Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu met with U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in Yerushalayim today.
Prior to their meeting, Netanyahu noted: “In the last four years, we’ve greatly enhanced the defense and security relationship between Israel and the United States, and I am absolutely confident that we will continue to further strengthen this under your stewardship of the American defense establishment….Israel appreciates deeply the military and security support that it enjoys from the United States.”
Hegal responded: “This is a difficult and dangerous time. This is a time when friends and allies must remain close, closer than ever. I’m committed to continue to strengthen this relationship.”
In his first visit to Israel as secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel took a one-hour, 40-minute tour of the northern half of the country Monday in an Israeli Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, flying from Tel Aviv to the Golan Heights before circling over Jerusalem’s Old City. The main lesson of the flight was that Israel is a really small country with difficult-to-defend borders. A briefing book told the former Nebraska senator: “The State of Nebraska is nine times the size of the State of Israel.”
{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}
