[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 61 (Tuesday, May 14, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H2442-H2448]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 2130
MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Tiberi). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Hoeffel) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, I would like to call to the attention of
the House the very serious problem that exists in the Middle East and
to report back to the House with several colleagues this evening on a
trip taken to Israel the weekend before last to express solidarity with
the people of Israel and with the government of Israel in light of the
campaign of terror that has been directed against them by the
Palestinians. We will be joined later this evening by the gentleman
from Florida (Mr. Deutsch), who has organized, or attempted to
organize, this evening an Oxford style debate between those of us who
voted in favor of a resolution to express solidarity with the people of
Israel and those few Members of the House who voted in the negative on
that question. Unfortunately, those that opposed the resolution of
solidarity with Israel have chosen not to participate in the debate
this evening.
It is unfortunate, Mr. Speaker. We are missing an opportunity, I
think, to have a good debate and a good discussion regarding the right
of Israel to defend herself and the position of America that in my view
should be not to try to limit Israel's right of self-defense. But I am
happy to report that the gentleman from Florida has arrived, the
organizer of the discussion this evening and the man who tried to
organize this Oxford style debate to his great credit.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida.
Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding. We had
scheduled it for 9:30. It is about 9:30. As you described, we made an
offer and we actually had an agreement this evening to have an Oxford
debate about the resolution. As many people who are watching and
obviously as Members, we know that our normal debate that we have is
not really debate. People almost read statements and they read them to
each other and there is no discourse. I think those of us who supported
the resolution, many of us sat through literally several hours of
debate and at some level a great deal of frustration, because people
say things that there really is no opportunity to ask them to respond
to try to clarify their position or really even ask them to defend
their position. So we had set up this where under the House rules there
is an opportunity for an Oxford style debate to interact with Members.
We offered that opportunity and again, I guess there were 21 Members
that voted against the resolution and 29 that did not vote. It is less
than 15 percent of the membership of the House, but a sizable number of
people.
We had the opportunity to cancel this evening or go forward, and what
we thought we might do is in a sense maybe try to even literally re-
read some of the arguments that the opponents of the resolution made
and really in an attempt to maybe flesh out what their thoughts were. I
think those of us who will be here this evening defending the
resolution obviously find it hard to articulate their positions. Maybe
they are in fact positions that cannot be articulated.
I would like to start maybe this evening and read one and I have a
number of quotes from opponents of the resolution and there is no point
in mentioning names but you might remember this one. It was in a poem
that was spoken by a good friend and a good colleague of ours whom I
respect on so many issues but I was extraordinarily disappointed with
his comments.
By poem he stated, ``Oh, little town of Bethlehem, we witness and we
cry, Israelis and Palestinians, both practice eye for eye.''
Perhaps the gentleman from Pennsylvania would want to respond to that
statement.
Mr. HOEFFEL. What struck me as off-target with that statement was the
notion that there is some kind of equivalence here between the behavior
of the Palestinians and the behavior of the Israelis. Our colleague who
said that, who is a fine Member of this House, seems to feel that there
is some moral equivalence between the actions of the two sides that he
stated. That does not persuade me, Mr. Speaker, because what we are
seeing on the side of the Palestinians are acts of terror directed
intentionally against innocent, unarmed Israeli civilians, men, women
and children. What we are seeing from the Israeli side are acts of
self-defense, military acts by the armed forces of Israel, but acts
that are not designed to kill Palestinian civilians in some kind of
retribution but acts by the Israeli army to defend Israel.
Mr. DEUTSCH. If the gentleman will yield, I think there are so many
parallels between what the Israelis did with their incursion into the
West Bank areas and what the United States did with our incursion into
Afghanistan. This poem, I think, would in a sense give the same moral
equivalency to the murderers who attacked the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania with the United
States military action in Afghanistan and really trying to set up a
moral equivalency of that. There is a fundamental difference.
Again, these are different Members that spoke during the debate. I am
going to quote another Member: ``I thought there was one thing that
might turn the tide in this struggle and it was a horrible tragedy in
the end of March.'' And he showed a picture that actually was on the
cover of Newsweek magazine, I believe, of two young girls.
``Look at these two young women. They look like sisters. One, Ayat
al-Akhras, 18, was a suicide bomber who killed Rachel Levy at the
grocery store, age 17. I thought that both sides would be so appalled
by this unbelievable tragedy and see the hopelessness of this that they
might turn toward peace. But, no, that has not happened there.''
If we can, maybe if the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner) can
respond.
Mr. WEINER. If the gentleman from Pennsylvania will yield, what is
interesting, I would say to the gentleman from Florida, that that
dynamic has been portrayed several times in the media, that there are
so many parallels between the 17-year-old that straps dynamite to his
or her chest and the 17-year-old that might have been taken as an
innocent victim. But the fact of the matter is that that suicide
bomber, that homicide bomber, is bringing the Palestinian people
further, not closer, to their objective of having a homeland. I do not
think any of us would agree in this body that if the Palestinians
announced and did more than announce, they actually began to operate
without violence and to sit down and really negotiate for a Palestinian
homeland, if they would have done that arguably years and years ago, it
would be a reality today.
We have to recognize one thing that some of my colleagues did not
recognize in the debate. Someone who blows themselves up and anyone
around them blows them to bits is not engaged in political speech. They
are not engaged in debate. They are not furthering the cause of
bringing the two sides together. What they are doing is murdering
people.
