[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 161 (Wednesday, November 13, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H7046-H7049]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            DEFENDING ISRAEL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Brooks of Indiana). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, one thing becomes very clear from our 
study of history, and that is that things that nations do have 
consequences. Things we do individually have consequences, and things 
we do as a Nation have consequences. That is why some people remember 
that on May 30, 2010, there were six flotilla ships--and this is from 
the U.N. release, a report into last year's raid, how events unfolded, 
dated 2 September 2011.
  It points out that on May 30, 2010, six flotilla ships leave Cyprus 
for Gaza in an attempt to break Israel's naval blockade. The Turkish 
cruise liner Mavi Marmara is chartered by Islamic charity IHH and 
carries 581 of the 700

[[Page H7047]]

flotilla activists. We know that didn't turn out so well. Israel did 
have a legitimate right to blockade the Gaza Strip to prevent more 
rockets, more munitions from being brought into the Gaza Strip that 
were being used to fire on, kill, and terrorize Israelis. Again, 
actions have consequences, and many remember the flotilla coming down 
and challenging the blockade, and there were people who were killed.
  If you go back, here is an article. It is dated also May 30, 2010, 
which was a Sunday. But it points out--and this is an article from The 
Washington Times entitled, ``Israel assails resolution on nuke weapons 
as `flawed,' '' and it is talking about an agreement that President 
Obama was trying to get done, a nonproliferation agreement, and the 
article points out that on Friday, which was May 28, 2010:

       A U.S. delegation in New York voted to endorse a consensus 
     document ending the 2010 review conference for the Non-
     Proliferation Treaty that calls for a conference in 2012 to 
     discuss a weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the Middle 
     East.
       The final document of the monthlong review conference calls 
     on Israel to join the treaty, a move that would require 
     Israel to disclose and then give up its undeclared nuclear 
     arsenal.

  This was viewed and discussed as being the first time in people's 
memory when the United States, by and through its administration--the 
Obama administration--had taken action that was very adverse to Israel 
and the international community, and particularly in the U.N. Normally 
we did not side with Israel's enemies.
  One of the lessons that I was taught by history professors at Texas 
A&M is that when a nation's enemies see that nation's strongest ally 
pulling away, it is provocative. It often provokes action by that 
nation's enemies against it because they think their strongest ally is 
pulling away. Some saw that before the war in Korea. They thought that 
the United States might have North Korea beyond its ``sphere of 
influence.'' Those kinds of things, those words, these actions, these 
votes can be provocative.
  So 2 days after the United States sides with Israel's enemies in 
demanding that Israel disclose its nuclear weapons, the flotilla 
launches to challenge the blockade. Isn't that amazing? It just happens 
to be right after this administration sides with Israel's enemies. Here 
comes a challenge to Israel's blockade that was just trying to save 
Israeli lives.
  Well, the reason that it is important to point these things out now 
is, what is happening between the United States and Iran, as we leave 
Israel out of the equation--even though it is Israel that is considered 
to be the little Satan and we are considered the great Satan, and 
Israel is probably to be the first attacked, if there is an attack--
they are certainly the most vulnerable. Yet we leave our former friend 
Israel out of the equation.
  It brings to mind a number of things that have been happening during 
this administration that have caused the vast majority of people in 
Israel, of Israeli citizens, to believe that this Obama administration 
is not concerned about Israel's best interests.
  There are many who have been aware of Scripture, and it has often 
been a guide in our relations with Israel. It is really such an 
historically appropriate thing in this House of Representatives, 
especially if we were down the hall in the former House Chamber, now 
called Statuary Hall, where they used to hold church most Sundays 
during the 1800s. Up until the late 1800s, the largest church 
congregation was in the House of Representatives, and it was not 
considered to be violative of the Constitution because it didn't 
endorse a particular religion. It was considered nondenominational.
  Scripture was read regularly, every week, down the hall. Thomas 
Jefferson had coined the phrase ``separation of church and State'' as 
being appropriate. He didn't find it offensive, that notion, and, in 
fact, at times would bring the Marine band to play hymns.
  So it seems appropriate, when we talk about Israel, to talk about 
Israel's roots because in Genesis 12--and this is the King James 
version:

       Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy 
     country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, 
     unto a land that I will shew thee;
       And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless 
     thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing;
       And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that 
     curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the Earth be 
     blessed.

  So Abram went to the land of Canaan, which later became Israel, just 
as God had promised in these verses. So it was no accident that just 
minutes after Israel became a Nation, the United States, through its 
President, Harry Truman, became the first nation in the world to 
recognize what was prophesied throughout the Old Testament about Israel 
returning after its absence.

