In 1982, shortly before Reagan bluntly ordered Begin to cease his ‘holocaust’ in Lebanon, a young US senator who revered Elie Wiesel as his great teacher met the Israeli prime minister. In Begin’s own stunned account of the meeting, the senator commended the Israeli war effort and boasted that he would have gone further, even if it meant killing women and children. Begin himself was taken aback by the words of the future US president, Joe Biden. ‘No, sir,’ he insisted. ‘According to our values, it is forbidden to hurt women and children, even in war … This is a yardstick of human civilisation, not to hurt civilians.’

Pankaj Mishra · The Shoah after Gaza (lrb.co.uk) 21 March 2024

That political genius Benjamin Netanyahu has alienated Biden, which is truly remarkable. It should be remembered that Begin was a terrorist before he became a politican.