We have to recognize what sometimes often gets overlooked is this
notion that someone who is engaged in
[[Page H2443]]
suicide bombing is acting out of desperation that was created by
another set of instances. There are all kinds of circumstances in the
world that have been resolved without suicide bombing. In fact, most
political conflicts in the world, thank God, do not result in one group
of people attacking the civilians of the other side.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Would the gentleman agree that the whole phrase of
suicide bombing is also missing the point here? When I hear the phrase
``suicide bomber,'' I think one person committed suicide. I think the
gentleman used a separate phrase a minute ago that is a lot more
illustrative of what is actually happening here.
Mr. WEINER. Let me give an example and the gentlemen in their most
recent visit, I am sure, visited some victims in the hospital. I had
the opportunity to visit a 15-year-old girl who was the victim of a
homicide bomber. She was not killed, thank God, but she showed me her
x-ray that included in it 18 hexagonal nuts that was packed around
dynamite that were used as projectiles projected into her young body.
This is savagery. This is not something that brings the debate any
closer to closure. It is not something that brings the two sides
closer.
Mr. DEUTSCH. If I could interject, again I am trying to bring quotes
in from the debate against the resolution and this is again from a very
esteemed colleague of ours, someone whom all three of us I know respect
a great deal, but his statement was, and I am quoting, ``Generations of
Palestinians and Israelis have suffered in the region, but the violence
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be examined or addressed in
isolation of decades of occupation of millions of Palestinians.''
I think it ties directly to what you are saying, that in some way
occupation justifies suicide bombings.
Mr. WEINER. We heard similar language throughout some quarters of the
Arab world in reaction to September 11, is that this is what happens if
you do not have an energy policy we like or a foreign policy or an
agricultural policy, we send 15 suicide bombers to murder 3,000
Americans. We have to recognize, and we have to be able to separate.
This is at its fundamental element a complex and gut-wrenching dispute
over land. It is difficult. We have difficult political subtexts. We
have biblical subtexts. We have historical subtexts. But these things
cannot be resolved in an environment where one side is attacking the
other side in the most savage and most despicable ways.
Mr. DEUTSCH. I think one of the interesting things, just in response
to that exact point is that at the Camp David negotiations the Israelis
were willing to give up and, in fact, offered 97 or 98 percent of the
West Bank and Gaza and if you include some of the transfer of land in
the Negev, effectively 100 percent of the land mass that is in a sense
occupied. That was offered and it was rejected. So if the cause of the
disturbance is occupation, the Israelis offered to end the occupation.
Mr. WEINER. I would go even further than that. You do not need to go
to Camp David at September of 2000. You can go to the Oslo process that
began in 1993 that had the Israeli government entering into an
agreement to end the occupation, to not only begin to foster democracy
in the Palestinian region but to fund it. Many of the guns being used
against Israeli soldiers today were provided by the Israelis because
the Palestinians said we need a police force. The Israelis not only
gave them uniforms and gave them funding but gave them the actual guns.
You can go back to 1948, the birth of the Jewish state, where it was
the Israelis who were prepared to say, listen, we will take a divided
neighborhood, essentially, if it guarantees us peace. You can look at
the Wye River agreement. You can look at the Mitchell plan. You can
look at the Tenet plan. You can look at plan after plan where it was
the Israelis who said yes, and it was the Palestinians that said no.
But they said no because the only thing that it really was predicated
on was peaceful coexistence, which leads one to believe that ultimately
the Palestinian people themselves have to make a decision. They have to
make a decision, do they want to continue to cross swords or do they
ultimately want their own state?
I think the Members who are here on the floor would agree that if
this was a peaceful struggle, it would have resulted in a Palestinian
state generations ago.
Mr. DEUTSCH. It is funny, not funny but tragic, that if it was a
Martin Luther King instead of a Yasser Arafat or a Gandhi instead of an
Arafat, I think you are absolutely correct because the majority and
even with the vote by the Likud Central Committee, which I think was a
political statement, I as recently as today read polls of the Israeli
public. The vast majority of Israelis support a two-state solution
because they understand that is a solution, that there is a puzzle fit
that works. That will happen at some point in time when there is a
partner to engage in that solution.
{time} 2145
The chart that I have up now, one of the things, had we been in an
Oxford debate and had the other side showed up, was really the first
chart that I was going to put up for today, and it is hard to read and
hopefully the television camera is focusing in on it. But the Israeli
incursion occurred on March 31. Prior to March 31, as many of my
colleagues remember, starting literally 11 days or 12 days or 13 days
before, there was a series of suicide bombings actually starting in
March: March 2, March 5, March 7, March 9, March 17, March 20, March
21. March 27 was the so-called Passover bombing in Netanya where 27
Israelis were killed; and then the 29th, and then actually on the 31st
was in Haifa, the restaurant that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Hoeffel) and I visited or, actually, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr.
Kingston) and I visited. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel)
was actually at another place in that period when we were in Israel,
but that we visited on that trip that occurred on the 31st. Then after
that series of suicide bombings, killing over 100 people, I could count
them up, close to 100 people, maybe 150 people during that amount of
time, one of the numbers that I have talked about on several occasions,
and I will put this chart up just to reiterate that, Israel in terms of
population is about one-sixtieth, one-fiftieth, one-sixtieth the size
of the United States of America. We are about 300 million plus people,
5 million plus, and the equivalent, just in terms of population, when
50 Israelis are killed, it is the equivalent of 9-11 to the United
States of America. I am describing March. It was the equivalent of
three September 11ths.
