[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 71 (Thursday, June 4, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1018-E1020]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             SPEAKER GINGRICH ADDRESSES ISRAEL'S PARLIAMENT

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 4, 1998

  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to share 
with our colleagues the address the Speaker delivered at Israel's 
parliament during our visit last week in commemoration of Israel's 
jubilee anniversary. The Speaker's appearance at the Knesset podium was 
the first by any Speaker of the House of Representatives. Such a 
historic event reaffirms and underscores the bonds of friendship and 
cooperation between the United States and Israel, and especially 
between Israel and the Congress of the United States. Accordingly, 
while many of our colleagues were privileged to hear the Speaker 
deliver these moving remarks, I am certain that the remainder of our 
colleagues would appreciate having the opportunity to review these 
remarks as well.
  This congressional visit to Israel--to celebrate the miraculous 
rebirth of the modern State of Israel--was the largest visit of Members 
of the House and Senate to Israel in its fifty-year history. Under the 
Speaker's leadership, Members participated in valuable meetings with 
Prime Minister Netanyahu, and with Speaker Dan Tichon, with colleagues 
of ours in the Knesset. In what was a precedent-setting meeting, it was 
agreed that a US-Israel parliamentary group would be established, with 
the first bilateral focus to be on missile defense systems.
  We were also privileged to spend several hours with Minister of 
National Infrastructure Ariel Sharon, who took us to two settlements 
across the green line in the West Bank. At one site, known as Paduel, 
we saw across the entire coastal plain to Ben Gurion airport and the 
skyline of Tel Aviv. It was clear that Israel's security concerns are 
deep and real.
  In his remarks to the Knesset, Speaker Gingrich eloquently relayed 
the affection and respect we have for the people and State of Israel. 
It was a memorable and historic day for the Knesset, the Congress of 
the United States, and for the citizens our two great democratic 
institutions represent.
  Accordingly, I submit the Speaker's speech for the Knesset to be 
printed in the Congressional Record.


[[Page E1019]]



  Remarks by U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich to the Israeli Knesset, 
                Jerusalem, Israel, Tuesday, May 26, 1998

