[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 61 (Wednesday, April 10, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H2285-H2287]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               STANDING SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH ISRAEL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Roy) for 30 minutes.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah for hosting a 
forum here on the floor for our colleagues to be able to talk about the 
important issues with respect to Bidenomics, such as you can even use 
that term as anything other than creating and inflicting pain on the 
American people through a big spending, highly regulatory inflationary 
environment that is killing the average hardworking American family. 
That is the truth.
  My colleague from Utah brought a number of our other colleagues down 
to make that point very clearly, in addition to making the point that I 
have come to the floor of the House to underscore and reiterate. That 
is the importance of the United States of America standing side by 
side, shoulder to shoulder, with our friend, Israel.
  We are not. That is the plain and simple truth. We are not standing 
side by side with Israel at a time when she most needs it.
  Three days ago was April 7. That marked the 6-month timeframe since 
the brutal attacks of October 7. October 7 in Israel has become much 
like we describe September 11.
  As we know, through both what is publicly available and those things 
that we have seen privately in terms of the information available, the 
videos that we have seen, the horrific slaughter of human beings in 
Israel, Hamas slaughtered children, raped women, burned whole families 
alive, and took hundreds of innocent civilians hostage. An estimated 
1,200 Israelis were killed on October 7. Those numbers are still 
numbers that we are trying to track down.
  An estimated 130 hostages of the initial estimate of 250 are still 
believed to be held in Gaza. To be very clear, that includes Americans. 
Americans are right now being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. Ninety-one 
Israelis are dual citizens, and eight Thai nationals, one Nepali, one 
French-Mexican, but six Americans.
  Instead of unequivocally backing Israel and the fight against Hamas, 
a United States-designated terrorist group, I want to be very clear, 
the Biden administration has been undermining Israel every step of the 
way.
  Last November, on the floor of this body, the people's House, the 
Representatives of this body passed, on a bipartisan basis, funding for 
Israel. We did so immediately. It is something I am proud of. I am not 
shy to criticize Members of both sides of the aisle for the 
shortcomings of the people's House, but we came together on a 
bipartisan basis, and we passed, I think it was, about $17 billion in 
funding for our friends in Israel just over a month after the vicious 
attacks against them.

                              {time}  1615

  That bill would have funded their needs, shown that we would stand 
next to Israel, and importantly, it was paid for. It was paid for out 
of the expansion of the Internal Revenue Service, which most recently 
was found by the IRS' own inspector general to have 63 percent of the 
audits that were added are for people who make less than $200,000.
  Mr. Speaker, 63 percent of the audits were for people who make less 
than $200,000. By the way, that is what we said would happen, if you 
expand the power of the IRS the average American, the average 
hardworking family, would get targeted by the bureaucrats at the IRS.
  However, our Democratic colleagues and the President of the United 
States--a Democrat, radical progressive Democrats--are choosing the 
Internal Revenue Service, are choosing to target you, the hardworking 
American family, are choosing to side with Hamas over Israel. That is 
what is happening.
  So instead of America standing up together united and standing right 
alongside Israel, our Democratic colleagues and the administration and 
in this body and in the Senate give lip service to standing with them, 
and instead, are trying to undermine them.
  Again, I want to be very clear. Republicans in the House passed off 
of this floor with Democrat votes legislation that would fund Israel 
that was paid for--so we are no longer just spending money into 
oblivion--by taking away some of the increased expansion of the IRS 
that the IRS' own inspector general has acknowledged and reports as 
being used to target hardworking, middle-class families.
  That is the truth. That is the distinction.
  But it goes a lot further than that.
  The Biden administration is trying to tie the hands of Israel. They 
are taking active steps to undermine Israel. President Biden told 
reporters that Israel's military operations in Gaza were ``over the 
top'' and the bombing was ``indiscriminate.''
  President Biden told protestors: ``. . . I've been quietly working 
with the Israeli Government to get them to reduce and significantly get 
out of Gaza. I've been using all that I can to do that.'' That is the 
President of the United States.
  On March 25, just a couple weeks ago, President Biden's 
representatives at the United Nations green-lighted, by abstaining 
instead of voting--by abstaining instead of voting--on a United Nations 
Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire without 
any connection to the release of hostages.
  Can you imagine the leadership of our country where they could have a 
veto exercise in the United Nations Security Council, they chose not to 
exercise that, abstained, walked away, refused to stand up, and in 
essence, turned their back fully, not just on the nation of Israel but 
on every Jewish American who knows family and friends, and has their 
heritage connected to the great State of Israel. This President and my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle turned their backs on Israel. 
That is the truth. There is no debate on that truth. It is literally 
what happened.
  Now, by the way, the administration is all too happy to continue to 
throw billions of dollars to the United Nations. This is when I give a 
little wake-up call to my colleagues on this side of the aisle for 
continuing to fund a government at war with our people and at war with 
our values by giving more funding for the United Nations.
  It is this administration that is throwing money at the United 
Nations--I think this last bill we moved was $3.5 billion. Let's keep 
in mind that the United Nations General Assembly, the paragon of 
virtue, has passed 153 resolutions condemning Israel. They have passed 
zero on China, zero on Cuba, zero on Turkiye. I can keep going down the 
list, but they have passed 153 resolutions condemning Israel.
  Anybody with eyes can see what is happening. The prime minister of 
Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu was correct when he said: ``Just as 
the United States would not agree to a cease-fire after the bombing of 
Pearl Harbor or after the terrorist attack of 9/11, Israel will not 
agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific 
attacks of October 7.''
  Every Member of Congress, the President of the United States, every 
Member of the Senate, we should be standing up shoulder to shoulder 
backing Prime Minister Netanyahu, backing Israel with their unequivocal 
right to defend themselves, their unequivocal right to root out Hamas 
from the hostile forces that have been attacking them and to not allow 
the international community to gaslight the world into saying that 
Israel is slaughtering civilians, because it is simply not true.

