I am very, very pleased to be with all of you because frankly, this is a challenging time, not only for your state and my state, but for our country, for the State of Israel, and for the world.  And I’m convinced that those of you here tonight who helped this Yeshiva and who care about the relationship between the United States and the State of Israel are helping us to meet some of the foremost challenges that will define not only our future, but the future that our wonderful children, some of whom we had a chance to listen to tonight, will inherit from us one day.  I think about the economic challenges that we face and how we go about creating prosperity in a globalized economy and empowering each of our citizens, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, through hard work and ingenuity and perseverance, to share in the prosperity of America.  How do we do that in a much more competitive world?  That is one of the challenges that we face.  That is one of the challenges that you help us meet.

I think about the phenomenon of radical Islam and its tool, too often suicidal terror; the proliferation of weapons of mass death; and the other things that imperil the security of the United States and Israel and other freedom-loving peoples.  Those of you who care about this relationship help us meet that challenge as well.  And so I was pleased to accept your invitation this evening and to share just a few thoughts about each of these challenges with you tonight.

It’s no secret to any of us:  these are difficult times economically.  The Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, indicates that the financial crisis that we are now facing is the most severe since the 1930’s.  Just since January, our nation has lost more than 760,000 jobs, 159,000 last month alone, many of them good-paying jobs in manufacturing in states like Indiana and Michigan and elsewhere across the Midwest.  The survey just last month indicated that consumer confidence, and consumption, consumer spending comprises about 65 to 70% of our economic activity, is at its lowest point since the surveys have been conducted.  We now have the largest budget deficit in the history of our country.  And as we gather here in Detroit, Michigan, today, we are consuming more imported oil than we were on 9/11.  We’ve made virtually no progress toward energy independence whatsoever.  And yet in the midst of these challenges, and the turmoil that we face, there is reason to be hopeful and optimistic about the future.  It’s in the faces of our children, as Dan quite rightly pointed out, but it’s also in our history and in our character.  As Americans, as people from Michigan and people from Indiana, if we gathered here in this Renaissance Center 100 years ago, more than half of the people of America, including the states of Michigan and Indiana, would have been employed in the field of agriculture.  Today, it’s about three percent.  And yet as we made the transition from an agrarian economy to a manufacturing industrial economy, we didn’t just dry up and blow away.  There were challenges, there were difficulties, but we rolled up our sleeves, we did the hard work, we made the sacrifices to make the transition to the next big thing and a more prosperous future for those who would follow in our footsteps.  The American Dream was kept vibrant and alive.

If we gathered here in this hall fifty years ago, forty percent of the American people would have found their employment and their livelihood in the field of manufacturing.  Today, on a nationwide basis, it’s about 14%.  In my own home state, it’s about 20.  I think in Michigan it’s more toward the high end of the scale as well and that’s one of the reasons we’re suffering from difficult times.  And yet from the 1950’s to today, even with the difficulties along the way, once again, the American Dream did not die.  We invested in one another.  We made the difficult decisions to make the transition to a service economy, to an information-based economy.  And I’m convinced that with hard work and ingenuity, we can make the transition to the next phase of the American Dream in progress, so that our children and grandchildren can inherit from us not an America that is diminished, but an America that is more prosperous and more decent and more just.  We can keep faith with those who have come before us, do right by those who will follow.

If I had to guess, I would guess that the next great American Dream will be built upon the process of innovation, the constant pursuit of creating new products, new cures, new goods, new services, new ideas that we can produce more quickly, more productively, and less expensively than anyone else on Earth.  And in order to make that innovation happen, there’s some basic things that we need to do.  We need to invest in research and develop the process of creating those new things.  We need to make sure that capital continues to flow to entrepreneurs, particularly the small- and medium-sized businesses that create 65% of the new jobs across our country.  And more than anything else, if we want to innovate, we have to compete with our minds.  And that’s what the Yeshiva does so ably, giving our children the skills, the talents, the ingenuity to lead this nation forward and to realize the American Dream of greater prosperity and progress for all.