                              {time}  1945

  Israel returned and Harry Truman made sure we were the first Nation 
that recognized them as an independent nation. The U.N. had voted 
unanimously. Because of the Holocaust and over 6 million Jews being 
killed, they wanted to ensure that another Holocaust would never happen 
again. And that brought about Israel being reestablished in part of the 
land they had possessed 3,000 years before.
  This is an article from The Washington Post, David Ignatius:

       Is Israel preparing to attack Iran? Because it is 
     considered a betrayal of an ally to warn an ally's enemies 
     that that ally may take self-defensive action to prevent 
     being attacked. And the United States and Iran, including 
     President Obama, has said repeatedly and has promised an 
     American-Israeli gathering here at the Convention Center that 
     he would never allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, that it is 
     an existential threat to Israel. It certainly is.

  So we have been hearing behind the scenes for a number of years that 
this administration was telling Israeli leaders, Don't you dare attack 
Iran without our permission. We will take care of this. We won't let 
them have nuclear weapons; and yet it is not the United States that is 
first threatened. The great Satan, the United States, in the eyes of 
leaders in Iran--not the Iranian people, but Iranian leaders--would get 
around to attacking us. But first Israel is threatened.
  So there was concern, obviously, here in Washington in the Obama 
administration that the reported threats to Israel not to defend 
themselves without our permission--even though no nation should ever 
need permission from another to defend itself--and even President Obama 
said this out here at the Convention Center to an American-Israeli 
group. Prime Minister Netanyahu reminded me of our President's words, 
and I went back and looked them up. Sure enough, he said:

       Israel must defend itself by itself.

  Our President said that. And yet if we are not going to help Israel 
defend itself, which is actually defending us as well, then shouldn't 
we avoid jeopardizing Israel's own self-defense?
  Yet here is this article dated February 2, 2012. It says:

       Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has a lot on his mind these 
     days, from cutting the defense budget to managing the 
     drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But his biggest worry 
     is the growing possibility that Israel will attack Iran over 
     the next few months.
       Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel 
     will strike Iran in April, May, or June--before Iran enters 
     what Israeli's described as a ``zone of immunity'' to 
     commence building a nuclear bomb. Very soon, the Israelis 
     fear, the Iranians will have stored enough enriched uranium 
     in deep underground facilities to make a weapon--and only the 
     United States could then stop them militarily.

  That is a betrayal of our ally, Israel. That is a gross betrayal of 
our ally, Israel. We are supposed to be on the same side; and if Israel 
defends itself, it is defending us as well, whether we recognize it or 
not.
  That was a betrayal of Israel to leak what this administration 
believed were their plans to defend itself. If we are not going to 
defend ourselves, for heaven's sake, at least allow Israel to do it 
without putting them more in jeopardy.
  By leaking that, obviously, it was this administration saying to 
Israel, Well, you better not go when you were thinking you were going 
to go because they are going to be ready because we warned your enemy 
for you.
  So we get to May and, obviously, the window that Israel may have been 
considering attacking had to pass because of the leak by our own 
administration to Israel's enemies, through The Washington Post. An 
intentional leak.
  This is from March 29, 2012, ``Israelis Suspect Obama Media Leaks to 
Prevent Strike on Iran,'' by Alexander Marquardt from ABC News:

       Two reports today about Iran's nuclear program and the 
     possibility of an Israeli

[[Page H7048]]

     military strike have analysts in Israel accusing the Obama 
     administration of leaking information to pressure Israel not 
     to bomb Iran and for Iran to reach a compromise in upcoming 
     nuclear talks.

  That is simply outrageous.
  This article says, continuing that same article:

       The first report in Foreign Policy quotes anonymous 
     American officials saying that Israel has been given access 
     to air bases by Iran's northern neighbor Azerbaijan from 
     which Israel could launch air strikes or at least drones and 
     search and rescue aircraft.

  The article goes on:

       It seems like a big campaign to prevent Israel from 
     attacking, analyst Yoel Guzansky at the Institute for 
     National Security Studies told ABC News. I think the Obama 
     administration is really worried Jerusalem will attack--and 
     attack soon. They're trying hard to prevent it in so many 
     ways.
       The Foreign Policy report by Mark Perry quotes an 
     intelligence officer saying, We're watching what Iran does 
     closely. But we're now watching what Israel is doing in 
     Azerbaijan. And we're not happy about it.

