[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 98 (Monday, July 24, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H5658-H5659]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                ESCALATING CONFLICTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to discuss the 
escalating conflicts in the Middle East, and bearing in mind that the 
answer to real stability throughout that region is a resolution to the 
half century old Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a two-State solution 
with negotiations ongoing. That has not happened during the lifetime of 
this administration. In fact, they have ignored that completely.
  The second solution is to decouple U.S. foreign policy from our 
reliance on the oil regimes in the Middle East which supply the largest 
share of this country's dependence on imported petroleum.
  Those are the two answers. We are getting distracted by a lot of 
other activities in the region, but without a resolution to the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a two-State solution, and this country 
being able to stand on its own two feet again, and not have to beg any 
repressive society for oil, we will not find a solution for security 
for the American people at home nor abroad.
  The situation is worsening. War is an abandonment of reason, and it 
is critical for Members of Congress to stand for a path to peace, 
especially at a time that we witness and the world witnesses more 
killing, more death, more carnage escalating around us, escalating 
around those directly involved in the Middle East.
  It is especially essential to be a voice for peace when others 
believe that escalating the military option without serious and equal 
emphasis on political and diplomatic efforts will yield calm and 
resolution.
  Ghandi instructed us an eye for an eye will leave the world blind, 
and physics reminds us that to every action there is an equal and 
opposite reaction. I think in this latest conflagration between Lebanon 
and Israel there will be more than an equal and opposite reaction.
  Indeed, I predict, and it is happening already, escalating violence 
will reap more radical extremism throughout the region as moderate 
voices are muffled by the bombs and the escalation of the rhetoric and 
the escalation of the violence.
  Please notice, as a result of U.S. policy already in country after 
country, radical extremes are gaining political edge in the halls of 
government. The Muslim brotherhood of late has made major inroads in 
Egypt's parliament, rising from a level of couple dozen seats out of 
around 450 seats to nearly 100, and Egypt has signed a peace treaty 
with Israel.
  In Pakistan, orthodoxy is being elected at the provincial level over 
and over again.
  In Iraq, the Shi'ia majority is aligning with Iran, and indeed, the 
prime minister who is to address the Congress, this Congress this 
Wednesday, has come out full bore along with the parliament for the 
Hezbollah, condemning the actions of Israel, our ally.
  In Lebanon, Hezbollah has gained a toehold in parliament and enormous 
and growing sympathy on the street. Lebanon's wartorn areas from the 
last invasion by Israel beginning in the 1980s and its need for 
rebuilding were neglected by the world community, including this 
country, and Hezbollah took root for over two decades now.
  I am one of the few Members of this Congress that tried to go beyond 
the usual lip service paid to Lebanon to help it rebuild its wartorn 
areas and rebuild its civil society so that it could function at the 
point where Syria would withdraw, and the government of the United 
States, the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International 
Development, every single instrument of this government stopped us 
every step of the way. We could take such tiny little steps.
  Is it any wonder that Hezbollah gained footing in the southern area 
of Lebanon? No one else took an interest, and violence displaced the 
opportunity over the 2\1/2\ decades for the development of civil 
society. No one in our country really cared, and major political 
opposition in Congress existed to helping Lebanon at all. How do you 
build a peaceful path? How do you secure Israel with enemies on every 
side?
  Iran's moderate voices have been silenced by extremism and decades of 
lack of engagement by any sitting President of this country. Even 
backchannels were let atrophied.
  And so the world is poised for more hatred and more mass killings. I 
will not associate myself with lopsided policies that ripen hatred 
toward this country, annihilate prospects for peace and threaten both 
Israel's and Palestine's ultimate existence.
  Mr. Speaker, I place in the Record at this point Bob Herbert's 
article, ``Find a Better Way,'' from The New York Times today. It is 
superb.

