He said Israel is vital to US Jews' safety.
"The preservation of an independent Jewish state is the ultimate guarantor, it's the only certain guarantor of freedom and security for the Jewish people in the world."
And Biden said that criticism of Israel efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state worried him more than anything else, including Iran.
"Let me tell you what worries me the most today what worries me more than at any time in the 40 years I've been engaged, and it is different than any time in my career. And that is the wholesale, seemingly coordinated effort to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state. That is the single most dangerous, pernicious change that has taken place, in my humble opinion, since I've been engaged."
Biden related an oft-recounted anecdote about meeting Golda Meir in 1973 when he was 30 and a freshly-elected senator. Meir asked him if he wanted a photo-opp surely sensitive to Biden's political needs back home, then brought him out to the cameras and told him to smile.
"She said, Senator, don't look so sad. She said, we have a secret weapon in our confrontation in this part of the world. And I thought she was about to lean over and tell me about a new system or something. Because you can see the pictures, I still have them. I turned to look at her. We were supposed to be looking straight ahead. And I said, Madam Prime Minister and never turned her head, she kept looking she said, our secret weapon, Senator, is we have no place else to go. We have no place else to go. Ladies and gentlemen, our job is to make sure there's always a place to go, that there's always an Israel, that there's always a secure Israel and there's an Israel that can care for itself. My father was right. You are right. It's the ultimate guarantor of never again."
A year later, 2014, Biden told a Jewish audience that it was a "security necessity" for the U.S. to support Israel. "The security of Israel and the United States are inextricably tied, and we will never, ever, ever abandon Israel out of our own self-interest."
That December he also spoke to the Saban Forum at Brookings and kissed up to Democratic megadonor Haim Saban and praised Israeli leaders. Though he urged a two-state solution, and described "expanding settlement activity" as "counterproductive," Biden made scant reference to Palestinians.
"Haim, members of the Israeli Cabinet, Cabinet ministers, party leaders, old friends, members of the diplomatic corps, it's a pleasure to look out and see so many old faces, people I've worked with and I hate to admit this for over 40 years to make good on our commitment to guarantee a secure nation-state of Israel that is secure, survivable and is I've said before, if there weren't an Israel, we'd have to invent one. If there weren't an Israel we always talk about Israel from this perspective as if we're doing some favor. We are meeting a moral obligation, but it's so much more than a moral obligation. It's overwhelmingly in the self-interest of the United States of America to have a secure, democratic friend, a strategic partner like Israel. As I said, it's no favor. It's an obligation, but it's also a strategic necessity.
"Israel today is the strongest nation in the Middle East. But it bothers me sometimes I remember when I first got here as a kid, a 29-year-old kid, Israel was very much looked upon by the rest of the world as being somewhat fragile, sitting on the banks of the Mediterranean with millions of Arabs looking at them and wanting to see them gone, et cetera."
Nothing wrong with Netanyahu:
"Prime Minister Netanyahu has, as Minister Livni knows, has been my friend for over 30 years. We drive each other crazy. But he has truly been a personal friend for well over 30 years. He acknowledged this."
Biden loves Netanyahu:
"I just spoke to 4,000 members of North American federation Jewish Federation [of North America], and the [sic] Israeli Prime Minister in the front row, and I said, send a message to Bibi, I love him. I love him. And I had signed a picture years ago to him. I said, Bibi, I don't agree with a damn thing you have to say, but I love you. (Laughter.)
"I agree with a lot he has to say. But if friends can't acknowledge if friends can't acknowledge the very things that are acknowledged in each of our countries vis-Ã -vis one another, then it's not much of a friendship."
Biden actually said that to Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer. "Now Ron you better damn well report to Bibi that we're still buddies."
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