[[Page H2286]]

  The press and the international community will throw out numbers of 
the casualties in Gaza, but what they don't tell you is that a large 
number of those casualties are, in fact, enemy combatants. They are 
literally operating like divisions, like a military, but they hide 
because they are cowards. Hamas are cowards, and they hide under 
schools, and they hide under hospitals, and they build tunnels all 
through the city, all through the streets, making it as hard as it has 
ever been in the history of warfare for a sovereign nation, Israel, to 
defend itself against evil, terrorists embedded in the civilian 
communities right underneath the streets of Gaza.
  But what is amazing is that what will be studied for years to come is 
the extent to which Israel has bent over backwards, has worked to 
minimize the casualties. I don't have the most recent data, but I would 
tell you that it is something in the ZIP code of, I think, 19,000-ish 
casualties of civilians and about 13,000 terrorists or enemy 
combatants.
  If you don't know how ratios work out in the world of combatants, 
this is actually an historic low. History will judge this as an 
extraordinary feat by Israel to attack those who levied the most 
heinous attacks on their people and are holding hostage--I will remind 
people--six Americans. History will view this as an unprecedented 
success in modern warfare to root out and target evil and try to avoid 
civilian harm.
  Just to give you an example, I just told you there were roughly 
19,000 civilian casualties to about 13,000 enemy combatant casualties. 
Mr. Speaker, there were 19,000 civilian casualties to about 13,000 
enemy combatant casualties that I believe the data reflects that we see 
going on in terms of Israel and their engagement with Hamas in Gaza.
  Here is a point of reference: According to the United Nations, 
civilians usually make up around 90 percent of casualties in war, which 
would be a 1-to-9 ratio. I mean, think about that. Think about the 
extent to which that is what the United Nations--the paragon of virtue, 
that has had 153 resolutions condemning Israel--the United Nations says 
the ratio is normally 1-to-9. And Israel has got it at something in the 
ZIP code of like 1-to-1\1/2\. While you have the enemy not marching in 
a line of red coats, not getting in the field and just marching at you 
as enemy combatants but hiding as the cowards that they are in the 
tunnels under the schools and the hospitals and the businesses and the 
communities in Gaza.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle in this Chamber and in 
the Senate should be ashamed of themselves as should the President of 
the United States for walking away from Israel, going to the United 
Nations, abstaining from your role in the Security Council to stand 
aside Israel while buying into the nonsensical lies about what Israel 
is doing when they are actually doing probably the best job in the 
history of humankind to root out and target the enemy combatants and 
the terrorists who are embedded in the communities of Gaza.
  It is an extraordinary feat. It is something we should hold up as a 
model of success and then stand alongside Israel. And what we should do 
is send over the $17 billion that we already passed off the floor of 
the House and sent to the Senate which is paid for by shrinking the 
IRS; an IRS which as I already pointed out is targeting hardworking 
American families as the Inspector General of the IRS noted.
  Seek the truth. Figure out what is really happening.
  I notice that the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Harris) has joined me. 
I have been talking about the extent to which we should be standing 
alongside our friends from Israel, and I would be happy to yield to the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Harris).
  Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for 
yielding.
  What we are watching is a complete foreign policy failure on the part 
of the Biden administration. And we are watching it on two fronts. We 
are watching it in Eastern Europe where peace prevailed under the last 
administration, and it is no coincidence that shortly after this 
administration bungles the withdrawal from Afghanistan that Mr. Putin 
invades Eastern Europe.
  Then on October 7, Hamas--after this administration actively 
interfered with an internal discussion they were having about their 
court system--Hamas, again, detecting weakness, launched that horrific 
inhumane attack on Israeli civilians on October 7 where they take over 
200 hostages.
  Mr. Speaker, the latest news, literally just coming out today, is in 
the negotiations. The Israelis were willing to negotiate a cease-fire, 
Hamas just has to release 40 hostages--Israeli hostages--and Hamas says 
they don't even have 40 Israeli hostages anymore.
  Now, there are only two possible explanations for that. Hamas is 
lying, and they have more than 40. Actually we heard in the rule debate 
today from the other side of the aisle they said: Well, we should be 
talking about this, there are 133 hostages. Well, Hamas says there 
aren't anymore. So they are either lying that the hostages aren't 
there, or even worse, they killed the hostages. These are civilian 
hostages. These are not uniformed members. These are civilians.
  I wore the uniform of the country. You put on the uniform of the 
country, and let me tell you something, you understand you could be 
taken prisoner, you could be subject to violence during war, but you 
don't expect it in this unprovoked attack on October 7 on civilians.
  So furthermore, this administration, which couldn't even get a 
withdrawal from a war correct, they couldn't even withdraw from a war 
correctly, they are trying to tell the Israelis, who are under an 
existential threat--Mr. Speaker, we don't understand that in America 
because we have two oceans on two sides and two friendly nations to the 
north and south. We don't understand what it is like to live in a 
neighborhood where some of your neighbors have said: Death to your 
country, that your country shouldn't exist. We don't understand that.
  Yet this administration and this Pentagon is attempting to tell 
Israel how to win this war. And what they want after the war is a two-
state solution. Well, look, I want peace and I want utopia and I want 
all that too, but let's investigate.
  What do they mean by a two-state solution? Wait a minute. Gaza was a 
two-state solution.
  Gaza got its independence, its ability to govern itself, humanitarian 
aid by the hundreds of millions of dollars, including from the United 
States which pours into Gaza to make life good for the citizens. They 
bring water in, bring all the infrastructure in, and the only 
infrastructure Hamas built were tunnels under the city so they could 
launch an attack and have a place to hide when Israel responded to the 
attack.
  That is what they did, that is what a two-state solution looks like 
in Israel.

