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Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Madam President, last week, on May 14, our friend and ally Israel celebrated its 76th Independence Day.

As we all know, Israel was founded in the wake of the Holocaust to give the Jewish people a homeland that would allow them to return to their ancestral land that they had been forcibly removed from.

I am proud--very proud--that the United States was the first country to recognize Israel; and since then, we have been steadfast allies that support one another through times both prosperous and challenging.

However, this year's Israeli Independence Day came during a time of great turmoil, as Israel battles terrorist forces that have ruthlessly waged war against them since October 7.

We join them as they mourn the loss of over 1,200 Israelis killed in that initial attack and pray for the safe return of the hostages still kept in captivity by Hamas.

In an alarming development, this longstanding U.S.-Israel relationship is now becoming unnecessarily strained by President Biden's quest to appease those in his party who do not support the State of Israel, a bastion of democracy and freedom in the Middle East.

The October 7 attack marks the most horrific attack Israel has suffered since its founding and the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. So how did we get to this point?

The common refrain for those opposed to Israel now has been to call for cease-fire now. We have seen it all across our college campuses. And we saw President Biden clap along to these demands, again, as he delivered a commencement address just this past weekend.

And what is even more mind-boggling is that those who are protesting, who are they demanding a cease-fire from? I haven't heard a single campus protest group call for Hamas to lay down its arms or call for Hamas to release the hostages.

Why? Why? Because they want Israel to stop fighting, because they want Israel to stop defending itself, and because they want Israel to lose. We cannot forget the fact that a cease-fire was in place on October 7, and that cease-fire was broken by Hamas as they deliberately attacked innocent civilians in the most brutal and barbaric ways.

So let's not forget that some of these communities, the border towns in Israel that were attacked by Hamas, were some of the most ardent supporters in Israel for the Palestinian people.

They were some of the biggest advocates for peace. Yet despite the reality, here in the United States, our colleges have become embroiled in controversy over this and play host to anti-Israel and anti-Semitic protests that ultimately stopped Jewish students from attending class and even led a rabbi at Columbia University to recommend Jewish students return home for their own safety.

These protesters demand that Israel drop their weapons, yet refuse to acknowledge that Hamas is the instigator of the war. But we now know what Hamas' entire plan was: to minimize any chance of peace in the region, to attack Israel's most peace-promoting citizens in the most brutal of fashions, especially, and most dangerously and horrifyingly, toward Israeli women.

To undermine the incredible progress that had been made possible through President Trump's Abraham Accords, to stop an emerging normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, and to conduct an attack on Israel so horrific that Israel had no other choice but to respond.

In what world would we ever expect a country to be attacked in such a brutal fashion and not fight to defend itself? It is important to note that the chaos and instability benefits one bad actor above all else, and that is the Iranian regime.

Without Iran's help, both financially and militarily, Hamas would not have been able to execute their terrorist attacks on the Israelis. Iran has further supported Hamas's efforts by launching over 300 projectiles at Israel on April 13. And lest we forget, it was an Iranian-made drone that killed three American soldiers in Jordan on January 29.

We must recognize that the deep ties between Hamas and Iran and their common goal of destroying Israel and bringing harm to the United States and our citizens. Calls for a cease-fire only embolden Hamas and their stated aim to repeat the October 7 attacks a second, third, and fourth time. Israel must defend itself, and they must root out the evil that is Hamas.

So earlier this week, we learned that the International Criminal Court would seek arrest warrants for leaders of Hamas and Israel for war crimes.

It is simply shocking to me that the ICC would seek to establish a delusional level of equivalency between the actions of Israel and the actions of Hamas. I have seen the footage of the attacks on Israeli and American citizens that occurred on October 7, and it is clear that Hamas is the real criminal involved in this conflict.

Hamas continues to show no regard for its own people, spending billions of dollars on over 300 miles of tunnel system, but yet they are refusing to allow their Palestinian citizens to shelter there; and they continue to use hospitals, schools, places of worship for military purposes, knowingly placing citizens in harm's way.

While Israel was founded on the principle of promoting development for the benefit of all of its inhabitants, Hamas's only mission is to destroy Israel. The differences between their founding principles, their leadership, and their actions could not be any more different. And it is abhorrent that the ICC would attempt to argue otherwise.

In these times of instability, you would hope that the President of the United States would display strength. Instead, President Biden has decided to play politics by placing a hold on security assistance that this Congress most recently approved.

This is just the latest foreign policy blunder from an administration plagued by weakness on the international stage. Shortly after this policy of withholding weapons was announced, Hamas steps away from the negotiations on the safe return of the hostages.

It seems like a pretty big coincidence to me. Hamas is still holding American hostages captive; although, I wonder how many of these hostages are still alive, as we discovered--I think it was last week, four bodies were discovered.

And President Biden should be doing everything within his power to bring home those American hostages. Instead, he is publicly withholding weapons from our ally and giving their adversary cover.

When President Biden took office, he pledged ironclad support for Israel, but now he is publicly backing down from that promise.

He is projecting to our allies and our adversaries that the U.S. promises' can be subject to political pressure.

To further underscore the administration's lack of responsibility, my EPW committee came across something very disturbing this week in our ongoing oversight of President Biden's so-called Inflation Reduction Act. You might wonder what EPW or the IRA have to do with Israel in their battle against terrorists. But we discovered that the Climate Justice Alliance, a group that received $50 million from the Biden administration in December, openly denies Israel's right to exist and actively supports the horrific actions of Hamas. They even promote graphics that glorify the bulldozers used by Hamas on October 7.

It is despicable that the EPA is sending millions of dollars through the IRA to a group that perpetrates hatred and violence under the guise of fighting climate change and this administration would allow U.S. taxpayers' dollars to fund these anti-Semitic activities.

There is no doubt that the last 7 months have been an incredibly difficult time for the people of Israel and Jewish Americans here at home. Never, never in my life, never would I have ever expected to hear and see the anti-Semitic discourse that I see being conducted on our own land, our own American shores, and the violence and intimidation towards the Jewish community.

Together we must condemn the rise of anti-Semitism and make clear that this hatred has no home in our country and in our world.

My Republican colleagues and I will continue to display our unwavering support for Israel and push for the assistance that they need to ensure their survival and victory in this fight, as allies do have needs, particularly in this time of need.

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