Israel

Floor Speech

Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise to dispel a dangerous notion, one I have seen too frequently in newspapers, heard on TV and among people, commentators and others in the wake of the violence in Israel.

The dangerous notion is that there is a moral equivalence between the actions and reactions of Israel and the Palestinian State to the violence and response in the Middle East--or the Palestinian people more so than the State. It must be said there is no moral equivalence between the actions and reactions of Israel and Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to the violence that has occurred there.

Two instances make that very clear. We all witnessed terrible tragedies occurring in that tortured region of the world. We are now all familiar with both the kidnapping and cold-blooded murder of three Israeli boys and, in what seems to be payback, the killing of a young Palestinian teenager. Both were abhorrent--both were abhorrent--and the losses of the families on both sides cannot be understated, but I think what we ought to focus on--we all know each side has its fanatics. Each side experiences tragedy of the highest order. What I am saying does not apply to all the people on either side, particularly the Palestinian side, but the reaction is what counts.

What was the reaction among too many Palestinians to the murder of these three boys? They were almost exultant. They were treated as heroes. The mother of one of the supposed murderers, people who are suspected of the murder of the Israelis, Abu Aysha, said: ``If he [my son] truly did it--I'll be proud of him till my final day.'' That is what she said: ``I'll be proud. ..... ''

Those who were purported to kill the three Israelis were regarded as heroes, not just among a small segment in the West Bank and in Gaza but among large numbers of people. There were parades. They were honored. That was the reaction.

Let's compare that to Israel's reaction when a group of Israeli fanatics killed the Palestinian teenager. The Israeli people, in large part, were aghast. They said we have to find who did it and bring them to justice. Prime Minister Netanyahu called them terrorists, those who might have killed that Palestinian, equal to the terrorism on the other side of the three who killed the Israelis.

Israel made every effort to find those and have now made arrests. While the leader of the Palestinian Authority condemned the killing of the three Israeli boys, there was no such effort on the Palestinian side to find those who did it, to bring them to justice. There were no calls of universal condemnation.

How can we compare the two sides? How can people say: Oh, the Israelis. Oh, the Palestinians. It is one big fight. They are all the same.

It is not. Again, regretfully, there are fanatics on both sides, and I abhor the Israeli fanatics. They make things bad for the vast majority of Israelis who want to live in peace in a two-state solution, but the vast majority of Israelis condemn the Jewish fanatics. The vast majority of Palestinians seem to praise the Palestinian terrorists. Hamas, one of the two main governing organizations in Gaza and the West Bank, loudly praises the kidnapping and killing of the three Israeli boys.

Is there moral equivalency here? Are both sides sort of acting the same?

By the way, when you read Palestinian textbooks and go to schools and read about what the children are taught--vitriolic hatred, not only of Israel but of the Jewish people--you sometimes understand maybe why not support but condemn and sort of gain some inkling of understanding of why so many are filled with hatred. But who is putting out those textbooks? Not just Hamas--the Palestinian Authority and many Palestinian governing units.

So the reaction of Israel, its government and its society, to the killing of an innocent Palestinian youth and the reaction of the Palestinian authorities and people, in large part, to the killing of three Israeli youths showed there is no moral equivalency because the reaction was totally different.

Then let's take what happened yesterday. It is the same thing. You read all the headlines, Israelis and Palestinians fighting with each other, rockets sent on both sides, air raids sent on both sides, but let's look at what happened. Hamas sent rockets into the heart of Israel to kill innocent civilians--no warnings, not in response to anything Israel did. They just decided to send these rockets. Some commentators say it is because they are weak now that Egypt will no longer let them get all those supplies through the tunnels.

What is Israel's response? Of course they have to eliminate the rockets and rocket launchers, but what other society sends leaflets to the houses that have these rocket launchers, saying: Please vacate.

What other society tries to call people on cell phones to say: Leave. We have to get rid of the rocket launchers. We don't want to kill innocent people.

That is what Israel did. Did Hamas send any warnings to the people of Sderot or Beersheba or Jerusalem or Tel Aviv that they were going to indiscriminately send rockets into civilian areas? No. Did Hamas do this in response to Israel? No. So this idea again in the papers--oh, both sides are fighting, what can we do, they are both sort of equally wrong--is morally abhorrent to me and to many others.

There is, in conclusion, no moral equivalency, no moral equivalency to weigh these two states and, frankly, in large part, with two exceptions, how two societies react: the horrible murders of young people, Israel, sad, condemning the Israelis who did it, and too many Palestinians praising the Palestinians who did it. In response to rockets sent into civilian areas, Israel tries to limit its response to military targets and lets civilians who might be near those targets know they should evacuate.

We all pray for peace in the Middle East. I certainly do. There has been too much death, too much anguish, too much insecurity, but we are not going to achieve peace by equating the two sides and saying they are equivalent, morally or in any other way.

The steps the beleaguered nation of Israel takes to try and protect itself are far different than so many of the aggressive actions of too many on the Palestinian side, with too much support from too many of the Palestinian people.

There is no moral equivalency.

I yield the floor.

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