[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 180 (Wednesday, November 1, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H5187]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               UKRAINE AND ISRAEL INHERENTLY INTERTWINED

  (Ms. HOULAHAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. HOULAHAN. Mr. Speaker, we cannot rely on words alone to repel 
Russian aggression in Ukraine nor to extinguish terrorism in the Middle 
East. Rather, we must also provide material support to our democratic 
partners, as well. We must not cleave Israel and Israeli funding and 
Ukraine and Ukrainian funding into two separate spending votes because 
their fight for freedom is actually one and the same.
  The stories of Ukraine and Israel are inherently intertwined, and I 
am the daughter of their woven histories and struggles. With forged 
papers, my Jewish father evaded the Nazi threat in Lviv. The vast 
majority of his family was murdered in the Holocaust, but the few who 
survived emigrated to the United States, Australia, and Israel.
  It is an absolute dereliction of our duty to democracy to condition 
and politicize our support for Israel or Ukraine. To do so would signal 
to our adversaries abroad that we don't have the willpower, that we 
don't have the courage, to stand up to authoritarianism or extremism 
wherever it rears its ugly head.
  We cannot send that message. We cannot appease evil. We cannot afford 
to backslide in defense of democracy.

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