Middle East Monitor / October 13, 2021
US Speaker of the Congress Nancy Pelosi said that bipartisan support for Israel in the US is a source of pride, the Jerusalem Post reported.
“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 in a meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
She stated, according to the Israeli newspaper, that support for Israel “has always been bipartisan in the Congress of the US and continues to be so.”
“For many of us, it is in our DNA,” Pelosi added, pointing out that her father, the late Rep. Thomas D’Alesandro Jr. of Maryland, pushed then US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to support the establishment of the state of Israel.
For his part, 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,” the Jerusalem Post reported him saying.
“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 said.
The foreign minister thanked Pelosi for her work to pass legislation last month to fund 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.”
