[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 89 (Wednesday, May 22, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H3475-H3478]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ISRAEL UNDER ATTACK
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, anybody who is watching the world events
unfolding today is well aware that our dear friends in Israel are under
attack, but they are not just under attack by Hamas. They are, in fact,
under attack from the anti-Western civilization radical progressives
across the globe and, in particular, at the International Criminal
Court.
In all ways, with respect to this attack on Israel, on Western
civilization, on our own values, on the abuse of an international
organization with no real legitimacy, the international court, the
United States should have Israel's back.
Let's look back for a second at October 7. Let's look at what Israel
is dealing with in addition to a long history of being under attack, of
facing foes in the Middle East, of having to live in constant fear of
attack, of having to live under the technology provided in a mutual
relationship between the United States and Israel, the Iron Dome, with
David's Sling, and with all the technology to shoot missiles down.
How many Americans would like to be sitting in Manhattan, D.C.,
Austin, Dallas, San Francisco, or any other part of this country,
knowing that the only reason they are safely sitting there is that the
missiles that are constantly being fired at them are being taken down
by technology? I don't think that would sit too well with most
Americans. I don't think most Americans would sit back if rockets
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were being fired into our Nation from Juarez into El Paso.
I don't think we would just sit back and say that is great, fine,
keep firing missiles, and we will just put up a shield and shoot them
down. I think we would do something about it, and I think it would be
pretty violent. I think we would be right to do so.
Look at October 7 for our friends in Israel. Let's start with the
fact that 22 American citizens were killed. Let's add to it that 1,000
Israelis or more were killed and almost 3,000 injured. Mr. Speaker,
4,500 rockets were fired from Gaza by Hamas into Israel, and 1,300
targets were struck. Not since the Holocaust has this large of a number
of Jews been killed in a single day. That is the truth.
Hamas beheaded at least 40 babies. Let that sink in for a minute.
Hamas beheaded at least 40 Israeli babies.
Hamas terrorists not only raped and murdered Israeli women, but they
forced husbands, families, and friends to watch. That happened. We have
documentary evidence. We know this occurred.
A compilation of those atrocities captured on video shows gunmen
shooting the dead bodies of civilians in cars, militants in the process
of beheading a body with a hoe, burnt corpses thrown in a dumpster.
An eyewitness on October 7 said: ``To be afraid for your kids' life
and your wife, it is a whole new level of fearing.''
A survivor of the attacks in Israel on October 7 said: ``I just
waited pretty much that they will come and murder me, my wife, and my
kids inside our house. I thought maybe if the terrorists enter my
house, I will go out so they will kill me and they will leave my family
aside.''
Another one: ``It was the worst horrific war scenes that you see only
in movies around us.''
Another: The gunfire ``was nonstop,'' and we were ``waiting and
waiting, and it is continuing, and you hear only the weapons of
Hamas,'' and realize ``no one is here to save us.''
``As a woman who was there, I can say that the fear is endless. It
can't be described in words. To be a woman in captivity is to be in
constant fear, but the men there also undergo abuse,'' said one woman
who was abducted during the October 7 attack.
There remain today over 100 hostages being held. So now steps in the
International Criminal Court, the ICC. When President Trump came into
office, he rightfully recognized the threat of the International
Criminal Court. The international court was created under the guise of
investigating and prosecuting the world's most serious crimes, but it
actually represents a significant threat to our Nation's sovereignty.
In 2020, when President Trump came into office, he issued an
executive order punishing by way of sanctions anyone at the ICC who
goes after the United States, United States servicemembers, or our
allies, such as Israel.
What did President Biden do in all of his infinite wisdom? He revoked
those sanctions as soon as he got in office, effectively giving the ICC
a free pass to target United States citizens and our allies, such as
Israel.
They made an escalatory and unprecedented step just recently
threatening to issue illegitimate arrest warrants for Prime Minister
Netanyahu and other Israeli officials for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The application marks the first time ICC has sought to prosecute a
major United States ally or the leader of a democratic country.