       Speaker Dan Tichon and Mrs. Tichon; ministers and deputy 
     ministers of the government of Israel; members of the 
     Knesset, former Knesset Speaker Shlomo Hillel; former members 
     of the Knesset; my congressional colleagues; distinguished 
     guests and friends--and as I look out, I see friends, many of 
     whom go back for many years--it is a great honor to stand 
     before you today in the Knesset, the one truly democratic 
     parliament in the entire Middle East. For 50 years, the 
     Knesset has led a nation that has gathered in people from 
     over a hundred lands, survived the perils of many wars, and 
     built a thriving nation out of the desert.
       As we celebrate the remarkable achievements of the last 50 
     years, let me simply say: kol hah-kavod--all honor to you. 
     Democratic leader Dick Gephardt and I have joined with the 
     largest bipartisan gathering of congressmen and senators ever 
     to visit Jerusalem. We are here to celebrate the 50th 
     anniversary of Israel's rebirth as a modern state. We 
     commemorate 50 years of a close and cooperative relationship 
     between our two countries and our two peoples.
       In a sense, however, we are not only celebrating the last 
     50 years. The American and Israeli people are bound together 
     by 3,000 years of a shared and ancient tradition. We are 
     bound together by a common spiritual experience.
       It is a bond that is felt most powerfully here, in this 
     city. As we overlook Jerusalem and look at the sights that 
     touched the lives of Abraham, David, and Christ, we 
     understand the depth of a relationship that is far more than 
     shared geopolitical interests. We are bound together morally. 
     Our two countries are committed to freedom, democracy, the 
     rule of law, and individual rights. We're bound together by 
     pure friendship.
       It has been a privilege for me to return to Israel and 
     spend time with your leaders, some of whom I've known for 
     almost 20 years. For Marianne, it has been a chance to see 
     friends she worked with on the Israel free trade zone issue.
       A member of our delegation, Congressman Tom Lantos, a 
     survivor of the Holocaust, first visited Israel in 1956. And 
     this is his 57th trip to visit Israel.
       Two key chairmen in our delegation, Bob Livingston and Ben 
     Gilman, have coupled their leadership in Congress with a deep 
     understanding and love for the land and people of Israel.
       Another member, Congressman Henry Waxman, returns to Israel 
     often to visit his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, 
     who live here.
       The ties that bind America to Israel are greater than the 
     economic and security interests that our nations share. We 
     are two nations grown from a common source, both forged by 
     the courage and imagination of pioneers and both expressing 
     in our founding documents our ultimate reliance on divine 
     providence.
       As we celebrate with you, we remember together the courage 
     of David, who established Jerusalem 3,000 years ago as the 
     political and spiritual capital of the Jewish people. We 
     commemorated that event the last time Marianne and I saw 
     Prime Minister Rabin alive, at an event in our Capitol, in 
     the Rotunda, to celebrate the 3,000th anniversary of 
     Jerusalem. Prime Minister Rabin spoke with deep emotion of 
     his own ties to Jerusalem, the city where he was born and the 
     city he fought to defend throughout his life. We in Congress 
     stood with him then and stand with you today in recognizing 
     Jerusalem as the united and eternal capital of Israel.
       We remember the commitment of the early Zionists who 
     convened the first Zionist Congress a century ago, lived 
     through the horror of the Holocaust, and finally, witnessed 
     the birth of a Jewish homeland in Eretz Yisrael. We remember 
     the story of the last 50 years, of a state that has survived 
     wars and countless acts of terrorism to maintain its place 
     among the nations. We remember with you because we believe 
     that the anniversary of Israel's rebirth is not just a 
     celebration for Israel alone, it is a celebration for all who 
     are inspired by the faith that was born in this land. It is a 
     celebration for all who see in Israel an outpost in the 
     struggle for freedom across the globe. And it is a 
     celebration for all who see in the fundamental relationship 
     between our two countries a remarkable history and a great 
     hope.
       For we are here to celebrate more than the first 50 years. 
     In a sense, we're here to celebrate the first 3,000 years. 
     And we're not just here to look ahead with you to the next 50 
     years; we dream of how we and our children can build a future 
     that holds more than the hope for mere survival, a future 
     that can lead to a lasting prosperity, an enduring peace, and 
     a truly free land. Such a future, one marked by peace, 
     prosperity and freedom, must be built upon an unending 
     commitment to security for those who seek peace.
       One of our greatest presidents, Ronald Reagan, had a simple 
     strategy to expand freedom across the globe. It came down to 
     three words: peace through strength. He knew that strength 
     was the key to security and that security was essential to 
     peace. He knew that a lasting peace required a durable 
     security.
       This truth was reinforced for me in a personal and powerful 
     way during this trip to Israel. On Sunday, we visited the 
     Weizman Institute, where we met with some of your most 
     talented scientists to learn about the technological 
     breakthroughs that will shape our mutual future. As we were 
