Our Friends in Israel Are Under Attack
Floor Speech
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Mr. MAST. I am joined by my colleague here, Mr. Roy. There will be some colloquy going between us as we each feel the need to discuss what is going on in Israel right now, the response by the world, the response by the United States of America.
Mr. Roy, I don't know if you have any opening comments that you would like to begin with, but we can certainly start with that.
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Mr. MAST. Let's start with what my friend just said, our friends under attack. That first word, ``under attack'' is the most important part to realize here. I want to quote one of our other colleagues in a statement, Ms. Omar, in one of her statements about these very events. She said, ``Israel airstrikes killing civilians in Gaza is an act of terrorism. Palestinians deserve protection. Unlike Israel, missile defense programs such as Iron Dome don't exist to protect Palestinian civilians. It is unconscionable to not condemn these attacks.''
That is absolutely right. Palestinians don't receive support like Iron Dome. That would be akin to giving al-Qaida or ISIS or the Taliban U.S. bomb technicians and military personnel to help them out. That would be the apples-to-apples comparison of giving the attackers, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic jihad, others, that would be the equivalent of giving them those kind of assets.
Hamas purposefully makes their civilians the shields to their offensive points. That is not hyperbole. Think about that, what they do to their population. I don't want to just speak about this in platitudes.
If the gentleman has anything to add, by all means, I will just yield to him as that time arises.
I want to speak about these by specific incident to say exactly how much Israel is being attacked and let the American people judge who is the aggressor here. We will go over both rocket attacks, which are acts of terrorism, and suicide bombings.
You might think I am reading every one of them in history, but I am not. They are all serious, but I am reading what largely became the most serious of them. We will start just now with the rocket attacks.
I am not going to read for today because the totals aren't in, but as of yesterday, over 600 rockets were launched into Israel. When I say 600 rockets, I don't want people to think they are small, the size of this table or my cane. We are talking about Fajr-5 rockets. They are made by Iran. They are 21 feet long. That is basically a little bit longer than a Chevy Suburban. The warheads on these rockets are about 90 kilograms, or 200 pounds of explosives. To put that into perspective, what detonated underneath my feet when I lost my legs was probably somewhere around 5 to 10 pounds. So each of these warheads being fired in, somewhere around 200 pounds of explosives.
So just yesterday, 600 rockets; May 9, six rockets; April 25, five rockets; April 24, two rockets; April 23, 36 rockets; April 15, one rocket; January 20, one rocket; January 18, two rockets.
Going back into 2020, December 26, two rockets; November 21, one rocket; November 14, two rockets; October 22, two rockets; October 16, one rocket; September 15, 13 rockets; August 21, 12 rockets; August 16, two rockets; August 2, one rocket; July 5, three rockets; June 26, two rockets; June 15, one rocket; February 23 and 24, 90 rockets over the course of that Sunday and Monday.
Moving into 2019, November 12, 190 rockets launched by Palestinian Islamic jihad; May 5, 200 rockets; May 4, 250 rockets; March 25, one rocket; March 14, two rockets.
Going back into 2018, November 12, one mortar; November 11, 17 rockets; August 8, eight rockets; July 26, 11 rockets; July 14, 174 rockets, barrage, Israel.
And we are talking about--let's put into this perspective as well--a country roughly the size of the State of New Jersey, not the breadth of the United States of America.
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Mr. MAST. Many times.
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Mr. MAST. You are exactly right. We have both had the honor of spending time there. I have had the honor in my life of wearing two military uniforms, for a dozen years in the U.S. Army and also for a period wearing the uniform of the Israel Defense Forces.
One of the things that I learned so well in my time spent serving there was what I feel the same way about as a father of four. When you go over there and you get to the weekend and the time for Shabbat dinner, each family over there, because everybody serves, as they get their family together for that Shabbat meal, every family is waiting for a son, a daughter, a grandson, a granddaughter to come home from that weekend from that service that everybody is mandated to perform and that in all likelihood, sometime during their service, they will probably have to wield their weapon in defense of Israel, given the percentages of the times that they find themselves under attack.
