Palestine Belongs to the Palestinians

Floor Speech

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise, a proud, liberated Democrat, unbossed, unbought, and unafraid. I rise as one who is not a sunshine freedom fighter, as one who can stand before the crowds. This is what a sunshine freedom fighter does. He stands before the crowd with plenty of people to surround him and receives the cheers.

I believe that there are times when one has to stand alone, and on some issues it is better to stand alone, Mr. Speaker, than not stand at all.

Today, Mr. Speaker, I rise to proclaim February 4, 2025, as a day that will live in infamy. It was a day when the leaders of two nuclear powers stood next to each other, and these nuclear power representatives, these persons who had the ability to create a nuclear holocaust, something that not even the mind of Dante can imagine, these two persons made comments about Gaza.

One person said: It would be nice--not in these exact words--to make Gaza a better place for people to live. I am paraphrasing, but this person went on to talk about how this superpower would take over Gaza and how this superpower might, at some point, have the American military have boots on the ground in Gaza. These are not the exact words.

These two superpowers dared to work together. The other said: Well, I think this is an idea worth considering, to have the Palestinians move to another location.

These two superpowers, the United States of America and Israel, were represented by the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel. These are two superpowers that are not in the business of saying things without thought, or they shouldn't be if they do.

These two superpowers could operationalize what they say. The United States of America can go into Gaza by and through its military. It can take over Gaza, and it can remove the Palestinians from Gaza. The United States of America has already, with our tax dollars, sent money into Israel and munitions to Israel, and Israel has gone into Gaza.

Yes, I know why. Yes, I believe that what Hamas did was a dastardly deed. Yes, that should have been redressed. However, there is a point in time when your redress becomes an offense as opposed to a defense.

Israel went into Gaza and killed thousands of babies, obliterated schools, and destroyed hospitals and infrastructure. Israel, with our tax dollars, and some of their own and others' perhaps, but our tax dollars, Israel destroyed Gaza. The President himself has said that Gaza is no longer habitable. These are not the exact words. Israel and the United States of America, represented by their various agents, are now indicating that Gaza can be taken over.

I marveled, quite frankly, at something that happened. The President of the United States of America said: I talked to everybody, and everybody I have talked to agrees.

Apparently, the Saudis didn't agree. Apparently, the Jordanians didn't agree. The Egyptians didn't agree. The Europeans didn't agree. There seems to be great disagreement with what the President said he would do in Gaza.

Mr. President, for your edification, and Mr. Prime Minister, for your education and edification, you should have talked to the Palestinians. You talked to people other than the Palestinians about what would happen to the Palestinians. The Palestinians are not cattle, and they are not animals that you can herd and push in one corner or decide you can go here and be happy. The Palestinians have the right to self- determination in their land.

Gaza belongs to Palestinians. At one time that whole area was called Palestine. Now you can't find Palestine on a map.

I want you to know, Mr. Netanyahu, that what you said when you said this was worthy of consideration, you were agreeing with what the President of the United States said. I want both of you to know that this act, what you are proposing, was ethnic cleansing. It is ethnic cleansing, Mr. President. It is ethnic cleansing, Mr. Prime Minister.

The two of you are superpowers. We are a global superpower, the United States of America. Israel is a regional superpower. You can operationalize what you say. You ought to be careful about the things that you say when you are speaking about the lives of other people. I want you to know, the two of you, that what you have done cannot be erased. It is indelible. It is indelible. It is a stain on Israel, and it will be a stain on Israel.

From now until the end of time, people will remember that the Prime Minister of Israel, the Prime Minister of the state that passed a law that said that from the river of the sea there will be no Palestinian state. That is what the Israeli Knesset did. The Prime Minister of Israel has agreed that the Palestinians could be taken away or moved and that the United States would take over Gaza.

Mr. Prime Minister and Mr. President, what you have done brings shame onto both countries. I love my country, but you have brought shame on it.

That doesn't mean I don't still love it, because I love what it stands for. I salute the flag, say the Pledge of Allegiance, and sing the national anthem. However, the greatness of America is not in whether I will do these things. The greatness of America is in whether we will appreciate and allow people who do not do these things to have the freedom to do them.

