[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 175 (Tuesday, December 6, 2016)]
[House]
[Page H7184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned about what is going 
on in Israel, and I think it has implications both for U.S. foreign 
policy, for domestic policy, and for our own ally, Israel.
  As the rightwing government of Netanyahu consolidates power and 
becomes, in many ways, the one-party rulers of Israel, a number of 
things are changing that should be of concern to all Americans. 
Specifically, the increasing dominance of the Likud Party as the one-
party in Israel jeopardizes the two-state solution that I and many 
others in the United States and Israel feel is the only way to achieve 
long-term peace in the Middle East.
  There is a retrenchment of hardline policies--aimed at solidifying 
alliances with smaller religious and hardline parties that keep Likud 
in power--that will make it harder for Israelis, their allies in 
America, and anyone who seeks a lasting peace to maintain progress 
towards a two-state solution.
  Right now, the Knesset is considering legislation to legalize all 
Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory on the West Bank, even 
those constructed on private Palestinian land. Boom--400,000 people in 
settlements across the West Bank. It is all legal because they say it 
is legal, but it is not.
  Israel is destroying Palestinian homes at a pace faster than we have 
ever seen before. It is provocative, sweeping, and designed to make it 
harder to ever reach an agreement with the Palestinians. The plan to 
restrict the Muslim call to player in Jerusalem has been revived, again 
to placate hardline religious constituents by Prime Minister Netanyahu. 
There is no statement clearer to people of the Islamic faith that they 
do not matter, that they do not belong, and that they will not be 
tolerated than to restrict the Muslim call to prayer in Jerusalem--a 
city that has heard the Muslim call to prayer for thousands of years.
  I think what is going on in Israel with Prime Minister Netanyahu 
presents a cautionary tale about the consequences of following a 
political strongman. The strongman has to keep proving that he is a 
strongman over and over. Like other strongmen who ride fear into 
leadership--when you base your political career on injecting fear and 
resentment into political affairs, when you use the backdrop of 
terrorism and the understandable fear of the Israeli people as a 
political tool for years and decades--this is the kind of policy that 
results.
  There is an appetite for constant escalation of what you are doing to 
stand up to the enemy you have constructed--an enemy based on but not 
the same as the enemies that fight against the State of Israel, 
tolerance, and peace in real life. Strongmen construct a foil--in this 
case based on the Palestinians, but sometimes exaggerated beyond 
recognition--and they need to feed the thirst for more and more action 
to attack the caricature that they have constructed.
  But strongman politics in Israel has the impact of making a long-
lasting solution that brings peace to the Middle East even harder to 
achieve. The fundamental rights of Palestinians to have their own 
state--a state alongside the Israeli state where they have the same 
basic rights and dignity to govern themselves and raise their families 
in peace--that is what most Israelis, Palestinians, and people around 
the world have been fighting for.
  If we are ever going to achieve the permanent peace that allows 
Israel to exist without fear and Palestine to exist without occupation 
then we must continue to fight for the two-state solution.
  When I was just a freshman, almost 25 years ago, we celebrated the 
accomplishments of Rabin, Arafat, and President Clinton to build 
towards a peace that recognizes the rights and dignity of the Israelis 
and the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people. For decades, the 
United States--under different leaders in different parties from Carter 
to Reagan to Bush to Obama--has recognized that peace will only come 
with mutual respect and tolerance. That is what we have based our 
foreign policy on and should continue to base our foreign policy on. 
Having talked with average people and with leaders on both sides of the 
Palestinian-Israeli conflict, I am convinced that is the only way 
forward toward peace.
  America has been a catalyst--a constructive influence from outside, a 
nation based on religious freedom and democracy that has served as a 
model for both Palestinians and Israelis--and we have worked towards 
helping parties continue to move in the direction of two separate but 
mutually respectful countries, two nations that are not at war with 
each other or subservient to one another.
  I fear, Mr. Speaker, that Israel herself is moving away from the two-
state solution as a goal and that we, as her closest ally, must remind 
her, and ourselves, of what is at stake if we lose sight of this 
important goal.

                          ____________________