Now, we know what the United States did after September 11. We went
6,000 miles to a country and appropriately, and I do not think there is
a Member of this Chamber who did not support, I do not think
effectively as Americans we did not support what we did. Can we expect
anything less for the Israelis to do, when three September 11ths
occurred in the month of March in their country. I think that is the
justification. I mean if a country is not protecting its citizens from
death, from terrorism; I mean that is our fundamental role as
government, and that is what they did. In a sense, they did not have a
choice. The Israelis do not want to be in Bethlehem or Nabulus or Jenin
any more than the United States wants to be in Afghanistan. We do not
want to be in Afghanistan, but we are there for the reason that we have
to be there, the same way they have to be there.
Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, something else
that is important to keep in mind, in that period from October 2000 to
today the Israeli government and the Israeli people have not only been
fighting terror by military means, almost at the same time and,
frankly, almost in a counterintuitive way, given the way we have
handled our attack since September 11, is that they have continued to
keep the doors open to negotiation.
For example, when former Senator George Mitchell, who has some
experience in negotiating peace in difficult parts of the world, when
he traveled there, he came up with some principles of a plan,
essentially to start a framework to get back to peace. It was the
Israelis who said, although it asked for very difficult concessions
from the Israelis, including lifting up the roots of many Israeli
families and moving them out of their homes, the Israelis said yes. The
Palestinians, who had to do essentially one thing, which was to stop
bombing and stop firing, they said no.
[[Page H2444]]
Then we sent CIA Director Tenet over to the area to see if they could
perhaps get the wheels started to the Mitchell plan. Once again, asked
tough things of the Israelis, including loosening up border crossings
at a time when they knew terrorists were coming through those borders,
Israelis said yes and the Palestinians said no. Even when Vice
President Cheney and Secretary of State Powell visited the area to try
to negotiate peace, it was the Israelis who expressed a willingness and
the Palestinians who would not relent in their violence. In fact, some
of the worst violence in the area on the part of the Palestinians have
come when U.S. emissaries, trying to negotiate peace, have been there.
So at the same time, while a great deal of attention has been called
to the fact of Israel going door to door trying to rout out terrorism,
it should not be ignored that even in that context, even in the context
of all of the carnage over the last 18 months, the Israeli people and
their government have still said, do you want to make peace? We are
ready to do it. I think that is to their great credit.
Imagine for a moment if bin Laden or Mullah Omar presented himself
next week and said, you know what? I want to negotiate. I want to
negotiate the peace here. Maybe if the United States gives up Texas and
Louisiana, I will leave you alone, and I do not just say that because
they are Republican areas, I would say to the Speaker, we are prepared
to have a negotiation. We would laugh at it. Yet, in Israel, despite
the carnage that they have had, they have been negotiating at the same
time, hoping against hope that the Palestinian people would choose
peace over violence.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, if I could give the gentleman an individual
example of that spirit of the Israelis, that willingness to remain
positive and to maintain their humanity in the face of this horror, let
me tell my colleagues about Gila Weiss, a former constituent of mine
who graduated from high school in my district in 1988 when she was
known as Jennifer Weiss. Her parents still live in my district, Fred
and Susan Weiss. Jennifer moved to Israel, changed her name to Gila,
and is making her life there. On April 19, 2002, she was shopping at
the Jewish market the Friday before Sabbath, finished making her
purchases, walked to the bus to get the bus back to her apartment and,
as she was approaching the arriving bus, a woman stepped off the bus
and blew herself up. She killed 6 people, wounded 40, Gila among them,
using a suicide vest such as is pictured in the photo of the gentleman
from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) that I know he wants to talk about in just a
minute. But let me just tell my colleagues about Gila.
She survived that blast, shredded with shrapnel; her eyesight is
still in jeopardy today, but the doctors are optimistic that she will
make a full recovery and she will recover from the wounds that the
shrapnel caused. When the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) and I
visited the hospital on our trip to Israel, Gila was there to greet us,
showing incredible spirit, and indicated, without even being prompted,
that in the face of this terror that she had faced and incredibly
survived, that she did not harbor hatred herself toward her attackers;
the individual, now dead, or the Palestinian people or leaders that
sent that bomber to that bus stop in Jerusalem.
When I returned from my trip, I gave a report to my district and
asked Mrs. Weiss, Susan Weiss, to be with me. She talked about the
injuries and the terrible ordeal that Gila had been through, and her
parents, and then Susan Weiss, unprompted, told the assembled press
corps in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that she harbored no
animosity, that she felt that we had to move forward and try to figure
out some way someday, somehow to return this process to peace.
Recognizing the need for defense now, recognizing the need for safety
now, the security of Israel being paramount, but both Gila and her
mother were prepared, even though they have suffered the worst kind of
experience with terror, prepared to move forward to try to reach peace.
Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that is important about
the story that the gentleman has just told, the Israeli people, because
of their fundamental belief in democracy, something that our country
shares and something that over 373 Members of Congress recognized when
the resolution passed, on the other side of this debate is a group of
people, the Palestinians who, in their schoolbooks, in their
classrooms, even on their television screens, are preaching hatred.
