[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 27 (Monday, February 12, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S960-S962]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SUPPLEMENTAL FUNDING
Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, this is indeed a historic day--the passage
of the national security supplemental appropriations bill. I want to
commend the extraordinary work of Leader Schumer, of Leader McConnell,
of our Appropriations chair and vice chair, Senator Murray and Senator
Collins, and also our colleagues who worked so hard on the bipartisan
border agreement that was ultimately repudiated by the Republicans.
The supplemental includes important additional military aid for
Ukraine and Taiwan and aid for Israel and humanitarian aid for the
Palestinians and other vulnerable populations.
I unequivocally support the additional aid for Ukraine. It is facing
an existential threat. We must pass that aid. I am very pleased to see
that Ukraine is going to be receiving the aid it desperately needs.
Putin must be stopped.
The other provision in the supplemental I strongly support is funding
for the humanitarian aid for Palestinians and for humanitarian
catastrophes around the globe. But the situation in Gaza is what is of
great concern to me. It is horrific.
Two million Palestinians have been uprooted from their homes. Those
homes have been reduced to rubble. Folks are desperately seeking to
survive. They lack adequate food, safe water, and shelter. Many are
injured without anything remotely resembling sufficient medical care or
shelter.
I introduced a resolution, cosponsored by 15 of my colleagues, urging
the administration to dramatically increase access and delivery of
humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza, and I am gratified that the
supplemental does include several billions of dollars for that purpose.
But despite these provisions that I do support, I voted against the
supplemental for one key reason: I cannot in good conscience support
sending billions of additional taxpayer dollars for Prime Minister
Netanyahu's military campaign in Gaza. It is a campaign that has killed
and wounded a shocking number of civilians. It has created a massive
humanitarian crisis with no end in sight. It has inflamed tensions in
the Middle East, eroding support among Arab States that had been
aligned with Israel. And, of course, it has severely compromised any
remaining hope--almost all remaining hope for the two-state solution
that we all know is ultimately essential for peace in the Middle East.
And this is an opinion that is not just my own, but it is
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expressed by a large majority of Vermonters who have contacted me and
shared their dismay at the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
During my years in Congress, like the Presiding Officer, I have voted
for tens of billions of dollars in aid for Israel, but I cannot send
more taxpayer dollars to support Prime Minister Netanyahu's continued
bombardment in the wholesale destruction of Gaza, knowing the calamity
that more U.S. bombs and artillery shells will cause for countless more
civilians who had nothing whatsoever to do with the atrocities that
were committed by Hamas terrorists on October 7.
As I made clear on November 28 when I called for an indefinite cease-
fire in Gaza, really for the purpose of saving civilian lives, we all
do want Hamas gone. They are terrorists. The depth and cruelty Hamas
perpetrated against innocent, defenseless people, many of them women
and children, was appalling. It was reminiscent of the brutality of
ISIS. The viciousness of the Hamas attack was intended to terrorize and
traumatize all Israelis. And it goes without saying that Israel has a
right and responsibility to pursue those who ordered and carried out
the October 7 attacks.
But Israel's enemy is Hamas, not the Palestinian people, and neither
Israel nor any country has the right to use lethal force in ways that
violate the laws of armed conflict by inflicting egregious and
disproportionate harm to civilians. Palestinian civilians are, by
definition, innocent. They are defenseless, as were Hamas's victims.
What has occurred in Gaza using weapons and munitions provided by the
United States and what will continue to occur as long as Prime Minister
Netanyahu pursues his current war strategy is more of the same. It is a
strategy which I and many others believe is deeply flawed. It has cost
more than 28,000 Palestinian lives.
Netanyahu's war plan has never been articulated beyond his oft-
repeated refrain of pursuing nothing less than the complete destruction
of Hamas and the release of the hostages.
Like many of us, I have spoken with families of hostages who are
desperately waiting for the safe return of their loved ones, who are
trapped in the vast network of Hamas tunnels--narrow, cloistered, dark
tunnels--as Israeli bombs explode above. It is hard to imagine anything
that is more terrifying for the hostages, as well as for their
families, as the weeks turn into months with no end in sight.
Since Israel launched its invasion of Gaza nearly 4 months ago, Prime
Minister Netanyahu has said nothing about what Israel's strategy is for
the future of Gaza or the people of Gaza after Gaza is in ruins when
the war ends.
Obliterating civilian infrastructure--and that is happening now with
demolitions set to take down homes and infrastructure--makes it
impossible for people to have a place to return to. Intentionally
reducing to rubble hospitals, schools, mosques, and apartment buildings
is not right. Forcibly displacing 2 million people and creating a
humanitarian catastrophe and looming famine, this is not an acceptable
strategy.
The inescapable conclusion is that the Netanyahu government is not
listening--is not listening to the White House and President Biden, is
not listening to key Arab governments that are imploring Israel to
change course.
