[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 131 (Thursday, September 6, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H10224-H10230]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ISRAEL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to ponder a 
hypothetical. Imagine for a moment that a small town in your district, 
whether you represent a rural or urban district or suburban district 
you can imagine this hypothetical, but it's an unimaginable concept to 
many of us in the United States. Imagine if a town in that district was 
hit by a rocket, just landed out of the sky, launched from a 
neighboring town, or if you're near the border, launched from a 
neighboring country. Imagine for a moment how you would react as an 
elected official in that town, imagine for a moment how you would act 
as a parent of people in that town, imagine how you would act if you 
were government from that town.
  Well, for one small town in the southern part of Israel, it's not 
something they need to imagine. Let me show you a map of Israel and 
point to a small town called Sderot. It's right down here near the 
Negev, right along the border of the Gaza Strip.
  Sderot is a town of 24,000 people. It is not a wealthy town; it's 
basically a working class town. Like I said, not very big. But in the 
last 5 years, not one, not two, but 2,000 rockets have landed on that 
town, all of them launched from the Gaza Strip.
  Now, as you ponder what it is that you would do, let me tell you a 
little bit about the effect it has had to the people of Sderot. Eight 
people have been killed as these qassam rockets have fallen. What is a 
qassam rocket? A qassam rocket is a fairly primitive rocket that is 
made out of basically a plumbing pipe with four stabilizers and filled 
with about a pound or so of shrapnel, that when it explodes, it blows 
the shrapnel all around.
  This is a picture of some of the qassam rockets that have landed in 
Sderot over the last 5 years. This is what the back of the local police 
station looks like. They keep them all and they mark it when they land. 
Now, eight people have been killed by these rockets, three of them 
children, dozens have been wounded. There have been 155 of these 
rockets landing in this town just since June, when Hamas was elected as 
the representative party of the people of the West Bank, and some would 
argue Gaza as well. You see this small strip of land? That's the Gaza 
Strip. Lobbed one by one by one into this town of Sderot. Well, as you 
think about how your citizens might deal, let me tell you a little bit 
about how the citizens of Sderot have dealt.
  For one thing, when there is any kind of notice that they get, and 
they have a rather primitive system of lasers that detect when there is 
heat out in the desert that seems extraordinary, a notice goes to the 
local police department and then they send out tzeva adom, tzeva adom, 
which just means ``code red.'' Then you have about 15 seconds. That's 
how much time the people of Sderot have to respond. They can do a 
couple of things. They can run into these concrete shells that have 
been built all throughout town. The way we might have phone booths in 
our towns, they have concrete structures that are called life shields. 
They are supposed to pull over or stop their car where they are and run 
to a building or wall. It's the only part of Israel where it's illegal 
to wear your seat belt because you have to be able to run out of your 
car as quickly as possible to avoid the rocket attacks.
  And kids, of course, they're taught the old 1950s-era American idea 
of ``duck and cover,'' except when it comes to the children of Sderot, 
it would be more aptly described as ``duck and suffer.'' One in three 
children in that town suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. It is 
not coincidental or accidental that seven rockets landed in that town 
on the first day of school this past Sunday. There was a rocket attack 
today.
  It is hard to find pictures that truly can express what it is like 
when a rocket falls on an elementary school; but this is a picture that 
was taken during a rocket attack last year, children essentially 
cowering in a corner of their school and holding their heads for their 
lives.
  You know, it is easy to describe in dry terms what you're supposed to 
do when a rocket lands on your town, and thank God many of us will 
never know what that is like. But imagine what it is like when there 
are hundreds of

[[Page H10225]]

them, and now thousands of them over the course of the last couple of 
years.
  Now, we here in Washington, we frequently think of things through the 
lens of what should the government response be. Well, what would your 
town's government response be if it was attacked by a foreign power day 
after day after day with rockets? Well, unfortunately for the people of 
Israel, there isn't a great deal that they can do, particularly since 
the international community has shown very little concern about the 
matter. The United Nations, perhaps we can urge them to pass a 
resolution of condemnation. They've been unwilling to do anything. You 
might try to figure out what ways you can make your residents more 
safe. The Israeli Government sent 200 soldiers to this town of 24,000 
people to escort their hundreds of kids to school. You might want to 
try to figure out where they're getting the artillery necessary to be 
launching these attacks. As you can see here, the border is only with 
one other country, and that's Egypt. Time and time again there have 
been found tunnels that lead into the Gaza Strip providing weaponry. 
You might want to crack down on Egypt to make sure that they stop 
providing the artillery.