And that is something that your Yeshiva does so well.  Nancy and I were talking.  Of your 800 students, as I understand it, you turn no one away because of need.  You have many scholarship students that attend the school.  And that is a beautiful thing because one of the things that we struggle with today is the growing gap between the haves and have-nots in America, and it is unfortunate and it is real.  It’s driven by many things, but more than anything else, it is driven by an education gap.  Because if you look at the statistics, those of us who have been blessed to get college degrees and in particular advanced degrees have seen our standard of living over the last 20 to 30 years increase substantially.  We’re doing well.  Those who graduated from high school but went no further have seen their standards of living stagnate and modestly decline.  But those who have seen the floor fall out from under them are those who dropped out of high school and didn’t get anything close to the education they need to maximize their God-given skills and to fulfill their potential as citizens of our country.  You are meeting that challenge and empowering the children of your Yeshiva to make the most of their talents and in so doing make sure that our country can make the most of its own.

You’re also helping us, as friends of the American-Israeli relationship, meet one of the great national security challenges of our time.  I come to this issue, perhaps honestly, from a hereditary point of view.  My father was privileged to represent the people of our state for 18 years in the United States Senate, and counted himself as a strong and unwavering supporter of the State of Israel as well.  As a matter of fact, my first trip to Israel was as a young man, a student at Indiana University.  We went and spent three weeks in the country.  We stayed in a kibbutz; we visited the Golan; saw where the tanks came through, the Syrian tanks came through in the ’67 war; took a helicopter with an Israeli major down the Jordan River Valley; saw how intimately connected the State of Israel is and the sense of physical intimacy and perhaps physical insecurity if we don’t emphasize strength and security for the State of Israel.  We visited the site in the West Bank where the Jordanian gun emplacements were located and could almost see across the entire width of the country.  Many Americans don’t understand the fragile nature of the security relationship in that part of the world.  I hope to take my own sons back someday to make that journey, and to see for themselves the very special nature of the state of Israel.

Today we are challenged by threat anew.  We really live in a post-nation-state environment, where our greatest challenge comes not from other countries but from shadowy terrorist organizations, and it is a difficult challenge to meet.  I’m on the Intelligence Committee, Debbie, as well as the Armed Services Committee.  I deal with this each and every day.  The doctrine of deterrence, if you attack us we’ll attack you, worked well following World War II.  It even works well against rogue states like North Korea.  Kim Jon Il, you can explain a lot of his behavior by the fact that he is not suicidal, that he wants to live, and he knows that there’s a line if he crosses, we will allow him to go no further.  That doctrine does not work so well when your adversaries are suicidal, and are perfectly willing to die as long as they have a chance to kill you.  You have to find a different approach to fostering your security, and so do we in the United States, and so does the state of Israel.  It begins by being more pro-active and by being more realistic, and not naïve about your adversaries.  Take Hamas for example.  Hamas is a terrorist organization responsible for the killing of hundreds of men, women, and even children. And as far as I’m concerned, until Hamas recognizes the right of the state of Israel to exist, renounces terror, not only in word and deed, and pledges to live up to previous commitments of this Palestinian authority, any government, in any way, affiliated with Hamas, should not receive a single penny of assistance from the United States, or any multilateral organization receiving aid or assistance from the United States of America.

We have to be honest about the nation or Iran.  Iran is the foremost state sponsor of terrorism today.  Their president has called for the destruction of the state of Israel.  He has also asked his people to envision a world without a United States of America.  They frequently refer to us as the great Satan.  They are feverishly seeking nuclear weapons.  This would only be deeply threatening to the state of Israel, and to the welfare of the United States, it would be deeply threatening to the stability of the Middle East, setting of a nuclear arms race in that most unstable part of the world.  This is something we can simply not allow to happen. The next president and the next congress must focus on this issue like a laser, and bring a real sense of urgency to changing the course of events in Iran.  The clock is ticking and time is not on our side.  If events keep going the way they are, sometime in the next four years, in all likelihood, the nation of Iran will achieve a nuclear capability, and so we must focus on those things that may change that possibility.  We’ve had some success in cutting off Iran’s access to the global banking system.  This must continue.  We should impose travel bans and diplomatic restrictions to make them a pariah state among the community of nations.  During a recent visit, Gary you might be interested in this, a recent visit of mine to Moscow.  The Russian Energy Minister who deals with Iran on a regular basis, said something that caused me to sit up and take notice, he said Iran imports 40 percent of their refined petroleum products.  If you cut of the importation of gasoline into the nation of Iran, it would bring their economy to a virtual stop.  This is one of the reasons they’ve already started issuing rationing cards for gasoline in Iran.  The Russian Energy Minister said to me that the Iranians are terrified, that’s the word he used, terrified, that the United States might convince the rest of the world to impose an embargo of refined petroleum products into Iran, brining their economy to a stop.  Well I suggest, if it terrifies the Iranians, it is an idea that is well worth considering, and one that we should pursue.

