For Immediate Release
May 24, 2024
Contact: Taylor Haulsee
WASHINGTON — Yesterday, Speaker Johnson joined Michael Herzog, Israeli Ambassador to the United States, and the Israeli Embassy in celebrating 76 years of Israel’s Independence. He commended their democratic governance, their commitment to freedom, and their resilience in the fight for their existence following the brutal atrocities of October 7.
The event, hosted at the National Building Museum, is the Embassy’s largest annual event, hosting more than 1,400 people. Speaker Johnson delivered the keynote speech and viewed art created by Israeli artists.
Click here to listen to the full remarks
Read Speaker Johnson’s remarks below.
Well, thank you all so much and good evening or Arif tov. It is my great honor to be with you and truly is Ambassador Hertzog, Mrs. Hertzog, Ambassador Lipstadt Congressman Aguilar, our fellow members of Congress I’m told there may be 80 or so here tonight. Yes.
It’s wonderful to see you all here and and to see so many friends of Israel gathered together. There may never have been a more important time for us to do that, than right now. I think we recognize it. This is not a typical, joyful celebration ambassador. You’re right, but it is a celebration of sorts. Tonight, we celebrate 76 years of thriving democracy of course. 76 years or freedom, embraced in a region where it has long been shunned. 76 years of Jewish progress in spite of threats and opposition from those who would seek to return the Middle East to the Middle Ages.
But tonight, we celebrate more than just 76 years of achievement. We celebrate the fulfillment of promises made millennia ago. Promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Promises that survived Babylonian exile, Islamic caliphates, and the Nazi holocaust. After years of homelessness and persecution, in May 1948, a new nation was born based on the precepts of liberty, and justice and peace, taught by the Hebrew Hebrew prophets. Through the hard work of men like Theodor Herzl, the Zionist dream has become a reality. And tonight, we gather as Christians and Jews and people of all faiths, we gather is those committed to belief that the Jewish people deserve to live safely in their ancestral and spiritual homeland.
We gather my friends to celebrate the independence of Israel. As Americans, we’re proud of the fact that it took our President Truman just 11 minutes famously to recognize enrolls Israel’s independence on behalf of the American people. That’s right. And since then, there have been countless achievements in our special relationship that merit our reflection. Among them, you know, recently, America led the world and moved our embassy to Jerusalem where it always belonged.
Of course, we all know the US and Israel have partnered in military efforts and freely exchanged our goods and collaborated on our innovations. And through the historic Abraham Accords, our countries have made progress towards peace, such that from Darfur to Dubai, former enemies of Israel, have now become friends. But we know that our ties run deeper than just treaties and trade agreements. My friends, we are bound by the same foundational beliefs. We’re strung together by the same Psalms. And we celebrate together the unique Judeo-Christian heritage of our own Republic. This grand experiment and self governance, this one nation under God.
Sadly, since the massacre of October 7, we have seen an alarming increase in the dark forces of antisemitism and terror and oppression. Let me say this as clearly as we can: we will not, and we cannot allow the darkness to prevail. We will not do it.
Instead, what we’re going to do is we’re going to stand together, for the light of God and for the goodness and mercy and virtue and human dignity that must remain as our fixed values and our only path towards human flourishing.
And we will be reminded of the comforting words of Psalm 37. That reminds us that “evil doers will soon wither away like grass, and those who hope in the Lord will inherit the promised land.”
We don’t we don’t go around the valley of the shadow of death. I’m always struck, that the psalmist says with God’s help we go through the valley of the shadow of death. We are fearless. And we’ve stood together and prevailed and other times of darkness. A couple of weeks ago, I had occasion to travel to Ground Zero to commemorate the tragic loss of life on September 11, 2001, on our own shores. In those days as terrorists tried to melt the steel of the American spirit, you know who was there standing with us. Israel was there following the attacks.
Following those vicious attacks, Israel offered hundreds of urban search and rescue personnel to search for American bodies lost in the rubble And the ash. And the Israeli government provided intelligence to help us track down Osama bin Laden. Israel endured its own surprise, of course, a surprise attack like the one we endured, of course on October 7, in an unspeakable horror that killed more Jews on any one day since the Holocaust. Those terrorists continue to steal the wage and launch rockets, wage war and launch rockets against Israel as they seek to destroy the shared principles of our civilization. The truth is plain for all to see. They are supported by the regime in Iran, and they are platformed by the United Nations. And shamefully they have even recruited apologists among some officials here in America.
