[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 62 (Tuesday, May 13, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H2549-H2552]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONCERNING THE DEATH OF CHAIM HERZOG
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to
the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 73) concerning the death of
Chaim Herzog.
The Clerk read as follows:
H. Con. Res. 73
Whereas Chaim Herzog, the sixth President of the State of
Israel, passed away on Thursday, April 17, 1997;
Whereas Chaim Herzog, in his very life exemplified the
struggles and triumphs of the State of Israel;
Whereas Chaim Herzog had a brilliant military, business,
legal, political, and diplomatic career;
Whereas Chaim Herzog represented Israel at the United
Nations from 1975-1978 and with great eloquence defended
Israel and its values against the forces of darkness and
dictatorship;
Whereas Chaim Herzog, as President of Israel from 1983-
1993, set a standard for honor and rectitude; and
Whereas Chaim Herzog was a great friend of the United
States of America and as President of Israel had the honor of
addressing a joint meeting of the United States Congress on
November 10, 1987: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That--
(1) the Congress of the United States notes with great
sadness the passing of Chaim Herzog, a great leader of Israel
and a great friend of America and the Congress sends its
deepest condolences to the entire Herzog family and to the
Government and people of Israel; and
(2) a copy of this resolution shall be transmitted to the
Speaker of the Knesset in Jerusalem, to President Ezer
Weizman of Israel, and to Mrs. Aura Herzog of Herzlia,
Israel.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter] and the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton]
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter].
(Mr. BEREUTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this resolution is very simple; it is to
express the condolences of the House to the family of Chaim Herzog, the
late President of the State of Israel, and to the people and Government
of that State. Chaim Herzog was, as many know, the son of a rabbi, in
fact, the son of the Chief Rabbi of Ireland. He became a soldier in the
British Army, landing in Normandy and running British intelligence in
northern Germany. Later he was a lawyer and a diplomat serving in the
Israeli Embassy in Washington, and as Permanent Representative to the
United Nations. In the culmination of his career, he became the
President of the State of Israel.
The President of Israel is its Head of State, standing above politics
but critical to the public life of the country and a symbol of its
unity.
Mr. Speaker, this Member joins with my colleagues in expressing our
thanks for the life of Chaim Herzog and our condolences to his family
in Israel and his friends and admirers around the world.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from New York [Mr.
Gilman] and the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] for bringing this
resolution before the House. I commend both of them for their
leadership on this resolution.
As has been explained by the distinguished gentleman from Nebraska,
Chaim Herzog was the sixth President of the State of Israel. He had a
very brilliant military, business, legal, political and diplomatic
career. He was a great leader of Israel, and a great friend of America.
Those of us who knew him personally knew him to be a man of
extraordinary compassion, exceedingly gracious, and had about him a
great lack of pretense, despite his extraordinary achievements.
[[Page H2550]]
{time} 1600
It is fitting that the Congress commemorate his life and his work,
and send its deepest condolences to the entire Herzog family, and to
the Government and the people of Israel. I urge the adoption of the
resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to note the assistance of Mr. James
Soriano, a Pearson Fellow from the Department of State who has been on
our full committee staff for the past year, and helped us with this
resolution and many other items during that period.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman
from New York [Mr. Gilman].
Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to
me.
Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman from Indiana [Mr.
Burton] for offering this sense-of-Congress resolution commemorating
the life of former President of Israel Chaim Herzog. I appreciate the
vice chairman of our committee, the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr.
Bereuter], for bringing this measure to the floor at this time. I want
to commend the ranking minority member, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr.
Hamilton], for his support of the resolution.
Mr. Speaker, we were all saddened to learn of the passing last month
of former President of Israel Chaim Herzog. Mr. Herzog's life mirrored
the birth and early history of the State of Israel, and during his
career he served as a distinguished soldier, author, and diplomat.
Mr. Herzog was born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1918, the son of a rabbi.
He emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1935. He served as an officer in
the British Army during World War II, and landed with allied troops in
Normandy in 1944. Later on he served with distinction in defending
Israeli from Arab attack during Israel's war of independence in 1948.
After the June 1967 war Mr. Herzog was appointed Israel's first
military governor of the West Bank. In the 1970's he served at the
Israeli Embassy in Washington, and was later named Israel's ambassador
to the United Nations. He was the author of several books, including
``Israel's Finest Hour,'' a historical account of the 1967 war. This
illustrious career continued with his service as Israel's President in
1983.
Mr. Speaker, Chaim Herzog has been described by his contemporaries as
a man of war who loved peace. We extend to his family and to the people
of Israel our deepest condolences for the passing of a true gentlemen,
a true leader who helped shape the history of Israel and who also
pursued peace. We once again thank the gentleman from Indiana [Mr.
