[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 146 (Monday, September 8, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H3866-H3867]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     CONDEMNING BENJAMIN NETANYAHU

  (Mr. Pocan of Wisconsin was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Mr. POCAN. Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak out against the 
genocide that is occurring in Gaza against the Palestinians.
  I am not ignoring the outrageous attacks on October 7 that left at 
least 1,200 people dead and the dozens of hostages who remain. Nor am I 
ignoring the decades of isolation that Gaza has endured by the Israeli 
Government, essentially turning the small but densely populated region 
into an open-air prison from which few could easily come and go as they 
pleased.
  However, it is simply outrageous what is occurring in Gaza right now, 
and not speaking out against the inhumanity could be considered 
complicity.
  At least 64,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 
2023, including tens of thousands of mothers, children, and other 
innocent people. Sadly, it is likely that the actual death toll is even 
higher. The U.N. estimates that approximately 92 percent of residential 
buildings and 70 percent of all the buildings in Gaza have been 
destroyed.
  Starvation is rampant, as is disease. Famine is no longer an imminent 
threat. It is happening now, and babies are dying. The killing of 
people in hospitals and those trying to get food aid, normally 
considered off-limits even in war, occurs regularly, with an official 
shrug when the Israeli Government is called out.
  The definition of genocide by the New Oxford American Dictionary is 
``the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular 
nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or 
group.''
  That is exactly what we are seeing in Gaza right now by the Israeli 
Government under Benjamin Netanyahu, an accused war criminal by the 
International Criminal Court.
  This war isn't a targeted response against Hamas, guilty of the 
October 7 attacks and decades of violence. This is a wholesale attack 
on the people of Gaza.
  Israeli groups like B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel 
have recently called what is happening genocide. International human 
rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have as 
well.
  Recently, the International Association of Genocide Scholars added 
their voices on the genocide. The United Nations' special committee 
said last November that Israel's war conduct in Gaza is ``consistent 
with the characteristics of genocide,'' including mass civilian 
casualties and using starvation as a weapon.
  No weapons should be sent from the United States to Israel that could 
be used against the people of Gaza. Instead of photo ops with Benjamin 
Netanyahu, it is time for condemnation. Help facilitate the serving of 
an arrest warrant from the ICC to him.
  Let's make him the international pariah he should be. Let's use our 
leverage to pressure him not to commit genocide in Gaza. People of good 
conscience must join in this denunciation of what is happening in Gaza 
and the West Bank.


                        Funding Meals on Wheels

  Mr. POCAN. Madam Speaker, the Republicans in the appropriations 
process

[[Page H3867]]

are leaving seniors to starve, underfunding the Meals on Wheels food 
assistance program by $600 million, a move that is likely to cost 1.9 
million needy people their access to food. This follows the big, ugly 
bill, which all but three Republicans voted for, making it the largest 
cut to food assistance in our Nation's history.
  By flat-funding the vital Meals on Wheels program for seniors in the 
Health and Human Services appropriations bill, Republicans are ignoring 
the real increase in food costs that Americans are experiencing due to 
a lack of action by the administration to lower costs.

  With all of this talk of Republicans making food access harder and 
harder for millions and millions of Americans, what did they do this 
weekend at the White House? They held an extravagant dinner in the 
newly paved area that once was the Rose Garden and had a three-course 
dinner and drinks, featuring Rose Garden salad--at least we know where 
the plants went that once were there--steak, and a fudge-filled, seven-
layer cake, making their cuts to food assistance even more tone deaf 
than ever.
  A fudge-filled, seven-layer cake? I guess the theme of the White 
House event was ``let them eat cake.'' How fitting.

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