[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 22886-22891]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 ISRAEL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shock) is recognized 
for half the remaining time until midnight.
  Mr. SCHOCK. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  We come together tonight to talk about a very important issue and a 
very important relationship that we enjoy with our only true democratic 
ally in the Middle East, the State of Israel.
  We've seen in the last week this issue come to light with the 
instability in that region, with the new facility that was just 
discovered and made public on Friday by the United States, Great 
Britain and her allies. This just reinforces in the minds of many of us 
in Congress the importance of us remaining steadfast in making sure 
that the State of Iran, that country, does not receive a nuclear weapon 
and that we do all that we can to support our ally, the State of 
Israel, and peace in that region.
  I was fortunate to be a part of a delegation that traveled to Israel. 
In fact, there were 25 Members who traveled the first week of August to 
Israel on a fact-finding trip; 25 Republicans, which was the largest 
delegation of Republicans ever to visit the State of Israel at once. 
The Republican delegation was led by our whip, Eric Cantor. The 
following week the Democrats were led by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, 
and my understanding was there were over 30 Democrat Members who went 
on that trip, which is the largest number of Democratic Members to 
travel to Israel all at one time.
  If you do the math, that's over 50 Members, which is well over 10 
percent of the Congress traveling to that region within a 2-week period 
and I think underscores the importance that this Congress believes that 
relationship is and the need for us to press for peace and the need for 
us to support our allies.
  I want to take some time to reflect on my views of what I learned on 
that trip and some reflections of what I learned on that trip. Also 
here tonight, I have one of my good friends and allies who has joined 
me to share his experiences as well.
  I would like to take this time to yield to my good friend, Mr. 
Thompson.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I thank my good friend from Illinois 
for yielding and thank him for coordinating this time tonight when we 
truly do talk about our most important ally, a friend that we have and 
a good democratic friend in a very dangerous part of the world in the 
Jewish State of Israel.
  It was a privilege to be able to visit the country of Israel and to 
go with other colleagues, to go there with an open mind and to be able 
to sit down and to visit and talk face to face with the President of 
Israel, with the Prime Minister of Israel, to meet with the military, 
to go into the West Bank and sit down with the Prime Minister of the 
Palestinian Authority and to look at the defense issues that Israel 
lives with each day and has since the beginning of that democratic 
nation; to visit all the borders on all sides of Israel and to look out 
into, whether it was Jordan or Syria or Lebanon, places where, at one 
time or different times during their short history where missiles 
rained from and mortars came down on men, women and children in that 
State of Israel. It's a country that is very familiar and lives every 
day where defense is on their mind, and a strong defense.

                              {time}  2210

  In particular, it was striking to me when we were in the southern 
part of Israel, and we were overlooking the Gaza Strip. All the borders 
are being relatively peaceful right now, but at the Gaza Strip and just 
outside of this small farming community of Sderot where we looked and 
the leaders of Israel chose, in a goodwill, good-faith offer of peace, 
gave up what I thought looked like a pretty good piece of real estate 
that sat along the Mediterranean Sea, and that was the Gaza Strip.
  They moved the citizens of Israel out of there, and relocated them 
into other parts of Israel in the hopes of obtaining a lasting peace 
and long peace with the Palestinians; and in exchange, what they 
received is about 3,000 missiles and mortars that came raining down on 
them.
  I think the most striking conversation I had--and I know my good 
friend was there--was with a young mom of a 9-year-old, and she had 
grown up in that farming community. Her grandparents lived there. Her 
parents lived there. She lived her entire life there,

[[Page 22887]]

