Israel, Biden and World Jewry

The Jewish state and the Jewish people are overlapping concepts, but they are not the same thing and don't always have the same interests.

On October 10, a few day after the massacre of about 1,200 Jews in Israel, President Biden gave what is perhaps the second most significant speech about Israel by an American politician. Interestingly, what remains the most important speech about Israel by an American politician was also given by an Irish Catholic.

Biden’s speech, which was extremely well received by most American Jews, occurred more than a month ago, but I find myself still wrestling with part of what he said. The President mentioned a conversation he had with Golda Meir more than half a century ago in which the Israeli Prime Minister told then Senator Biden that “we (the Jews) have nowhere else to go.” Biden followed that anecdote by describing Israel as “the ultimate guarantor of security of Jewish people around the world.”