     leaving, I spoke to Manuela Deviri, whose son Yoni was killed 
     in Lebanon on February 26th of this year. A 20-year-old staff 
     sergeant from Kfar Saba, he served in an intelligence unit 
     and died when a mortar round struck his position. Manuela 
     had, in Abraham Lincoln's words, laid the most costly 
     sacrifice on the altar of freedom. She had lost her son. She 
     still has another son and a daughter and a granddaughter. Yet 
     she said to me unequivocally that she did not believe peace 
     could come without security. And this was her formula: ``You 
     should not need two words,'' she said. ``Peace has within it 
     the word security.'' When you say peace, it must include 
     security, or it has not meaning. While this tragedy has 
     deprived Manuela of Yoni, I know the deepest hope that she 
     has for her granddaughter, Gali, is a future of peace, 
     freedom and security. We join Manuela Deviri and the rest of 
     the Israeli people in their aspirations for peace. No one can 
     understand the depth of that aspiration unless they have 
     lived so long without peace. And no one can hope to achieve 
     true peace unless it is always coupled with true security.
       The peace process must ensure that Israel will retain the 
     ability its own citizens from terrorism. It must ensure that 
     Israel maintains secure borders with its neighbors. Without 
     establishing those realities, it cannot succeed.
       For this reason, we support the Clinton administration when 
     it says that Israel alone must determine its security needs. 
     We cannot allow non-Israelis to substitute their judgment for 
     the generals the Israel has trusted with its security. If 
     Israel is to take risks for peace, as she has often done in 
     the past, it must be risks she accepts, not risks that are 
     imposed upon her.
       While the peace process is designed to provide security 
     within Israel and on her borders, perhaps the greatest threat 
     is beyond the peace process. Israel and the United States now 
     face a growing threat beyond the horizon: weapons of mass 
     destruction in the hands of outlaw dictatorships.
       Through our victory in the Cold War, the United States and 
     its allies defeated Soviet communism. In the subsequent 
     years, however, rogue regimes in countries like Iraq, Iran, 
     North Korea and Libya emerged from the shadows of the 
     vanishing Soviet empire. In the hands of these dictatorships, 
     weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them 
     have become a dangerous threat to Israel, to the United 
     States and to our allies. Like few others on the planet, 
     Israelis know the real palpable threat from dictatorships 
     that are methodically developing these weapons and delivery 
     technologies.
       In 1991, 28 Iraqi Scud missiles rained down on Israel, 
     inflicting causalities and portending Israel's vulnerability. 
     We too know the consequences of these weapons. Thirty-eight 
     young Americans were killed when an Iraqi Scud struck their 
     barracks in Dhahran. Despite the partial effectiveness of 
     Patriot missiles, at times our only defense was the 
     inaccuracy of the Scuds themselves. In our review of the Gulf 
     War, we discovered that not one Scud or Scud launcher was 
     confirmed as destroyed on the ground in Iraq, despite a great 
     effort to do so.
       Since 1991, rogue dictatorships have relentlessly worked to 
     improve both their weapons of mass destruction and their 
     delivery systems. Nevertheless, in some quarters, there is a 
     breathtaking avoidance of what these facts imply. If 
     dictatorships work while democracies talk, a catastrophe will 
     become inevitable. For democracies to survive and 
     dictatorships to fail, we must establish a vision of a secure 
     democracy, and we must implement three parallel strategies to 
     achieve that vision.
       Our success must be built on the strategies of containment, 
     defense and replacement. First, we must put unrelenting 
     pressure on anyone assisting these outlaw dictatorships with 
     their weapons programs. We cannot have normal relations with 
     governments' either tolerating or encouraging assistance to 
     these dictatorships, whether the governments are active 
     participants or acquiescent partners.
       Due to Russian assistance, Iran will reportedly be able to 
     manufacture its own medium-range ballistic missiles by the 
     end of this year capable of striking Israel and parts of 
     Europe. Russia has also assisted Iraq with its own weapons 
     program. It is time for our patience with the Russian 
     government to come to an end. It should be clearly 
     communicated that Russia's relationship with the United 
     States and Israel, and other nations of the West, will suffer 
     if its actions do not match its commitments. The same message 
     should be expressed to others, including China, who assist 
     these countries in their nuclear, chemical, biological and 
     missile programs. We have a range of policy instruments at 
     our disposal, including diplomatic and economic levers, and 
     we should be prepared to use them.
       The United States must make clear that stopping Iraq and 
     Iran from acquiring weapons of mass destruction is its most 
     intense goal. And we should organize our allies to jointly 
     prevent these dictatorships from acquiring weapons of terror.
       Second, we cannot rely solely on containment to protect us 
     from rogue dictatorships' developing these capabilities. As 
     these countries develop more and more accurate guidance 
     systems for their missiles with increasingly virulent 
     biological and chemical warheads, it will become even more 
     urgent to

