[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 59 (Monday, April 26, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E646-E647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   HONORING ISRAELI INDEPENDENCE DAY

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 21, 2010

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, for all but 11 minutes of the State of 
Israel's existence, it has found its foremost advocate and ally here: 
the United States of America. And what were those 11 minutes? That was 
the time it took the news of Israel's independence to travel around the 
world and reach the desk of President Truman, the first to recognize a 
new member of the world community and a new friend.
  Israel, President Truman said, ``has a glorious future before it--not 
just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals 
of our civilization.'' Sixty two years later, as Israel marks its 
independence, those words have been confirmed time and again. Our 
alliance with Israel, and the common interests we share, run deep. But 
even if those common interests amounted to nothing, we would still see 
in Israel a reflection of deepest values and great ideals.
  Sixty two years ago, Israel's founders set their names to a 
declaration that embodied those ideals--the declaration that ended two 
millennia of exile for the Jewish people. It read, in part: ``THE STATE 
OF ISRAEL . . . will be based on freedom, justice and peace as 
envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality 
of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of 
religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, 
conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy 
Places of all religions.''
  In those words, in the sprit that animates them, and in the political 
life that strives each day to live by them, we see our own spirit, our 
own struggle, our own founding promise.
  And those common values are at the heart of Congress's unshakeable, 
bipartisan unity on

[[Page E647]]

Israel and its security. I speak for all of my colleagues, Republicans 
and Democrats, when I say: the bond between our nations was powerful 
long before we set foot in this chamber, and it will outlast all of us. 
In that spirit, Congress must continue to support strong foreign aid 
for our ally. And we must continue to insist that regimes that threaten 
Israel's safety, and the world's, recognize Israel's right to exist--
and act accordingly.
  Few ideas in history have been more daring than the idea that the 
Jewish people could end generations of exile and build a thriving 
state, called to the highest principles of justice. Few ideas have been 
more hopeful, or more demanding. And few are more deserving of the 
world's sustaining effort.

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