Remarks by Vice President Biden: The Enduring Partnership Between the United States and Israel

VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN:  Mr. President, thank you for that lovely introduction.  And thank you for hosting me at such a world-class center for higher learning.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been back on campus.  I was a mere child, a 31-year-old Senator when I was here the first time.  But it’s a privilege to be back. 

The past few days being back in Israel has been wonderful.  It’s — it’s been an honor to be here, and it’s been — I wanted everyone to know with whom I spoke, and all of you to know, the deep friendship and kinship I feel as well as President Obama feels for this magnificent country.  I should probably be used to it by now, but I’m always struck every time I come back by the hospitality of the Israeli people.  No matter how long I’ve been away — and I imagine you’ve experienced this yourself — the instant I return, I feel like I’m at home.  I feel like I never left.  I feel like things just picked up where they left off the day that I left being here.  So please accept my warmest gratitude, as well that of President Obama, who knows as well as I do that the United States has no better friend in the community of nations than Israel.  Thank you so much.  (Applause.) 

I see some of my U.S. friends down there in the front row.  I won’t identify them and ruin their reputations.  But they — they know where my love for this country comes.  It started at my dinner table with my father, who you would refer to as a righteous Christian.  My father — my dinner table was a place where we gathered to have conversation and incidentally eat, as opposed to the other way around.  And my father — my father’s support for Israel is outrage for what had happened in the ‘30s and the failure of the world to act, his support for the creation of the state of Israel.  It generated a feeling for Israel that began in my gut and went to my heart, and the older I got matured in my mind. 

During those sessions, my other — my father often spoke passionately about the special connection between the Jewish people and this land.  Like many of my countrymen, I experienced the magic of Israel at a relatively young age — at least it looks young now from my perspective