Condemning the Recent Attacks Against the state of Israel
CONDEMNING THE RECENT ATTACKS AGAINST THE STATE OF ISRAEL -- (House of Representatives - July 19, 2006)
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Mr. SHERMAN. Madam Speaker, for 10 years I have come to this floor to explain Israel's peril and justify its action. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Hezbollah and Hamas for doing a far better job than I ever could, for they have announced that their policy is the destruction of Israel, the ethnic cleansing of the Middle East of all Jews. Ultimately it is a pogrom of genocide. And they are now using the very territory from which Israel has withdrawn to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible.
If their efforts have not yet risen to the level of genocide, it is only because their rockets often fail to hit their targets. And let's not mince words, their targets are always Israeli civilians.
Israel withdrew from Gaza; kidnappers and missiles come from Gaza into Israel. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon, and now kidnappers and missiles come into Israel from southern Lebanon, not just recently, but continuously over the last 6 years.
Five kidnapping raids, thousands of missiles, 6 years of attacks. If anyone is going to say that Israel's reaction is disproportionate, let them say that Israel is doing too little.
Let me speak to those who may be skeptical of this resolution. We all want peace, and peace can only come if Israel withdraws from certain territories. Yet the Israelis must know that when they vacate a territory, that territory will not be used as a rocket-launching pad against Israel, and that if it ever is, that Israel will have the full support of the United States and of this Congress. We cannot have peace, we cannot have any Israeli territorial concessions unless we show Israel that we will support them when they have made those concessions.
There are those who urge a cease-fire. I hope we get there soon. But this all started with rockets and kidnapping, and it would be a phony cease-fire unless the soldiers are returned, and unless Hezbollah is disarmed as required by U.N. Resolution 1559.
There are those who talk of prisoner exchanges, but we should not tell Israel to exchange the guilty for the innocent, nor should we tell them to release those who would resume their terror.
We in Congress should call every major ambassador from Europe and demand that Europe list Hezbollah as a terrorist entity and stop Europeans from sending money to Hezbollah.
And, finally, we all need to call the World Bank and say that it is time for the World Bank to stop making loans and giving aid to Iran, which, after all, is the source of the money and the missiles that Hezbollah is using. It is time for the World Bank to stop its loans to Iran, and to not disburse funds that have already been approved until that government changes its policy.
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