In October 2023, news of a reservation by an American president who allegedly stated that he was born in Israel was widely circulated on the Internet. We decided to check if he said anything like that.

The fact that in his speech during a visit to Israel Biden said that he was born in this country was reported by many Russian media: for example, “Moskovsky Komsomolets", "Komsomolskaya Pravda", "Evening Moscow", TASS And "Constantinople" Official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova reacted to Biden’s supposedly sensational statement in his Telegram channel (301,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), noting that a person born outside the United States cannot become an American president. Other Telegram channels also published messages about Biden’s reservation, in particular “Ax Live"(2 million views), "Live broadcast"(643,000), "Sanya in Florida"(278,000), "Truthfulness" (182,000) and "Observer"(164,000). The news was also shared by social media users (for example, X And "VKontakte") and blogging platforms ("Peekaboo", LiveJournal). Some of the posts are accompanied by a 20-second fragment of the US President's speech in Tel Aviv, where he allegedly makes a resonant confession, and the quote: “The State of Israel was born for the safety of the Jews of the whole world, and I was also born there.”

October 18, 2023 Joe Biden visited Israel to express solidarity with the victims of the Hamas attack earlier that month and to discuss with Israeli leaders a military response in the Gaza Strip amid the growing conflict in the region. During his visit, the American President spoke with speech in support of Israel - it is from the video recording of this speech that the distributed fragment with Biden’s supposedly sensational statement was taken.

Published on the official website of the White House transcript Biden's speech in Tel Aviv. Judging by it, in the excerpt of the video that went viral, the president says: “The State of Israel was born to be a safe place for the Jewish people of the world. That’s why it was born” (“The State of Israel was born to be a safe place for Jews around the world. That’s why it was born”). The reason for the widespread publications that Biden allegedly mixed up his place of birth (and was born he is, of course, not in Israel, but in the USA), the second part of this phrase was not entirely clearly pronounced by the president. Because of this, some might get the impression that Biden said not “That’s why it was born,” but “That’s where I was born,” which, however, is still far from the phrase “And I was also born there,” which is attributed to the politician. In addition, the assumption of either a reservation or recognition arose mainly among Russian-speaking users, since all English-language media (for example, CBS News, CNN, The Times of Israel and others) quoted Biden exactly as his speech is reflected in the White House transcript. That is, people for whom English is their native language did not question what exactly the politician said (probably because the sound [t] in the word it is heard quite clearly). And from a logical point of view, the second part of the phrase, which is cited by authoritative media and the White House, looks more natural than Biden’s sudden statement about his place of birth, which is written about by Russian media and bloggers.

In addition, if Biden really misspoke and stated that he was born in Israel, his critics in the United States and other countries would certainly take advantage of this. “Verified” has previously repeatedly examined incorrect statements about the American president, which initially appeared and spread in his homeland. For example, reports that cast Biden in a bad light that he allegedly fell asleep during a meeting with victims of fires on Maui, bought books on fighting dementia or sniffed someone else's child. All these false messages initially appeared in the English-speaking segment of the Internet, and only then spread throughout the Russian-speaking segment. Therefore, Biden’s opponents from the United States would hardly have missed the opportunity to make him look unsightly if native speakers really had doubts about what exactly he said. However in English messages about the recognition made in Israel, although meet, but are sporadic and not nearly as popular as on the RuNet.

The President of the United States actually has some problems with diction, so sometimes his speech does not sound entirely clear. This is not the first time Biden’s opponents have taken advantage of this, attributing absurd statements to him and, as a result, drawing conclusions about the American leader’s mental health problems. So, previously “Verified” already sorted it out reports that Biden was allegedly bragging about the US victory over cancer, when in fact he was talking about global plans and challenges facing the country.

Judging by data from the TGStat service, the earliest post about Biden’s recognition was posted on Telegram on October 18, 2023 at 17:46 Moscow time in the channel “Westix | Live broadcast"(1300 views). The publication featured a selection of statements Biden made during his visit to Israel, mentioning only a quote attributed to the politician, but no corresponding video. At the same time, under the post there is a note that it was edited, so it is impossible to establish exactly when the phrase about birth in Israel appeared in the channel. The next post on this topic was published on the same day at 17:53 in the channel “Look"(10,800 views). It has already posted a video with the channel’s watermark and the same incorrect translation that has gone viral on the Russian-language Internet: “The State of Israel was born for the safety of the Jews of the whole world, and I was also born there.” The vast majority of subsequent publications on this topic use a video with the same mark, which means, most likely, it was this post that became the source of dissemination of the news, which was then reposted with the same video fragment by other Telegram channels, social network users and the media.

Thus, Biden did not at all claim that he was born in Israel, but only spoke about why this state was founded. The reason for the discrepancies was the not entirely clear speech of the American president, which, however, misled mainly Russian-speaking Internet users, bloggers and the media, for whom English is not their native language. In any authoritative or popular English-language sources, no one attributes this sensational recognition to Biden.

Cover photo: Twitter The White House