and she lived through that time when those missiles rained. She talked 
about how--and we saw as we were driving in to Sderot bus stations that 
looked a little unusual but that was because they were designed also as 
bomb shelters. We saw the playground, which had a great piece of 
equipment sitting in it. My kids are grown now, but my boys would have 
loved it. It looked like a giant caterpillar and kind of weaved around. 
But to look closer, it actually was a bomb shelter for children that 
they would run to whenever a missile was launched and would soon be 
landing.
  Now from the time the siren sounds in Israel, they have about 20 
seconds until that missile lands and explodes. That young mom I think 
put it so striking for me. Her words I hear over and over again in my 
mind, Imagine yourself, you are a parent, and you are driving down the 
road. That siren sounds, and you've got 20 seconds to get to safety. 
You've got two children. They're both strapped in car seats in the back 
seat. Which one do you pick?
  I think we take for granted our safety and security in this country. 
We certainly have had our attacks here. We've been relatively safe 
since 2001 because of the measures that were taken by President Bush 
and by the Congress at that point, and we have not experienced another 
attack on our soil in those 8 years. But we certainly have issues that 
I look forward to talking about further tonight in terms of future 
threats to not just our country but to the country of Israel. And I 
thank my good friend for yielding.
  Mr. SCHOCK. Well, thank you for your insights, and obviously I share 
those observations and would like to take the opportunity to share some 
of my own. First, let me say that I thought the trip to Israel 
reinforced what I had already known and that was that the Israeli 
citizens want peace. I saw this message on the faces of young soldiers. 
I've heard a passionate thoughtful cry for peace in Prime Minister 
Netanyahu's words, and I even prayed for peace with Israelis as they 
ended their prayers on Shabbat.
  Furthermore, I found that like every nation in this world, Israel is 
a nation of contrasts. Specifically, it is a land hemmed by unambiguous 
borders, yet filled with lines that have been blurred beyond 
recognition. New and old, the archeological and the militarily 
strategic, the political and the religious were all indistinguishably 
bundled together until each lost its own identity and had become part 
of the same interwoven fabric.
  Each day's itinerary was packed with life-changing events; the 
oppressive heat that hit me every time I stepped off the bus also 
seemed to also challenge all of my preconceived ideas about Israel. And 
while I found our agenda to be filled with the study of distorted 
lines, there were always those stark borders which clearly separated 
Israel from her neighbors and delineated fact from fiction.
  I found this truth as we toured the Western Wall. As I watched old 
rabbis press their heads against the blocks of Herod's Temple, I found 
no ambiguous lines. I was clearly standing at the foundation of modern 
Israel. Conversely, I did not hear Israel's genesis in the echo of my 
footsteps through the solemn corridors of Yad Vashem. True, I heard an 
irrefutable argument against the unforgettable atrocities that happened 
when the world's Jewry does not have a land to call its own. While 
important, Yad Vashem's lesson does not speak to Israel's birthright. 
Plainly, Israel does not exist because of the Holocaust.
  Unfortunately, I believe President Obama crossed this unmistakable 
border in his Cairo speech, linking the history of Israel not to the 
Western Wall or Masada but to the actions of a mad man. President Obama 
implied that Israel was thrown together to ease the guilt of a post-
World War II Europe. I find this absurd. One can easily trace the 
tenacity of Masada straight through 2,000 years of history to the weary 
resolution on the faces of David Rubinger's famous photo ``Paratroopers 
at the Western Wall.''
  Israel does not date to the instability caused by Adolf Hitler, but 
to the stability engendered by Abraham. Additionally, the President 
spoke of mutual respect but failed to show the Israelis the same 
respect he displayed to Palestinians. He spoke of the daily 
humiliations endured by Palestinians, but did not mention the daily 
fears endured by the residents of Sderot as they go about their lives 
tethered to bomb shelters.
  The President also crossed the border between fact and fiction when 
he put settlement construction on a pedestal as the principal 
bargaining chip for peace, thereby providing cover for Palestinian 
leaders to harden their opposition to all construction in the 
settlements. This misstep was completely unnecessary. It is well known 
that Israel has no intention of building new settlements. However, the 
nation also has no intention of stopping normal life in the 
settlements; and, unfortunately, the President inadvertently called for 
the latter.
  Admittedly, this is a difficult topic for us to understand, and it 
was only on my trip that I realized the line between Israeli parents 
and grown children is much more blurred than it is here in the United 
States. I love my mother dearly, yet I do not wish to have her live 
right next door to me. However, many Israelis want exactly that. They 
want to walk to their father's house for Shabbat and employ their 
mother as a readily available and reliable baby sitter.
  Settlements need what is referred to as natural growth, but this term 
is a misnomer. The settlements have no intention of growing the 
geographic size of their settlements. Instead, they want a natural 
filling in of the existing land. They want their son to be able to 
build a house on the vacant lot next to their home. To deprive settlers 
of this ability is to deprive them of living the Israeli lifestyle. I 
wish President Obama had toured the Alfei Menashe settlement with us so 
he could have learned this lesson himself. The President also needs to 
learn that the world cannot preach from on high to Israel.
  When the President tours U.S. cities, he does not encounter bus stops 
that double as bomb shelters. When he sees groups of crowded students 
around the White House, he does not see assault rifles slung over the 
chaperone's shoulders. He does not live in fear. And due to these 
facts, the President does not have the capability to lecture Israel on 
what she must do to keep peace or to make her citizens safe.
  Finally, I turn my attention to the largest topic facing Israel, the 
Iranian threat. Using more than 7,000 centrifuges, Tehran has amassed 
enough uranium to produce a nuclear device. At their current pace, Iran 
would be able to produce two more atomic weapons each year, provided 
they find ways to further enrich this fuel. Never before--not India, 
not Pakistan, not even North Korea--has a group of criminals so defiant 
of international law had such destructive capability; and as the people 
of Iran have become more vocal in their pleas for responsible 
leadership, the ayatollahs have become more erratic and unpredictable.
  As such, we must quickly and decisively act to end this danger. 
Without a doubt, the United States has failed to do enough to stop Iran 
from becoming a proud owner of the bomb. It is true, Congress has taken 
a multitude of votes on this issue. However, the majority of these were 
simply press releases disguised as legislation. To right this wrong, I 
have added my name in support of multiple bills this year to strengthen 
sanctions against Iran.
  By no means are these pieces of legislation sufficient. The United 
States must use every unilateral and multilateral tool it has at its 
disposal to cut off Iran economically, diplomatically, and politically 
until this shadow of a state abandons its diabolical goals.