  Further down:

       In recent weeks the Obama administration shifted from 
     persuasion efforts vis-a-vis decisionmakers and Israel's 
     public opinion to a practical, targeted assassination of 
     potential Israeli operations in Iran, Ben-Yishai writes. The 
     campaign's aims are fully operational: to make it more 
     difficult for Israeli decisionmakers to order the Israeli 
     defense forces to carry out a strike, and what's even graver, 
     to erode the IDF's capacity to launch a strike with minimal 
     casualties.

  We are putting Israel's own forces at far greater risk for 
casualties. Is that something an ally does to a friend?
  Some of us believe that the Bible is accurate. Certainly, so many 
prophesies have been fulfilled. And if that is true, this 
administration, unless they can find a verse that accurately says that 
those who betray Israel will be blessed, then this country is being dug 
in a deeper hole by this administration and its betrayals of Israel's 
trust and Israel's friendship.
  This is from November 3, 2013, from TheBlaze, ``Fury, Scandalous: 
Israel Conveys Bitter Protests to Obama Admin Over Reported White House 
Security Leak.
  This says:

       The Israeli government conveyed ``bitter protests'' to the 
     White House this weekend over the Obama administration's 
     reported leak of who was behind last week's air raid on a 
     Syrian base near the port city of Latakia. Words being used 
     by the media and officials speaking anonymously in Israel to 
     describe what they perceive as a breach in trust on the part 
     of the United States include fury, scandalous, baffled, 
     unthinkable.

  This administration continues to betray our friend, our ally, Israel.
  Other things that have happened in the past were the comments made by 
President Obama to President Sarkozy in 2012 at a G-20 summit which 
were belittling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, comments in 
2011 that Israel should return to its 1967 borders that would 
have subjected it to relentless attacks and vulnerability. They were 
not helpful to our friend and ally.

  The Obama administration's failure to condemn Palestinians building 
of illegal settlements, yet constantly criticizing Israeli housing 
plans for East Jerusalem; the Obama administration's decision to 
eradicate the missile defense programs that would have helped Israel as 
well as the United States; leaving Prime Minister Netanyahu in 2010 on 
for over an hour in the White House meeting room while President Obama 
dined with his family and refused to take a picture with him was not a 
friendly gesture.
  Also, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the Obama 
administration planned to send $147 million to the West Bank and Hamas-
run Gaza; President Obama stated that all his friends in Chicago were 
Jewish and says he was sometimes being accused of being a Jewish 
``puppet''; the Obama administration leak to The Washington Post of the 
time window in which Israel would take out Iran's nuclear program; the 
Obama administration leaked to the media that Israel was going to use 
the Azerbaijan airspace to take out Iran's nuclear program.
  We placed immense pressure on Israel not to defend itself without the 
United States' permission. The Obama administration has never rejected 
or condemned the racist, hateful teachings about Jewish people going on 
in Palestinian schools in the Middle East and in some Muslim schools in 
the United States.
  President Obama traveled to Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt and 
apologized to them on behalf of the United States. The Obama 
administration's support for the Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power in 
Egypt as well as throughout the Middle East, though the Muslim 
Brotherhood had never backed away from their demand for the 
nonexistence of Israel, the Obama administration continues to support 
the Muslim Brotherhood's return to power in Egypt, when Egypt is where 
the Muslim Brotherhood turned violent on Morsi's arrest because of his 
violation of the constitution that did not provide for impeachment, 
after the Egyptian people turned out in the millions to demand his 
removal.
  It was not a coup, as the Christian Pope in Egypt told me. It was not 
a coup. This was a people rising up and demanding removal, and yet this 
administration now has cut off support because Egypt does not want the 
group, the Muslim Brotherhood, that was killing Christians, burning 
churches, terrorizing the nation, we want them back in charge--this 
administration does.
  It is an outrage.
  Though the Syrian leader Assad has been ruthless in killing and 
abusing his people, has not been helpful to Israel to the extent the 
Egyptian leader Mubarak was, this administration has not done anything 
but put Israel in more jeopardy by its actions in Syria.
  So we have not been terribly helpful to our friend Israel. And it 
doesn't sound like we are actually blessing Israel. It sounds like we 
are cursing Israel, belittling its leaders, marginalizing its efforts 
to defend itself, which also enures to our benefit.
  My oath of office is to this country. When I was in the Army for 4 
years, my oath was to this country. My allegiance continues to this 
country, and I believe that being Israel's friend is helpful to this 
country; and that is why I so strongly support being a friend to 
Israel.
  And even if you took the Bible completely out, you took out most 
anything except just looking at the Middle East and who believes in the 
value of life like we do here in the United States, who believes more 
in democratic actions like we do in the United States, then Israel 
should certainly be our friend.
  But what this administration is doing with Iran is foolhardy. It is 
foolhardy. And thank God for France. They didn't wave a white flag of 
surrender. They said, This is a terrible deal. And thank goodness they 
slowed it down, because this administration thinks they just knew and 
everything they try will work perfectly. Hello, ObamaCare.