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Mr. MAST. I could not agree more, and to put into perspective why, a great American word, Alamo. Israel is really, it is an Alamo in the Middle East, of freedom, democracy, human rights for all people. That is what they are in that region, and if we don't stand for them, for that friend, that great ally in this region, who do we stand for?
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Mr. MAST. I totally agree. Let's make a perspective on that as well.
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Mr. MAST. I just went over a tremendous list of years of rocket attacks. Now, when Israel goes and flies over the Gaza Strip and puts a piece of ordnance on a target, it is because that location is where they were firing rockets from. They are defending themselves. That is very specific. It is the definition of defense.
All of those rockets and mortars being lobbed into Israel, those are fired entirely indiscriminately beyond, say, they are trying to send them in an area. They are not trying to send those rockets in to land and take down a date tree or some other kind of farm field or something like that. Their specific intent is to indiscriminately hit the largest centers of population and anybody or any piece of infrastructure, whether it is related to military, civilians, restaurants, you name it, they don't care. It is the definition of indiscriminate killing.
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Mr. MAST. I would respond to the gentleman by saying what greater calling for any government, what greater responsibility for any government, than to protect its people.
You speak at length about the protection that the United States of America owes to its people on the southern border. It is one of the things that you address so regularly. That carries over to what we are speaking about right here.
I would add on this point simply to that: When I go back in time and say what brought about me going over to put on the uniform of the IDF, I was a student in Boston. At that time, a recent Gaza war was going on, back in 2014. What I witnessed there, aside from people who were protesting Israel--again, for going out there and defending herself-- were people also seeing U.S. servicemembers like myself. They were out there to protest Israel, but they started harassing people like me and my family because they could see I was a U.S. servicemember. So, that goes to the jump that they make when they layer the United States and Israel next to one another.
But what I said to myself after those experiences was this makes absolutely no sense. This is total hypocrisy. If any one of our neighbors--Mexico, some Caribbean country, Canada--started lobbing rockets or lobbing mortars into the United States of America, my friends in the service would go and eliminate those enemies. Everybody in the United States of America would be grateful to them for doing so. How we do not afford that same right to Israel--or some of our colleagues do not--is absolutely beyond me.
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Mr. MAST. Not surprised in the slightest. We have seen this not just go on for those who were wounded in Syria and other places. We can see it right here in our own area of the world, where Israel responded to the earthquake in Haiti and other natural disasters around the globe. They are often among the first on the ground to go out there and respond.
The gentleman has spoken about his time in Israel, and we have spoken about some of these rocket attacks. Again, I don't want to live in the ambiguous here. I want to speak to exactly what has gone on in history. I am now going to move at this point to some of the suicide bombings that have taken place in the State of Israel and go through some of those.
In 2016, a bus bombing, 20 injured; Hamas takes credit.
Now, before I continue with just saying ``Hamas takes credit'' or ``Palestinian Islamic jihad,'' it is important to have perspective on that, as well. In 2006, Hamas is not just a terrorist organization. In 2006, they became the majority-elected government for the Palestinian Authority. So, when people talk about a two-state solution, you are talking about Hamas, which I am going to speak about in length here being the government entity that would be that second state.
Let's continue on. We will go to 2006 here. Rosh Ha'ir Restaurant bombing, 11 killed, Palestinian Islamic jihad.
HaSharon Mall, December 2005, five killed, Palestinian Islamic jihad.
Market bombing, October 26, seven killed, Palestinian Islamic jihad.
Mall bombing, July 12, 2005, five killed, Palestinian Islamic jihad.
Club bombing, February 25 in Tel Aviv, al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Hezbollah involvement.
Bus bombing, January 29, 2004, Jerusalem, 11 killed, Hamas.
Liberty Bell Park bus bombing, February 22, eight killed, al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.
Ashdod Port massacre, March 14, 2004, 10 killed in a double suicide bombing carried out by, again, Hamas.
Beersheba bus bombing, August 31, 2004, 16 killed, Hamas claims responsibility.
Again, I am reading to you just a small portion of all the attacks that I could read to you.
Haifa bus 37 suicide bombing, March 5, 2003, 17 killed.
Bus station massacre, January 5, 2003, in Tel Aviv, 23 killed, Palestinian Islamic jihad and Hamas.