                              {time}  2220

  These actions can only help Iran make the decisions sooner. Iran must 
see it can stand with peace, prosperity, and the international 
community, or it can continue to live in squalor and obscurity, 
relegated to the trash heap of the international community with the 
other juntas, regimes, and cabals.
  When I think about the threat of Iran, I am reminded of the saying 
that

[[Page 22888]]

those who do not study history are destined to repeat it. I'm reminded 
of my tour of Yad Vashem. I recall an eerily similar declaration to 
annihilate Jews. I remember a leader who perverted a religion to 
justify his actions. And I am reminded of the famous British 
Parliamentarian Edmund Burke, who once said, ``The only thing necessary 
for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,'' which is 
exactly what too many Christian leaders did in that day: Nothing.
  This eerie similarity exists today, not with a leader who quotes the 
Bible but with one who quotes the Koran. His comments echo those of 
Hitler's; his stated goal is the same.
  So what is necessary for peace? I would contend that there will be no 
peace until leaders around the world regardless of faiths denounce such 
comments, until leaders within the Muslim community reject this 
rhetoric, and until leaders of the Islamic states shun such hate speak 
within their borders. Whether someone builds a second garage or a 
second home within a defined community is not what stands between war 
and peace. A community of citizens who pervert a religion to justify 
hate and murder are what stand in the way of peace. This is precisely 
what we should all fear. It was radical Islamic terrorists who attacked 
the United States on September the 11th, who blew up subways in the UK. 
This ideology is the true barrier to peace.
  I am reminded of a note that was left by the terrorists in Spain 
during the Madrid bombings. They said, ``We will win and you will lose. 
Because you love life, and we seek death.''
  Therein lies the real problem with Iran. Unlike the threat of mutual 
destruction during the Cold War with Russia and the U.S., both knowing 
that if one attacked, the other would retaliate, we are now dealing 
with a regime that is not a socialist state like Russia but a religious 
state, whose leader espouses no fear of death but rather a clearly 
defined goal to destroy the state of Israel. This threat must be at the 
center of our President's and Congress's attention for the sake of 
Israel's security but also for the sake of our own.
  Settlements, the West Bank, and a President who seems more interested 
in giving dictation rather than providing assistance--when spoken 
aloud, these problems seem rather insurmountable. I believe they are 
not. There is a path to peace which is as clear as the border formed by 
the security barrier. We only need to have the courage to take the 
first step on this path by ensuring Israel has our undeniable support.
  Fortunately, we are not alone. The vast majority of Americans support 
Israel. We recognize that Israel stands as a lone beachhead of 
democracy in the Middle East. We know that we take our security for 
granted and do not judge those who are not afforded this luxury. In 
short, regardless of the muted lines within Israel, we know where the 
stark borders between our supporters and detractors are in the Middle 
East.
  During our meeting with Shimon Peres, he said, ``Israel and her 
neighbors seem to be able to live in peace. We just have a problem 
writing it down.''
  Focusing on the real threats to peace and democracy around the world, 
requiring leadership on the part of the Arab states to root out 
terrorists within their borders, and continuing to support and stand by 
our ally in the region, as, Mr. Netanyahu definitively stated, ``With 
God's help, we will know no more war. We will know peace.''
  With that I yield to my good friend from the State of Louisiana, Dr. 
Fleming, for his impressions of his trip to Israel and the state of the 
region there in the Middle East.
  Mr. FLEMING. I thank my friend and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Schock).
  The three of us here this evening spent really an awesome time in 
Israel during August. But I want to take you back in time, Mr. Speaker, 
