Israelis Jubilant at Bush Knesset Speech

Six standing ovations in the Knesset is no small achievement for any guest speaker to the Israeli parliament. That's exactly what President Bush received yesterday when he gave what some Israelis enthusiastically hailed as "the best speech I've ever heard him give."

Another said to me, "He is the only international leader we know who truly understands the threat of terrorism and its inherent evil and he isn't afraid to say so. Baruch Hashem!"

Bush brought the house down when he said to the Israeli people at large, "Israel has seven million people but when you are fighting terrorism, you are 307 million strong because America stands with you." The standing ovation for that remark lasted for quite a while. One Israeli told me that he was watching the speech in Tel Aviv at an electronics store along with everyone else who was there at the time and at that remark, everyone around him began clapping and shouting right along with those present in the Knesset general assembly hall.

He garnered another standing ovation with the statements:

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said in his historic address before the Knesset on Thursday. He did not mention Obama by name or even seem to allude to any partisan divide on the hotly-debated isolation question.

''We have heard this foolish delusion before," he continued, "as Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.''

Speaking of the "promise of God" for a "homeland for the chosen people" in Israel, Bush told the Knesset after a visit to the Roman-era Jewish fortress at Masada: "Masada shall never fall again, and America will always stand with you."

Bush described the "bonds of the Book" - faith in the Bible shared by Christians like himself and Jews - as bolstering an "unbreakable" alliance between Israel and the United States. During a later visit to the Israel Museum, Bush, referring to the old biblical texts housed at the building, said "these documents tell the story of a righteous God and his relationship with an ancient people."

"There is no doubt in my mind that the patriarchs of ancient Israel and the pioneers of modern Israel would marvel at the achievements of this nation," he said.

The President and First Lady departed Israel a short time ago.
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Psalm22:10-11 I was cast upon You from birth. From My mothers womb You have been My God.