[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 64 (Thursday, May 1, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H3623-H3624]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               TERRORISM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Feeney). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take this opportunity to comment 
on some recent developments in the Middle East.

[[Page H3624]]

  Yesterday President Bush, the United States, and others in the so-
called ``quartet'' presented a roadmap for Middle East peace. There has 
been a lot of talk about the roadmap, a lot of euphoria about a new 
Palestinian leadership with Abu Mazen; but I wanted to take some time 
just to backstep a little bit and, in this rush to euphoria, talk about 
some very, very serious things.
  Everyone wants peace in the Middle East, and everyone knows that 
ultimately the key to peace is having two states side by side, Israel 
as a Jewish state and a Palestinian state side by side with security. 
The question is how do we get there? Oslo, which many of us supported, 
ultimately was a failure; and in my opinion it was a failure because 
Yasser Arafat's feet were never held to the fire. There were promises. 
There was empty rhetoric. There was saying one thing in English that 
sounded good and quite another thing in Arabic to the Palestinians that 
did not talk about peace; and we looked the other way because we so 
much wanted peace between Israelis and Palestinians that we never made 
Arafat's actions live up to his speech.
  We should not make the same mistake again. Yes, there is a new 
Palestinian prime minister named Abu Mazen; and, yes, there is a 
modicum of hope that Abu Mazen will be a moderate. But the fact of the 
matter is as long as there is terrorism in the Middle East, as long as 
there is no Palestinian crackdown on suicide bombers or on terrorism, 
as long as terrorism is still attempted to be used as a negotiating 
tool by the Palestinian side, there can never really be peace.
  At the end of the Oslo process, there was a proposal put forth. The 
proposal was two states side by side and the Palestinians were offered 
100 percent of Gaza, 97 percent of the West Bank, a state of their own, 
billions of dollars of international aid; and Yasser Arafat turned down 
the deal. Not only did he turn it down and not offer a counterproposal, 
but he unleashed the Intifada and thought he could use terrorism as a 
negotiating tool. If that happens again, the roadmap will go the way of 
Oslo, which is nowhere.
  So what needs to happen here is there needs to be a crackdown on 
terror. There needs to be a real visible, sustained antiterrorism 
effort on the part of Abu Mazen and the Palestinians. It is no 
coincidence that three hours after the roadmap was announced there was 
another suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, which killed three innocent people 
and injured 40-some-odd other innocents. This cannot be left to stand. 
We have to judge Abu Mazen by seeing if he really cracks down on 
terrorism. That has to be first.
  I believe that the roadmap should be performance based, not time 
based. A Palestinian state projection is in 2004 and then in 2005 the 
final status. That should happen only if the Palestinians live up to 
their agreements, which they had not done previously under Oslo. Once 
terrorism is stopped, then the Israelis can make the concessions that 
are also necessary in order to have a just and viable peace. But let me 
make it clear, there cannot be negotiations or Israeli concessions 
while terrorism is still being used as a negotiating tool.
  Let me also talk a little bit about Syria. I am the author of the 
Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, 
and we call to the Syrians to stop their support for international 
terror. Hezbollah, which is in Lebanon's south/Israel's northern 
border, is used as a proxy by Syria to continue its support of 
terrorism. Hezbollah is the group which bombed U.S. Marines in 1983 and 
killed more than 200 of our Marines in Beirut. Syria must stop its 
support for international terrorism. Syria is on the list of countries 
of our State Department which supports international terrorism. Syria 
has been on that State Department list since the inception of the list 
in 1979, and yet it is the only country with which we have normal 
diplomatic relations on that list. That makes no sense. So the Syria 
Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 calls 
on Syria to stop its support for terrorism, to end its occupation of 
Lebanon, and to end the continuation of its production of weapons of 
mass destruction.
  We also know that Syria is harboring some of the Saddam Hussein crowd 
which has fled Iraq and is in Syria, and we also know that during the 
war in Iraq the Syrians allowed all kinds of armaments and weapons and 
night goggles and other things to pass through Syria into Iraq to be 
used against U.S. forces.
  President Bush has gotten tough with Syria. Colin Powell is visiting 
Syria. We hope he tells the Syrians to stop their support of terrorism.

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