in history 71 years to today. Literally 71 years to today, and what we 
see in the newsreels. And that was that Lord Chamberlain waved a stack 
of papers in front of the camera and he uttered, We have peace in our 
time. And what was he talking about? He had just come from a meeting 
with Herr Adolph Hitler, and along with France and a few other nations, 
but not Czechoslovakia, they had come to an agreement to cede to Hitler 
the Sudetenland, which at that time was the strategic part of 
Czechoslovakia that was so necessary for their protection. He ceded 
that. Of course, Hitler claimed that it was mostly populated with 
Germans, but, nonetheless, Lord Chamberlain and others agreed to let 
him have it. And we know that today as a policy of appeasement.
  He also said that he actually went there for the purpose of honor and 
peace. And then Winston Churchill, who was in the Parliament, replied 
that he went there for honor and peace but he returned with neither. 
Because we know that within months, Hitler began a very aggressive 
campaign and went on to, of course, not only take Czechoslovakia but 
also Poland. And, of course, as we say, the rest is history.
  And what is that history? The history is that there were 20 million 
people killed during World War II, Mr. Speaker; 6 million of them were 
Jews. And in visiting the Holocaust Museum in Israel, in Jerusalem, Yad 
Vashem, something very interesting, I think, occurred in my mind that I 
never thought about until it was brought out.
  We saw a lot of very interesting things there. A lot of personal 
stories about families who were broken apart, most of whom died in the 
Holocaust, people who were in death camps, a lot of personal letters 
and books and eyeglasses and things like that that told individual 
stories. We know the factual parts of this. We have all seen the 
documentaries that talked about the gas chambers and the ovens. And we, 
of course, have heard about and read about the Final Solution and 
Hitler's attempt to take executing human beings to a whole new 
scientific level, which he was able to achieve. Nothing before and 
nothing since has been done.
  But the important thing, Mr. Speaker, about this that we must 
understand that really teaches us a second lesson today: The first one 
being the danger of appeasement, but the second is that while the Jews 
were being carted off to the death camps, and, of course, many of them 
attempted to reach safe harbor in the United States and many other 
countries and were denied that and, in fact, in many cases were thrown 
out of other countries, there was no one to speak up for the Jews. No 
one, not even the United States. Even we have the blight of having 
turned our backs on the Jews. And there was no state, there was no 
country to speak up for the Jews, who at that time lived in many places 
of the world. And because of that, after World War II and all the 
countries began to come together, it was decided that the Jews would 
have their own homeland.

                              {time}  2230

  And of course we know that the U.N. provided for that, and what was 
then called Palestine today is called Israel. Israel is a state, and 
that's so important because now Jews have a country to stick up for 
them. They have a people who will never back down from an evil dictator 
like Adolf Hitler. They will stand up for their people, and they will 
stand up as our ally against these things.
  But the interesting thing is it's often said that what we don't learn 
from history is destined to repeat itself. And what we have today is a 
Hitler-like figure, Mr. Speaker, of course, Ahmadinejad, who is saying 
many of the same things that Adolf Hitler said in those days, giving 
the same threats.
  Very few people took Hitler seriously when he said that he intended 
to kill the Jews, and that is what he did. Now we have Ahmadinejad who 
is making the same statements, and we watch before our very eyes he's 
building a nuclear arsenal.
  And what are we doing, Mr. Speaker? Well, we are talking about 
sanctions. And how effective are these sanctions going to be when it's 
necessary to have Russia and China to help us with that? And of course, 
all we are getting from them is rhetoric. In fact, the only thing 
structurally that's been done in all of this discussion is we've given 
up