  But one thing for sure is you would do something. And sooner or 
later, I think it's fair to say that all of us, if we were put in this 
circumstance where there was one or even two or three at most rockets 
falling in our districts, we would demand that something be done. Well, 
I believe that it is time for those of us in the United States to 
realize that terrorism falls in all kinds of ways every day that barely 
gets a notice.
  When several of these rockets fell in Sderot on the first day of 
school, you might have missed it in your neighborhood newspaper because 
it is so commonplace. It should never be, in 2007, commonplace for one 
nation to lob missiles down on the other.
  Now, it comes as little surprise that just in the several months that 
Hamas took over control of the Gaza Strip that there has been an 
escalation in the number of rockets. But I also think that we need, as 
a country that is in solidarity with Israel and the many things that 
they're trying to do, you know, it's not the purpose of this map, but 
you can see that this is a nation that is surrounded with enemies. On 
the northern border they face Hezbollah, which declared war across the 
international border and lobbed weapons upon them in the Lebanese war.
  You see here they're dealing with problems in the Gaza Strip. Now, I 
should point out that much of the escalation has happened in the period 
since Israel withdrew unilaterally from the Gaza Strip. There are no 
Israeli forces there anymore. Since the Israeli forces left, the rocket 
attacks have gone up.
  So what can the Israelis do? Well, I guess they could reoccupy the 
Gaza Strip, and you can imagine the public condemnation and hue and cry 
that might occur if that happened. I guess they could try as best they 
could to track where these rockets are being fired from and try to go 
in as quickly as possible and counterattack. Well, it's not a very 
practical thing to do, perhaps they would argue. But one of the things 
they are considering doing is saying, look, we're going to cut off the 
power and supply to the Gaza Strip; we're going to make the citizens of 
Gaza Strip make a choice whether they're going to have terrorists in 
their midst or not.
  Well, one thing that we can do, as far away from the front of the 
Sderot conflict as we are, is we could make it very clear that if we 
were in the same position, we would not be calling upon ourselves to 
show great restraint. We would try to figure out how do we solve this 
problem.
  And so we, as the United States of America and the State Department, 
when they call upon Israel, show restraint, show restraint, don't 
retaliate, maybe that's a reasonable argument after one or two or 10 
rockets. Now, I think we have to realize that what Israel is engaged 
in, what this tiny town is engaged in is playing defense in the war on 
terrorism every single day without much support and without much help.
  So I take the floor today with my good friend from Nevada to say 
that, while we are not being asked to live in a town like Sderot, we 
should be mindful of the idea that such towns exist in Israel, that it 
is not just the province of people who live along the Lebanese border 
that are facing terrorism, it's not just the province of people who 
drive along the roads even in the inner country of Israel who find 
themselves being under attack. It's a daily attack on this tiny town.
  Now, they don't have C-SPAN; I doubt they have C-SPAN in Sderot. But 
they do listen very carefully when the United States of America, when 
the Secretary of State, when the President, when elected officials 
stand up and say, listen, we don't envy the situation that Israel is 
in, but we understand it. And we understand that retaliation is 
sometimes a difficult thing to contemplate, but sometimes it's 
necessary. We know that if we were put in the same position and 
suddenly the good folks in Canada started lobbing missiles over the New 
York border, I would be demanding that we respond. If the folks who 
live in Arizona or Texas started getting attacked with missiles coming 
over the border, certainly none of us would be saying, show 
forbearance.
  If these children were being forced to cower at rocket attacks day 
after day after day in any town in the United States, we would 
understand perfectly well that something needed to be done to stem the 
tide. But there are other things we can do. We can say we are not going 
to continue to be a supporter of Egypt, as we have, if they continue to 
allow their nation to be essentially a wide open font for terrorist 
activities. We are going to understand that, while it was every right, 
and sometimes I'm criticized for making this image, it's every right of 
the people of the Palestinian territories to choose to elect Hamas as 
their leaders, but it is also the right of the international community 
to say that this is what we expected would happen. We would have an 
increase in the international terrorism that emerged from the Gaza 
Strip, and now it has happened. And if we had a terrorist government in 
Canada, we wouldn't hesitate for a moment to see it as a threat to our 
security.
  We can also understand that the people of Sderot's fight is all of 
our fight. When the United Nations is, resolution after resolution, 
condemning Israel for its heavy hand in this or its heavy hand in that, 
when it convenes a conference to talk about the plight of the 
Palestinians, putting aside the plight of the Israelis, they do a 
disservice to the basic common sense about who it is that is doing the 
attacking, who it is that is launching the missiles and who it is that 
is on the other side.

                              {time}  1745

  The other thing that we can do is make sure that weapons like this 
are never armed with high-tech guidance systems. Right now, the 
administration is putting the final touches on a plan to present to the 
United States Congress that would sell missile guidance systems, $20 
million worth, to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has been one of the 
foremost advocates for Hamas in the world. They fund them. They support 
them. They provide them aid and comfort.
  Imagine for a moment if these missiles weren't being lobbed 
relatively indiscriminately in the direction of schools, hospitals, 
shopping centers and synagogues, but imagine if they had laser guidance 
systems provided to the Saudis and then leaked to them, because that is 
what happens in that part of the world. Imagine this number of rockets 
that are hitting people and installations and churches, well, 
synagogues and not just falling to the Earth.
  We can stop that sale. We in Congress can stop that sale. And we 
should do everything we can to do so. Ms. Berkley and I circulated a 
letter that over 115 Members of Congress signed onto saying this is a 
bad idea to be selling weapons, high-tech weapons, to the foremost 
exporter of terrorism in the world. But tonight when we lay down our 
heads, we should know that not far away, 2,000 miles away in Sderot, 
children are going to be walking to school, and most likely if tomorrow 
is like today was, they are going to hear a siren go off. They are 
going to hear a voice over the loudspeakers saying in Hebrew, 
``condition red, condition red'' which meant that they have to go find 
cover somewhere. Imagine raising your child in that kind of 
environment.

