[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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