(capitalnewyork).. In his first public remarks as the White House's Jewish liaison, Jarrod Bernstein gave the introductory speech on Monday at the second annual legislative breakfast for Agudath Israel, in New York city.
"I come from New York and one day hopefully I will return here, so I have a vested interest in a strong and vibrant Jewish community here, one that is safe and secure from all kinds of issues."
"To help insure the safety and security of Israel, we have realized unprecedented levels of military cooperation with the state of Israel."
Bernstein said the administration's request for $2.775 billion to aid in Israel in fiscal year 2010 was "the largest request in history."
"So, in F.Y. 2011, we requested even more...We're talking about the realization of the Iron Dome missile defense system that will be funded out of this money and it will be saving Israeli lives from rockets, wherever they come from, That is real—that is not just a number, folks, that is a real live tangible impact on Israelis' lives."
"On Iran, the president has spent more time trying to block Iran's nuclear ambitions than any other foreign policy issue, and it's something that he raises every single time he's in a room with a foreign world leader, about what more we can be doing.
"He's also galvanized the international community to impose the toughest set of sanctions on Iran to date. In fact, he made the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledge in the Iranian parliament how hard of a time he's having because of the American sanctions. And that is not something you hear very often in Iran, folks."