[[Page 22889]]

missile defense in the Czech Republic and in Poland. So we are already 
beginning the appeasement process in this world while we have another 
Hitler-like figure out there beginning to plan the destruction of the 
Jews once again.
  So I think we need to stand, Mr. Speaker, with our brothers and 
sisters in Israel, in their protection. Because in as much as Israel is 
so capable of taking care of itself--we all know just what a small 
strip of land that is--and while Israel can protect itself in many 
ways, there is no way that Israel can protect itself from an 
intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead, and that is 
precisely what Iran is doing today.
  And apart from that, Iran is exporting terrorism around the world. We 
know that Hamas and Hezbollah; we, know that al Qaeda--who is providing 
al Qaeda, Mr. Speaker, with the weapons they are using to kill our own 
sons and daughters? Again, it's Iran. So Iran is emerging as, I guess--
Ahmadinejad and certainly the mullahs behind him, are really, I think, 
showing a tremendous parallel to pre-World War II Germany.
  And I think that we need to learn from the lessons of the past, and 
that is that number one, we should never allow a policy of appeasement. 
It never gets peace and it never gives honor. It always leads to war. 
It's always a matter of people overseas, folks who really are out for 
the destruction of others, it gives them an opening to attack other 
countries.
  And then secondly, never again should Israel be without its own 
country and certainly without its friends around the world. Never again 
should we have a situation, Mr. Speaker, as we did during World War II 
that was a holocaust which, of course, we know that Ahmadinejad denies 
to this day.
  And there are many that say, look, this is just a little strip of 
land out there in the middle of the desert. You've got Arabs out there 
and you've got Jews and they're fighting over this land. Really, if you 
think about it, the Jews occupied this land as far back as 3500 B.C. 
Islam didn't even come into existence until thousands of years later, 
and in fact, we know that Christianity started even before Islam.
  So of course there have been three major religions that have existed 
there and still exist there today, and as far as I'm concerned, they 
can exist there forever. But I think that there's no reason to think 
that there isn't a legitimate right for Israel to claim that as its own 
state.
  And in summary--and this is, I think, to kind of tie it all together, 
Mr. Speaker--we talked about the issue of the two-state solution, and 
Mr. Netanyahu believes that is the way to go. We should have two 
states: a Palestinian state and a Jewish state. But remember that 
Israel is a democracy, and just simply by being outgrown by 
Palestinians or Muslims, it could lose its status as a Jewish state. 
And I think that it's essential that we not only support this two-state 
solution in supporting Israel, but that we support the right for Israel 
to exist as a Jewish state and always will.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Will the gentleman yield for a 
question? Actually, both of my colleagues.
  When we were there, we had an opportunity to visit a number of the 
settlements, and I have been distressed that our President, President 
Obama, has been almost dictating that Israel give up part of its 
sovereign nation, these settlements. We were there. We walked them. We 
saw the strategic location of them.
  I wanted to get your impressions of what your thoughts were. Should 
Israel give in to that direction and give up its sovereign land, those 
settlements that it has today?
  Mr. FLEMING. If the gentleman will yield back, I will just simply say 
that my first impression beyond the fact that Israel is such a lovely 
country--I mean, just gorgeous, right in the middle of the desert next 
to the Mediterranean Sea. And of course we were able to see the Dead 
Sea and many sites that are holy to us as Christians. But just how 
small that country is, like a postage stamp, as narrow as 5 miles at 
its waist. And we saw a patchwork of villages, one being Palestinian 
and one being Jewish, all throughout the country.
  And even though, often cases there were checkpoints and there were 
fences between them, you couldn't really see that. All you could see 
looking over is you would see evidence of a Palestinian village and you 
would see evidence of a Jewish village all sitting there peacefully. 
It's almost difficult to believe how much war and how much violence has 
existed there for so long.
  And of course with that we visited Sderot, which is, I guess, a flash 
point where there have been rockets hurled and that sort of thing.
  So I think that was really what I found to be very impressive.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. If the gentleman will yield.
  Mr. FLEMING. Yes, sir.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. It struck me that many of those 
settlements are in strategic locations. They're high ground from which 
terrorists, the Palestinians, lobbed missiles and rockets onto the men, 
women, and children of Israel. And those were taken as a part of the 
war in 1948, and frankly, they're extremely important areas to hold on 
to.
  I kind of think of the--as I think about our President, President 
Obama, dictating onto the Israeli nation that they should give up the 
space, it's a little bit like somebody coming to us and saying, okay, 
now you need to give back New Mexico, California, and Nevada to the 
sovereign nation of Mexico. We wouldn't stand for that. I would 
certainly hope that the sovereign nation of Israel would not stand for 
that as well.
  Mr. SCHOCK. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Yes.
  Mr. SCHOCK. Okay. To your point, I think what you're suggesting is, 
number one, should any of these properties be, quote, given back or 
surrendered, but, number two, should that really be the focus of our 
effort towards peace.
  It seems to me a little disingenuous on the part of our 
administration to suggest that somehow what stands between the current 
situation and a path road to peace is the issue of settlements is 
really a misnomer.
  The reality is the State of Israel has shown throughout their history 
that they are the ones who have bargained in good faith and time and 
time again shown a willingness to give up lands as they have and only 
to their own peril; as you mentioned, what you saw in Sderot with the 
bomb shelters and the people who have suffered as a result of them 
giving up the Gaza Strip.
  But the issue of Israel willing to give up this settlement or that 
settlement or redraw the boundaries, you and I both heard from 
Netanyahu's own words that they're not wedded to any set boundary. But 
what we also heard was out of the lips of the Prime Minister of the 
Palestinian Authority, which was his unwillingness to accept Israel as 
a Jewish state.