The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) made the mention of Nelson
Mandela as a peacemaker. One does not have to go that far. One can look
in that same region of the world not so long ago and look at the
courageous stand of Anwar Sadat. One of the first things he did when
preparing the Egyptian people who had been in a hateful, passionate war
with the Israelis, one of the first things that he did as a sign of his
courage that ultimately led to his death, is he turned to his own
people in Arabic on Egyptian television and said, look, it is in our
interests to make peace. We do not do it because we like them. We do
not do it because we like their presence in the area, but it is because
it is in our interests.
On the other hand, despite the requirement in the Oslo Accords that
they stop teaching hate in their schoolbooks, they stop teaching hate
to their children, the seeds of hate keep getting planted every day.
This morning, if you flip on Palestinian TV during the cartoon hour,
you will see commercials aimed at young children that have a playful
song that says, put down your books, take up your arms, directed at
young children. We see protests in Nabulus. We have parents with their
children on their shoulders, children like in all of our districts,
except in these cases they have pretend suicide bomb belts around their
waists.
The thing that I fear the most is irrespective of our intentions,
irrespective of the feelings of the people of Israel and irrespective
of even the best instinct of the Palestinian people, the seeds of hate
that we are planting today among Palestinian children will take a
generation to eradicate. That is the fundamental difference here.
Someone should be held responsible for that, and I think that person
should be that of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat.
Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman can yield for a second,
trying to keep this in somewhat of a debate without another side being
here, which I almost feel we should have an empty chair like they
sometimes do in political debates when the other side does not show up.
But it is interesting, much has been made in terms of who voted against
it, why they voted against it, but there were Democrats and
Republicans. Again, less than 15 percent of the Congress, but I am
going to quote from one of our Republican colleagues and the quote is,
``If we are going to bring peace to that troubled region, we must be
scrupulously honest. There are piles of bodies in the Middle East, many
of the victims of noncombatants, and both sides of the conflict have
engaged in the slaughter of innocents.''
Someone said that from the floor of this Chamber not that long ago, a
week and a half ago. I see the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner)
shaking his head no. Now he has an opportunity to respond.
Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Florida,
and this is something that is easily verified, there has not been a
single instance in the history of the conflict where, with the possible
exception being the preemptive strike in the war of 1967 that the
Israelis have initiated violence. When we see these images on
television of kids throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and Israeli
soldiers responding, invariably those are organized efforts by
Palestinian protestors to engage in a highly publicized exchange.
There is not anyone who believes, for example, that the Israeli
military had any interest in going into Ramallah, for example, knocking
on doors looking for terrorists, had it not been for the fact that
there had been horrific slaughters of innocent victims, including those
observing the Passover holiday.
Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, one of the
things that I guess is frustrating, having sat on this floor and
listened to the debate is the simple distinction that the gentleman is
making. It is so frustrating that these are well educated, well
[[Page H2445]]
thought of, thoughtful colleagues who have made these statements that I
am reading word for word out of the Congressional Record on the debate.
When the Israelis went into Jenin or for that matter Ramallah or for
that matter other locations, because I talked a couple of minutes ago
about the reason for the incursion, that there was this horrific
activity occurring at monumental levels in their society.
One of the things that we witnessed in our visit to Israel was in a
sense the proof on the other side, and this is one of many pictures
that we have. One of the opportunities we had was to view just a
fraction of the weapons that were seized during the incursion, about 10
percent of the weapons. In this Chamber, if we added all the weapons
that we saw, it would probably fill this entire Chamber. Weapons of
mortars, and I will show some additional pictures of machine guns and
sniper rifles. But I think the most evil was literally witnessing
suicide vests, and they are not kids creating suicide vests. I mean as
we saw them, and my colleagues can see in the picture, they are
commercially made. We actually saw different versions, summer versions,
winter versions, autumn versions so that they would not be seen. But,
in a sense, that is the proof of why.
I guess the frustration that an intelligent person could make a
statement like that or make some of the other statements that I have
read, not to distinguish; in the United States, we call it collateral
damage. In our military action, in fact our ongoing military action in
Afghanistan, there have been innocents who have died. We did not go
house to house in Tora Bora. We bombed, as we should, absolutely as we
should, as was appropriate and with the knowledge that there would be
some collateral damage because of the risks involved and the morality
involved in terms of doing it, it was absolutely appropriate. The
Israelis could have attacked Jenin the way we attacked Tora Bora. They
could have bombed from the air without risking lives. There is no
question that a number of Israelis, a significant number of Israeli
soldiers died because of the effort that they made. I do not doubt, and
in fact I am sure, there were innocents who were killed in the action
in Jenin. But I think not to understand there is a fundamental
difference between someone being killed in that action where, by all
accounts, the Israeli defense forces' efforts to make sure that
civilians were not killed are minimized. I mean there are just so many
specific accounts. In fact, before the soldiers went into the battle,
their orders were to do everything possible, put their own lives at
risk in terms of avoiding collateral damage. One thing also, I mean
there is a whole different viewpoint when it does occur. The attitude
of the Israeli defense force is not just remorse, but it is a horrific
situation. It is tragic. There is no words that can possibly
compensate.
