[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 183 (Monday, November 6, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5347-S5348]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 Israel

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, as Israel continues to root out the 
Hamas terrorists who savaged innocent civilians on October 7, the 
political left here in America appears to be engaged in a loud public 
debate with itself over how, exactly, to differentiate indiscriminate 
slaughter and lawful self-defense.
  Last week, an especially radical House Democrat repeated to her 
followers a call to eliminate the Jewish State ``from the river to the 
sea.'' Then she attempted to explain away the undeniably genocidal 
connotation of this longstanding anti-Israel slogan as ``peaceful 
coexistence.''
  Apparently, Jews can live in peace with Palestinians as long as they 
vacate Israel.
  Unfortunately, the shameful moral equivalence that has been creeping 
across elite and influential corners of the left has now been embraced 
by a former Commander in Chief. Just a few

[[Page S5348]]

days ago, President Obama used the same breath to express his horror at 
both Hamas violence and a supposed Israeli ``occupation'' of Gaza. In 
reality, the only force that has occupied Gaza since 2007 is Hamas, not 
Israel.
  The former President also said ``all of us are complicit to some 
degree.'' That is simply false. Responsibility lies with the 
terrorists.
  So perhaps President Obama has forgotten the bloody campaign to 
defeat ISIS over which he presided or the destruction of cities like 
Mosul and Raqqa in pursuit of medieval Islamic tyrants who terrorized 
innocent civilians.
  I don't recall President Obama doubting the righteousness of American 
efforts to support local partners in rooting out terrorists in Iraq and 
Syria. Where is that moral clarity in the face of Hamas?
  Unfortunately, that brings me to the growing number of many of our 
Senate colleagues who have called for a ceasefire in today's terrorist 
war. I would remind our colleagues that Israel had negotiated a 
ceasefire with Hamas over the summer, and we all saw where that led on 
October 7. Returning to any such arrangement right now would be amnesty 
for these butchers--the butchers of innocent Israelis and Gazans alike.
  Once again, let's remember who the aggressor is. Hamas is blocking 
citizens from leaving Gaza City. Hamas has intentionally put its 
weapons caches inside schools, hospitals, and mosques, and its firing 
positions in the midst of civilian populations. Hamas has poured 
countless billions of dollars in humanitarian assistance into its 
terror tunnels.
  These people are not freedom fighters. They do not want peaceful 
coexistence. They are savages--savages--cut from the same cloth as ISIS 
and al-Qaida. There is no room for moral equivalency. The distinction 
between good and evil here is blindingly obvious.
  Fortunately, some do recognize this. The Vice Chancellor of Germany, 
a member of his country's Green Party, didn't have any trouble finding 
the moral clarity this moment requires. In an address to the nation 
last week, he said:

       Hamas does not want reconciliation with Israel, but the 
     extermination of Israel. And this is why it is pivotal to 
     make it clear that Israel's right to exist must not be 
     relativized. Israel's security is our obligation.

  American politicians who cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the 
same should really be ashamed of themselves.
  This weekend marked 44 years since Iranian revolutionaries overran 
the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans hostage. Today, 
Americans are once again held hostage by forces aligned with Iranian 
tyranny. Many more Israelis are held alongside them, and Israel 
deserves the time and space and support it needs to bring these 
terrorist captors to justice.
  In the days immediately following October 7, I warned that President 
Biden would be pressured to withhold this support, and that familiar 
and morally bankrupt calls for ceasefire would threaten Israel's 
ability to see its defensive operations through. And so here we are, 
nearly a month later, watching the movement to grant Hamas amnesty 
reach the highest levels of our government.
  War is a bloody business. That is the reality Israel faces. We should 
be careful before second-guessing their efforts to get innocent 
Israelis--and Americans--home safely and to destroy Hamas's ability to 
wage war.