                              {time}  2240

  Therein lies the real problem with the pathway to peace and a two-
state solution: the Palestinians' unwillingness at this point to 
recognize Israel as a Jewish state. I would only also add that while we 
are talking about settlements, Iran continues to march towards 
acquiring a nuclear weapon. While I certainly respect this 
administration's plans to begin talks and to negotiate and to try and 
solve this diplomatically, I would remind the American people, and my 
colleagues here, that this is the same administration that we want to 
talk to that has lied to the international community and hidden from 
them a nuclear facility which the world was just made aware of last 
week.
  So I would only question the sincerity and the ability for us to 
truly negotiate with trust with this regime who up until last weekend 
we were not even aware of an additional nuclear facility. So it's very 
alarming. I will tell you, I don't know what my distinguished 
colleagues here feel, but we have two bills that are still in this 
Chamber, H.R. 2194, which is the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, 
and then the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act,

[[Page 22890]]

which was H.R. 1327. Both of those bills have a majority of Members of 
Congress supporting it. And it just seems to me a shame that this body 
has not acted on that legislation to put another tool in the chest of 
President Obama as he goes forward to negotiate with Iran, the fact 
that these sanctions are there if and when they become necessary to 
use.
  And I would just yield back.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman. I certainly 
thank you for naming those pieces of legislation. They are extremely 
important. They do have the large support of this entire Chamber.
  I would ask the Speaker support that bill and to bring that bill to 
the floor so that we can do the right thing by this most important ally 
that we have in the Middle East and would serve the needs. I think what 
you have talked about tonight really most recently addresses the most 
immediate threat in Israel and I think the most immediate threat to the 
United States, and that is the situation in Iran.
  Mr. Speaker, Iran has recently revealed the development of a secret 
nuclear facility. And Iran's admission of the operations of a secret 
nuclear facility is a serious problem and a serious threat. While this 
new revelation is alarming, it's not unexpected. Iran has deceived the 
world time and time again. And any attempts to assure the world that 
their nuclear program is peaceful should be seen for what it is, and 
that is just another lie.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, it's time to impose meaningful sanctions on the 
Iranian Government. We have legislation that has been drafted and 
introduced and has the support of the majority Members of this Chamber. 
We must not continue a foreign policy that extends a hand of 
cooperation to our enemies while they continue dangerous acts of 
deception. If the nuclear facility was designed for civilian purposes, 
we have to ask, why did Iran conceal its existence?
  We must impose meaningful sanctions on the threat that endangers the 
safety of American citizens and America's allies. Now, the confirmation 
of this secret nuclear facility is troubling, especially to me at a 
time just days after the Obama administration announced plans to 
abandon the placement of a missile defense system in the Czech Republic 
and Poland and all because Russia was not happy with the idea. Only 1 
year since Russia invaded Georgia and 70 years to the day since the 
Soviet Union invaded Poland, the administration has announced the 
dismantling of one our most important missile defense systems at the 
expense of our allies.
  Mr. Speaker, the abandonment of the European missile defense site, 
which could have protected the homeland of the United States against 
Iranian long-range missiles, is unacceptable. As I was talking with one 
of the Chairs of our missile defense caucus in this body, he described 
to me that there are plans for a better system to be put in place.
  However, that new missile defense program will not be operational 
until 2018 or 2020. And while we do have other missile defense shields 