                              {time}  1630

  Mr. Speaker, I don't know if you had the privilege to visit Israel 
and land at Ben Gurion Airport. Ben Gurion Airport is between Tel Aviv 
and Jerusalem, and if you look at the map of Israel and you look just 
to the northeast of Ben Gurion Airport, there sits a piece of the West 
Bank--what the Palestinians want; they want to claim that territory.
  If you look at that--and we visited one of those places--it is on an 
elevation. From that piece of the West Bank, you can look down in the 
valley and there is Ben Gurion Airport.
  The people who took me up there said: Tell me why a two-state 
solution doesn't work, because if this is a second state, a single 
shoulder-fired rocket at an incoming jumbo jet--because these jets are 
big that come into that airport--can destroy that airplane. The effect 
of just that one shoulder-fired rocket would be bringing the economy of 
Israel to its knees because you would disable--no international flights 
would go into Ben Gurion. Of course, they wouldn't go into Ben Gurion.
  You don't think that can occur? Of course, it can occur. Israel has 
to be able to defend its territories. It has sworn enemies.
  Mr. Speaker, I would remind the body that at that protest in Michigan 
over the weekend, they weren't chanting only ``death to Israel,'' they 
were chanting ``death to America.''
  This protest didn't occur in Riyadh. It didn't occur in Jordan. It 
didn't occur in Tehran. It occurred in Michigan; people in this country 
calling for death to America. If we think people in this country are 
calling for death to

[[Page H2287]]