What I am saying to both of you is this: You brought shame on your respective countries, the United States of America and Israel. That shame is something that you cannot walk back. You can't crawl it back. You can't slither it back.

You brought shame on two great countries, and I assure you that it will live on your records and live in the annals of time forever, a day that will live in infamy, February 4.

It also calls to mind something else. It calls to mind now how this didn't just start on February 4, 2025. It started in 1948, when the United States of America was the first country to recognize Israel as a country. When we did it, we did not recognize a state for the Palestinians.

That was the genesis of it, and it has now come to fruition that the Israelis, by and through their Prime Minister, desire to have us take over Gaza.

This is shameful. Here is what I think has to happen, and I speak for myself and everybody who agrees with me: I will boycott. I will boycott.

I want my colleagues to hear that. You have put us in a position such that, if we disapprove of this kind of invidious discrimination and harm that is being perpetrated, we can't say anything about it. I am saying: I will boycott.

My first boycott will take place when there is a vote on sending more money, more tax dollars, to Israel. If you bring a standalone bill to the floor, I am going to boycott with my vote. I will not vote to send another dime to Israel. Israel has to do more than simply say: Well, what we said the other day was not a big deal. We were just talking about a temporary relocation.

That is not what you said. We are not going to let you crawl that back, so I am going to boycott.

I know that there are persons who believe that to say that is somehow inappropriate. I am saying it live here and now. I will boycott.

I also understand that if I or someone else, any two of my colleagues, took to a podium and have it televised, and if you would say, ``I believe we ought to buy Israel and ought to relocate the Israelis,'' I believe that if you said that, they would never live it down. Members would be called anti-Semitic if they talked about relocating Israel the same way people are talking about relocating the people of Gaza, the Palestinians. You would be anti-Semitic.

What does that make the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel? You have to be anti-Palestinian. You cannot say what you said and not be anti-Palestinian.

This day is going to live in infamy. This will be forever a part of your history--anti-Palestinian. It didn't just start in that moment in time. It had to be a part of the Knesset of Israel when they voted. They voted to not have a Palestinian state west of the Jordan. That is another way of saying: From the river to the sea, there will be no Palestinian state.

You can't say that in this country. If you say that, you will be labeled an anti-Semite. If you say that and you are a Member of Congress, you will be brought into the House and you would be sanctioned for it. It happened to one of my colleagues, someone that I have respect for--may I change that--I have great respect for.

It happened to her, Rashida Tlaib. ``From the river to the sea,'' and you are sanctioned, but you can pass a law in the Knesset saying that from the river to the sea, there will be no Palestinian state?

It was a slogan that she could not operationalize, by the way. You can operationalize what you say, Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister. Yet, you don't want others to say what you are doing. You talk about how the Palestinians--more specifically, Hamas--are an existential threat to Israel.

You, Mr. President, and you, Mr. Prime Minister, are not just an existential threat. You are operationalizing that threat. You are, as I speak and as you spoke, making your plans to take over Gaza.

You ought to have some sense of justice, righteousness, and fair play, which seems to be absent from your very souls for you to say these things and then deny others the ability to say them--to have already done this, denied others the ability of saying what you are doing.

There is no amount of shame that you can show now. I assure you this will be a stain on your records forever and a stain on the State of Israel and on the United States of America that you would go to the podium and do this.

You have done other things, Mr. President. I am not going to go through an entire laundry list. I will talk about many of these things from time to time.

I want you to know, Mr. President, that I--personal pronoun--standing alone here in the House of Representatives, not looking for a cheering crowd, not looking for people to pat me on the back--most of the people don't bother to care, it seems--but I--I--will bring what you fear the most because you have talked about how you think that we shouldn't have done what we did. I, who laid the foundation for impeachment in the House of Representatives, along with the Honorable Maxine Waters--I don't want to ever take away the role that she played because she was there, but I--I will bring Articles of Impeachment to this floor.

I will bring Articles of Impeachment to the floor of the House of Representatives. I am not saying that the Articles of Impeachment will be about this, and I am not saying what I am talking about today, February 4, 2025, being a day to live in infamy, and I am not saying that they won't. I am not saying what will be in those Articles of Impeachment now because those Articles of Impeachment will become a reality on the floor after a passage of time.