{time} 2200
But the entire attitude is a totally different attitude. The efforts
of a megaphone to tell people to get out. Give them another chance to
get out. Give them a third chance to get out. Tell them what is going
to happen if they do not get out and give them every opportunity to get
out. And yet we are hearing colleagues say that is the same as a murder
bomber.
Mr. HOEFFEL. If the gentleman would yield, what our colleague is
missing is the intention behind the actions. The actions of the
Palestinians when they commit terror, they are intending to kill
innocent civilians and the Israelis are intending to defend themselves.
That is the fundamental difference.
The action that the gentleman describes and both gentlemen have
referred to, the military incursion into Jenin and other areas of the
West Bank first was designed to stop the terror from continuing to come
against Israel. It certainly was taken at great risk to members of the
Israeli defense forces and 22 Israeli soldiers died in Jenin and had
the Israelis chosen to bomb I doubt any Israeli soldiers would have
died. But it also uncovered an extraordinary number of weapons, as the
gentleman has mentioned, most of them in complete violation to the Oslo
Accord that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner) described.
The Palestinian police under Oslo were allowed to maintain handguns,
rifles and AK-47s.
Mr. DEUTSCH. If the gentleman would yield, this is as he witnessed
himself, and this is just a very small cache of mortars which obviously
are illegal under the Oslo Accord.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Exactly right. That is a very good picture illustrating
the point.
What the Israelis seized were anti-tank missiles, rocket-propelled
grenades, mortars, rockets, all in complete violation of the Oslo
Accord. All there, as our friend, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr.
Kingston), said, who identified himself as a sportsman, not there for
sporting purposes, not there for hunting game during the doe season
with a license from your local State government, but they are to kill
people. That was the purpose of those weapons.
And the suicide vest that the gentleman identified a few pictures ago
was the exact type of vest used in an attempt to kill Gila Weiss and
that did kill six of the people that she was standing around with,
total strangers.
Mr. DEUTSCH. Again, I will try to use some of these posters today,
but this again is a sample of literally weapons, just a fraction of the
weapons collected that could fill this Chamber, machine guns, sniper
rifles, mortar guns, anti-tank weapons, none of which were allowed
under the Oslo agreement.
Mr. WEINER. If the gentleman would yield for a question. Perhaps you
can offer a little bit more explanation.
One of things that came up frequently on the floor among the
opponents of the resolution was that we have to foster an environment
where the moderate Arab nations could help a peace take hold in the
Middle East. Perhaps the gentleman could explain to the Members where
those weapons came from. Did they not come from a so-called moderate
Arab state? And I am curious as to whether it seems like the export of
someone who is interested in peace in the region.
Mr. DEUTSCH. As we reviewed them, we asked exactly those questions.
Some of them were stolen Israeli weapons. Some of them were American
weapons stolen or gotten through a third party. A lot of them were
smuggled either through the tunnels from the Sinai into Gaza. Some of
them, Israelis have very good information to believe that they were
actually smuggled in Yassar Arafat's helicopter. So the weapons came
from a variety of different sources.
Mr. WEINER. What about the Karin-A?
Mr. DEUTSCH. The Karin-A is a totally different issue which we can
talk about. I think it is a significant issue as well. As the gentleman
is well aware, the Karin-A was a ship that Israeli commandos captured
that had $20 million of weapons in it and had some very sophisticated
weapons right off the shelf from Iran, including rocket launchers,
rockets, not just mortars but rockets. The equivalents of our TOW
missiles.
I actually have some pictures because we reviewed not just the
weapons, these were weapons that were seized in the West Bank up to
this point; they were weapons that were literally seized during the
military incursion. And that in a sense, just these weapons are success
or proof of the right and the necessity of the incursion because the
suicide belt we saw in the previous picture, that suicide belt was not
made to be put in a museum. It literally was made to be used. And the
capture of that one belt prevented that one belt from being used, and
we do not know how many lives and how many tragedies, and literally the
tragedies are each one is as painful as we can possibly imagine in
terms of human condition.
Did the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) want to add
something to that?
Mr. HOEFFEL. Well, the enormity of this, it is hard to appreciate
unless you see the weapons. And the great variety, from brand-new
modern weapons never used before seized from the Karin-A with an
attempt to smuggle them in from Iran, to old battered, well-worn
weapons that the Palestinians have obviously been using for years and
years to homemade weapons, weapons made with sections of water pipe and
slingshots for the firing pins to set off the ammunition put in these
homemade weapons. An absolutely staggering
[[Page H2446]]
commitment to mayhem, to using violent means to try to win their
political goals.
The enormity of the terror is hard to grasp unless you see the
weapons, unless you talk to the families of the victims, unless you see
the locations of the terror bombings in Jerusalem as we did on our
walking tour. And when we hear the stories of the families and the
human tragedies of innocents dying, not soldiers dying in combat for
their country but innocents.
We have heard the story of Michal and Malka, two 15-year-old friends,
inseparable, went to school together, lived next door to each other,
had known each other since both were babies, 15 years old. They snuck
off to get some pizza last August at the Sbarro restaurant in downtown
Jerusalem and got blown to kingdom come. Their parents buried them side
by side where they will rest forever.
That is hard to understand. It is hard to appreciate the horror for
those families and hard to understand how anybody can justify such
action. You can have the world's most difficult grievance; you can be
really ticked off about something, and feel that the other guy is
causing you a lot of aggravation, but how can you ever justify
murdering innocent civilians?
