[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 12 (Tuesday, January 23, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S206-S207]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SUPPLEMENTAL FUNDING

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the goals of supplemental national 
security legislation are pretty straightforward. We need to restore 
security and order at our southern border. We need to help the fight 
against authoritarian aggression in Europe, we need to invest seriously 
in competition with our top strategic adversary. And we need to stand 
side by side with Israel and other allies to impose real costs and 
restore real deterrence against Iran and its terrorist proxies.
  Keeping America safe, securing our interests, standing with our 
allies--it is a basic appeal to a fundamental governing responsibility. 
But, unfortunately, it is especially evident in the Middle East that 
the Biden administration and some of our colleagues here in the 
Congress have yet to muster the resolve and clarity to fulfill this 
responsibility. Three and a half months after Iran-backed terrorists 
slaughtered 1,200 Israelis on October 7, the resolve among some 
Washington Democrats to help our allies fight back seems to be 
flagging.
  I have said repeatedly that Israel deserves the time, space, and 
support it needs to restore its security. But, increasingly, the 
administration and some of our colleagues have expressed a different 
sentiment--that America deserves the final say in how Israel conducts 
its defense.
  Just consider the renewed fixation with rushing--rushing--to a two-
state solution. First, why would any of us think it is a good idea to 
reward Hamas and the Palestinians who rejoiced on October 7 with a 
state? Who, I might ask, do our colleagues expect is ready to govern 
such a state?
  We know the answer is not Hamas. Every time those terrorists have 
faced a choice between improving the lives of Palestinians and taking 
the lives of Israelis, Hamas has chosen the latter. Billions upon 
billions of dollars in international aid and yet the only thing Gaza's 
rulers appear to have chosen to invest in is lethal weapons and terror 
tunnels.
  Hamas certainly doesn't want a two-state solution. It wants to 
destroy Israel ``from the river to the sea.''
  Palestinians have endured the raw oppression of their supposed 
leaders' corruption and terrorism for generations. Make no mistake, the 
most prominent alternative to Hamas is not substantially better than 
the darlings of Iran's terrorist network.
  Leaders of the Palestinian Authority, from Arafat to Abu Mazen, have 
rejected every chance at an agreement to live in peace. The PA is also 
relentlessly and thoroughly corrupt. Their officials may skim off the 
top to line their own pockets rather than line terrorist tunnels with 
concrete like Hamas, but the result for average Palestinians is not 
dissimilar.
  I cannot understand why some of my Democratic colleagues, including 
the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, who pushed so hard to 
pass legislation combating global corruption, now want to shovel 
billions of taxpayer dollars to one of the most corrupt entities on the 
entire planet.
  If we are serious about countering corruption, there is no choice. 
There is no better place to start than with the Palestinian Authority. 
If there is a path to peace between Israelis and Palestinians, it is 
not through rewarding terror. It is through new Palestinian leaders and 
reformed institutions focused on improving lives, not radicalizing a 
generation of martyrs to destroy Israel.
  And yet some Washington Democrats seem infected by a new form of BDS. 
I don't mean the vile ``Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions'' agenda that 
seeks to delegitimize the Jewish State, although the growing prominence 
of this movement on the left is also truly worrisome. I mean ``Bibi 
Derangement Syndrome''--``Bibi Derangement Syndrome.'' My colleagues 
seem to allow their personal feelings about Israel's democratically 
elected Prime Minister to cloud their views about Israel.
  More recently, the American left is outraged that the Prime Minister 
would cast doubt on the Biden administration's desire to leap back into 
negotiations about a two-state solution. Perhaps they should listen to 
Israel's President, Isaac Herzog, a long-standing leader of the Israeli 
left.
  Just last week, President Herzog put to rest any notion that Prime 
Minister Netanyahu is the obstacle to peace. ``No Israeli in his right 
mind,'' he said, is focused on peace negotiations. He went on to 
explain that ``Israelis lost trust in the peace process because they 
see that terror is glorified by our neighbors.''
  But he also reiterated a more fundamental point, one that my 
colleagues might do well to consider. Here is what he said: ``The world 
has to face it point blank: there is an empire of evil emanating from 
Iran,'' and Iran's activities undermine any chance for peace and 
stability.
  If we are serious about giving peace any hope of success, America 
must continue to stand with our ally Israel as it removes Hamas 
terrorists from any calculus of Palestinians' future. We must demand 
significant reforms of the Palestinian Authority, and we must lead the 
international effort to impose real--real--costs on Tehran until it 
changes its behavior.

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