Their belief, which I share, is that the way to prevent a wider war
and begin building a safer and ultimately more secure Middle East is to
stop killing and otherwise mistreating innocent Palestinians.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has rejected out of hand the right of
Palestinians to have a state of their own, is stubbornly pursuing what
can only be called a scorched-earth policy. It is difficult not to
conclude that his enemy is not only Hamas but the Palestinians.
To make matters worse, he and other Israeli officials continue to
deny that there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, despite the
overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
How much worse does the situation have to get in Gaza? How much wider
of a war in the Middle East will be accepted before we use the leverage
America does have, including the withholding of additional lethal aid,
to get Israel to stop that bombing campaign, to negotiate a cease-fire
and the release of the remaining hostages, and to allow the dramatic
increase in food and water and other humanitarian aid that is needed to
prevent the widespread starvation, death, and disease the United
Nations and other relief organizations warn are imminent, and to
negotiate an end to the war?
The massive destruction and loss of innocent life is not making
Israel more secure. To the contrary, it has eroded progress Israel has
made with its neighboring Arab States, it has inflamed tensions in the
Middle East, and it has incited attacks on American soldiers. It has
severely damaged Israel's reputation on the world stage and set back
the cause of peace in the Middle East, which we must continue to strive
to achieve.
The possibility of a two-state solution, which Prime Minister
Netanyahu has publicly rejected, is on life support. Throughout the
years, the United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in
aid to the Netanyahu government, in effect consistently financing a
government that implements policies that we support for a two-state
solution but pursues policies that make it impossible for a viable
independent State of Palestine to emerge. That has been endorsed--a
two-state solution--by Republican and Democratic administrations. We
have to mean what we say.
This must end, and it must end now by sparing innocent Palestinians
in Israel's pursuit of Hamas and renewing vigorous efforts to create a
viable Palestinian State--something the Biden administration is doing
energetically.
Mr. President, a majority of the Senate has voted to approve
additional military aid for Israel. I know that the White House will
not treat that as a blank check. We must increase pressure on the
Netanyahu government to respect international humanitarian law.
I am very encouraged by the White House's release on February 8 of an
unprecedented national security memorandum based on an amendment
sponsored by Senator Van Hollen and cosponsored by many of us,
including the Presiding Officer. It articulates a global policy and
reporting requirements that put Israel and other recipients of U.S.
military aid on notice that our aid is contingent on their written
commitment and adherence to U.S. and international laws of armed
conflict and allowing the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid.
I also urge the Secretary of State to apply the Leahy law, passed by
my predecessor, Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Apply that to Israel. This
has not been the practice.
For far too long, successive administrations have failed to apply the
law to the Israel Defense Forces despite many incidents when the IDF
was credibly implicated in violations of the human rights of
Palestinians. The Leahy Law is the law of the United States. It should
be enforced.
Finally, Mr. President, I do want to say a few words about the
southern border.
Our immigration system is broken. Our southern border is overwhelmed
with thousands of would-be immigrants on a near daily basis. Asylum
seekers can wait 5 years or more to plant roots in this country before
learning their fate. They are forced to wait to join the workforce when
they are here and face bureaucratic backlogs. Most potential immigrants
have no meaningful way to enter the U.S. legally, given the failure of
Congress to improve the system for 30 years. Cities all around our
country are dealing with the consequences and are exhausted. In
essence, we don't have a functioning immigration system.
I commend my colleagues, Senators Sinema, Lankford, and Murphy, for
their extraordinary work, and I am very disappointed that that effort
was rejected and repudiated by our Republican colleagues.
The agreement proposed reforms to improve border security that both
Republicans and Democrats have long recognized that we need in order to
significantly improve our operations at the border and have a secure
border. It provides that agreement for additional pathways for legal
migration, and we need legal migration.
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Our rural communities, like those in Vermont, rely on immigrant and
seasonal farmworkers and know how important improving our legal
migration system is to our rural economy.
We need to address the limited number of family- and employment-based
visas to address the backlog of green card applications that already
exceed 10 million people, and we need more worker visas and other
alternatives for our employers to be able to get the job done.
I voted last week to proceed on the first version of that border
agreement that was worked out by our colleagues in the hope that we
could work and pass amendments, improve it, and pass it. But the
Republicans who first embraced that agreement or that effort turned
their backs once Donald Trump insisted they take no action to secure
the southern border before the November election. Donald Trump has a
campaign, and we have a responsibility to govern, and that includes
taking action on the southern border.
That situation is the result of inaction over many years. Republicans
and Democrats can take credit for some of those failures, but we have
to do there what we have done in so many other places--work together to
get a secure border, find pathways for legal migration, and have safety
and security at a border we control.
I am going to end where I began, and that is by thanking Leader
Schumer and Leader McConnell for their extraordinary effort in getting
us to this vote on this important legislation.
I also want to say to the Senate staff and to our Senate pages, who
have been here all night: Thank you. We are very grateful for the work
that you do. This was not just an important day; it has been an
important several months where the business of the Senate in debating
the important issues of our time has occurred, and you all have been
part of history.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
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