What you are seeing happen is an unprecedented assault on Western
civilization on Israel and, by extension, on our sovereignty as
Americans.
I view this court as an illegitimate court. It has no authority over
America. Technically, we are a signatory to the court because President
Clinton signed on, but he did not submit it to the Senate for any kind
of ratification, so it has no legal force in America. Do you think that
the ICC will target Americans? You bet they will.
If we don't act right now to quash what is occurring with the ICC
targeting the Prime Minister of Israel--think about that. An
international court with no real legal authority in the United States
is targeting the Prime Minister of Israel for responding with military
force to the attacks--rockets, murders, rapes, beheadings--levied
against the citizens he represents as the Prime Minister, levied
against them directly from Hamas.
By the way, Israel is a nation that has taken the unprecedented step
in history to give warnings to citizens, civilians in Gaza, up to 2
weeks' advance notice. In one case, it dropped 15 million leaflets
across Gaza to warn them that they needed to clear out because Israel
was going to take out Hamas facilities, leaving text messages and
voicemails, taking every step possible to warn civilians to move away
from Hamas targets.
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This is going to be studied for years to come what Israel has been
doing to keep the civilian to combatant casualty as low as it is. We
believe it is somewhere between 1 and 2. That is, frankly, well below
the norms and the standards the United Nations talks about, well below
some of the historic norms even for the United States.
This must be stopped because when they are going after the Prime
Minister of Israel they are going to go after us. Put that aside. We
can't stand by and allow an international tribunal to be targeting our
ally and friend Israel for simply defending itself against attack.
This is why I was proud to join with Representative Mast from Florida
and Representative Stefanik from New York to introduce the Illegitimate
Court Counteraction Act to impose sanctions on the ICC officials who
seek to go after U.S. citizens or our allies. It is modeled very
similarly to the Trump executive order. It is also mirrored in
legislation offered by Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas over in the
United States Senate.
As I have stated, the ICC, the International Criminal Court, is an
illegitimate court. It represents a threat to the United States and our
sovereignty. Frankly, we should be more aggressive than what we have
put in this legislation. We are seeking to move quickly in a world in
which the current administration is at war with Israel while they are
trying to contend that they are allies.
In 2021, President Biden reportedly ignored a request for a phone
call with the Israeli Foreign Minister. Earlier this month, President
Biden threatened to cut off Israel's military aid while they are
fighting a war against Hamas. Now, he is actively criticizing Israel's
military strategy on the world stage.
In a Politico article it was stated: ``Top officials are publicly
calling Israel's strategy in Gaza self-defeating and likely to open the
door to Hamas' return--a level of criticism of the Middle East ally not
seen since the war began in October.''
The Biden administration betrayed Israel, and frankly, our own well-
being as a nation at the United Nations earlier this year when America
abstained from a vote--abstained from a vote--when the United Nations
was calling and demanding for an immediate cease-fire, which would have
been a one-sided cease-fire, hamstringing Israel in its defense against
Hamas.
The United Nations lowered its flag to mourn the recent death of the
``Butcher of Tehran,'' the President of Iran. The United States Deputy
Ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Wood, stood for the moment of
silence in honor of the former president of Iran.
This is what this administration is doing. They are taking steps
directly to undermine Israel. We have never seen this kind of
unprecedented undermining of one of, if not our closest, ally at a time
when they most need our support.
I am not one to believe in blind support. I have, in fact, voted
against funding here because I thought the funding was foolish and
misguided because it included funding that would go to Hamas. We voted
for, I think, about 15 or $16 billion of aid to Israel, something I
generally supported, but it included $9 billion in humanitarian aid
which we knew based on history, common sense, and experience would go
to Hamas, and, in fact, it has.
