On Monday evening, President Biden hosted a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House. AP reports on the reception. The President spoke for ten minutes at the reception (full text of remarks), focusing in large part on the ongoing battle between Israel and Hamas. He said in part:
Most of you know someone directly or indirectly — a family, a friend — that was stolen from you or wounded, traumatized, or called up in the reserves in this last attack in Israel.
As I said after the attack, my commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist ... as an independent Jewish state is ... just unshakeable.
Folks, were there no Israel, there wouldn’t be a Jew in the world who was safe....
And I make no bones about it. I’ve had my differences with some Israeli leadership. I’ve known Bibi for now 51 years. He has a picture on his desk of he and I when he was a young member of the Israeli ... foreign service, and I was a 32-year-old senator. And I wrote on the top of it, “Bibi, I love you, but I don’t agree with a damn thing you have to say.” (Laughter.)
