[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4734]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         MURDERERS, NOT MARTYRS

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, tragically, Israelis and Palestinians are 
once again in a spiral of violence.
  President Bush said recently that when a Palestinian girl kills 
herself in order to murder an Israeli girl of her own age, the future 
is dying. No boy or girl should ever have to die in a terrorist attack 
and no boy or girl should ever be misled by fanatics to go off on a 
suicide mission.
  Mr. Speaker, too many Israelis and Palestinians have died and too 
many Palestinian kids have been turned into fanatics by the terrorists 
who have hijacked the Palestinian cause. As the President said, 
strapping a bomb around your waist and killing people is not an act of 
martyrdom, it is an act of murder.
  Yesterday it was reported that the Saudi ambassador to Britain has 
written a lavish poem praising a young homicide bomber as ``the bride 
of loftiness.'' He says, ``The doors of heaven are opened for her.''
  Mr. Speaker, this is an outrage. Here is a leader, an ambassador no 
less, encouraging children to commit murder. There will be no peace in 
the Middle East until this kind of irresponsible rhetoric stops. The 
international community should condemn this kind of talk with a loud 
and united voice.

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