[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 10338]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT THE GAZA FLOTILLA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, recently, Israeli military personnel 
intercepted a flotilla of ships headed towards Gaza. The world outcry 
has been deafening. It has also been misplaced.
  The Israelis have been portrayed as committing violence in order to 
prevent food and humanitarian supplies from reaching women and children 
in the crowded Palestinian community of Gaza.
  Yes, that would certainly be an outrage if that is what was going on. 
But the actions taken by Israel are aimed only at preventing rockets 
from being shot into Israel, not denying food or medicine to the 
Palestinians. The image in the public's mind is totally distorted. And 
what the world needs to do is take a closer look at what is being 
presented to them.
  Even Al Jazeera, the most prominent Arabic TV news station, could not 
block out the reality of so-called activists, peace activists, who were 
really thugs, attacking Israeli soldiers with lead pipes and clubs. The 
soldiers are seen refraining from using their weapons as they watch 
fellow troopers being beaten into a bloody pulp and lying on the 
ground, their lives in danger.
  Well, who first initiated violence, the violence that we are talking 
about, is not in question. Even Al Jazeera could not hide that fact. 
Yet, photos of the wounded and dead who ended up--and these were 
wounded and dead activists, after they had started beating to death the 
Israeli soldiers and, thus, force was being used in order to protect 
these soldiers' lives--well, only these pictures of wounded and dead 
so-called peace activists were highlighted in reports of this incident.
  This distortion is intended to deceive the people of the world. The 
so-called activists created the violence that erupted when the flotilla 
was intercepted for inspection.
  Now, apologists will simply say that those pipe-wielding thugs were 
justified because the Israelis should never have stopped and 
interdicted those ships aimed at giving humanitarian supplies to the 
people of Gaza. Well, why was that inspection necessary? Never stop 
asking that basic question. Why was it necessary for that inspection?
  They weren't stopping the supplies; they were simply inspecting the 
cargo. Why are the Israelis insisting on inspecting the ships going to 
Gaza? Because Palestinian territory is being used to launch thousands 
of rockets and artillery at civilian communities in Israel from Gaza.
  Now, the purpose of the flotilla was not to put food and humanitarian 
aid in the hands of the Palestinian women and children. That would have 
happened anyway because the Israelis, they just wanted to inspect this 
and then let that food and humanitarian supplies go forward.
  No, that wasn't the purpose. The purpose of the flotilla was to 
prevent Israel from stopping the missile attacks on Israeli women and 
children by preventing Israel from interdicting weapons shipments into 
Gaza with the humanitarian aid as a cover.
  No. These missile attacks from Gaza are, by anybody's definition, a 
terrorist attack. If the Palestinians want food and humanitarian 
supplies, end the rocket attacks.

                              {time}  1830

  Israel would be very happy if that happened, to let any food and 
humanitarian aid go into Gaza. And this is not an unreasonable demand 
on the part of the Israelis to at least inspect the cargoes in order to 
ensure that they are not being used to cover up the shipment of weapons 
that are being used to kill Israeli citizens. If you are launching 
explosive projectiles into Israel, Israel has a right to look at what 
you are shipping into your country to make sure you are not shipping in 
those items that are necessary to shoot these things into Israel and 
kill women and children.
  So in reality, the so-called peace activists were not victims at all. 
They were belligerent, they were hostile, they were seeking more 
killing in the form of not only just killing these Israeli soldiers 
trying to inspect their ships, but killing more Israeli civilians 
through rocket attacks. They also, of course, are not just killing 
innocent people; they are undermining any chance for peace and 
reconciliation between the Palestinian people and the Israeli people.
  No, those so-called peace activists were the villains in this 
situation, and those Israeli troopers who tried to at least inspect it 
to see that rockets were not being smuggled in, they were the heroes of 
the day. The world needs to seek truth in this issue and ignore the 
distorted picture they are being presented.

                          ____________________