Prime Minister Naftali Bennett thanked US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for pushing forward US funding for Iron Dome missile defense batteries, in their meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday.
Bennett emphasized the importance of completing the process of funding the Iron Dome as soon as possible.
The US House of Representatives authorized $1 billion for the Iron Dome system in September, with 420 voting in favor and nine opposed, after progressive Democrats tried to block the funding.
Pelosi said in the Knesset on Wednesday that she was proud of the House vote, and expressed hope that the Senate will approve the aid very soon.
Bennett and Pelosi also discussed the Iranian nuclear threat, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
The prime minister also thanked Pelosi for her “continued support for Israel.”
“Israel is an amazing country with wonderful people in a complex region,” he said. “You supported Israel and your father, of blessed memory, supported Jews in the darkest hour of our history, during the Holocaust when support for Jews was not something to be taken for granted.”
Pelosi’s father, Democratic congressman Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., of Maryland, supported the Irgun-affiliated Bergson Group, which lobbied the Roosevelt administration to allow Jewish refugees into the US during the Holocaust.
“Although [my father] was a New Deal Democrat and followed Franklin D. Roosevelt’s lead, there was one area in which he disagreed with the administration,” Pelosi wrote in Know Your Power: A Message to America’s Daughters. “Daddy supported an organization called the Bergson Group, which held rallies, pageants, and parades focusing attention on the plight of European Jews during World War II and calling for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, which was not yet the administration’s policy.”
Pelosi led a delegation of Democrats in Congress, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. Bill Keating (D-MA), Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ).