[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14359]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          A REAL WAY TO PEACE

  (Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, as President Obama begins to wade into the 
Israel-Palestinian conflict, he must remember who our friends are. 
Israel is America's most reliable and only democratic ally in the 
Middle East. Yet in his speech last week in Cairo and in statements by 
his administration, President Obama seems only to want to pressure 
Israel, while not requiring similar concessions from the Palestinians 
and other Arab states.
  Starting with the British Partition Plan in 1937--when they were 
offered the western part of Palestine--then again to the U.N. Partition 
Plan in 1947, to the Camp David talks in 2000, and most recently in 
December of 2008, the Palestinians have rejected every plan to divide 
the land into independent states. Each time their answer was ``no.''
  No outside party, President Obama included, can arbitrarily impose a 
peace agreement, nor can peace be achieved by setting conditions on 
just one party, Israel, which has been willing to take the necessary 
and difficult steps towards peace and consider compromise.

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