Hamilton] for his thoughtfulness in supporting this measure, and I
thank the gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter] for his leadership.
Ms. HARMON. Mr. Speaker, the world lost a great statesman and a
friend of peace last month when former Israeli President Chaim Herzog
passed away.
Today, the House considers a resolution which expresses the
condolences of the American people to the Herzog family and the people
of Israel on the occasion of President Herzog's death. As a cosponsor
of the resolution I strongly urge its passage.
Chaim Herzog led an extraordinary and inspiring life, playing a role
in many of the events central to the international Jewish community
during the 20th Century. The son of Ireland's Chief Rabbi, later Chief
Rabbi of Israel, Herzog first came to the Jewish homeland in 1935 as a
yeshiva student. By the age of 16, he had joined the Haganah, the
underground precursor to today's Israel Defense Forces. During World
War II, as an officer in the British Army, he was part of the first
Allied formation to cross into Germany and was present at the
liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Herzog also played a vital role in the political and military
development of the State of Israel from the date of its establishment.
He helped design the new state's famed intelligence agency and served
as a general in its army. In the aftermath of the Six-Day War, Herzog
became the military governor of the West Bank and Jerusalem.
But Herzog's greatest contributions on the world stage came during
his tenure as Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, where he
forcefully battled unfair resolutions equating Zionism with racism, and
as President of Israel, a position he held for 10 years.
Last Summer, it was my privilege to welcome Ambassador Herzog to my
congressional district where he spoke at Temple Ner Tamid.
Mr. Speaker, throughout his long and distinguished career, Chaim
Herzog held a firm and clear vision of a safe Israel in a peaceful
Middle East. We would all do well to follow his example in our pursuit
of that same goal. I urge my colleagues to pass this resolution, as a
tribute to this great man.
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to have
introduced this resolution expressing the sympathy of the Congress and
of the American people over the death of Chaim Herzog. I am very
pleased that we were able to move this resolution to the floor very
quickly and I thank the chairman of the International Relations
Committee, my friend Ben Gilman of New York for his support and
leadership.
All of us were sadded to learn recently about the death of Chaim
Herzog at the age of 78. As staunch friends of the State of Israel and
the people of Israel, we share their grief and their sorrow.
Chaim Herzog was truly a hero of Israel and also a great friend of
America. Like Yitzhak Rabin, whose death we also mourned all too early,
Chaim Herzog lived a life that was a mirror of the drama of his
country. Born in Belfast, he was the son of the Chief Rabbi of Ireland.
As a boy, he moved to the land of Israel, where his father became Chief
Rabbi.
Chaim Herzog fought in the British Armed Forces in World War II and
participated in the liberation of the death camps, an experience that
influenced the rest of his life. During Israel's war of independence
Herzog played a critical role in the battle for Jerusalem. He then
became chief of military intelligence.
During the Six Day War--almost 30 years ago--General Herzog's radio
broadcasts helped to lift the morale of the people of Israel.
In 1975, he was named Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations where
he served with courage and defended his country with great eloquence.
It was Herzog who stood up to defend Israel against the odious and
false charge that Zionism is a form of racism. This is what Herzog said
in his brilliant speech on that occasion: ``The vote of each delegation
will record in history its country's stand on antisemitic racism and
anti-Judaism. You, yourselves bear the responsibility for your stand
before history. For as such, you will be viewed in history * * *. For
us, the Jewish people, this is but a passing episode in a rich and
event-filled history * * *. This resolution based on hatred, falsehood,
and arrogance is devoid of any moral or legal value.''
Mr. Speaker, to this day, the fact that the United Nations General
Assembly passed that resolution stands as a severe indictment of the
United Nations itself. I am very proud to have been a delegate to the
United Nations in 1991 when that immoral resolution was finally
repealed and I am proud to have participated in the effort to repeal
it.
Let me conclude by noting that Chaim Herzog capped this event-filled
and achievement-filled life with his election as President of Israel in
1983. He served for 10 years, set a new standard for dignity, honor,
and decency and he also addressed a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress
in 1987.
Mr. Speaker, it is fitting and appropriate that this Congress express
its sadness over the death of Chaim Herzog and convey its sympathy to
the people of Israel and to the Herzog family, Mrs. Aura Herzog and her
children Joel, Michael, Isaac, and Ronit and their respective families.
I urge the unanimous adoption of this resolution. Mr. Speaker, I
would also like to submit into the record the historic and moving
speech given by Chaim Herzog at the United Nations to which I referred.
And the obituary written about him in the New York Times.
[From the New York Times, Apr. 18, 1997]
Chaim Herzog, 78, Former President of Israel
(By Eric Pace)
Chaim Herzog, Israel's outspoken president from 1983 to
1993, died on Thursday at Tel Hashomer Hospital in Tel Aviv.
