Bennett thanks Biden for helping ‘fortify’ Israel’s strategic advantage in region

Bennett tells Biden that he has arrived in Washington from “Jerusalem, our eternal capital” with a “new spirit of goodwill” and “hope… decency and honesty, a spirit of unity and bipartisanship”.

He, like Biden, notes the diverse nature of the new Israeli government, adding that while some of the members have ideologically opposing views, “we all share the deep passion to work together to build a better future for Israel. We’re out to be good, to do good. But in our region, doing good is not enough. Israel has to be strong… so that we can do good.”

Bennett says “we cannot lose sight for even one moment that we’re in the toughest neighborhood in the world.”

He cites “ISIS on our southern border, Hezbollah on our northern border, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Iranian militias that surround us, and all of them want to kill us, kill Israelis. They all want to annihilate the Jewish state.”

That’s why Israel has always needed to be “overwhelmingly stronger than all of our enemies and indeed of all our enemies combined,” he says, before thanking Biden for “helping yet again to fortify Israel’s strategic advantage”