We should not blindly support anybody. We should not just write blank
checks. We should not pat ourselves on the back for support. When you
have got an International Criminal Court that has no legal force in the
United States, when you have got an International Criminal Court
threatening to go after the Prime Minister of our very
[[Page H3477]]
close, if not closest, ally for defending itself when it is having
rockets fired at itself from enemies that beheaded 40 of their own
babies, I am sorry, that criminal court needs to be forcefully
condemned by the United States.
At the same time this is all going on--and I hope we will bring
forward this legislation forthwith. It is a good bill. It has, I think,
60 cosponsors and growing with a cross-section ideologically of the
Conference. I hope we will bring this bill forward when we get back
from Memorial Day recess.
I want to compliment the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, for
his work in trying to move this bill forward. I want to compliment the
chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, for his
work in trying to get this moved forward and working with a broad
cross-section of us to get legislation to condemn the International
Criminal Court, pass sanctions, force them to understand that if they
are going to act against our ally, if they are going to take an
unprecedented step of issuing warrants against the Prime Minister for
alleged war crimes, that we will sanction them and that they will have
no welcome mat in the United States.
By sanctioning, we mean that all of the actors involved will not be
welcome here. Their families will not be welcome here. Their visas
would be revoked. Other penalties and measures, including any funds
that potentially flow from the United States to get to the
International Criminal Court, which are not supposed to occur but often
do through these various NGOs, that we would take all the steps we can
to undermine an International Criminal Court that has no basis.
While that is going on remember this: At every stage of the war from
October 7, the regime of Egyptian President el-Sisi has undermined
Israel's war effort in a bid to prevent the Jewish state from defeating
Hamas.
Now, the financial interests of the el-Sisi family appeared to have
been advanced significantly through cooperation with Hamas' efforts to
build tunnels across the border with Egypt.
Now, how do we know that? Well, in the last 10 days or so, going back
to May 11, Israel revealed that during early stages of the IDF's, the
Israeli Defense Forces' operation in Rafah--now pause for a second. The
world geniuses, all of the elites in the world body said, no, Israel
can't go into Rafah. They were adamant about it. These are war crimes.
You can't go into Rafah. There are civilians there.
Well, Israel has been going into Rafah. They need to root out the
battalions there. They need to kill more Hamas. They need to destroy
Hamas, leveling it to the ground, minimize civilian casualties and find
every way they can to restore peace and well-being by destroying their
enemy. We would want nothing less as Americans, I assure you.
Israel revealed that during the early stages of their operation in
Rafah, IDF forces discovered more than 50 underground tunnels that
traversed the international border between Egypt and Gaza. This story
is not getting nearly the attention that it deserves.
What is it that the international bodies, what is it that the
Palestinians in Gaza, the folks associated with Hamas and those that
are enemies of Israel, what is it that they didn't want us to know?
The scope of the cross-border tunnel project indicates that Egyptian
authorities were not merely aware of Hamas' operation, they were
supporting it. They were partners. They were making money. By the way,
there are all sorts of existing international agreements dating back to
1979 between Egypt and Israel.
How much American money is flowing to Egypt? How much American money
is flowing to the very countries, the very entities that are attacking
Israel? Yet, here they didn't want people to go into Rafah. They didn't
want Israel to go in. Why? Because they knew that the game was going to
be given up, that there was a concerted, coordinated effort throughout
the Middle East region to find ways to dismantle, disrupt, attack, and
destroy Israel.
That is the truth.
This President is effectively supporting it. He is pulling back on
the resources given to Israel, undermining the diplomacy, calling for
one-sided cease-fires, funding Iran, lifting sanctions on Iran,
allowing billions of dollars of their oil money to flow to China, which
is enriching Iran and empowering China and undermining our national
security, undermining our ally, Israel. That is all occurring right
now, all while the International Criminal Court is targeting the Prime
Minister of Israel.