[[Page H10226]]

Imagine the outrage that you would feel as a parent or resident of that 
town.
  We should never forget that we are not going to be safe just because 
we don't have rockets falling on us every single day. So long as there 
are entities in the world that find comfort in being able to do that 
day in and day out, we all suffer. We admire Israel for what it does. 
It is probably the last remaining country besides the United States of 
America that every day is trying to fight terrorism. Our friends in 
Europe turn it on and turn it off as they might be willing to. Frankly, 
it is the United States and Israel every day.
  But as much as we fight and as much as we invest in resources, as 
much as we honor the men and women of the armed services, 150,000 
fighting for us in Iraq and Afghanistan, imagine if every single day we 
weren't having to go out and fight that fight, but it was landing in 
our community. That should be the lens that we look at this conflict 
through. There are complications. It is a nuanced and difficult thing. 
It is difficult trying to persuade people who are democracies in 
Lebanon, democracies in the West Bank and Gaza, that they shouldn't be 
voting for people whose campaign slogan is ``I want to drive Israel 
into the sea.'' It is discouraging.
  It is complicated when you have a nation like Jordan for whom many of 
these people would consider their home country and have them take 
little responsibility for those people who are in the West Bank, as 
well as for those people who are in Gaza. It is a difficult, 
complicated part of the world. But there are some things that are 
immutable. And I would hope that we would all agree that one of the 
immutable things is that under no circumstance should any country have 
to withstand tens and tens, and hundreds, eventually thousands of 
rocket attacks on its land just because it is a small town and just 
because most people have never heard of it. My colleague, Congressman 
Wexler, and I had a long debate about how to pronounce it. He said 
``Sderot.'' I said ``Sderot.'' It is unclear. It was written originally 
in Hebrew. It probably appears in the Bible somewhere. Perhaps we can 
find an authority on that.
  These are not the most influential people even in Israel. But it is 
troubling to me. I think I speak for my colleague, Ms. Berkley, that 
day in and day out these attacks happen, and none of us even notice any 
more. Well, the children and the adults and the people of that 
community notice. They notice. They are traumatized by it. I think it 
is our obligation as citizens of the world to say that while you can 
have different viewpoints about where borders should be and you can 
have different viewpoints about the relative gripes of the Palestinians 
or the gripes of Hamas or who should prevail, Fatah or Hamas, or 
whether or not the Egyptians are doing enough, or whether or not the 
Syrians are doing enough, or whether or not they are all just exporting 
terrorism in one form or the other, I would hope that we could agree 
that it is an international abomination that this is allowed to happen.
  I would be glad to yield to my colleague from Nevada.
  Ms. BERKLEY. I want to thank my good friend from New York, Anthony 
Weiner. As usual, I am not sure that my presence is needed here. You 
have done such an eloquent job explaining the situation as it is. I am 
afraid I have to agree with our colleague, Mr. Wexler, and pronounce 
the little town the way he does, but the sentiment is the same.
  I wish you were with us, Mr. Weiner, 3 weeks ago when there was a 
congressional trip to Israel. We had the opportunity to go to Sderot 
and see for ourselves firsthand exactly what you are speaking of. I 
want to share with you my impressions. I have been to Israel 15 times, 
but that was the first time that I had ever gone to that little border 
town and met the people, heard what they had to say, but I did. I am 
glad that I had the opportunity so I could share it with you and our 
colleagues now.
  We met in a strategic area of Sderot where we were able to look into 
the Gaza. It is less than a mile away. They live Palestinian and 
Israeli next door to one another. We met with a family who has lived 
there for a number of years and has endured the 2,000 rocket attacks 
that have taken place, that have been perpetrated against the citizens 
of this community for the last 5 years, 2,000 rocket attacks. The last 
one, as you said, happening as late as today as children were going to 
school.
  Now, Hamas and Islamic jihad have the timing down pretty well if they 
don't have the accuracy, because the rocket attacks, the missile 
attacks, on this small Israeli town take place in the morning hours 
when children are headed to school and parents are headed to work. Then 
there's a lull. If there is going to be another attack, it is usually 
when people are coming home from work and their children are coming 
back from school.
  We met a family from Sderot, a wife, a mother and her children. I 
listened to this mother tell us what it is like on a daily basis, the 
fear she has every time she sends her children out to walk to school, 
how they can't go outside and play for fear that there will be an 
incoming missile that might indiscriminately hit any one of them on any 
given day. The very inaccuracy of these rockets make them something to 
fear. After the last attack that she told us about, she grabbed her 
child, and she fell on him in an effort to save him. When it was over, 
the little boy looked at his mommy. He said, ``Mommy, don't ever fall 
on me to save me again. Because if anything was going to happen to you, 
what would I do without you?''

                              {time}  1800

  The children of this little town are suffering in more ways than you 
and I can possibly imagine. While it is true that of the 2,000 attacks 
in the last 5 years, eight people have died, and I have been told only 
eight people is not so bad, three of those eight were children, if you 
are one of the eight, or their families, it is not bad, it is 
devastating. And if you are the parent or grandparent of one of those 
three children, whose only crime was being an Israeli child walking to 
school one day, it is a horrible, horrible thing to endure.
  So the fact that there hasn't been the mayhem and the injuries that 
are visible to the eye doesn't make this any worse because of the 
psychological damage to the people of this community and to their 
children, many of who suffer from PTSD.
  I sit on the Veterans' Affairs Committee. We listen to testimony of 
our troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from PTSD. 
As horrible as that is, we understand it. We expect it. It is going to 
happen. But as a 5, 6, 7 year-old kid, to be suffering from PTSD, from 
not being able to sleep at night for fear that there is going to be a 
rocket attack on their home, afraid to go to school, afraid to sit in 
your classroom, parents losing their jobs because they can't stay at 
work when they hear that siren go off, they want to rush to the school 
where they know that their children are studying, for the hope that if, 
God forbid, anything happens, they can save their child, that is not a 
way to live. Nobody should live that way.
  The reason that the Congressional delegation met with this family and 
others in this little town was because they wanted to share with us 
what was going on because they feel they have been forgotten, not only 
by their own government, but they wanted their government and the 
United States, their most reliable ally, and the people of this world 
community to recognize what is going on, and to help them, help them in 
some way. They implored us to do something to stop these rocket 
attacks.
  Now, you mentioned the fact that about 2 years and 3 weeks ago on 
August 15th Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza. It became 
untenable to secure 7,000 settlers from 1.4 million Palestinians, so 
the Israelis made a decision in the name of peace to unilaterally 
disengage from the Gaza.
  The hope was this, Mr. Weiner. The hope was that the Palestinian 
people in the Gaza would recognize they had a golden opportunity to 
demonstrate to the world that they were capable of governance and they 
would use this opportunity to repair the infrastructure, build schools, 
start healing their economy, build housing and hospitals for the 
Palestinian people, make it possible for 1.4 million Palestinians to 
have a future, a dream of their own that wasn't mayhem and killing and 
corruption.

