President Obama assured the Israeli embassy Wednesday night that the United States is leading the fight against anti-Semitism, and said the U.S. will never stop defending Israeli’s right to exist.
“It’s why when voices around the world veer from criticism of a particular Israeli policy to an unjust denial of Israel’s right to exist… we stand up forcefully and proudly in defense of our ally, in defense of our friend,” Obama said at a ceremony honoring people who helped Jews during the Holocaust.
Two Americans, Roddie Edmonds of Knoxville, Tenn., and Lois Gunden of Goshen, Ind., were posthumously recognized for their efforts during WWII to save European Jews. The ceremony corresponded with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which the United Nations established to commemorate the liberation of the Nazi extermination camp in Auschwitz, Poland.
“America’s commitment to Israeli security remains now and forever unshakable,” Obama said. “It would be a fundamental moral failing if America broke that bond.”
Obama’s visit, his first to the embassy, came one day after U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power told the Security Council that the U.S. is “deeply concerned” about new Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.
She was not the first U.S. official to warn Israel against undermining the “two-state” solution, in which Palestinians and Israelis would agree to carve out a separate Arab-controlled state from disputed territory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Obama broached the subject with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited the White House in November. And Netanyahu reiterated his sincerity in moving forward with the plan during his public appearance with Obama.
Neither raised the subject Wednesday, and both leaders went out of their way to demonstrate that although there have been serious issues of disagreement, most notably over the U.S.-led nuclear treaty Iran reached with six world powers and the U.N., they are committed to working together.
“Your being here reflects the unbreakable bond of friendship between the United States of America and the Jewish state,” Netanyahu said in a video message played at the ceremony.
During his trip to Washington last year, Netanyahu denied harboring any personal animosity against Obama. Netanyahu said that he “deeply appreciated” that Obama has met with him more than other world leader.
The time Obama has invested in their relationship and the importance he attaches to it “I think are unique,” Netanyahu said then.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who met with Netanyahu during the World Economics Forum last week in Davos, Switzerland, said “the fight’s over” between the Obama administration and Israel.
After the spat over the Iran deal and Netanyahu’s controversial address to a joint session of Congress last summer, the two capitals are in talks for a new, massive security agreement that restarted after Netanyahu’s talk with Obama in the Oval Office last fall.