He was 78, and lived in Herzliya Pituach, a suburb of Tel
Aviv.
The cause was heart failure after he contracted pneumonia
on a recent visit to the United States, said Rachel Sofer,
spokesman for the hospital.
Herzog, a former general, was Israel's chief delegate to
the United Nations from 1975 to 1978, a critical period,
after serving as its director of military intelligence and,
in 1967, as the first military governor of the occupied West
Bank. Over the years, he was also a businessman, a lawyer, an
author and a Labor Party member of the Israeli Parliament.
In his two successive five-year terms as Israel's sixth
chief of state, he strove to enlarge the president's role,
which in Israel is
[[Page H2551]]
largely ceremonial, by making public declarations on issues
that leaders in government would not, or could not, address.
Herzog argued in favor of greater rights for the Druse and
Arab populations in Israel, declaring: ``I am the president
of Arabs and Druse, as well as Jews.'' He worked actively to
make political pariahs of Rabbi Meir Kahane and his fervently
anti-Arab Kach Party.
In addition, Herzog was an outspoken though unsuccessful
lobbyist for comprehensive change in the Israeli voting
system, which has spawned a jigsaw-puzzle of political
parties and frequent parliamentary stalemates.
By late 1987, as his first term was drawing to a close and
while a national unity government was in power, he had
probably become more influential and popular than any
previous Israeli president.
This was largely because the Labor and Likud party partners
in that government were always bickering and frequently
turned to him to arbitrate their disagreements. Moreover,
groups of Israelis, like farmers and nurses, were always
looking to him for aid that they could not get from the
deadlocked Cabinet.
Through the years, Herzog also made use of the Israeli
president's power to pardon convicted criminals--and
sometimes was criticized for doing so. In addition, he
exercised the president's power to determine, after
elections, which political party has the first opportunity to
assemble a government.
His urbane, outgoing nature and his earlier roles in his
country's life fitted him to serve as a symbol of Israeli
unity during his years as president.
A descendant of rabbis, and a witness of Nazi
concentration-camp horrors while he was an officer in the
British army in World War II, he was steeped in the splendors
and sorrows of Jewish history. He was also cosmopolitan, with
the trace of a brogue from his native Belfast, Northern
Ireland, and an education gained largely in Britain.
As the chief delegate to the United Nations, Herzog led
Israel's defense against Arab attempts to oust it. In 1975,
when the General Assembly passed a resolution equating
Zionism with racism, he went to the rostrum and defiantly
tore a copy of the resolution in two. Seventeen years later,
the Assembly repealed the resolution.
Herzog was in the Israeli Defense Force at his country's
birth in 1948, rose to the rank of major general and served
twice as director of military intelligence, from 1948 to 1950
and from 1959 to 1962.
Then he retired, only to return as the West Bank's military
governor just after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, in which
Israel, in an overwhelming victory, captured the West Bank
and other territory from neighboring Arab countries.
He also became noted, among Israelis, for radio
commentaries he gave on military subjects before and during
that six-day war. He used the radio to urge Israelis to stay
in their air-raid shelters during alerts, and in one widely
quoted broadcast he told his listeners that they were in much
less danger where they were than was the attacking Egyptian
air force.
Herzog was first elected president by the Israeli
Parliament, in 1983, in a rebuff to Prime Minister Menachem
Begin's governing coalition of that day. By a vote of 61 to
57, with two blank ballots, Parliament chose him over the
government's candidate, Justice Menachem Elon of the Supreme
Court, to succeed President Yitzhak Navon of the Labor Party.
In 1988, Herzog was elected by Parliament to a second term,
the maximum permitted by Israeli law. In that balloting, he
was unopposed, having the sponsorship of the Labor Party as
well as wide backing from the right-wing Likud bloc, Labor's
partner in the coalition government of the time.
He was succeeded on May 13, 1993, by Ezer Weizman, a former
defense minister and the nephew of Israel's first president,
Chaim Weizman. Ezer Weizman had been elected by Parliament on
March 24, 1993.
As president, Herzog was sometimes acid in his criticisms
of the Israeli national voting system. In an interview in
1992, he said: ``The system we have is a catastrophe. It
allows for fragmentation and wheeling and dealing and gives
inordinate power to small groupings.''
He was also something of a gadfly on a variety of other
issues during his presidency. He was one of the few prominent
figures in Israeli politics to comment regularly on Israel's
high incidence of fatal vehicular accidents. By late 1992,
drivers had killed 20 times more Israelis in the last five
years than had the Palestinian uprising, almost 2,300
people.
``If the enemy had slain us to this extent, the country
would quake and we would be shaking in our foundations,''
Herzog declared then in a message for the Jewish New Year.