[[Page H10227]]

  Unfortunately, we have not seen that. What we have seen, and it is 
more and more with each passing day, is that Hamas is using the Gaza 
and the Palestinian people as a human fortress as they continue to and 
increase lobbing rockets and missiles into Israel from strategic 
locations in the Gaza.
  Why do the Palestinian people have to continue to suffer and live 
under these conditions? Are there no Palestinian leaders willing to 
step up and say this is not what I want for my children, it is not what 
I want to do to Israeli children? We have an obligation to be so much 
more than a launching pad against Israeli border towns like Sderot.
  What are the Israelis expected to do? The people of Sderot are 
demanding that the Israeli government do something, that they stop this 
carnage, this mayhem, this indiscriminate killing and damage.
  Well, we can examine the options of the Israelis. They can go back 
into Gaza, as you stated. I don't think that is a viable option. The 
Israelis don't want to reoccupy the Gaza. They can launch strategic 
attacks against those locations that the Kassam rockets are being 
launched from. But, as you know, they can be launched very quickly, and 
the perpetrators disappear within moments. And if they do that and 
accidentally hit an innocent Palestinian family, there would be hell to 
pay for that. So that isn't the best possible option either.

  So, what is left? The Israelis provide the water and the sewage 
system and the electricity and power to the Gaza for 1.4 million 
Palestinians to enjoy some quality of life. They can cut those services 
off and 1.4 million Palestinians can suffer, because Hamas and Islamic 
Jihad have used their fellow Palestinians as nothing more than a cruel 
shield behind which they launch indiscriminate attacks against innocent 
Israeli civilians, men, women and children, and then they use the 
Palestinian people as buffers to protect them from any retaliation that 
the Israelis may wish to do in order to protect their own people.
  Mr. WEINER. Reclaiming my time, I think you have raised the essential 
question, why is it that people are attacking Sderot? What is the great 
political fight that is going on that leads people to be launching 
missiles out of Gaza into Sderot?
  There was once upon a time a conflict over whether or not Israel 
should be occupying this territory. They are not. What is it now that 
the fight is over? What is it, now that Hamas has been elected and 
there has been this dramatic increase in them, what is the objective of 
those people who are committing these acts of terrorism? It is no 
longer a border dispute. The Gaza strip, the Israelis have said okay, 
it is yours. Take it. Take it and control it, govern it, be responsible 
for it on your own.
  It also raises another question. Hamas was elected in the West Bank 
and Gaza. This notion that they only control the Gaza, the West Bank is 
under someone else's control, remember now, this is a new government 
under a democracy, and I largely have agreed with the President when he 
has said, you know, democracy is a virtue that we should try to 
encourage throughout the world.
  Well, while there is a lot of complaints you can make about the 
people that they chose, this was a pretty free and clear election. No 
one has accused them of cooking the books or stealing the election. If 
anything, Fattah was in control of more of the apparatus, they should 
have won.
  So now Hamas has been elected and there has been a dramatic increase 
of attacks. These are the numbers just since June. Every week, 7, 14, 
12. This is a week. This is not over the course of a month, this is 
just over the course of each week how much there has been. And the 
question has to be, what is now the fight over? What is it that the 
terrorists, what is it that Hamas, what is it the people here are 
trying to do?
  Well, could it be could it be that the people here in Gaza are always 
going to attack the citizens of Israel. What is then the logical 
extension our policy? It is fine to say, all right, let's try to figure 
it out. The Saudis have put forth this plan and said let's return the 
country to the 1967 borders. Maybe that is the solution.
  Well, the Lebanese border is no longer under contest. The United 
Nations decided where the line should be. Israel said you are wrong, 
but we are going to observe your line.
  The Palestinians said the Gaza Strip is ours. The Israelis said, 
well, we don't believe you can secure it and it won't be safe for us to 
leave, but we are going to leave anyway. So now you have people 
crossing over from Lebanon and taking prisoners and declaring war. You 
have the Palestinians electing a terrorist organization and increasing 
the amount of attacks.
  What is it they want? This is not, my colleagues, a basic border 
dispute any more. Now you can only conclude if they are attacking a 
small town of 22,000 people just because they can, that their objective 
is going to be under every circumstance, whenever given the 
opportunity, they are going to attack.
  Now, I don't say that to drag us into a larger discussion about what 
the ultimate solution to this challenge is, except to say for many 
Americans who look at this part of the world and don't see the nuances, 
they say can't they just work something out there? Just kind of find a 
border that works for everyone.
  Well, Sderot is nowhere near the border here. It has never been under 
Palestinian control, ever.
  Ms. BERKLEY. It is not in dispute.
  Mr. WEINER. Unless you believe, which some people may, that all of 
Israel should be under Arab control. Then you don't believe in this 
existential sense that Israel should believe at all.
  Ms. BERKLEY. Of course, Hamas' charter says exactly that, that Israel 
does not have a right to exist. They refuse to recognize Israel's right 
to exist. So if Israel doesn't exist then the Israelis don't exist, and 
they can do anything they want in their minds when it comes to the 
people of Sderot.
  Mr. WEINER. And I think the gentlewoman is right, except in her 
pronunciation, which was confirmed with the embassy earlier today that 
there is no T and it is Sderot. But that is another whole conversation, 
which is why I would never get elected to the Knesset from that 
district.
  Ms. BERKLEY. Or to the First Congressional District in Nevada.
  Mr. WEINER. That is probably right. But the point is, to be serious 
here, we have heard a great deal here recently about the upcoming 
meetings that are going to be going on with foreign secretaries to try 
to resolve and prop up Abu Mazen, who is the leader of the Fattah 
faction that lost the election, but who many people in the United 
States, and many people in the world community, feel is kind of a 
better choice than Hamas.
  Whether or not he is or isn't or whether or not he speaks for anyone 
or not, it is beyond dispute that Hamas holds sway in the Gaza Strip. 
It is also beyond dispute that they won for reasons that can be 
explained a lot of different ways. They won. They are the 
representative people of the Palestinians. We may like Abu Mazen more, 
but he doesn't seem to speak for as many people.