in place that will remain, he described it like this: it's like trying 
to bring down an airplane with a baseball. He supposed it could be 
possible, but it's a one-in-a-million chance. When you think of 
intercontinental ballistic missiles that travel the speed of 10,000 
miles per hour, to me it's unacceptable at this point in time in our 
history when we have threats that sometimes come from other countries, 
such as Iran, sometimes from terrorists that hold no national identity, 
and it's alarming to me that we are taking down this missile defense 
program.
  Mr. FLEMING. Would the gentleman yield on that point?
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Please.
  Mr. FLEMING. I appreciate the gentleman pointing out the fact that 
what we are doing in fact is removing a missile shield that is just 
before deployment, that would go into the Czech Republic, that would go 
into Poland. It would be, of course, subsurface. It would be something 
that would help defend much of that region of the country, including 80 
American military bases; and, instead, we are going to exchange it for 
a whole different, a ship-based system which requires, first of all, a 
lot of development that is not yet in place.
  As you point out, it is going to be another decade before it will 
even be capable. It would require ships being in exactly the right 
place at the right time. And it also begs the point: If Iran is 
developing nuclear material just for civilian purposes, why do they 
need all of this rocketry ability? They just ran a test, a three-rocket 
test, one of which had a range of 1,500 miles. Now why do you need 
that? I'm pretty sure Iran is not planning to go to the Moon. So for 
what purpose is that?
  And what is also, I think, ironic is the fact that our President is 
talking about renewing the STAR treaty and taking our already reduced 
nuclear weapons down to an even lower level. If we do this with Russia 
at the same time as there are more countries than ever that have more 
nuclear weapons and more capability to deliver those weapons than ever, 
so again it goes back to the appeasement question: Does it make sense 
to unilaterally disarm yourself while your potential enemies, and I 
would say in this case with Iran, our enemy, because they are killing 
our men and women through their proxies and through their surrogates 
and their weapons. Why in the world would we be doing that when in fact 
we have a growing threat from them?
  And going back to Israel, it seems that wherever you see the U.S. 
military around the world, peace breaks out. You look at World War II, 
troops were in Japan, troops were in the Philippines, they were in 
France, they were in England and Germany. All those countries now are 
very peaceful democracies. And of course we went into Iraq, and Iraq is 
evolving into an oasis, if you will, of democracy, as is Israel.
  So it seems to me that we need to stay on the same post-World War II 
course of certainly using Theodore Roosevelt's old philosophy, ``speak 
softly but carry a big stick,'' rather than using a lot of rhetoric 
about all the things that we want to do and all the sanctions we want 
to take and yet disarm ourselves and our friends at the same time.
  Certainly, one only has to ask around the world who is happy with 
this right now and who isn't. Well, it turns out our friends are 
unhappy with us and our enemies are happy with us all the way from 
Venezuela to Iran to Russia. They are all happy with everything we've 
been doing lately and the decisions our President has been making. We 
found out while we were in Israel that the President has a 4 percent, 
yes, 4 percent favorability rating. They are very unhappy with his 
position on Iran right now and also on the Palestinian question.
  So I think that it's certainly nice to be liked overseas; but when 
you're liked by your enemies and also of course Poland and the Czech 
Republic are unhappy with us right now because we left them in the dust 
after agreeing to put a missile shield there and then pulling out after 
they've gone out on a limb for us, I think we are going, Mr. Speaker, 
in the wrong direction in the way we deal with our friends and our 
enemies in and around this question of Iran and the nuclear weapons 
that they have.
  With that, I will yield back to my friends.

