[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19611]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        TWO CAPTIVE ISRAELI SOLDIERS AND PROBLEMS WITH THE U.N.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, on July 12 of this year, 
Hezbollah guerillas killed three Israeli soldiers and kidnapped another 
two, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. All the while Hezbollah continued 
to launch rockets at civilian targets in northern Israel. These actions 
against Israel's sovereignty sparked Israel's defensive measures and 
the subsequent escalation of the conflict. In the end, as a direct 
consequence of Hezbollah's belligerence, more than 1,000 Lebanese and 
Israeli civilians lay dead and the infrastructure of Lebanon lay in 
ruins.
  When the cease-fire was brokered by the United Nations, it was the 
understanding of all parties, especially Israel, that the U.N. would 
work toward the release of Israel's kidnapped soldiers. Today, however, 
more than 2 months later, those two brave young men remain in captivity 
and their families remain uncertain of their future.
  Furthermore, Hezbollah remains armed with as many as 20,000 rockets 
aimed at Israel, according to this group's own claims. Just this past 
Friday, Mr. Speaker, Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, threw 
a victory rally in Lebanon, taunting Israel, the peace-seeking 
government of Lebanon, and the United Nations as well with the 
probability that no one will ever see these two soldiers alive again. 
In fact, not only did Nasrallah note that these soldiers would only be 
returned in exchange for some of its jailed terrorist foot soldiers; he 
also vowed that neither the U.N. nor the Lebanese troops would ever be 
allowed to disarm Hezbollah guerilla troops in southern Israel and 
threatened the Western-friendly Lebanese Government of the Prime 
Minister.
  There can be no doubt that Nasrallah and Hezbollah have become 
bolder, more dangerous, and graver threats to the peace in the Middle 
East.
  And yet Israel has honorably abided by the terms of the cease-fire as 
a sign of good faith and its commitment of peace in the region. It 
leaves one to wonder at the effectiveness of the U.N. to rectify this 
still unresolved injustice. This situation brings to light yet another 
example of the dramatic shortcomings of the U.N. in its ability to 
carry out the good that it was originally planned for and created.
  In fact, at the very time that the United Nations was seeking to 
implement this cease-fire in Lebanon, it was entertaining the Iranian 
Prime Minister, who surprised no one with his tirade against the U.N. 
General Assembly, alternating between anti-American vitriol and ad 
hominem attacks against Israel as well.
  Of course, if the United Nations is going to be an effective broker 
for peace and a conduit for diplomacy, it must itself be above 
reproach. The United Nations' track record, however, with regard to 
Israel specifically is unbalanced at best and anti-Semitic at worst. In 
just a single session of the U.N. General Assembly, it passed 21 
individual resolutions criticizing Israel. And over its 30-year period 
of time, the U.N. has actually funded three organizations that 
disseminate anti-Israeli propaganda. Furthermore, only Israel has been 
called upon to defend itself as an individual agenda item before the 
U.N. Commission on Human Rights.
  Even on a more general level, as I have discussed here before, it is 
little wonder that the U.N. has lacked the credibility to broker 
international agreements, let alone enforce them. With its current 
track record of internal corruption and its roster of greedy little 
machine bosses that it has, the U.N. is hardly able to claim the moral 
high ground necessary to occupy this position.
  Consider, for example, the Oil-for-Food scandal that facilitated as 
much as $17 billion in grants, scams, and smuggling, keeping Saddam 
Hussein living in the lap of luxury while the people of his country, 
Iraq, starved, and also paying for the rewards for the families of 
suicide bombers as well. Even now that the first conviction of a 
central figure to that scandal has been served and dates have been set 
for the trials of several other co-conspirators, the U.N. continues to 
protect some of the most egregious offenders.
  It has been long enough, Mr. Speaker, and I urge the United Nations 
to do what is right for once, to defend the sovereignty of the State of 
Israel and take the necessary measures to ensure the soldiers' 
immediate and safe return to their families and to give evidence of its 
credibility as a true broker of peace in the Middle East.

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