We need to make sure that time has given other people an understanding. You know that I support peaceful protests. At some point, there will be people in the streets peacefully protesting with signs with ``impeachment'' on them.

It is going to happen. When it happens, I will come back to this floor at some point. I may come back before. I will come back before, in fact, because what I will do will help to lay the foundation for the impeachment that is to come.

By the way, I have 4 years to do it. I have 4 years. There is no rush, but I want you to know and I want this to help galvanize the public because marching is a great thing, but you have to have a goal. What is the endgame? For me, the endgame is to remove a President from office who would engage in ethnic cleansing.

There are other things that I shall not mention now that I would have him removed from office for.

You have to have the endgame, but that is the endgame for me. When I march--and I shall be marching soon. If I march alone, it will be to remove this President from office, and I have 4 years to do it. I have this Congress, and there is another Congress.

Now, there are some people who will agree with me if we take back the House. If we never take back the House, I am going to do it because people need to know that there is a certain amount of courage within these Chambers.

There are people who will not stand for what we are seeing, who won't stand for taking over the Department of Education, who won't stand for attempting to vitriolize the Nation, who won't stand for attempting to roll back the clock to segregation. There are some of us who won't stand for that.

There are some people who will not stand by and watch you eviscerate the FBI and install people who are going to be loyal to you and not the Constitution. There are some people who won't stand for it. Others will do things to indicate their positions. I am doing things to indicate my position.

I remember when I filed Articles of Impeachment before. It was after the President fired Mr. James Comey, the Director of the FBI.

He fired Mr. Comey because Mr. Comey was investigating him. Mr. Comey would not tell the President: I am not investigating you.

The President wanted Mr. Comey, out of loyalty and out of the President allowing him to be the Director--he expected Mr. Comey to say: Well, Mr. President, you are all clear. We are not investigating you.

Mr. Speaker, he fired Mr. Comey, and we did not impeach him for that. If we had impeached him for that, we might not be here today because we have given him reason to believe that if he could fire the Director for investigating him, why not fire everybody that was a part of that investigation, a lawful investigation, based on things that he did? It was a lawful investigation.

He believes he can do it. We cannot allow this kind of injustice to go unnoticed. We cannot take this notion of ``we will get to that when appropriate, at a later time.''

Now is the time to stand up to injustice. Now is the time to let people know that you have the guts, the courage, the moral turpitude, and the strength of your convictions. Stand up for your country. Stand against what you see happening.

How can you see the takeover of the constabulary, the FBI, the CIA? What Federal FBI agent will see the President commit a crime and call it to anybody's attention knowing that the President can fire him, knowing that the Supreme Court has already given him immunity, knowing that the President can take his livelihood?

We are putting the President not above the law but beyond the law, beyond any means of redress for the injustices he perpetrates.

That is not the country I want, and that is not the country my Republican friends across the aisle want. They are just too timid to say it. I am not.

I want you to know also, Mr. President, that you are doing them a disservice. Here is why you are doing them a disservice. It is because you can do these dastardly things and bring them along, drag them along, and put anybody you want in charge of the Department of Defense--put anybody you want, just anybody. It doesn't matter. That is your choice.

You can do these things, and they can support you, but here is where you harm them: America is going to wake up. Some of them won't be coming back to Congress. You don't worry about getting reelected; some of them do. You are putting them in a bad position.

Someone will say, well, Al Green, you may not come back to Congress. If I don't come back, I will know that, before I left, I spoke truth not only to power but about power.

Many of them will just leave in shame, afraid, in fear of the President, afraid that he will try to get Elon to spend $25 million against him just as they did Jamaal, just as they did Corey, and we never said a word about those. That is another speech.

My point to you is, we cannot allow this kind of injustice to go unnoticed.

I assure you that what you have done to bring shame on yourselves, what you have done, Mr. President and Mr. Prime Minister, to disgrace the countries that you represent will live in infamy. It will live in the records of the Congress of the United States of America not only by virtue of this speech but also by written words that will be placed in the Record, so that those who look through the vista of time, when they look upon this time, they will know who had the guts to stand here in the House of Representatives and call out your injustices.

