[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 29, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H3284-H3285]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        ISRAEL'S MODERN HISTORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Cramer). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Perry) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to discuss the 
comments made recently by Secretary Kerry regarding Israel and 
apartheid.
  I am not going to be one of the many people that are probably calling 
for Secretary Kerry's resignation in that regard. I too work in the 
arena of public policy, and I understand that sometimes you make 
mistakes in the things you say, you say things that you didn't 
necessarily intend to say.
  I think it is very instructive to talk about it for just a few 
moments here. I want to remind everybody that Israel first fought a War 
of Independence in 1948 and 1949, and then fought again in 1967 in the 
Six Day War and then again in 1973 with the Yom Kippur War.
  During these periods of time, they were attacked, unilaterally 
attacked by their neighbors. Some people say: Well, we need to go back 
to those pre-1967 borders. I ask anybody who was attacked, who has been 
in a fight where somebody sucker-punched them, who was the aggressor, 
why is it incumbent upon Israel to return the spoils of the war? Folks 
attacked them, they fought the war, and they won, and they want to 
secure their population. Because of that, some people think that 
somehow Israel is the oppressor. They reacted to an act of aggression.
  I just want to also read statements from President Obama from 2008 
regarding the usage of the term ``apartheid'':

       There's no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians have 
     tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states 
     living side by side in peace and security, but injecting a 
     term like apartheid into the discussion doesn't advance that 
     goal. It's emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and 
     it's not what I believe.

  That is not what Americans believe either.
  I think for me and what I want to tell anybody that is watching and 
anybody that is listening is, this should be proof positive; finally, 
the evidence of what many conservatives and many people who support 
Israel have been saying for the last 6 years. Finally, what we are 
seeing is--if this isn't proof, I don't know what is--the thoughts and 
the feeling and the mindset and what is in the heart of this 
administration regarding Israel. This is what they believe. This is who 
they are.
  If you support Israel as the only ally, the only true ally for 
America in that part of the world, if that is who you support, then you 
must recognize this for what this is, Mr. Speaker. It is an abandoning. 
It is not only an abandoning of our ally, our great ally and our true 
friend, but is a castigation of who they are.
  When we think about what apartheid is, Israel doesn't represent any 
of that. It is an open democracy that lets people live freely and 
participate within the confines of their security situation, and as the 
representative before me discussed, rockets being rained down upon 
them, homicide bombers coming into their children's school and blowing 
up their children, blowing up their buses on a busy street or a cafe 
where people are just trying to have a meal. That is their daily life. 
And we are supposed to castigate them for defending their nation, for 
their leaders defending their nation against that, and that is somehow 
apartheid?
  The physical, racial, financial, I mean the spiritual and emotional 
oppression for the sake of race, that is apartheid. That is not what 
Israel is doing. That is not what Israel is about. That is not what 
Israel has done. Israel has tried to live peaceably in that region of 
the world among its neighbors. It has fought to exist. It fights every 
day to exist.

  For the Secretary of State to use that term in describing who Israel 
is, what they are as a people, what they are as a government, it is not 
only reprehensible, it in my mind truly defines, it very clearly 
illustrates what this administration believes. So if you are a 
supporter of Israel, if you are a supporter of the only ally, the true 
ally of

[[Page H3285]]

the United States in that region of the world, it is time for you to 
take stock. If you have been a supporter of this administration, it is 
time for you to take stock in that support. Is it justified? Is it 
realistic? Is it what you really believe? Because if you believe what 
this administration believes, then you believe that the only answer is 
for Israel to continue to give, to give of itself to its neighbors who 
hate it, who are continually trying to destroy it, who refuse after all 
these years--1947--after all these years, continue to refuse as a 
matter of just negotiation to acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a 
state.
  How much longer will it take, Mr. Speaker? How many more years until 
these other organizations--you know, the taxpayers, the United States 
taxpayers, fund the Palestinian Authority and their effort to pay 
stipends to prisoners who blow up Israelis, who blow them up. It is 
seen as their job. It is like a paycheck. If you go to prison, you get 
paid for doing it, and the more heinous it is, the more you get paid.
  Yet, somehow Israel is supposed to turn the other cheek yet again and 
give of itself to people that blow it up. Even after they give, let's 
face it, after they give, because they have offered to give time and 
time and time again, we all know, Mr. Speaker, it is not going to be 
enough. Because the people that call Jews and Israel descendants of 
apes and dogs and pigs, they are not going to stop thinking that just 
because Israel agrees to whatever concession they demand. They won't 
stop until there is no Israel. That is their goal. That has been their 
stated goal, and it hasn't changed.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to again highlight to anybody that has 
supported this administration because of their support for Israel, see 
what it is, look it in the face. It has shown itself finally for what 
it truly is. It is not support of Israel, it is support of a political 
agenda that makes Israel continue to bleed, and it is unacceptable for 
the United States of America to turn its back on this longstanding 
ally.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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