Biden: Israel Right to Stop Gaza Aid Ship

AIPAC Lauds Biden for Support of Israel

In what has been the closest thing to an administration comment on the Israeli attack on a Gaza-bound aid ship, Vice President Joe Biden today praised Israel for raiding the ship, saying they “had a right to know” what might be on board.

Biden avoided any specific comments with respect to the killings of up to 19 civilian aid workers by the Israeli military, something several members of Congress have championed in previous comments, but insisted that Hamas was secretly to blame for everything that happened.

Israel’s massacre on the ship has sparked international outcry, with the United States and Germany the only two major nations that have declined to criticize the attack so far. Israel has insisted that the aid workers were in league with al-Qaeda and that the killings were “self-defense,” though they did not charge any of the hundreds of captives with any crimes, terror-related or otherwise.

AIPAC, the most public of the pro-Israel lobbies in the US, has cheered Biden’s comments, saying they were “strong statements of support for Israel.”

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.