[[Page E1020]]

     develop effective defenses against these systems. In the 
     United States today, we do not have the military capability 
     to stop even one theater or intercontinental ballistic 
     missile from reaching its target.
       Our senior military officers would be reduced to scanning 
     the horizon like the rest of us, watching for the missile 
     that could destroy our city, our family, our home. We are 
     totally vulnerable. But we are told that a 25-year-old treaty 
     with a non-existent entity, the Soviet Union, prevents us 
     from responding to this danger.
       Israel, not bounded by an outmoded dogma, is taking steps 
     to develop missile defense and we are assisting in those 
     efforts. We have joined the Israeli government in the Arrow 
     ballistic missile defense initiative to protect your citizens 
     from the very real threat. The Arrow program is a tribute to 
     the ingenuity and determination of the people of Israel to 
     forge an effective defense for your homeland. The United 
     States must aggressively develop both theater and global 
     missile defenses to complement and reinforce the protection 
     Arrow will provide here in Israel.
       Containment and defense provide interim security, but they 
     cannot, by themselves, guarantee success. As long as 
     individual dictators or regimes based on hatred work to 
     develop terror weapons, all democratic societies will be 
     threatened with catastrophe. A single nuclear, chemical or 
     biological device in one of our great cities would create a 
     tragedy of unthinkable proportions.
       Our third strategy must be to preempt catastrophe by 
     insisting that dictatorships be replaced with democracies. 
     Clearly, the free world has the capacity to liberate the 
     people of Iraq; clearly, the free world has the resources to 
     encourage the people of Iran to complete the process of 
     change which hopefully began with the election of President 
     Khatami. We need the will, the courage and the determination 
     to work together to replace dictatorships seeking weapons of 
     terror with democracies seeking friendship and economic 
     prosperity.
       This vision of democratic success and the failure of 
     dictatorships will require the same level of courage and 
     commitment that in World War II defeated Nazi Germany, 
     fascist Italy, and imperial Japan. It will require the 
     unrelenting persistence that for 45 years methodically 
     contained, defended against, and in concert with the 
     Russian and other captive peoples, ultimately replaced a 
     communist dictatorship with fledgling democracies. Those 
     democracies, while still struggling, have advanced freedom 
     dramatically from the police state they replaced.
       Free peoples who face down and defeated these dangers, 
     should see today's dangerous but fragile dictatorships for 
     what they are--our opportunities to expand freedom. 
     Sustaining security and establishing freedom will lead not 
     only to peace but also to economic prosperity. If we achieve 
     peace through security in this region, the economies will 
     flourish. They will flourish first because open borders and 
     free trade produce wealth. No one should know this better 
     than the Palestinians. When acts of terror force Israel to 
     seal its border, it is the Palestinians who suffer most. They 
     lose access to the strong Israeli economy, and 100,000 
     Palestinians are cut off from their jobs. When regional 
     tension chokes off commerce, it is Israel's neighbors who 
     suffer most. Open borders and free trade allow others to 
     share in Israel's economic growth.
       In addition, the region's economies will flourish as broad 
     cooperation solves the most pressing problems of the next 50 
     years. Nowhere is that cooperation more vital than in dealing 
     with the shortage in the region's most precious resource, 
     water. Water has always been a central security concern in 
     this land. Hezekiah enhanced Jerusalem's security 
     dramatically when he protected the Gihon spring, his water 
     source, by extending the walls of the city. Today, water is 
     an equally critical security concern, with the future of 
     aquifers like the Yarkon as a principal issue in the peace 
     process.
       Right now, the United States gives incremental assistance 
     to manage the problem. It has provided hundreds of millions 
     of dollars to the Palestinians, primarily to tap new sources 
     of water and manage the existing ones. In addition, it has 
     assisted other countries in the region by providing them with 
     Israeli expertise on things like drip irrigation and water 
     recycling.
       Each of these efforts does assist countries that have a 
     large and growing water deficit. They ultimately have a 
     marginal impact, however. Our challenge for the next 50 years 
     is to find the strategic solution to the shortage of water in 
     the region. We must do more than manage an ever-scarcer 
     resource. We must support the scientific and engineering 
     advances that will erase the shortage of water forever. 