  But before I yield to the gentlewoman, I just want to point out that 
for people who say well, maybe if Israel left the Gaza Strip to 
Palestinian control, this would be resolved. As the gentlewoman from 
Nevada pointed out, been there, done that. And, remember, many people 
argued that it would be a mistake for the Israelis to acquiesce to the 
Palestinians' request because they would just use this as a launching 
ground for terrorism.
  Well, those people turned out to be right, and, unfortunately, rather 
than saying okay, we are going to accept this as our Nation and we are 
going to show that we can sustain ourselves and not be a hostile 
neighbor, it has instead led to this, which is a dramatic increase in 
the amount of attacks that have gone on since the Palestinians took 
over the province of their own area.
  Ms. BERKLEY. There are a few points that I would like to make in 
response to what you said. You know, when the Saudis come with this 
plan, and look, any peace plan is better than no peace at all, but let 
us keep in mind, in addition to the fact that Israel is no longer in 
Lebanon, and, remember, Hezbollah supposedly was created in an effort 
to get the Israelis out of Lebanon. The Israelis have been out of 
Lebanon now for 8 years and it doesn't

[[Page H10228]]

seem to matter. Hezbollah is thriving. They are arming and attacking 
Israelis on the Israeli side of the border.
  You quite rightly said the Israelis unilaterally got out of the Gaza. 
When it comes to the 1967 borders, let us remember, when Israel made 
peace with the Egyptians in that very historic moment of opportunity in 
the Middle East, the Israelis gave back the Sinai to the Egyptians that 
they had acquired in the 1967 war. They gave it back with all the oil 
and everything else. They said peace is more important to us than this 
land. You can have it.
  Remember prior to the 1967 war? The West Bank was part of Jordan. 
Jordan controlled the West Bank. It was Jordanian territory. And then 
after a number of years, the Jordanians gave it to the Israelis. They 
didn't want to deal with the problems. So when we are talking about 
1967 borders, does that mean that Jordan is going to take back the West 
Bank and deal with the problems that currently exist in the West Bank?
  There was a reason that the Palestinian people turned to Hamas. They 
had a corrupt leader, a murderer, a terrorist in the name of Yasser 
Arafat. The billions and billions of dollars that the Europeans gave to 
the Palestinians through Yasser Arafat, that the Americans gave, in an 
effort to improve the lives of the Palestinian people, did not go to 
help the Palestinian people. Not one child got educated. Not one 
person's wounds or one person's illness was cured in a new hospital. 
Not one road was built. Not one business was created.
  That money went into bank accounts that Arafat's widow is now living 
on, and rather nicely, I would say. Out of desperation for the 
corruption of Yasser Arafat's political party, Fattah, the people, the 
Palestinian people looked to Hamas, a terrorist organization, to get 
their basic rights met, their basic needs met. Hamas was providing 
social services, unemployment benefits to the unemployed, clothing to 
those that were not clothed, food to those that were hungry, instead of 
the legitimate Palestinian Authority. There is no wonder that the 
Palestinian people turned to Hamas.
  But what we see in Hamas is a terrorist organization that refuses 
Israel's right to exist, that rains terror on border towns like Sderot, 
only because they can't get to the bigger towns because of the security 
and that security fence that the entire world condemned Israel for 
building in an effort to protect its own citizens from terrorist 
attacks.
  So, now we are at a crossroads. The Palestinian people don't have to 
continue to support Hamas. Right now, the Gaza is a no-man's land. What 
few Christians are left in the Gaza are being subjected to forced 
conversions. Hamas is indiscriminantly walking the streets shooting at 
point-blank range any former member of Fattah. And the Palestinian 
people are caught in the crossfire.
  It is time for the international community to speak as one voice in 
an effort to bring peace to the Palestinians and to the people of 
Israel, and the place to start is in Sderot.
  Mr. WEINER. Let me just reclaim my time briefly and just make one or 
two points.
  When I posited in the introduction to this special order the idea, 
well, what would you do if you were faced with this kind of challenge? 
Well, imagine, if you can, that you were able to build a wall tall 
enough into the sky to intercept any of those rockets. You would say 
jackpot. We figured out a way to do it. It is not pleasant, it is not 
nice, but we figured out a way. Or a giant net to catch them all.
  Well, they didn't have indiscriminate missile attacks coming from 
this part of the Palestinian territories. They had human beings who had 
strapped armaments around their waist filled with ball bearings and 
nails, and they had them walk into cafes and walk into discotheques and 
blow themselves up and everyone near them.
  So Israel, after trying to detect them as best they could and stop 
them as best they could, and having remarkable success as doing that, 
found that, you know, what, we don't like doing this, but let's build a 
wall, a fence in some cases, a wall in other parts of it, to stop 
people from just walking across.
  Well, it is the equivalent of trying to catch those missiles, and it 
makes a certain amount of common sense. It is a terrible message and a 
terrible sign and you hate to do it for your neighbor, just the same 
way if you were living next door to someone to build a high concrete 
wall between you and your neighbor. You would never want to do it, 
unless they started walking across into your lawn and blowing you and 
your family up.
  So they went and they constructed this wall. Do you know, I say 
rhetorically, because I know the gentlewoman from Nevada knows, the 
amount of international hue and cry that went on, how outrageous it was 
for the Israelis? Even our government said they were opposed to the 
idea of building this security fence.
  Well, it has been successful. They have figured out a way, albeit not 
the best possible way. The best possible way is to say the people of 
the West Bank, the people of Gaza, you want your own state. We want you 
to have your own state. The United States does. The Israeli government 
does. A recent poll showed that 87 percent of the population of Israel 
said we want the Palestinians to have their own state. But if every 
time you cede more responsibility to the territories it leads to more 
violence, it makes you long for a solution.

