Former vice president Mike Pence visited Grove City College Thursday, April 11 to deliver the keynote speech at the conference for The Institute for Faith and Freedom (IFF) 2024 “Confronting Antisemitism.”
Pence spoke about the “rising tide of antisemitism in the country” and his trip to Israel following Hamas’ October 7 attacks during his speech and conversation with Grove City College President Paul J. McNulty.
“It’s good to be back on the campus of Grove City [College],” Pence said as he took the podium in the Crawford Hall Auditorium.
The former vice president thanked the Grove City College leadership and faculty for organizing a gathering to acknowledge and speak on the rise of antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric across the country.
Pence spoke in detail about a trip he took to Israel in the first week of the year, where he was witness to the destruction and violence of the Israel-Hamas War.
“In my various roles as governor and vice president, I visited places of great hardship, hurricanes, wildfires, tornados, disasters influenced by violence. [And] I’ve been to war zones where you see the aftermath of war. This was not the aftermath of war, this was a method of evil,” Pence said.
While in Israel, Pence met with a father who saved his family during the invasion by holding the bomb shelter door shut with his own hands while “terrorists” tried to break the door down.
“I then saw him say with tears in his eyes, other elderly neighbors who had similar shelters in their own homes who simply didn’t have the strength to hold the door shut and were slaughtered,” he said.
Pence also explained the mayor of Kfar Aza, one of the locations the October 7 attacks took place, was building a park where Jews and Palestinians could “celebrate their unity” in between the border of Gaza and Israel.
“The communities that I was visiting or to that day, the communities in Israel that were most supportive of Palestinians, by all accounts, they were people a champion of the hope for a Palestinian state,” the former vice president said.
He also said he was told the mayor who initiated the building of the park was among those first murdered in the attack.
“You could never expect someone to settle their differences with a serial killer living next door. You’re not going to settle it. They just have to hunt down and destroy them [Hamas] once and for all,” he said.
Pence pushed back on the idea of a ceasefire, explaining there are two different versions of what that would look like.
“If Palestinians laid down their weapons right now and released all the hostages, we’d have peace. If Israel laid down all its weapons, we’d have no Israel,” Pence said. “And if all of the world knows nothing else, the world should know this, America stands with Israel,” he said.
According to Pence, he believes the United States has entered a time when elements of both political parties are beginning to retreat from the country’s historical alliances in the world and beginning to question support for Israel.
The former vice president also called out Tucker Carlson, ridiculing the commentator’s interview with reverend Munther Isaac.
“Just this last week, one of the most prominent media voices on the right actually interviewed a Palestinian pastor who had applauded part of the attack and spoke about the strength of the Palestinians. And that commentator actually questioned and ridiculed Christians,” Pence said.
“Supporting Israel requires more than just supporting their actions overseas, demanding that our leaders provision them with the resources that they need to defend their nation,” he said. “It also requires strong moral action here at home.”