                              {time}  2250

  Mr. SCHOCK. Well, I agree, and it's why it's so important that we 
impress on this body the importance that we take up the legislation 
that we mentioned earlier dealing with sanctions, but also, we raise 
this issue in this body.
  You know, we've been so focused on the issue of health care the last 
couple of months, and while this is an important issue that the 
President has made throughout the past year, the reality is we need to 
look no further than September 11 to know that, if this country is not 
safe, if your allies are not safe, and that if terrorism is allowed to 
breed around the world, that really nothing else matters, and that 
nothing can be more detrimental to our economy and our way of life than 
for terrorism to breed, to be successful and,

[[Page 22891]]

ultimately, be able to attack democracy, as we saw with our markets 
here after September 11, the great job loss, the great tumble that it 
took as a result of the attacks of September 11.
  We need to remain vigilant in not only keeping our country safe but 
also supporting the allies around the world, and I think it's why my 
friends here tonight have spent some time talking about this important 
issue, which has been raised last week by the discovery of this 
facility, that the State of Iran has attempted to keep from the 
international community.
  And one has to ask the question: why? If their intentions are what 
they say they are, if their intentions are pure and simple, if their 
intentions are non-nuclear or non-weapons grade, if their intentions 
are simply to provide energy to their people, certainly that is not 
something that requires the dark of night or secret. That is something 
that you would think one would be happy for full disclosure.
  And our own estimates suggest that the centrifuges in that facility 
are not designed to produce energy-grade uranium but, rather, weapons-
grade uranium. And so I think it adds to the doubt in many of our minds 
and the concern for our President to move rather quickly for, if not 
this facility, perhaps some others that we don't know about that are 
still out there.
  So I thank the gentlemen for being here tonight and sharing their 
perspectives of our trip to Israel and also impressing on the public 
the importance of us taking up the issue of Iran and dealing very 
swiftly with sanctions and, if not sanctions, supporting Israel's 
efforts to stop a nuclear Iran.
  Mr. FLEMING. I would just say I would like to thank Congressman 
Schock for having this Special Order hour this evening so that we could 
talk about this important issue, and it's one that we're going to be 
talking about a lot more in the coming days because it's pretty 
apparent that all of these issues are beginning to line up. They're 
beginning to stack up very rapidly.
  And of course, the issue that we know our friends and Israel are 
facing is that if we are unable to bring the Iranians to the 
negotiating table or to have sanctions that work, then they're still 
the last option left on the table, which they reserve the right as a 
sovereign Nation to do, and that is, potentially take out the nuclear 
facilities in Iran.
  We pray that it doesn't come to that, but it has already of course in 
Syria and Iraq back in the Hussein days, and we are looking for 
peaceful solutions. But we have counterweight around the world in 
Russia and China that as soon as we try to do one thing they want to 
reverse it. Russia is a very significant trading partner with Iran. 
They're providing Iran with a state-of-the-art SAM missile system which 
is going to close the window for the capability of Israel to 
potentially attack Iran's nuclear facilities if that needs to be done, 
which is all the more important why decisions are having to be made at 
an even faster pace.
  So, once again, I thank Mr. Schock for bringing us together for this 
hour.
  Mr. SCHOCK. I thank Dr. Fleming for being here.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I also want to thank my good friend 
from Illinois and my good friend from Louisiana for being here tonight 
on this important topic.
  I mean, the Constitution, when we were sworn in which seems like a 
lifetime ago back in January, we placed our hand on the Bible, raised 
our hand, and we swore to uphold and defend that Constitution. And 
within that, one of the first responsibilities is for common defense. 
That's the first, and I think the most responsibility that we have as 
Members of Congress is our safety and security, and certainly, this 
issue is one that is all about safety and security.
  Frankly, history shows, and we know, that a strong defense is a 
strong deterrent. We want peace. We pray for peace. I long for a day 
when the whole world is at peace, but we know that we need a strong 
defense in order to serve as a deterrent to achieve peace. And I'm 
hopeful that we will see the day that--and I believe it was the 
President of Israel, Shimon Peres, who said he longs for a day when 
rising out of the desert we see buildings and not missiles and that we 
know the economic impact and that we have peace that we can also 
cherish.
  So I thank Mr. Schock for coordinating this evening.
  Mr. SCHOCK. I thank Mr. Thompson.

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