                              {time}  1815

  So what is the solution? Well, the most ideal solution is for the 
Palestinians, as you say, to stand up and say, look, we have high-rises 
here in Gaza City. We are living not very good lives here. We have been 
cut off from the international world because the source of our economic 
activities is being good neighbors to everyone else in the world. 
Israel and Egypt both went up economically the moment they signed the 
Camp David Accords because they realized that international 
cooperation, although not a great love, but international cooperation 
leads to benefits for everyone.
  So the people of Gaza have to say, look, what is it that it is 
getting us? We are terrorizing our neighbors, but to what end? 
Eventually the Israelis are going to have to say something. The 
Israelis are deliberating now on what steps to take. Can you blame them 
if they say, we are going to cut off all electricity to the city until 
it stops? Can you blame them if they say, we are going to close off all 
border crossings until it stops? You can't possibly blame the Israeli 
Government for whatever they do to protect the people of Sderot.
  But the objective should not be what kind of defensive, and you know 
that the Israelis are now experimenting with not one but two 
antimissile systems to try to stop them. It is billions of dollars.
  When I visited Israel last week, the defense minister was saying, I 
am not satisfied with having one antimissile system. We may need to 
have two of them to protect them both from the Lebanese border and from 
the rockets coming in on Sderot.
  But the real solution is for the Palestinian people and the 
international community to say, look, if you want to live side by side 
as a two-state community, let's get to talking about how to do that. If 
your objective is to have nonstop violence, then you act the way you 
are, the way Hamas and their supporters are acting in Gaza. You just 
keep doing acts of war over and over again. The Israeli people, God 
bless them, whenever there is a hint of a possibility of a chance of 
some kind of a negotiated settlement, they pursue it.
  Ms. BERKLEY. When I was part of this congressional delegation a few 
weeks ago, and maybe last week you heard the same thing, it was the 
Israeli Government that was promoting providing resources for the 
Palestinians. They want the American Government to support Abu Mazen. 
They want us to prop up the Palestinian people because they know this 
might be the last opportunity they have for peace.
  And you brought up a really good point. I can't say that the 
Egyptians and the Israelis love each other and sing Kumbiya by the camp 
fire. The same thing with the Jordanians. This is not a warm peace; it 
is a peace. You don't have to love thy neighbor, but you can live side 
by side in peace. I think that is what we should be going for.
  If I thought for a minute these indiscriminate attacks on Sderot and 
other

[[Page H10229]]

