Bipartisan support for Israel is a source of pride in Congress, US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said in a meeting with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Tuesday.
“It is a privilege to talk about the importance of the US-Israel bond, one based on our mutual security, mutual values, and is again something that is a source of pride to all of us in the Congress who work on this,” Pelosi said.
Support for Israel “has always been bipartisan in the Congress of the US and continues to be so,” she stated.
Pelosi said that when her father, Rep. Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. of Maryland, was in Congress, he pushed then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt to support the establishment of a Jewish state. D’Alesandro was a supporter of the Bergson Group, affiliated with the Irgun, which lobbied the Roosevelt administration to save the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust.
“For many of us, it is in our DNA,” Pelosi said of support for Israel.
FOREIGN MINISTER Yair Lapid visits US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, October 12, 2021 (credit: OZ AVITAL/GOVERNMENT PRESS OFFICE)
Lapid thanked Pelosi for being a “great friend of Israel,” and for pushing for support for Israel in the US to remain bipartisan.
“We need to unite around the idea that we want to expand and deepen the circle of peace. We need and can unite around the basic principle that Israel has a right to defend itself, and Palestinians deserve a better life. We can all unite around the idea that we will never allow Iran to become a nuclear threshold country,” Lapid stated.
The foreign minister thanked Pelosi for her work to pass legislation last month funding the Iron Dome missile-defense system, saying it is “for the defense of our children and our people. I know you care about it and had sleepless nights over it.”
Referring to the fact that when Lapid and Pelosi last met, he was an MK and she was the minority whip, Lapid quipped, “I’m happy to meet you in these new capacities of ours; we did something right.”
FOREIGN MINISTER Yair Lapid visits US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, October 12, 2021 (credit: OZ AVITAL/GOVERNMENT PRESS OFFICE)
Earlier, Lapid met with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, for a meeting focused on the Iranian threat.
Lapid shared Israel’s concerns about Iran’s race to a nuclear weapon and spoke of the importance of having an alternative plan to the Iran deal, his office said.
In addition, Lapid and Sullivan discussed the former’s “Economy for Security” plan for Gaza.
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