Earlier that year, at a time when Jewish settlers in the
Israeli-occupied territories had taken various measures in
retaliation for Arab acts of violence, he denounced
vigilantism, saying in a radio broadcast: ``The phenomenon of
taking the law into one's hands, of attacking innocents and
interfering with the dedicated work of the security forces,
endangers our foundations and future.''
Later in the year, with Israel not able to integrate all
the new arrivals from the former Soviet republics fully into
its economic life, Herzog proposed setting up soup kitchens
for immigrants, and was criticized for doing so.
He also spurred controversy sometimes by his use of the
presidential power to pardon. In the mid-1980s, he was
criticized for pardoning agents of the Shin Bet security
service and its chief, who was charged with commanding that
two Palestinian bus hijackers be summarily executed.
In an interview in early 1993, Herzog noted that he had
condemned ``what had happened.'' But he added that Israel was
locked in combat with terrorists, and that to take the
security-service personnel ``and put them on trial, and have
each one bringing all sorts of evidence to prove that he
wasn't the worst and so on, could have torn the Shin Bet to
pieces just when we didn't need that.''
In addition, loud dissent arose after Herzog commuted the
sentences of members of what was called a Jewish underground
organization that had tried to kill local Palestinian
functionaries.
He later contended that reducing the penalties against some
of the convicted members, and making them decry their deeds,
had helped to shatter their group.
As president, he traveled widely. He was among the world
figures who, along with survivors of the Holocaust, gathered
in Washington in April 1993 to dedicate the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum. There he described his horror when he came
upon Bergen-Belsen and other Nazi death camps as a British
officer.
``No one who saw those terrifying scenes,'' he said, ``will
ever forget.''
In 1992, to mark the 500th anniversary of the expulsion of
the Jews from Spain, Herzog went to Madrid and prayed
together with Spain's king, Juan Carlos, in a gesture
symbolizing reconciliation between their peoples.
But Herzog did not become reconciled with the nations that
had presented the 1975 U.N. resolution. In the 1993
interview, while still president, he said:
``Of the three countries that presented the Zionism as
racism resolution, one has relations with us although no
embassy--that's Benin. Two still don't have relations--one
which has relations with nobody, namely Somalia, and one
which is in great trouble, namely Cuba. They were the three
sponsors of that resolution, these bastions of democracy and
freedom.''
Herzog was born on Sept. 17, 1918, in Belfast, the son of
Rabbi Isaac Halevy Herzog, who was the chief rabbi of Ireland
and later became the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of
Israel, and the former Sarah Hillman.
The Herzog family emigrated to Palestine in the mid-1930s,
and the future president had three years of schooling at the
Hebron Yeshiva there. The educational institutions where he
later studied included Wesley College in Dublin, the
Government of Palestine Law School in Jerusalem, and London
and Cambridge universities.
In the British army during World War II, he served with the
Guards Armored Division and in intelligence on the Continent.
He was discharged and then joined the Jewish underground in
Palestine before Israel was founded.
After his retirement from the military in 1962, he was for
some years a high executive of a conglomerate of industrial
enterprises that Sir Isaac Wolfson, a British businessman,
owned in Israel.
Over the years he wrote, was a co-author of, or edited more
than half a dozen books, including ``The Arab-Israeli Wars''
(Random House and Vintage, 1982), ``Heroes of Israel''
(Little, Brown, 1989) and ``Living History: A Memoir''
(Pantheon, 1996).
He is survived by his wife of 50 years, the former Aura
Ambache; three sons Joel, Michael and Yitzhak, and a
daughter, Ronit Bronsky. All his children live in Israel
except for Joel, who lives in Geneva. Herzog is also survived
by eight grandchildren.
In his memoirs he wrote: ``I pray that my children and
grandchildren will see a strong and vigorous Israel at peace
with its neighbors and continuing to represent the traditions
that have sustained our people throughout the ages.''
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I wish to add my support for this
resolution honoring Chaim Herzog, former President of Israel and friend
of America.
When Chaim Herzog gave that tremendously moving speech at the United
Nations, he was defending not only Israel, but democracy and decency
everywhere.
The United Nations which condemned Zionism also gave Fidel Castro a
standing ovation. The fight for moral values which Chaim Herzog carried
out with such courage, still continues.
In this very Chamber, Chaim Herzog addressed a joint meeting of this
Congress on November 10, 1987, the anniversary of his U.N. speech and
of Kristallnacht, the Nazi riots that signaled the beginning of the
Holocaust in 1938. Chaim Herzog will be missed, but will always be
remembered.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Nebraska [Mr. Bereuter] that the House suspend the rules
and agree to the concurrent resolution, House Concurrent Resolution 73.
[[Page H2552]]
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the concurrent resolution was
agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________