                (From the New York Times, July 24, 2006)

                           Find a Better Way

                            (By Bob Herbert)

       It's too late now, but Israel could have used a friend in 
     the early stages of its war with Hezbollah--a friend who 
     could have tugged at its sleeve and said: ``O.K We 
     understand. But enough.''
       That friend should have been the United States.
       It is not difficult to understand both Israel's obligation. 
     to lash back at the unprovoked attacks of Hezbollah, and the 
     longstanding rage and frustration that have led the Israelis 
     to attempt to obliterate, once and for all, this unrelenting 
     terrorist threat. Israelis are always targets for terror--
     whether they are minding their own business in their homes, 
     or shopping at the mall, or taking a bus to work, or 
     celebrating the wedding of loved ones.
       (A quick example from a seemingly endless list: An Israeli 
     security guard prevented a Palestinian suicide bomber from 
     entering a mall in the seaside town of Netanya last December. 
     The bomber detonated his explosives anyway, killing himself, 
     the guard and four others.)
       But the unnecessary slaughter of innocents, whether by 
     Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, American forces in Iraq or the 
     Israeli defense forces, is always wrong, and should never be 
     tolerated. So civilized people cannot in good conscience 
     stand by and silently watch as hundreds of innocents are 
     killed and thousands more threatened by the spasm of 
     destruction unleashed by Israel in Lebanon.
       Going after Hezbollah is one thing. The murderous rocket 
     attacks into Israel must be stopped. But the wanton killing 
     of innocent civilians, including babies and children, who had 
     no connection at all to Hezbollah is something else.

[[Page H5659]]

       The United States should have whispered into Israel's ear, 
     the message being: ``The carnage has to cease. We'll find a 
     better way.''
       Instead, the Bush crowd nodded in acquiescence as Israel 
     plowed headlong into a situation that can't possibly end any 
     other way than badly. Lebanon, which had been one of the few 
     bright spots in the Middle East, is now a mess. Even if 
     Hezbollah is brought to its knees, the circumstances will 
     ensure that there will be legions of newly radicalized young 
     men anxious to take up arms and step into the vacuum.
       (When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, its strongest 
     resistance enemy was the Palestinian guerrilla group Fatah. 
     When it withdrew 18 years later, it left behind a stronger, 
     more extreme guerrilla movement in Hezbollah, a force that 
     didn't exist at the time of the invasion.)
       Joseph Cirincione, an expert on national security matters 
     (and a supporter of Israel) at the Center for American 
     Progress in Washington, said last week: ``There is no 
     question that Hezbollah provoked this current crisis, and 
     that it was right for Israel to respond, even if that meant 
     crossing the Lebanon border to strike back at those who had 
     attacked it. But this operation has gone too far. It's 
     striking back at those who had nothing to do with 
     Hezbollah.''
       As a true friend of Israel, the task of the United States 
     is to work as strenuously as possible to find real solutions 
     to Israel's security. The first step in that process, as far 
     as the current crisis is concerned, would logically have been 
     to try and broker a cease-fire.
       But the compulsive muscle-flexers in the Bush crowd were 
     contemptuous of that idea. Always hot for war, and 
     astonishingly indifferent to its consequences, they egged 
     Israel on.
       That was not the behavior of a friend.
       Neither Israel nor the United States can kill enough 
     Muslims to win the struggle against terror. What Israel needs 
     are stable, moderate governments in the region. (This is one 
     of the reasons why it made no sense to cripple the Lebanese 
     government.) What the United States needs is as much serious 
     diplomatic engagement on all fronts as possible; and an end 
     to the Bush administration's insane addiction to war--ever 
     more war--as the answer to the world's ills.
       The. U.S. especially needs to be deeply involved in the 
     effort to establish peace between Israel and its neighbors.
       There is no grand solution to the centuries-old problems of 
     the Middle East. As with the cold war between the United 
     States and the Soviet Union, you try to keep things as cool 
     as possible, step by, sometimes agonizing step. It may not be 
     pretty, and it will surely be frustrating. But if the 
     conflict, however aggravating, can be kept cold, as opposed 
     to hot, you're ahead of the game.

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