US President Joe Biden hails the ties between the US and Israel in his first speech upon arriving at Ben Gurion Airport.
“It’s an honor to once again stand with friends and visit the independent Jewish state of Israel,” Biden begins.
He notes that he first visited Israel as a young senator from Delaware in 1973, shortly before the Yom Kippur War, doing so before any US president.
He then reiterates his favorite piece of trivia about Israel — that he has met every prime minister since Golda Meir. In that first meeting he also met then a young Yitzhak Rabin, which he calls a “privilege.”
“I’ll say again, you need not be a Jew to be a Zionist,” Biden declares.
“The connection between the Israeli people and the American people is bone deep,” he says, adding that it has gotten stronger with each generation and that his administration has taken the bilateral relationship to new heights.
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