American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee

In an interview with Talal Al-Haj from Al-Jazeera TV on August 2 outside the Capitol , Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, endorsed Israel's policy of extrajudicial executions of Palestinian activists, adding “I don't believe this is a policy of assassination.” Please contact Senator Biden and demand that he retract his endorsement of extrajudicial executions and apologize. There can be no excuse for a Senator to defend or rationalize executing anyone without trial, appeal or due process of any kind..

Please contact
Senator Joseph Biden
221 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-0802
fax:(202) 224 5042
email:senator@biden.senate.gov
phone:(202) 224 0139 or use ADC.org's contact congress feature to send a message to Biden at <http://capwiz.com/adc/bio/?id=696&submit.x=12&submit.y=11>

Text of Al-Jazeera Interview with Joseph Biden (8-02-01):

Q: My name is Talal Al-Haj from Al-Jazeera TV in the Gulf. The demonstrators here seem to have a point. While you're talking about three Israeli prisoners, they are people objecting to the assassination policy adopted officially by Israel?

A: (Joseph Biden) I don't call this an assassination policy, when you do that you are in effect at war with a group of individuals who in fact ... let me put it in another way, assuming that there is in the United States an organization that had as it's purpose to kill civilians in the United States of America our FBI would target them, attempt to find them, and if could not capture them would use lethal force to deal with them.... so I don't call that assassination.

Q: But children are falling by the sideway.

A: (Joseph Biden) When children fall by the side it's an incredible tragedy just as it is a tragedy when some damn fool straps, with the encouragement of members of Hamas, straps dynamite to his body and blows up Israeli children, they're all crazy.

Q: But you're country stands firmly against the policy of assassinations.

A: (Joseph Biden) We are against the policy of assassination, my point is that I don't believe this is a policy of assassination. I don't believe this is a policy of assassination.

Q: But this is an extrajudicial killing.

A: (Joseph Biden) No it's not extrajudicial. This is in effect a declared war, a declared war by an organization that decided that it is going to do all it can to damage civilians and others within Israel. That is a simple a proposition. The analogy would be if there were a Colombian drug organization in the United States decided that what it wished to do in order to get America to change it's policy on international aid to Columbia to deal with drug cartels, decided that it would use tactics and blowing up women and children visiting the Capitol. We would track them down and find them and if we could not capture them we would kill them.

Q: So what chance does the cease fire have to hold in the presence of such policy?

A: (Joseph Biden) It has a phenomenal chance to hold if in fact Mr. Arafat would use a hundred percent of his effort to make it hold. Then you would see things change.

He was also asked by other reporters about his exact intentions within the committee concerning the three Israeli soldiers captured in southern Lebanon:

A: There are no exact plans in the committee at the moment, that's what McCain and I are working on . I'm going to be quite frankly meeting with the Israeli Ambassador and with some of my colleagues. The whole purpose is to do two things: Raise the profile of this case ... these cases, number one. Number two, to make it clear that what occurred is a violation of international law. Number three, to demonstrate to the world that we haven't forgotten this. This is not something that is an occurrence that occurred, it's over, done and we wash our hands and walk away. And that's about, quite frankly, as much as one can do given the constraints on the use of economic sanctions or military force. So that's the essence of it. And by the way, just as in international relations words matter, attention matters, focus matters.

	3 August 2001
	Senator Biden Endorses Israeli Extrajudicial Executions, Please Demand Retraction

	In an interview with Talal Al-Haj from Al-Jazeera TV on August 2 outside the Capitol , Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, endorsed Israel's policy of extrajudicial executions of Palestinian activists, adding “I don't believe this is a policy of assassination.” Please contact Senator Biden and demand that he retract his endorsement of extrajudicial executions and apologize. There can be no excuse for a Senator to defend or rationalize executing anyone without trial, appeal or due process of any kind.. Please contact Senator Joseph Biden 221 Russell Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510-0802 fax:(202) 224 5042 email:senator@biden.senate.gov phone:(202) 224 0139 or use ADC.org's contact congress feature to send a message to Biden at <http://capwiz.com/adc/bio/?id=696&submit.x=12&submit.y=11> Text of Al-Jazeera Interview with Joseph Biden (8-02-01): Q: My name is Talal Al-Haj from Al-Jazeera TV in the Gulf. The demonstrators here seem to have a point. While you're talking about three Israeli prisoners, they are people objecting to the assassination policy adopted officially by Israel? A: (Joseph Biden) I don't call this an assassination policy, when you do that you are in effect at war with a group of individuals who in fact ... let me put it in another way, assuming that there is in the United States an organization that had as it's purpose to kill civilians in the United States of America our FBI would target them, attempt to find them, and if could not capture them would use lethal force to deal with them.... so I don't call that assassination. Q: But children are falling by the sideway. A: (Joseph Biden) When children fall by the side it's an incredible tragedy just as it is a tragedy when some damn fool straps, with the encouragement of members of Hamas, straps dynamite to his body and blows up Israeli children, they're all crazy. Q: But you're country stands firmly against the policy of assassinations. A: (Joseph Biden) We are against the policy of assassination, my point is that I don't believe this is a policy of assassination. I don't believe this is a policy of assassination. Q: But this is an extrajudicial killing. A: (Joseph Biden) No it's not extrajudicial. This is in effect a declared war, a declared war by an organization that decided that it is going to do all it can to damage civilians and others within Israel. That is a simple a proposition. The analogy would be if there were a Colombian drug organization in the United States decided that what it wished to do in order to get America to change it's policy on international aid to Columbia to deal with drug cartels, decided that it would use tactics and blowing up women and children visiting the Capitol. We would track them down and find them and if we could not capture them we would kill them. Q: So what chance does the cease fire have to hold in the presence of such policy? A: (Joseph Biden) It has a phenomenal chance to hold if in fact Mr. Arafat would use a hundred percent of his effort to make it hold. Then you would see things change. He was also asked by other reporters about his exact intentions within the committee concerning the three Israeli soldiers captured in southern Lebanon: A: There are no exact plans in the committee at the moment, that's what McCain and I are working on . I'm going to be quite frankly meeting with the Israeli Ambassador and with some of my colleagues. The whole purpose is to do two things: Raise the profile of this case ... these cases, number one. Number two, to make it clear that what occurred is a violation of international law. Number three, to demonstrate to the world that we haven't forgotten this. This is not something that is an occurrence that occurred, it's over, done and we wash our hands and walk away. And that's about, quite frankly, as much as one can do given the constraints on the use of economic sanctions or military force. So that's the essence of it. And by the way, just as in international relations words matter, attention matters, focus matters.