America, imagine what they are thinking about in Tehran where they 
really want to bring death to America, where they are weeks away from a 
breakout on three nuclear weapons. We know what the damage of only one 
nuclear weapon can do.
  They are weeks away from a breakout on three nuclear weapons. This 
all happened under this administration's watch where we think the 
appropriate response to Iran is to send them another pallet full of $6 
billion with them promising, Oh, it is only for humanitarian aid--
ignoring the fact that money is completely fungible.
  Of course, that administration in Tehran is going to say: Oh, well 
now we don't have to buy food here. We can use that American money to 
buy the food, and we are going to spend that money to send to Hezbollah 
in the north, with tens of thousands of rockets that could rain down on 
northern Israel to Hamas and Gaza, to the militia that surround them in 
Syria, the Iranian-backed militia.
  How naive can you be about the dangers of this world? How naive can 
you be? Well, we know how naive you can be because you just have to go 
to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue to find it. Where in this 
election year, they are putting the security of one our best allies in 
the country up for bid for electoral votes. That is a real shame.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy) for giving me 
the few minutes because our friends in Israel deserve the full, 
unqualified support of the United States to win their war. It is not 
our war; it is their war. Existential threats to one of our best 
allies, they deserve our help, not our criticism.
  Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Maryland. His remarks 
are particularly meaningful as one who proudly wore the uniform of the 
Armed Forces of the United States. I appreciate him for his service in 
the military, as well as a Member of Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, he says it exactly right. I think it is really critical 
to understand that it is disgraceful--I don't know what other way to 
put it--it is disgraceful for the American President to pressure Israel 
instead of Hamas. But that is what is happening. If we truly want to 
end the humanitarian suffering that war necessarily brings, the answer 
is never, and is not appeasement. It is not. It is the unequivocal 
support for Israel finishing the job. Everything else is a distraction.
  The American people--I know the Americans I represent, the Texans I 
represent, I assume the gentleman's constituents--they want us to stand 
with Israel on a bipartisan basis. That means pressuring the Senate to 
take up the bill that we already sent them that is, in fact, paid for, 
that we sent in November, pressuring the Senate to bring up that bill.
  By the way, for their part, Hamas can end this war immediately by 
accepting the fact that their side has lost the conflict, that Israel 
is going to exist, and that America is going to stand next to her. 
Because as long as we are in this body, we are going to be fighting to 
ensure that this country stands side by side with Israel, 
notwithstanding the fool-headed decisions of the current 
administration.
  Hamas leader Ghazi Hamad pledged that the October 7 attacks were just 
the first time; that there will be a second, third, and fourth.
  Will we pay a price, he says? Yes, and we are ready. We are called a 
nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.
  Are we awake? That is the truth, and it is not just Michigan on our 
soil, by the way. In Houston, Texas, this last week, there were 
individuals chanting ``death to America.''
  It is coming to our shores, it is on our shores because a weak 
administration, a weak Congress is allowing it and encouraging it.
  Calls for a cease-fire are called for Israel to surrender to Hamas 
and to surrender to terrorism.
  Those are the words of Prime Minister Netanyahu, and he is completely 
correct.
  A cease-fire will only allow Hamas to rebuild a planned another 
October 7. That is the truth.
  Mr. Speaker, I close with one point here. I am never afraid to call 
out my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I stand behind a speech I 
gave before Thanksgiving saying: What have we done? Name one thing.
  But I want to say this: The debate for the soul of this country is 
happening on the Republican side of the aisle, and it is a debate that 
is being carried out on full display for the American people to see it, 
and it started with the Speaker's debate 15 months ago, and it has gone 
through a number of unbelievably important changes that we have been 
trying to make in this institution and we are not going to stop. We are 
not.

  Last year, we were able to pass the strongest border security bill in 
history. I am proud of that as a Republican. It went over to the 
Senate, and it died at the hands of Democrats. We were able to pass a 
responsible increase in the debt ceiling with reforms that would have 
made this country stronger, more prosperous, with less inflation.
  Unfortunately, side deals got done and that got sidetracked, but it 
was a giant step forward.
  This body impeached for only the second time in history a sitting 
cabinet member, Alejandro Mayorkas, for his complete and utter failure 
to secure the border of the United States and his dereliction of duty.
  I am proud of that. I am proud that this body has done that. I proud 
that we stood up and sent over legislation to the Senate that funded 
Israel, that took that money and paid for it out of the IRS. I am proud 
of that. When Republicans stand united for victory, stand united for 
freedom, stand united athwart our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle and an administration that would undermine our country and 
undermine liberty and walk away from Israel and fund open borders, when 
we are united against that, we win, and we lead, and people follow.
  When we, instead, cower down and say, Oh, we have to do something to 
get something done, just for the sake of it, then that is just unity 
with no purpose.
  I am proud of the Republican Conference when we are united in purpose 
to defend the liberty of the American people.
  I am proud today that we had a debate right here about the difficult 
decisions of foreign intelligence surveillance so we can go after bad 
guys, like the bad guys that want to hit Israel and hit us, but to do 
so while we are respecting the constitutional protections and the 
liberties that the Founders understood were critical.
  We do not have a country that is worth preserving if we are going to 
burn the Constitution while we try to defend it. We must stand together 
to defend civil liberties while we stand together to defend our 
country. The American people expect no less.
  We should stand side by side with Israel. We should unite to make 
sure that we can continue to carry out surveillance against bad actors 
while protecting civil liberties. We should stop spending money we 
don't have. We should secure the border of the United States. We should 
continue to do the great things this Republican Conference has been 
able to do when we are united and standing against an administration 
led by radical progressive Democrats that want to undermine the 
American Dream, destroy our sovereignty, leave our borders open, 
undermine our children's safety, put criminals on the street, side with 
Hamas over Israel. We can stand athwart that if will unite to do it. 
That is my call. That is what I believe we must do.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Harris) for 
joining me, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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