Dispatched by then-President Barack Obama to reassure skeptical leaders, Biden was touched to learn Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a man he’d known for almost 30 years — had planted a circle of trees in honor of his mother at a forest in Jerusalem. “My love for your country was watered by this Irish lady, who was proudest of me when I was working with and for the security of Israel,” a grinning Biden told Netanyahu at his official residence. “That’s a great honor.” With Biden still in the country, Israel announced the approval of 1,600 new homes in Ramat Shlomo in East Jerusalem — considered an illegal settlement under international law — infuriating the United States and undermining Biden, who’d just stood alongside the country’s leader to declare “our friendship is real.”