Mr. WEINER. If the gentleman will yield, there is a broader political
point here as well. And that is the Israelis have arguably tried
everything under the sun to deter these kinds of attacks. That did not
work. Now they are doing what they can to respond.
Some in the Chamber last week or 10 days ago in arguing against the
resolution said perhaps we should recognize the grievance of the
suicide bomber, sit down at the table and negotiate with them.
What lesson does that send to the next guy who is going to fly a
plane into a tall building in the United States? What lesson does that
teach the person who is sitting at home in Nablus or in Jenin about
whether or not they should go and take up violence, not only against
Israel but against the United States or anyone else with whom they
might have a grievance.
We have to be very careful when we do what sometimes happens in the
State Department here in the United States and we offer this sense of
we kind of understand where they are coming from when they blow up a
bunch of children in a shopping center. I believe we embolden further
attacks. I believe we make it steadily, piece by piece, part of the
political debate. It was truly mindboggling for me to listen to it. And
we should stress very few Members of this Chamber, the gentleman showed
pictures of his visit to Democrats, to Republicans, overwhelmingly from
all regions of this country, this House and stood up and said we
understand what Israel is facing. We support her in perhaps one of the
strongest pro-Israel resolutions this House has ever passed.
Imagine for a moment if we did it. Imagine if we were a little more
lukewarm and said, maybe we see the beef that the Palestinians have
when they engage in suicide bombings. That creates more violence. I
remember distinctly in June of 2001, Tel Aviv discoteque bombing.
Horrific event. Someone gets in line at a discoteque on a Saturday
night, teenagers all around, blows themselves up, blows up over a dozen
young people around them. Quickly the United States, even the European
community, which has never been very friendly to Israel, editorial
pages everywhere said how outrageous, how disgusting it truly was. What
happened? Israel did not respond immediately, and the Palestinians also
recognized, you know what, we have gone too far. We are no longer
getting sympathy and now people are recognizing how bloodthirsty we
appear to be. It created a week, maybe 10 days of quiet.
When we strongly condemn these things, when we do not prevaricate,
when we do not equivocate, when we do not draw these lines of
equivalency that somehow justify the lines of terrorism, we save lives.
That is something people have to understand. When they stand here, it
almost sounds as if they are justifying the violence. In the quotes
that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) read, I think it really
does embolden some 15-year-old young person to say, maybe this is the
way I will get my meaning; and they will be the next homicide bomber.
As we have seen from these weapons, and I have said it on this floor
before, this is a problem for Israel, true. But just the way a katusha
rocket can shoot down an El Al plane, it can shoot down a Continental
Airlines plane, God forbid, or a U.S. Airlines plane, God forbid.
The same people who are getting these weapons, because they think
murder is a way to get their means, believe me, we are not miles and
miles away as we learned on September 11.
Mr. DEUTSCH. Let me read, these are different Members, every quote so
far this evening has been from a different Member. I will read from
another Member: ``We in this body have a constitutional responsibility
to protect the national security of the United States. This one-sided
intervention in a far-off war has the potential to do great harm to our
national security.''
I think that is exactly the point that the gentleman is making. That
if someone is saying that, what is the implication, that there really
is a duality, that there is both sides? And I think what was said is
that for an act of terror, an act of killing innocents there are no two
sides.
This is just a follow-up. Literally just another pick of weapons
seized and there are more and there are more and there are more. The
gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner) asked just a comment on the Karin-
A issue, and I thought since it is a relevant event, in a sense it was
not directly tied to the incursion, but it gives a sense of the context
to the Palestinian Authority and Yassar Arafat personally.
The weapons on the Karin-A were $20 million of weapons but literally
weapons off the shelf of munitions factories in Iran. Mortars, as we
see, large mortars of different dimensions for different distances,
rockets, the equivalent of the United States TOW missiles, which are
missiles that can be shot and steered after they are shot, anti-tank
weapons that were made out of plastic so they cannot be detected, a
very sophisticated operation that the United States and the Israelis
and the world has not denied that Yassar Arafat's direct involvement in
the purchase and the logistics of these weapons.
The sophistication of the weapons in a sense is highlighted by this
container. All of the weapons that were seized on the Karin-A were
actually in containers like this, which are water-tight containers. In
fact, some of the weapons were actually modified so that they could fit
inside these containers. And the containers themselves were very
sophisticated in that they had a specially built compressed-air-water
compartment that would actually be able to have the containers set at a
certain depth in the Mediterranean Sea so they could then be picked up
later on with this buoy attachment. And that in fact could have
escalated the conflict dramatically. Every weapon there was in
violation of Oslo. Every weapon that was there was in violation of
Oslo.
Mr. HOEFFEL. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I could not agree
more. The violation of law and the agreement represented by these
weapons really goes a long way towards showing the attitude of the
Palestinians toward the agreement that they made and their intention
for their future use in the Middle East.
The other thing that was quite persuasive to our group were the
documents that the Israelis seized from the Palestinian Authority
offices in the West Bank during the military incursion. Documents were
seized in Arabic showing how the terrorists are funded, showing how the
Saudis make payments to the terrorists and the families of terrorists,
showing how Yassar Arafat's organization submits memos to him
recommending that payments be made to a list of what they
euphemistically call ``freedom fighters.'' That would be in American
English ``terrorists.'' And how Yassar Arafat signs off on those memos
asking for certain levels of funding.
