West Bank (including the Old City of Jerusalem) were in violation of international law.

But in fact, we have an example on the record when Biden actually did angrily confront a world leader -- Menachem Begin, prime minister of Israel.

The Begin Center Diary blog has the full text of an article in The Jerusalem Post by Moshe Zak, written on March 13, 1992, describing how Biden, when he was a Senator, lost his temper with Israeli PM Menachem Begin during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing:

During that committee hearing, at the height of the Lebanon War, Sen. John Biden (Delaware) had attacked Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria and threatened that if Israel did not immediately cease this activity, the US would have to cut economic aid to Israel.

When the senator raised his voice and banged twice on the table with his fist, Begin commented to him: "This desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don't threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think that because the US lends us money it is entitled to impose on us what we must do? 

We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three thousand years of culture are behind me, and you will not frighten me with threats. Take note: we do not want a single soldier of yours to die for us." [emphasis added]

But ironically, in this case, where there is a clear example of Biden giving an ultimatum to a world leader, Biden himself is eager to deny that it ever happened. Sarah Honig of the Jerusalem Post writes:

Back 1982, Senator Biden (D-Delaware) threatened to cut off aid to Israel. In subsequent years he hotly denied this but Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s late right-hand man Yechiel Kadisha’i unequivocally confirmed Biden’s bullying in many conversations we held. [emphasis added]

News reports at the time seem to confirm the ultimatum. On June 23, 1982, The New York Times reported Mood Is 'Angry' As Begin Meets Panel Of Senate

The bitterest exchange was said to have been between Mr. Begin and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, who told the Israeli leader that he was not critical of the Lebanon operation but felt that Israel had to halt the policy of establishing new Jewish settlements in the West Bank. He said Israel was losing support in this country because of the settlements policy. [emphasis added]

There is no mention of threats from Biden about the settlements, just anger. According to this account in The New York Times, instead of threatening to take action, Biden was warning Begin about the prospect that Israel would lose support in the US.  

But on the very next day, on June 24, The New York Times reported further details:

Reporting on his meetings with the members of Congress, Mr. Begin said one of the senators had threatened to cut off aid if Israel continued creating settlements in the West Bank. The senator is reported to have been Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware. [emphasis added]

So which was it: did Biden warn that Israel was facing the prospect of losing support or was Biden threatening that he, himself, would see to it that aid would be cut off?

Time Magazine also recounts the confrontation between Biden and Begin:

Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat, jabbing his finger at Begin, warned that U.S. support for Israel was eroding. Begin shouted back: "Don't threaten us with cutting off aid to give up our principles! [emphasis added]

The Time Magazine account allows for the possibility that Biden was not actually warning that he would cut aid. He was pointing out that US opposition to the settlements could lead to the loss of US support. Begin saw Biden's comments, made in anger, as an ultimatum to cut aid.

Begin's own account of what happened also seems to indicate that Biden's "threat" was less than explicit. Yisrael Medad quotes on his blog My Right Word the now-deleted page from the website of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which gives Begin's own account of the incident in his own words:

He [Biden] hinted - more than hinted - that if we continue with this policy, it is possible that he will propose cutting our financial aid. And to this I gave him a clear answer: Sir, do not threaten us with cutting aid.

There is no record of what Biden actually said, but even according to Begin there was no explicit threat. But whatever Biden said, it apparently hinted that more than just an erosion of support was at stake. And that Biden himself could have a role in it.

So to recap:

o  Moshe Zak article: Biden "threatened that if Israel did not immediately cease this activity, the US would have to cut economic aid to Israel."

o  The New York Times (June 23, 1982): Biden "said Israel was losing support in this country because of the settlements policy."

o  The New York Times: (June 24, 1982): "Mr. Begin said one of the senators had threatened to cut off aid if Israel continued creating settlements in the West Bank."

o  Time Magazine: Biden "warned that U.S. support for Israel was eroding. Begin shouted back: "Don't threaten us with cutting off aid to give up our principles!"

o  Menachem Begin: "He [Biden] hinted - more than hinted - that if we continue with this policy, it is possible that he will propose cutting our financial aid. And to this I gave him a clear answer: Sir, do not threaten us with cutting aid."

Even according to the Moshe Zak article, which seems to be the main source usually cited, the warning was that the US would cut off aid -- not that Biden would personally see to it.

Even according to Begin's personal account, whatever it was that Biden specifically said, it only hinted at the loss of aid -- it was not an explicit threat.

According to Time Magazine, whatever Biden said about the erosion of US support led Begin to understand it as a threat and call it that on the spot in front of everyone.

Based on The New York Times article from June 24, it seems that reports of the "threat" are based on Begin's account to the media.

Whatever actually happened, Biden could have responded immediately when it was clear that Begin understood what he said as an ultimatum. He could have assured Begin in from of everyone that he was not making any threat. Biden did not do that. Nor did he seem to respond immediately in the press to Begin's account of what happened.

Without a transcript of what transpired, there is no way to be sure what exactly Biden said, whether it was said as an ultimatum, and what exactly he was warning would happen. But it does seem possible that under the pressure of the moment, Begin responded to something that was not an explicit threat.

Which is not surprising.

As Moshe Zak himself pointed out:

And not only with Carter, but at all his meetings with heads of state and government, Begin customarily replied with direct, frank words against anything he perceived as harming Israel's interests or honor. [emphasis added]

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