                              {time}  2000

  It doesn't work any better when they try to mess with our friendships 
and reward our enemies and hurt our friends.
  So, in the few minutes that are remaining, Madam Speaker, I would 
like to reference back to the New York Times article by Barry James, 
October 21, 1994, during the Clinton administration.

       The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency 
     expressed skepticism Thursday about the U.S.-North Korean 
     nuclear agreement, saying it could delay inspections by the 
     agency.
       Officials at the agency, some U.S. Republican Senators and 
     politicians in South Korea criticized the accord, saying they 
     feared Pyongyang had bought itself a further 5 years of 
     secrecy, thus concealing whether it has reprocessed enough 
     plutonium to build one or more nuclear weapons.
       The energy agency says it needs to inspect two nuclear 
     waste dumps to be able to answer the question. North Korea 
     has never conceded the existence of the dumps. ``It would be 
     in the interests of all concerned that a prolonged delay be 
     avoided,'' said the agency director, Hans Blix; but, he 
     added, ``We are better off'' with the agreement than with 
     none at all. ``We have to worry about how much they have 
     squirreled away,'' an agency official said. ``Blix thinks 5 
     years is a long time to have to wait for our inspectors to 
     gain access to the facilities we need to see, including the 
     two facilities the North Koreans have never declared.''
       Yet, under the agreement that the Clinton administration 
     reached, North Korea agreed to place in storage the fuel 
     removed last spring from a 5-megawatt graphite reactor 
     containing enough plutonium for four or five nuclear bombs. 
     U.S. Republican Senators protested in a letter to President 
     Bill Clinton that this reversed longstanding U.S. policy 
     because it allowed the North Koreans to hang onto their spent 
     fuel rods and would delay for several years the inspection of 
     suspect sites.

[[Page H7049]]

       The accord ``shows it is always possible to get an 
     agreement when you give enough away,'' said Senator Bob Dole 
     of Kansas . . . The deal also has been heavily criticized in 
     South Korea. Many people there see it as a diplomatic triumph 
     for Pyongyang, which failed to dispel doubts about its 
     nuclear intentions.
       As part of the pact, which will be signed in Geneva on 
     Friday, the United States will head an international 
     consortium to provide North Korea with an interim supply of 
     fuel to overcome its chronic energy shortage and, eventually, 
     two 1,000-megawatt light-water reactors. In exchange, North 
     Korea will abandon its existing nuclear facilities and 
     renounce any plans to build nuclear weapons.

  Gee, doesn't that sound familiar? This administration is repeating 
the same mistakes of Madeleine Albright and Bill Clinton as President. 
They are running to Iran, which can not be trusted, which has lied 
repeatedly just like North Korea did.
  And how did the Clinton deal work out? Yes, they took the nuclear 
facilities we provided them, but they didn't stand good behind their 
promise not to develop nuclear weapons. They developed them and we 
helped them.
  Now this administration wants to do the same thing with Iran? We are 
still paying for the mistakes of the Clinton administration with North 
Korea's helping them get more nuclear power--and now this 
administration wants to do that with Iran? That is a huge mistake.
  We need to help our friend Israel, to stop betraying them, to help 
our friends, to stop rewarding our enemies, because the consequences to 
this Nation will be dire if we don't turn this around.
  Madam Speaker, it is my prayer--it is my hope--that this 
administration will turn from its stupid ways. The arrogance that 
existed before ObamaCare kicked in surely should have come down a notch 
so that they can realize maybe we are making a mistake in dealing with 
bloodthirsty people in Iran as well.
  This country's future is at stake. That ought to be enough to make 
this administration slow down and realize they are about to make 
another huge mistake that we will pay for for generations if they don't 
stop. Iran will certainly not stop just as North Korea did not. They 
had gotten help from North Korea. They learned the lesson from North 
Korea. It is time this administration learned a lesson from our mistake 
and from the mistake of the Clinton administration and Madeleine 
Albright.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________