{time} 2215
In most cases he reduces the payments to be made to each individual,
but there are signed documents showing to my satisfaction certainly,
that Arafat has been directing terror. Certainly through the Fatah
organization, the Tanzim and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades that he commands
as head of Fatah, and these documents and the
[[Page H2447]]
gentleman has a picture up, and I would yield back to the gentleman in
just a second, the documents plus the seized weapons certainly make
clear to me that Yasser Arafat has been directing terror in the Middle
East.
I am happy to yield back to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch).
Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I think the issue of the day and I think in
a sense maybe if we move beyond the resolution and I think in a sense
we have debated against the empty seat and we have debated
successfully.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Would the gentleman agree we won the debate?
Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I think in the environment we are at we won
when we entered the Chamber and I think it is important, and I hope
there is a discourse because clearly a number of our colleagues, again
less than around 10 percent or so, articulated a position which I am
just disappointed, and I think it is by lack of information, it is a
lack of thought, lack of really thinking through the actual conditions
of what occurred.
We would not talk about moral equivalency with the United States war
in Afghanistan, and the similarity parallels are very real in terms of
what the Israelis are doing, and as we both have said, there should be
a Yasser Arafat exemption to the war on terrorism?
I would like to follow up though, and really, the issue of the day is
should the Israelis continue to negotiate with Yasser Arafat? Is he the
negotiating partner to try to get to the resolution of the conflict,
and as the gentleman said, not only did the Israelis seize a huge
amount of sophisticated weapons in their incursions and suicide belts
and other things, but a huge amount of documents, which at this point
in time no one is refuting the authenticity.
In fact, we met the parents of a soldier who actually downloaded some
of the documents and was killed in a subsequent action, and he told his
parents about it. So I do not think there was a scam of him telling his
parents about what he did.
No one at this point is really questioning literally the authenticity
of the document that is blown up on this chart and in Yasser Arafat's
handwriting, which again no one is questioning at this point in time,
is exactly what the gentleman described. It is a request to Yasser
Arafat from a senior Fatah activist, Hassan al Sheik, for payments of
$2,500 for three known terrorists. I mean, people who are on Israel's
most wanted list who the Israelis knew were involved in previous
terrorist actions, in fact, through the Israelis, subsequently
eliminated, and a request for $2,500. Chairman Arafat, as my colleague
had mentioned, says allocate $600 to each of them in his own
handwriting directly involved in that payment.
There are other documents. This is a longer list of 12 people who
were involved in terrorist activities and for this group, I do not see
the exact amount, but again, with Arafat's signature, it is a $350
payment for terrorist activities.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, let me ask the gentleman, does he think
those payments are for putting a roof on Arafat's house?
Mr. DEUTSCH. I think what is clear is they are what they are.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Can there be any question about what those payments are
authorized for, what the purpose behind them is?
Mr. DEUTSCH. They are what they are. Arafat, he was not a terrorist
10 years ago or 5 years ago or a year. He is still a terrorist. He was
engaged in terrorist activity continuously, and his words might sound
nice at this point in time, but it is not ancient history to go back.
Here is a document, a request from the Al Aqsa Martyr troops for
money to the Palestinian Authority, and as shocking as each of the
things are in terms of weapons, in terms of posters for suicide
bombers, there is a specific request for 700 shekels, and I am reading
it directly, this is for detonators for suicide bombers. We need every
week five to nine explosive charges. Five to nine explosive charges
every week, 700 shekels per week, directly to the PA by Al Aqsa Martyrs
Brigade, people who are literally perpetrating the suicide bombs.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, the documents do indeed speak for
themselves and leave one just no choice but to conclude that Yasser
Arafat has directed terror, that he has in the past and he presently
is, and the question is for this House, for this country what needs to
be done in order to stop this activity.
It seems to me, I know the gentleman and I have discussed this, that
there must be a recognition that Arafat, other Palestinians and the
leaders of the Arab league must declare that terror must be renounced,
that violence must be renounced and they must do this in word and deed.
They have done it in word, but the documents that the gentleman has and
the photographs of the weapons indicate that indeed they are still
involved in terror and in financing terror.
Mr. DEUTSCH. This is going to be the last document and there is more,
but this is dated March 24, 2002, and during the stage of these
operations, and this is a copy of minutes of a meeting at the Ramallah
headquarters, and Chairman Arafat is in attendance at this meeting
along with Hamas, and the statements in the minutes of the meeting in
Arabic are such that Chairman Arafat is upset that there was a bombing
inside the green line when General Zinni was in Israel, and the
inference is they would have preferred the bombing outside the green
line and not when General Zinni was in Israel.
The Israelis did not write this. No one is questioning the
authenticity. This is Arafat inside his own meetings, meeting with
Hamas, talking about terrorist activity, not trying to prevent them at
any level in any way, and we could ignore this if we want to ignore it,
but the weight is so overwhelming at this point that it is unignorable.
Mr. HOEFFEL. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is entirely correct, and it
seems to me that we need to make clear that both the United States and
the government of Israel need to have someone to talk to representing
the Palestinians that clearly renounces violence, that renounces
violence and terror and that does so in word and deed and who,
secondly, clearly recognizes the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish
state, not as a state that someday may have a Palestinian majority
because of the demographics, but a state that is recognized as a Jewish
state with a full right to exist in peace and security.