Mike's Place suicide bombing, a pub, April 30, 2003, three killed, Hamas.
Gross Square attack, May 17, 2003, two killed, Hamas.
Jerusalem, bus number six bombing, seven killed, Hamas claims responsibility.
Davidka Square bus bombing, June 1, 2003, 17 killed, Hamas claims responsibility.
The list could go on. I don't know if you would care to comment on any of this as I could continue year after year with these suicide attacks, the stabbings, the bombings, the vehicular manslaughter, the rocket attacks. It goes on and on.
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Mr. MAST. I could not agree more with the gentleman. It is important that we acknowledge the truth. Who are our friends, who are our enemies, who those are that are posing a threat, what are the threats that they are posing, we make that known.
That has an effect on the saber-rattling, and we should take the saber-rattling that is going on, whether it is in Iran or whether it is in a Palestinian-controlled territory or Syria or anywhere else, we need to take that seriously.
To your point about that pride that you saw and that friendship between the U.S. and Israel, on a separate experience, again, in Israel, I believe this was in 2017 for myself, I am with my wife. We are down on the Sea of Galilee with other Members of Congress, literally inside of a restaurant filled simply with patrons of that area. The patrons in that restaurant stood up and to us, who were Members of Congress, the United States House of Representatives, bipartisan, they sang ``God Bless America.''
I would challenge anybody that we could find many places across the globe where we would find a group of restaurant patrons who would stand and sing twice, in my experience, ``God bless America.''
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Mr. MAST. I totally agree. But it didn't stop with moving the Embassy to Jerusalem. It had to do with acknowledging if Iran is a friend or an enemy and reversing what had gone on with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, moving away from Iran, moving back toward our consistent friend and ally, Israel. It had more to do with going out there and recognizing the relationships that we have through our cross-military training exercises that we do, sharing of military technologies, and so on and so on.
It didn't just end with acknowledging something that everybody knew for decades since the beginning of Israel, where the capital is. That was an important piece of it for the President to make that acknowledgment. But it went so far beyond. Would the gentleman agree?
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Mr. MAST. I thank the gentleman for his question.
I could continue on through this list and read year after year, nine killed, nine killed, six killed, 14 killed, 11 killed. I read Hamas, Palestinian Islamic jihad, al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and Hezbollah in that list, as well, and the list goes on year after year after year.
As you look at those threats and those calls to violence, it begs the question--I can't take credit for this quote. I forget who exactly said it first. But they said you don't sell a gun to somebody that wants to shoot you.
This was the failed policy that President Trump worked to correct, in reversing from that relationship with Iran and strengthening that relationship with Israel. Would the gentleman agree?
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Mr. MAST. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his question.
Not only do I agree with that, but I think one of the most important points that we make on that is that it was without concession. We didn't have to negotiate. The President did not negotiate or barter a deal that said, Listen, you need to go out there and submit to another authority that is bombing you, sending mortars, sending rockets, kidnapping people from your territory. You don't have to submit to some other authority in order to have this peace.
It was a negotiated peace based upon a truth and, I believe, an acknowledgment by those other nations of exactly what has been read off here today. The historical documentation of rocket attacks, mortar attacks, suicide bombings that point to the fact that Israel is not the aggressor. They show a tremendous amount of restraint year after year after year. The fact that their enemies that attack them are not simply a smoldering pile of ashes at this point is demonstration of the restraint.
I don't know that if we had that kind of history, we would--that our enemy would not be a smoldering pile of ashes.
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Mr. MAST. Mr. Speaker, by my calculation, we should have about 2 minutes remaining. So I will try to give the gentleman the last word in just a moment.
Mr. Speaker, I would just bring us back to what I opened up with for myself here. And that was the tweet, the statement that was put out in a number of places by our colleague, who I am absolutely astounded sits on the Committee on Foreign Affairs with me, Representative Omar. That Palestinians deserve protection and that Israel is somehow the aggressor committing an act of terrorism. And ask that the American people go out there, do your own research, look up what the history is, look at the attacks, see what's going on, and judge that for yourself in the most honest way that you can.
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Mr. MAST.
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