border towns was an effort to create a Palestinian state, maybe I could 
understand that, as addled as that is. But this has nothing to do with 
creating a Palestinian state; this has everything to be the 
elimination, dare I say extermination, of the State of Israel. That is 
what strikes fear in my heart.
  Mr. WEINER. And then the question has to be raised, as much good 
intention as Secretary of State Rice and the administration may have 
here, having sit-downs and negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas and trying 
to present him with aid and trying to make his government or the idea 
that his thoughts or actions would be better for the Palestinian 
people, does that bring us one inch closer to stopping the attacks on 
Sderot? Does it do anything to truly enforce the idea that Gaza is 
under control? And the people voted for them. And by the way, this 
notion that they just carried, this is not like an electoral college 
map, they just carried Gaza, they have broad support throughout the 
West Bank as well.
  Ms. BERKLEY. Well, Fatah's corruption permeated the entire 
Palestinian Authority.
  Mr. WEINER. But I have to say to the gentlelady, this notion that it 
was a response to corruption, when someone campaigns and gives you a 
flyer, vote for me and I am going to wipe out the State of Israel, and 
then the moment they get in, they increase the amount of attacks going 
on, at a certain point you have to say this is not about who is going 
to fix the potholes. They are doing exactly what they said.
  It might be true that message took hold in an environment where Fatah 
was corrupt, but I think we in some ways let them off the hook a little 
bit. They did campaign on the idea of driving Israel into the sea.
  Ms. BERKLEY. And I would be the last one to disagree with you.
  Mr. WEINER. But I think it is important to realize that we hear it 
just about every day out of the State Department, and this is true 
under Democratic administrations as well, Israel must show restraint. 
Every time there is an attack we hear that, Israel must show restraint.
  Imagine if there were two attacks in New Jersey or in Pennsylvania. 
Imagine if there was one, and imagine if al Qaeda had just won the 
elections in Toronto and these attacks started, would any of us say we 
have to show restraint?
  Ms. BERKLEY. Absolutely not.
  Mr. WEINER. I believe that Israel has shown restraint the likes of 
which I don't think we have seen a nation on Earth ever show. If you 
think of the sheer number of attacks they have withstood over the 
course of time, putting aside the 2,000 or so in Sderot, forbearance 
has been the bottom line.
  But I think if you want to truly solve this problem, first you have 
to let the Israelis do what they need to do to protect this tiny town.
  Ms. BERKLEY. Yes.
  Mr. WEINER. Also, you have to recognize when you look at these 
borders, no one, not even Hamas says the West Bank is still occupied. 
Israel left, and now there is no other explanation for the activity 
except to say that one of the things that they are doing is living up 
to their campaign promise.
  This isn't the subject of rhetoric. Our colleague from Pennsylvania 
who has joined us saw this stockpile. This is the police station in 
Sderot. This is what they have in the back. You can see a little bit in 
the photographs, they mark taunts, Hebrew taunts on all of the rockets 
before they send them. This is essentially a pipe you can get down at a 
hardware store, four wings that stabilize it, and then there is 
essentially a pound and a half of armaments in the tip, just enough to 
kill and terrorize wherever it lands.
  Ms. BERKLEY. We have one of our most esteemed freshmen here who was 
on the trip to Israel.
  Mr. WEINER. I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. It was my first trip to Israel, and I know the 
gentlewoman from Nevada has been there multiple times, countless times, 
in fact. For me to have seen firsthand what you are talking about 
today, there really is nothing like seeing it in person.
  When we went to the border, and I know that the gentlewoman has 
talked about this tonight, we went to the border with Gaza and we 
looked at Sderot and we had families there that until recently lived in 
Gaza. The mother of course with the children, she pointed across to 
where she used to live. She said, ``That used to be my house.'' She 
told her story about when she is getting her kids ready for school, the 
alarms will go off and they know that the bombs are starting to come 
in. She told this gut-wrenching story about her experience in a minivan 
with her kids getting ready to go to school and the alarm goes off. 
That really puts it in perspective that these are families that are 
just trying to get through the day, and this is what they have to deal 
with, not once as the gentleman from New York said, but repeatedly over 
and over again. These families have to endure the threat of that 
stockpile that he is talking about landing in their house, hitting 
their car and killing members of their family. These are things that we 
can't comprehend on a daily basis in this country, to have that threat 
every single day raining down upon you.
  As the gentleman from New York described, in many instances these are 
primitive weapons that we are talking about. But in many instances 
these are weapons that have rained down on this community by the 
thousands, literally by the thousands. And we met with a gentleman that 
one of them had hit his house. Again, when you see firsthand the people 
that are affected by this and the children that are affected by this, 
it puts in perspective the fact that they are living right there on the 
border.
  What struck me the most when we asked her the obvious question: Why 
don't you just move? I think that is what many of us might think about 
doing. And she said much more articulately than I can say tonight, but 
she said: ``Look, this is where we live. This is our home. If we move, 
then we have lost. If we move, they are going to move up to where we 
happen to be at that moment. Then they will start again and we will 
have to move again. We are not going to do that. We are going to stay 
here. This is our home. We are under great threat, but we are not 
moving.''
  That really tells the tale of the type of people, the fortitude that 
we are talking about.
  I had been watching the discussion and I couldn't sit back any 
longer. I had to tell my piece of the story having seen this firsthand, 
and what a magnificent thing it is to see the courage and the bravery 
of these people. But the threat that they live under is something that 
cannot be ignored.
  Mr. WEINER. I thank the gentleman. It should also be pointed out that 
Sderot is becoming something of a ghost town, and more and more people 
are leaving the city. It is not a wealthy town. It doesn't have great 
industry. It was one of those places that makes Israel the nation that 
it is. A lot of North Africans have moved in there. It is a place of 
great diversity. You would be surprised seeing some of the faces that 
they are Israelis.
  You also realize very quickly, one of the most stunning things to 
recent visitors, is what a tiny spit of land it really is. This neck of 
land, it is not far that you are going to be able to go.
  When they had the Lebanese war, and Hezbollah had much more 
sophisticated weaponry, we had weapons that were going this far south. 
You have these that go this far north. There aren't too many places to 
go. There have been suicide bombings all throughout this area. There 
aren't too many places you can run.
  So saying to the residents of Sderot, why don't you just leave, it 
ignores the fact that there aren't too many places. You essentially 
have one nation, as we all know, that is at war with 20 of her 
neighbors. This is not a peaceful neighborhood.
  But the question arises, you don't get a chance to think about it 
when you are raising kids in that town and trying to figure out how to 
keep them safe. We spoke to a schoolteacher when I visited there a year 
ago, and that teacher tells the story of having 10-year-old kids having 
to take tranquilizers in the morning because it is a traumatizing 
experience to get up in the morning.
  While there is some randomness to where the weapons hit, there is not 
a randomness to the time of day. They launch them during the mornings 
when the kids are on the way to school and in the afternoon when they 
are coming back from school, and they have a particular fondness for 
Sabbath and for