     Israel, the country that caused the desert to bloom, must 
     lead this effort. From the cisterns of Masada to the drip 
     irrigation of today, Israel has learned how to preserve a 
     scarce resource. Today it is the world's leader on those 
     questions.
       In the future, Israel should become the world leader on 
     expanding the supply of water. It has both the regional need 
     and the human capital to lower the cost of desalinization and 
     end the shortage of water for the region.
       The United States has already invested in sharing Israeli 
     expertise with the region, learning to manage a scarce 
     resource. For the future, leadership demands that we do more 
     than simply manage the current options. We, the United 
     States, must invest with Israel to overwhelm the shortage of 
     water with research that will provide fresh water from an 
     abundant source, the oceans that cover most of our planet.
       Our joint efforts for the future are built on the close 
     relationship between our two countries. This relationship has 
     been fostered in a sustained way by the United States 
     Congress. The strong personal bond that members of Congress 
     feel toward Israel has led to consistent support of the 
     state, reaching back to congressional resolutions as early as 
     1922 that supported a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
       Congress approved its first package of aid to Israel, $65 
     million, in 1951. Congress pressed to maintain Israel's 
     qualitative military edge. It provided emergency military 
     assistance during the Gulf War. Congress approved $10 billion 
     in housing-loan guarantees in order to absorb the flood of 
     Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. It 
     is Congress that enacted legislation in 1995 that requires 
     our government to move its embassy to Jerusalem, finally 
     recognizing the fact that Jerusalem has been Israel's capital 
     for the last 50 years.
       As speaker of the United States House, I want to initiate a 
     far more direct relationship between the Knesset and the 
     Congress. Today, Speaker Tichon and I are inaugurating a new 
     U.S.-Israel interparliamentary initiative on strategic 
     cooperation to be pursued by members from the U.S. Congress 
     and the Knesset. This effort was conceived by Chairman Uzi 
     Landau of the Knesset's Foreign and Defense Affairs Committee 
     and Senator John Kyl of the U.S. Congress. The initiative 
     will focus on security issues, particularly the crucial 
     question of missile defense. It offers an excellent starting 
     point for broadening and deepening the interaction between 
     the Congress and the Knesset. The relationship are we 
     establishing between Congress and the Knesset, will not be 
     unique. As democracy spreads across the region, as it 
     inevitably will, we should work together to broaden the 
     interaction with other democratic parliaments.
       As we celebrate Israel's 50th anniversary, we honor those 
     both American and Israeli whose commitment to security and 
     freedom ensured Israel's survival. Today, we must draw 
     inspiration from their example. And let me just close by 
     sharing with you. We've had a wonderful several days. We just 
     had a meeting with your Foreign and Defense Committee that 
     was very direct and very candid on both sides, not quite up 
     to the Knesset standard of bluntness, but we're trying to 
     learn. I just want to share with you, for one brief moment, 
     the magic that you represent. One hundred years ago, this was 
     Ottoman Turkish land. Russia was czarist. Germany was 
     imperial. China had not yet had the revolution that ended the 
     Confucian domination, and the Manchu Dynasty was still there. 
     Japan was imperial in every sense, and democracy was a 
     strange idea in only a few countries.
       One hundred years later, we are gaining. It's painful. It 
     costs lives. We make big mistakes. If you go to Yad Vashem 
     you're reminded with heart-rendering clarity of the cost of 
     being wrong.
       And yet in America, in Israel, in Europe, in more and more 
     of Asia, in Russia, day by day, this thing that we jointly 
     represent--elect people to speak for you, put them in one 
     room, and make them fight it out--this thing is slowly 
     spreading across the planet.
       I am convinced from our trip here that Israeli democracy's 
     never been more vibrant. It's never had a greater range of 
     potential leaders pushing, shoving, arguing. it's never 
     wrestled more passionately with the future of Israel and its 
     relation with its neighbors. And as an American, I can tell 
     you how much we gained from these days, how stronger we will 
     be going home, how much more grateful we are that you here, 
     in the city of David, continue to stand for freedom, and how 
     much we want to reach out to work with each and every one of 
     you to make sure that 50 years and 3,000 years from now 
     freedom exists in this land.
       Thank you for allowing us to visit.

       

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