President Biden seemed to misremember his diplomacy record in Israel in the early days of his career, telling a tale about meeting with former Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1967, while he was still in law school and she wasn’t the nation’s leader.
‘I have known every — every prime minister well since Golda Meir, including Golda Meir,’ Biden said during a Hanukkah celebration on Thursday.
‘And during the Six-Day War, I had an opportunity to — she invited me to come over because I was going to be the liaison between she and the Egyptians about the Suez.’
The Six Day War was conflict between Israel and Jordan, Syria and Egypt, which ended in Israel seizing the Golan Heights, West Bank, Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula. It last from June 5-10 1967, a time when Biden was still in law school and Meir was not yet prime minister.
‘I sat in front of her desk,’ Biden said. ‘And she had a guy — her staff member — to my right. His name was Rabin. And she kept flipping those maps up and down. She had that bevy of maps — sort of kept it — and it was — it was so depressing what she was — about what happened. She gave me every detail.’
Meir served as prime minister from 1969 to 1974
Meir served as prime minister from 1969 to 1974.
Biden appeared to be confusing the Six Day War with a meeting he had with her just prior to the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. Biden had been sworn in as a senator that year at the age of 29.
New details of that meeting emerged in 2020. Meir reportedly chain smoked as she explained the regional security threats to a young Biden, according to a memo obtained by Israeli reporter Nadav Eyal. The president later called that sit-down ‘one of the most consequential meetings I’ve ever had in my life.’
Biden told Meir that in previous meetings he’d had in Cairo, he’d learned that Egypt accepted ‘Israel’s military superiority.’
Biden appeared to be confusing the Six Day War (pictured above) with a meeting he had with her just prior to the October 1973 Yom Kippur War
The memo said that Biden accused President Nixon, right, of being ‘dragged by Israel’
Still, he said that Israel’s mass takeover of territory during the Six Day War had amounted to ‘creeping annexation.’
The memo said that Biden accused the Nixon administration of being ‘dragged by Israel,’ and complained it was impossible to have real debate in the Senate because lawmakers were fearful of Jewish voters.
Meir rejected Biden’s suggestion she forfeit regions of no strategic importance to tamp down tensions in the region, lecturing him on the region and its issues.
The official taking down notes on the meeting said that Biden was respectful of Meir and ‘eager to learn,’ but displayed ‘a fervor and made comments that signaled his lack of diplomatic experience.’
Weeks later, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, eventually drawing in the US and Soviet Union in defense of their allies.
After the Soviet Union began to restock munitions for Egypt and Syria, the US began to provide military aid to Israel.
Israel was able to stave off advances and hold onto its territory, but years later gave Egypt back the entire Sinai Peninsula in exchange for lasting peace.
Weeks ago Biden embellished another tale – about a small kitchen fire which he entirely claimed consumed his Delaware home, with his wife in it.
Biden addressed a crowd from a New Hampshire bridge on Nov. 18 speaking about his bipartisan infrastructure plan that was recently signed.
As he spoke about the importance of infrastructure, the president shared an embellished anecdote about the time he suffered a small house fire in 2004. Photos of his Delaware property shortly after the fire, show it to be entirely intact, from the outside.
‘Without this bridge, as I said earlier, it’s a 10-mile detour just to get to the other side,’ he told the crowd. ‘And I know, having had a house burn down with my wife in it — she got out safely, God willing — that having a significant portion of it burn, I can tell: 10 minutes makes a hell of a difference.’
According to The Associated Press, the 2004 fire Biden referred to was a ‘small fire that was contained to the kitchen.’
The small fire was started by a lightning storm.
‘Luckily, we got it pretty early,’ Cranston Heights Fire Company Chief George Lamborn said. ‘The fire was under control in 20 minutes.’