Many other things we could say, but I do not want to tread upon your time unduly this evening.  But let me just mention this: I was privileged to be considered, for at least a while, by Senator Obama as a potential running mate, and had an opportunity to get to know him in some fairly unique personal settings.  I was spirited out of Washington one night in a private plane and taken up a freight elevator in a hotel in St. Louis and met with him just the two of us for a couple of hours in his hotel in that city, and we had a good discussion.  I think I got to know him as an individual fairly well.  And one of the last questions he asked me, he said, “Well Evan, if we do this together, and you could pick just one issue you’d like to take charge of, and would encourage me to emphasize if I become our nation’s next president, what would it be?”  And I said to him, “Barack, there are a lot of things we need to address.  There’s not shortage of challenges.  But if I had to pick just one, I’d start with the issue of energy independence, because it affects so much else including our nation’s security.”  We currently find ourselves in the intolerable position of funding both sides of the War on Terror, and that is something that has to stop.  We are in the process of having the largest transfer of wealth in the history of the world, much of it going from each of us here tonight, to places like Saudi Arabia and other nations in the Persian Gulf, and to Hugo Chaves in Venezuela.  This is not in the national security interest of our country.  It is not in the national security interest of the United States.  We need to break this addiction to oil and not just talk about it, but actually begin to do it.  And in so doing we can create millions of good jobs. Joe Lieberman and I sponsored legislation that would reduce our importation of oil into this country by everything, 100 percent of what we currently import from the Middle East.  And we can create millions of good new manufacturing jobs, making the next generation of high-mileage vehicles right here in Michigan and Indiana, rather than elsewhere, in Korea and Japan and places like that.  This will be one of the defining challenges of our time.  It will be good for our nation’s security, it will be good for Israel, it will be good for the world.

Let me just conclude by saying this: If you look at all of the challenges we face today, there is every reason for people to verge upon being pessimistic, but I am not one of those people.  I, like your governor, am optimistic about the future of our country.  I am optimistic about the future of America and the future of Israel because I believe we are exceptional nations, placed upon this earth to help realize the highest aspirations of mankind.  I believe that our two great nations lie upon both the right side of human history and the right side of human nature.  We gather at a moment when the integration of the planet is continuing apace.  The flow of money transcends the world by the click of a button.  Ideas and information spans the globe at light speed.  Global pandemics, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, respect no national borders.  The world is becoming more integrated each and every day.  And in this regard I am reminded of something that Abraham Lincoln during the greatest crisis out nation has ever faced, our Civil War.  When—I believe it was in his second inaugural address—he said that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and that our nation, the United States, could not longer exist as a nation half slave and half free.  Just so, it will be increasingly difficult for us to enjoy the fruits of our own liberty while 80 percent of the planet’s inhabitants labor under the yokes of tyranny and intolerance.  So it is not only the right thing to do, it is in our nation’s interest, to stand for freedom in all of its manifestations.  As a powerful narrative against the radicals and the terrorists, who preach intolerance and bigotry and hate, we must stand for the people of the world’s right to choose their own leaders, to worship God as they see fit, to speak their mind and associate with individuals of their own choosing, the freedom to enjoy the fruits of their own labors, and when we do this, we put ourselves on the powerful side of human evolution and human history.

And we also put ourselves on the right side of human nature, because I’m convinced that deep down, in the human heart and in the human soul, that truth is more powerful than deceit, that knowledge will one day triumph over ignorance, and that love is more ennobling than hatred can ever be.  And if we cling to these things, and stand by these truths and these ideas, if we do not grow weary and we do not give up, than I am confidant, as confidant as I can possibly be, that one day our great nation, the nation of Israel and our children, with the blessing of an almighty God that comes by so many names, and so many faiths, and so many traditions, that one day the blessing of peace and prosperity will once more be ours.  That is the cause of America, that is the cause of Israel, that is the cause of this Yeshiva, and that is the cause that I am proud to be here tonight to advocate.  Thank you for having me.