Until we get those two commitments, a complete renunciation of
violence and terror and a recognition of Israel to exist as a Jewish
state, I do not see how we can go forward. I do not see how the
Israelis can go forward in furthering the peace process when there is
literally nobody to talk to presently on the other side that has any
credibility whatsoever.
Mr. DEUTSCH. The gentleman is so on point with that comment. That is
one of the tragedies going on right now. In fact, one of the tragedies
I think as we both saw is as horrific and awful and inhumane the
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have been, both Jews and Arabs, and we
made a point as we have talked about to visit Arab dictums of terrorist
bombings. In fact, the restaurant we talked about in Haifa was owned by
an Arab Israeli and about half the victims were Arabs, not Jews, Arabs
and Jews. The screws and the nuts and the ball bearings do not
discriminate and, too, they are going to maim and kill.
The reality of how bad and awful that is, Yasser Arafat and the
Palestinian Authority have been as bad and maybe even worse to their
own people, indiscriminately killing people in just no type of civil
process at all, destruction of an economy, corruption at levels which
is untold, probably unmatched almost maybe anywhere in the world the
level of corruption, and that in a sense is the entity that the United
States is supporting.
What we have talked about on this floor previously, there is no, and
we use the expression, there is no daylight between any Members of this
Congress and the President and the war on terrorism and the efforts in
Afghanistan, the efforts to stop terrorists with global reach whether
they be in Iraq, in Syria or North Korea. There is no daylight between
us, but I think there are many in this Chamber, in this country
unfortunately who disagree with some of the President's actions in
terms of trying to say, well, Yasser Arafat and these activities really
are not as evil as they are.
[[Page H2448]]
One of the great things about President Reagan was when there was an
evil empire he called it an evil empire and the Palestinian Authority
is an evil empire, and we can call it white and we can call it black.
If we call black, white, it does not make it white, and the same thing
by saying, the leadership and these other things, the entity itself is
evil, is corrupt beyond comprehension. We both heard stories that I
would not say on this floor of some of the activities of the
Palestinian Authority in terms of some of the behavior of some of the
leaders that were beyond human discussion.
Let me follow up, though, just in terms of the Palestinian Authority
itself. This is a reprint of a New York Times article April 20, 2002,
and they interviewed a printer in the West Bank who had an ongoing
contract with the Palestinian Authority to, after every suicide bomber
who was killed, to automatically within several hours with information
about that suicide bomber print up 1,000 posters to then be put up.
This is just a sample form. That is the entity, the glorification of
the suicide bomber is what we have seen.
Mr. HOEFFEL. We face the reality of what to do now. There can be
little doubt regarding the complicity of Arafat in the terror. He is
continuing to call for martyrdom for the Palestinians, and in the
lexicon of the Palestinians, one who is a martyr is one who commits
terror and is willing to die in committing that terror against
Israelis.
What the gentleman and I need to do is to urge this House and our
administration to clearly set out the conditions that need to exist
before Israel can be expected to go forward, before the United States
government can be expected to go forward.
We all want peace. There is no question about it. Even the Members
that voted against this resolution certainly want peace. There is no
question about the motivation. The disagreement can be in how to get
there, but what conditions do we need to set forth?
I have stated, too, I am sure the gentleman could add, the absolute
need for the Palestinian leadership and the Arab league leadership to
renounce terror and to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish
state.
I know the gentleman has got additional views on what must happen
next before we can go forward. I would be happy to yield back.
Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I know our time is running out. I want to
give both of us a couple of seconds to close, and the last two charts
are directly on point on what the gentleman mentioned.
Yasser Arafat in the compound spoke about sending a million, the
English translation is as my colleague so ably pointed out, martyrs to
Jerusalem. The Arab word is ``shaheed.'' If my colleagues were to ask
any Palestinian what shaheed means, they know that it means suicide
bombers. It does not mean martyr. It is not an esoteric, theoretical
term. It means suicide bombers, and specifically to the people that is
what they hear.
As shocking as that is, the quote from Chairman Arafat's wife,
literally that there would be no greater honor than for her son, if she
had a son, to be a martyr, to be a shaheed, to be a suicide bomber.
I would close and give the gentleman an opportunity to close and say
I wish that we had a discourse this evening with our colleagues who
voted against this because I do not think there is any articulated,
rational, moral position against the support of Israel that this
Congress overwhelmingly and this country has overwhelmingly done.
{time} 2230
Their fight is our fight. The attacks against them are attacks
against us.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.
Mr. HOEFFEL. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, Mr. Speaker,
and let me make one more comment.
As the gentleman from New York said about the misnomer of suicide
bomber, the phrase suicide bomber suggests one crazed person going off
into a field and killing themselves with a bomb. We call what is
happening in Israel the actions of suicide bombers, but in fact they
are better named homicide bombers because they are not just taking out
themselves, they are trying to kill as many innocent people as they
possibly can.
That is the terror faced by Israel. That is what she has to defend
herself against. And we can clearly state that Israel has the right to
self-defense. It is not for us to set a limit on that right. It is up
to us to support her in her activity, to make sure she survives; and
she will survive with our support.
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