Now, this is nothing new. Egypt has tried to undermine Israel's
military operations in Gaza every step of the way. Egypt has blocked
the exit of Gazans from the war zone. Egypt has blocked humanitarian
aid from entering Gaza while accusing Israel of genocide at the
International Court of Justice.
Egypt has threatened to abrogate its peace treaty with Israel and
tied the future of peace to Israel's bowing to pressure not to operate
in Rafah. Egypt has undermined hostage talks and waged political
warfare against Israel at the United Nations and other international
arenas.
There is nothing new here, except we now know right in front of us
the new information about Egypt reveals what we have known about the
region's attack and assault on Israel.
There are 50 tunnels, and they keep counting them. Bodies of hostages
have been found in the tunnels. It has been clear that there has been
the movement of weaponry through the tunnels.
This is just more of the same from an administration that is
endangering America on the world stage, undermining the safety and
security of the American people, a disastrous, radical, progressive
Democratic regime in the White House. Basically, all that regime is is
propping up a President and using him as a puppet to carry out their
radical leftist agenda.
There has been no accountability for the disastrous Afghanistan
withdrawal. There has been no justice for the 13 servicemembers who
died there. There has been no accountability for the billions in
military equipment left behind.
This administration has created the worst border crisis in the
history of our Nation and endangered our citizens. Authorities in this
country apprehended an illegal alien just this week with a van they
called a rape dungeon on wheels. They found children's toys inside with
condoms and ropes.
This is your country.
This is happening in your backyard.
There are little girls getting sold into the sex trafficking trade as
we speak. An illegal alien from Nicaragua is accused of restraining and
blindfolding a 12-year-old girl while attempting to sexually assault
her. The alien illegally crossed the Texas border in October of 2021
and was released--released. Mr. Speaker, 80 known or suspected
terrorists have been encountered at the southwest border just in fiscal
year `24--more than all of those encountered in FY `17 to `21 combined.
Meanwhile, we have sent $175 billion for a proxy war in Ukraine. We
have no clear strategy and no defined objective, no oversight on
spending. This administration is endangering the citizens it is
supposed to be taking care of under the Constitution and defending our
borders and securing us against enemies foreign and domestic.
That is the truth.
There is no defense.
If organizations like the ICC, the International Criminal Court, if
organizations like the United Nations, if organizations like the World
Health Organization, and the rest of them actually cared about human
rights, they would be going after the real war criminals. They don't
care about Hamas' crimes.
Yeah, the ICC says they are issuing warrants for Hamas, but they are
trying to constrain Israel from going out and attacking and destroying
Hamas.
What they care about is attacking and tearing down everything that is
great and good about Western civilization that has done more for more
people around this world than any other civilization in history.
Whether the President knows it is going on or not, that is what the
Biden administration's actions have all been driving towards these past
3 years. They are destroying our sovereignty and weakening us on the
outside while pushing chaos, economic ruin, and moral disintegration
domestically.
I hope my colleagues will support the ICC sanctions bill. It is
important. I hope we will all support it.
[[Page H3478]]
I have to address one other thing because while I think we will have
unity among Republicans in pushing back on this International Criminal
Court that is undermining our sovereignty and targeting our friend and
ally Israel, and while I hope that we will be able to speak with one
voice when we get back on that subject, there is another thing that is
going on consistently here in this town.
Mr. Speaker, 18 months ago some of us set out to change the
institution. We set out to change the rules and open up the process to
be able to have more amendments, have more voice for the entirety of
the majority in the decisionmaking of the leadership.
{time} 1945
For a while that resulted in some changes. Last year, we were able to
get Republican and broad support for what we called the Limit, Save,
Grow Act in order to put forward a vision for limiting the increase in
debt while expanding fiscal responsibility.
It was good legislation. We passed the strongest border security bill
that we have ever passed. It had no amnesty in it. It had legitimate
border security measures that have been rejected by Democrats, but
would, by any objective measure, secure the border of the United States
and almost assuredly would have meant that the killer who was paroled
into the United States by the Biden administration would not have been
able to be paroled and would not have been able to kill Laken Riley.