[[Page H10230]]

holidays. There was a synagogue that was blown up right after morning 
prayers on a Saturday morning.
  What is it that we should learn from this about going forward what 
our strategy should be? Well, for one thing, this tiny tract of land is 
where the weapons are coming through. They are not coming through 
Israel or through the Mediterranean Sea; although, there were one or 
two cases in years past where boats were intercepted, but we have a 
pretty sophisticated understanding what goes on here. It is coming 
through tunnels from Egypt.
  So we should be saying to Egypt, for a country that gets $3.5 billion 
in aid every year, we should say to them, enough is enough. Until you 
show the ability to get control of this border, we are not going to 
provide any of our aid in the form of military. You want humanitarian 
assistance, that's fine.
  Secondly, the last thing we want to have is for these to be tipped 
with laser-guided systems like the ones being proposed to that part of 
the world. We can't let that technology seep into the region so these 
now have precision guidance.
  Finally, we have to say to the United Nations and to the 
international community: What more do you want the Israelis to do? They 
have left. They have left that part of the world. What is it that you 
are demanding they do?
  I would say to the people who sponsor these resolutions in the United 
Nations condemning Israel, okay, picture yourself as being the chief 
administrative officer of a government who is getting attacked by 
thousands of rockets; what do you propose they do? A giant net in the 
sky? They tried building a wall and a fence here, and they were 
criticized for that.
  From a policy perspective, and ``restraint'' is a nice and vague 
term, what we should be doing is saying to the Israelis, you need to 
protect yourselves, and we should be leading the charge at the United 
Nations to consider this international acts of war. They are a 
democracy. They are a freestanding government. These are acts of war. I 
think that the Israelis would be well within their rights to respond 
however they would like.
  The final thing we have to do, and if some of my southern colleagues 
were here, they would come up with an interesting colloquialism on how 
to say this.

                              {time}  1830

  But I hate to be a fly in the ointment about this whole idea of 
propping up Mahmoud Abbas. If Mahmoud Abbas has any ability to stop 
these rockets from launching from Gaza into Sderot, let him start to do 
something about it today. We keep hearing about this international 
conference and coming up with agreements and giving him money. I don't 
understand what possible good it's going to do when Fatah has no 
authority and no control over this part of the world.
  Ms. BERKLEY. As I said earlier, Hamas is walking around the streets 
indiscriminately shooting anybody that had anything to do with Fatah. 
They're consolidating their power, power to do what I haven't got the 
slightest idea.
  But I wanted to tell my colleague, who we had a pleasure of sharing 
this experience that I think he will remember when we all got back on 
the bus, there were a lot of people that were misty-eyed. I think it 
was a shock to most of us to see what these people are going through on 
a daily basis.
  And I looked around at our colleagues, and these are pretty 
sophisticated politicians. They've been in office for quite a while in 
different capacities, but I think everybody was taken aback and shocked 
and very touched by the families that we met and felt the pain that 
they go through on a daily basis. It was an important message for us to 
see.
  Mr. ALTMIRE. That's right. We were touched by the pain, but we were 
also touched by the courage that they endure daily these attacks, and 
they stay and they don't have to do that, but they make the decision to 
be there. And when you see the story and you see the children 
firsthand, and again, when they point across in the Gaza and say I used 
to live in that house right there, that used to be my house.
  Ms. BERKLEY. And we could see the house. I mean, they didn't have to 
go it's over there behind the mountain, no, no, there it was.
  And I have to tell you something else. One of the ministers that we 
met with said this about the conferences, and again, the Israelis are 
pushing any type of peace and support that they can get with the 
Palestinians. But they said, they want us to meet, so we'll meet, but 
if they refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist, what are we 
meeting about? Will they allow us to exist? What compromise do you make 
with people that don't recognize your right to exist? Do you compromise 
that you could exist for 20 more years, 30 more years, 50 more years? 
There's no compromise to be made with people that don't recognize that 
you are a person with a right to exist.
  Mr. WEINER. Well, in conclusion, our time is expired, but I want to 
thank the gentlewoman from Nevada and the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
for joining us here today, and I just would close with this.
  There are big, complicated conflicts that are going on in that part 
of that world. They're not going to be easy to resolve. For years, 
we've been watching with some level of success but a great deal of 
failure, but just imagine the circumstances if tomorrow, when you 
dropped off your kids at school, a couple of times during the day 
they'd have to look like this rather than studying their school books. 
Imagine if an 8, 9, 10-year-old child had to be on tranquilizers in 
order to get through the day.
  There are some things that just are without any political nuance, 
without any varnish, and are just wrong. What's going on in Sderot is 
just wrong.
  Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in great concern over the 
ongoing Qassam attacks on the southern city of Sderot, Israel. Sderot 
is a community that has been plagued with frequent and intense firing 
on its inhabitants and infrastructure since Hamas's takeover of Gaza. 
These Palestinian militants are attempting to destroy an entire 
population and bring everyday life there to a halt.
  Even today, two Qassam rockets landed in the vicinity of Sderot. One 
of these rockets was aimed at and landed near a kindergarten, on the 
first week of the new school year. Imagine the dilemma parents in this 
region face--they don't know if their children on any given day are 
safer at school, or at home given the continued rocket firings.
  These homemade rockets cannot aim solely at military targets because 
they do not have any degree of precision. They are primitive, short-
range, home-made rockets that do not have the technical capability to 
be guided, and consequently, strike innocent civilians. They have 
indiscriminately destroyed the economy and physically and 
psychologically devastated family life.
  The current situation is unacceptable--the terror organization Hamas 
is clearly violating Israel's sovereignty and overriding Israel's right 
over its land and people.
  A city of no more than 24,000, Sderot is less than a mile from the 
border with Gaza, where Israel withdrew its troops in the summer of 
2005. Since then, thousands of these rockets pummeled this city and 
terrorized men, women and children on a daily basis. Sderot citizens 
are unable to go about their normal lives and should not be expected to 
live under this permanent threat.
  Israel has shown considerable restraint and patience in dealing with 
those terrorist firing, despite the severity of the situation and the 
casualties and injuries they have taken. However, Israel has the 
complete right to defend itself against these intolerable attacks. No 
belief, however misguided, can justify the victimization of innocent 
people.
  I would like to express my solidarity not only with the citizens of 
Sderot, but with victims of terrorism around the world. We need to do 
everything we can to bring an end to this unjust situation and help 
create a lasting peace so that the citizens of Sderot can go about 
their lives.

                          ____________________