Some leaders who have previously been proud to stand with Israel and and even some who have made statements of solidarity following October 7, have suddenly begun to backpedal on that support. On one day, they tell us that we can give no safe harbor to hate but on the next they demand that Israel must give Safe Harbor to Hamas. They tell us they support Israel, but they give cover to antisemitism. This is no time for equivocation. We must speak with clarity and conviction and consistency unlike never before.
We must proclaim never again and at the same time we have to affirm that all hope is not lost that darkness will not prevail. Today as International bureaucrats have issued arrest warrants for Israel’s leaders and like and Israel’s just war to the barbarism of October 7, Washington has been united I’m proud to tell you in a bipartisan manner against this madness, and we will stand together.
In 1975, when the United Nations declared Zionism to be a form of racism, Daniel Patrick Moynihan boldly declared his quote he said before the world the US does not acknowledge and will not abide by and will never acquiesce to this infamous act, unquote. We need that same resolve and moral clarity today. That’s right and so I say tonight in response to those warrants from the ICC, let me just quote, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the US will not acknowledge or abide by or acquiesce to this infamous act, we will not do it.
I was elected Speaker of the House less than 20 days after the horrible attack the massacre on October 7, Congress had been shut down for three weeks and we were incapacitated as a body. The very first act that I brought to the floor as the Speaker of the House was the resolution to stand with Israel and condemn the attacks of October 7. And then I’ll tell you I was I was very happy to stand alongside leader Jeffries and leader Schumer, in our joint support and that march for Israel, and I know many of you were there.
I was proud that just days after the watershed attacks by Iran on Israel, Congress was able to finally come together and deliver billions in the Israel Security Supplemental Assistance Act, and we did that together. And we passed in the House the anti semitism awareness Act, which is still sitting on Senate. And as some leaders have now sought to withhold vital weapons to Israel to house on a bipartisan basis and a clear message of solidarity to compel the delivery of defense weapons to Israel without delay as they fight for their very existence.
And tonight, I’m happy to announce something else to you that we will soon be hosting Prime Minister Netanyahu at the Capitol for a joint session of Congress. Yes. This will be a timely and I think a very strong show of support to the Israeli government and their time of greatest need.
I went to Columbia University to face down that lawless mob and proclaim that the rights of Jewish students should survive and that that that the hatred and the intolerance and the antisemitism that was being allowed there should not, and I asked every leader to do the same this this rise of antisemitism on these college campuses has been detestable. And I have now empowered seven of our most important committees in the House of Representatives to investigate the universities that have allowed this madness to flourish on those campuses. That’s right. You’re probably aware that these universities get billions of taxpayer dollars on an annual basis, and I don’t believe they deserve it if they can’t stand for the basic, fundamental freedoms of their students.
You know, what we’re also investigating is the student visa program. Let me just say this simply. Young men and young women if you’re an aspiring terrorist, who’s coming here to study and prey upon your fellow Jewish students, you don’t belong in the United States and you need to go home.
I don’t want to speak too long tonight. I just I just want to say this simply that we have to make clear that in these trying times, is our enemies. surround us and as terror threatens the Promised Land Israel does not face its enemies alone. The Jewish people will never be alone. We will stand with them.
I think it’s really important that when Hamas and Iran attacked 9 million Israelis, they are met with the strength of 340 million Americans right behind them. Our ties are too strong to be broken, too historic to be forgotten and too precious to be disregarded. Our common cause of freedom and security and prosperity is a three-strand cord which no terrorists can snap, and with God’s favor, our shared promises of liberty and shalom, first given to Abraham and echoed down through the generations to you and to me will not go on for just 76 years, but for seven times 76 years, and then some.
From the east to the west, or nations will proclaim the promise of freedom for the captives of tyranny. Peace to the victims of terror and security in a land where liberal liberty will never end. May God bless you and God bless these hostages and their families. May God bless Israel. May God bless the United States of America.
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