Mr. Speaker, I am a person who is not afraid of what I have been and am not. I am reaching my final comments.

These are my final comments. I have said I am a liberated Democrat, unbought, unbossed, unafraid. I am also woke, not in the sense that my colleagues have redefined the words to suit their unjust means, but in the sense that it has been defined, more specifically, in a dictionary.

I am awake, and I understand injustice and prejudice. I know what it looks like. I had the clan burn a cross in my yard. I know what it smells like. I have been called ugly names. I know what it sounds like. I had to go to the back door in my lifetime to use restrooms that were never cleaned it seems. I know what it hurts like because I have felt the pain myself of invidious discrimination.

So I am woke. I know injustice when I see it, and what occurred on February 4th was an injustice. I am woke, and I have this flag. This is my favorite T-shirt. I took a picture of it rather than wear it on the floor.

I am woke and the flag says I love my country in spite of all this country has done to me. I still love my country because I love what it stands for, not the behavior that it exhibits at all times.

Then I have Black lives matter. I am woke, and I want you to know that Black lives matter. I am saying I want you to know this because they do. Someone would say, but Al, don't you know that all lives matter? Yes, but when my mother was ill and she was in the hospital and I spoke to the doctors and I knew there were other people who were sick, but we were talking about my mother. I didn't say: Doctor, everybody is sick. I want you to go out there and help them all. I did want everyone to recover, but I knew the suffering of my mother. So I explained to the doctor: I want you to take care of her. I want you to treat her with dignity and respect. I want her to be a patient that means something to you.

My mother's life mattered. If somebody had asked me, I would have said my mother's life mattered. Well, Black lives matter. Black people suffered 240-plus years of slavery. Black people suffered 100 years of invidious discrimination after having suffered--and there are 95 graves in Texas that prove what I am about to say. Black codes were literally used on people to place them in jail, then they would lease them out, and many of them would never ever have freedom again. It was convict leasing. 240-plus years of slavery, years of convict leasing, black codes, and then 100 years thereabout of invidious discrimination known as segregation, which was really racism by any name. So Black lives matter.

I have to say this because invidious discrimination against Black people still exists, and if I don't have the courage to say that Black lives matter, who should?

I was elected by a good constituency, many of whom are Black. I fight for Latinos. I fight for the LGBTQ community. I fight against anti- Islamics. I fight for justice for all, including women. I fight for justice for all, including all of the various religious groups, but that doesn't mean that I can't tell you that Black lives matter because of the suffering that Black people have endured and still endure.

Black lives matter because America is not a meritocracy. I hear my colleagues talking about how we should not have any DEI programs because this is a meritocracy. Well, find another reason because it is not a meritocracy.

If America were a meritocracy where the most qualified person would get the job, you would have somebody else as Secretary of Defense. It is not a meritocracy. It is a country currently where conservative, White, wealthy men have power and where they are willing to use it.

Black lives matter, I am woke, and I am proud to be an American.

I will close with the remedy for all of these problems, Mr. Speaker. Here is the remedy for all of these problems.

They are found in a poem that I didn't write. The style of the poem is ``The Cold Within.'' It speaks to what we shouldn't do and in understanding what we shouldn't do, we can understand what we must do. The Cold Within: Six humans trapped by happenstance in black and bitter cold. Each one possessed a stick of wood or so the story's told. Their dying fire in need of logs, the first man held his back. Because on the faces around the fire he noticed one was Black. And the next man looking across the way saw one not of his church and he couldn't convince himself to give the fire his stick of birch. The third man sat in tattered clothes. He gave his coat a hitch. Why should his stick of wood be put to use to warm the idle rich? And the rich man just sat back and thought of all the wealth he had in store and to how to keep what he had earned from the lazy, shiftless poor. And the last man of the forlorn group did nought except for gain. Giving only to those who gave was how he played the game. Their logs held tight in death's still hands. They didn't die from the cold without, they died from the cold within.

My dear brothers and sisters, people of goodwill, eliminate the cold within your hearts. Unite to fight the injustices that can cause us to lose our country.

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