We passed that bill. We passed that bill as Republicans, uniting to
do that. We passed seven appropriations bills. We processed about 1,100
amendments. We were able to move the ball forward in order to unite, in
order to get this train back on track to see if we could do the
appropriations process the right way.
There are many people in this body, particularly among my Republican
colleagues, who want to hide behind rules and hide behind votes on
rules, taking down rules, to say that we are not actually carrying out
regular order.
Now, what does that mean for the average citizen out there? There are
people in this town who want to have every excuse possible for blowing
the budget of the United States, racking up debt, leaving the border
wide open, sending more money overseas for endless wars, and then
coming to us and crying about how, somehow, we don't get it. We don't
get it.
We are supposed to all work as a team and agree to all the rules.
Does it matter what is in the rule? What good is unity if your unity is
for a terrible and stupid and destructive purpose? What good is unity
if unity is going to rack up more debt and destroy our budget and
destroy our children's futures and empower bureaucrats, empower
tyrants, take away liberty, leave borders open, allow people to die,
empower China, and send money to Ukraine?
What good are promises to say that you are going to secure the border
of the United States before you deal with Ukraine and then do nothing
of the sort? What good are rules that carry out that as a result?
When you hear a Republican decrying the fact that some of us want to
say no and stand athwart history, yelling stop, to quote William F.
Buckley, ask them what they have done. Ask them what they have done to
limit spending, cut spending, secure the border. Ask them if they have
done anything they said they would do. Ask them. Ask them to prove it.
Ask them to show their votes, because nothing is going to change in
this town as long as people bow down to the power brokers who tell you
how it is.
I will again state on the floor of this Chamber, I answer to God, the
Constitution, and the 750,000 people who sent me here. I answer to no
committee chairman. I answer to no Speaker. I answer to no colleague. I
answer to those Texans I represent and following the law.
My election certificate is every bit as valuable as anybody else's
here. If they don't like it and want to go home and explain why they
saddle up with Democrats for more Democrat support and majority
Democrat support and they want to try to explain their votes, go ahead.
Explain the kill switches on cars that you voted for. Explain the
Republicans who voted against defunding UNRWA last September 3 weeks
before Israel was attacked by people funded by UNRWA. Explain that. The
American people sent us here to change this place.
I had a colleague just a minute ago in a meeting who was just saying:
Been here 14 years and we have done none of the things that we set out
to do.
Amen.
We have an obligation as Members of this body to actually do the
things we said we would do. I believe that the efforts that we set out
to do 18 months ago resulted in positive change, and I am not going to
let go of those things.
We did manage to hold nondefense spending flat. Defense spending that
went up was paid for out of the hide of the IRS expansion and out of
COVID money. We passed the best border security bill we could. We set
the terms of the fight with the Limit, Save, Grow bill, for the defense
spending bill. We put caps in place, which have already been busted. We
started to push this place in the right direction and that is the
direction we ought to go back to.
Over the next 5 or 6 months, the American people are going to have
choices to make. I believe that they ought to return a Republican
majority of the House and give us a Republican majority in the Senate,
and I think they ought to put Donald Trump in the White House.
None of that will matter if Republicans aren't willing to come here
and do what we said we would do and put every ounce of your election
certificate on the line to do what you said you would do. We didn't
come here to sit around for 2 years talking about how we get re-
elected. We came here to save the country.
I hope that is what we will focus on doing. I hope most Americans
will sit and watch my friend from Arizona's detailed explanations of
where this country is headed if we do not seek, not just fiscal
responsibility in the broadest sense, but, as he will no doubt say in a
few minutes, smart ways that we go about doing what we can do to save
this country with its mountains of debt piling up for a variety of
reasons, all of which are things we can deal with if we just had the
courage to do it instead of looking at each other talking about the
next election. Once we get elected, we should do something with it.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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