[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8170-8173]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               DOES OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SUPPORT ISRAEL?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, it's always an honor to speak here on the 
House floor, and there's been a lot of interesting attention that's 
been given to an issue of whether or not the Obama administration 
supports Israel, doesn't support Israel, is more supportive of its 
enemies, and apparently, according to an article in the Weekly Standard 
this week, May 30, 2012, by Daniel Halper, and I'm quoting from the 
article here, it says:

       ``Obama stressed he probably knows about Judaism more than 
     any other President because he read about it,'' Haaretz 
     reports. ``He wondered how come no one asks Speaker of the 
     House of Representatives John Boehner or Senate minority 
     leader Mitch McConnell about their support to Israel.''
       Similarly, he said to the group, ``I am not going to tell 
     you again how I even feel about Israel, but why are we still 
     talking about it?''
       He then suggested that he should not be questioned about 
     his commitment to the Jewish state because ``all his friends 
     in Chicago were Jewish.''

  I think there's a lot to be learned when we read people's comments or 
learn of people's comments that were not scripted, that were said just 
off the top of the head. Nobody put it in the teleprompter. It's not 
somebody else's words; it's words directly from the individual in 
question. So I've got to say, you know, the President says all his 
friends in Chicago were Jewish. I learned a lot from that. I didn't 
know that Jeremiah Wright was Jewish. I mean, I meet people all the 
time and it never crosses my mind, you know, what descent is this 
person.
  So it's fascinating for me to find out from the President that 
apparently Jeremiah Wright was Jewish; Tony Rezko that got the lot 
right next to the President and got them a sweetheart deal of some 
kind, that real estate deal, even though Rezko's gone to prison, I 
didn't know Tony Rezko was Jewish. And Bill Ayers who unashamedly blew 
up a bomb hoping that he would kill people back in the seventies, the 
man that gave Barack Obama his first fund-raiser at his home, I didn't 
know what lineage Bill Ayers was, but according to the President's 
comment, all his friends in Chicago were Jewish. Apparently Bill Ayers 
must have been Jewish as well.
  So it's interesting to find out about people's friends and who they 
are and what their background really is.

                              {time}  1320

  My background, having been at one time early on a prosecutor--I've 
been a judge, I've been a chief justice. It helps me, some of us that 
are a little slower, to work through and plod through material 
methodically. It helps me to make a chart.
  I know, having collected the notes of jurors after they had heard 
long cases--I guess the longest case I tried was about 10 weeks long, a 
murder case, as a judge. But it was always interesting to read notes 
that jurors had left. So, often they would take evidence and they would 
make notes of evidence and try to decide what category that evidence 
fit into--did it support what the prosecution was saying, since they 
had the burden of proof, or did it support a defense contention or an 
affirmative defense, that kind of thing?
  So I found this week, since I read that article about the President's 
defensiveness, that it would be interesting to take and just run 
through some evidence so that we could try to decide, since the 
President says he's not even going to comment how he feels about Israel 
anymore, I think it would be helpful to go through and look at the 
evidence and decide whether it supports the notion that the President 
is very pro-Israel or that he's not.
  When the President said that he wondered why no one asked Speaker of 
the House of Representatives John Boehner about his support for Israel, 
well, I know that Speaker Boehner and I have had some rather profound 
disagreements--and that, I'm sure, will continue--but when it came to 
the issue of Israel, I couldn't come up with anything that indicated 
any lack of complete support for the Nation of Israel. In fact, 2 years 
ago, I started pushing to get Prime Minister Netanyahu invited to 
address a joint session of Congress here in this very Hall. I know when 
I approached Speaker Pelosi about it--this was June of 2010--she 
thought it was a nice idea but there just wasn't going to be time to 
get that done before the end of the year, we just had so much on our 
plate. And I think we did have a lot of courthouses we hadn't named 
yet, so we got those done.
  Then, when the Republicans took the majority in 2011, I redid a 
letter and got lots of Republicans to sign on. The Speaker asked Prime 
Minister Netanyahu to come and address the House here, and as best I 
understand it, got the majority leader down the hall, Harry Reid, to go 
in on it so that it would be a joint session. So all the evidence 
indicates complete support by Speaker Boehner for Israel. I really 
haven't been able to find anything to the contrary.
  But, again, since the President says he's not going to comment 
anymore about how he feels about Israel, I thought it would be good--
and it sure helps me--to go through and just chart out evidence and 
which notion it supports. So I went through, and we took points from 
stories--whether on television, in the news media, on the Internet--
that appeared to have a good basis for being factual and just decided 
to chart out: Is this evidence that President Obama is for or against 
Israel? Does he love Israel or does he love Israel not?
  We know that back in 2011, most of us heard the comments--apparently 
they didn't know that microphone was live--when Prime Minister 
Netanyahu came up in the comments by President Sarkozy of France, when 
he made a comment something about what a problem Netanyahu was, and 
President Obama made comments to the effect that, Oh, yeah, well, I 
have to deal with him every day. It was clearly belittling of Prime 
Minister Netanyahu. I

[[Page 8171]]

know people that heard the comment thought, Ooh, if you're Prime 
Minister Netanyahu, that's got to hurt to hear the guy that you may 
talk to quite a bit agreeing with another leader that Netanyahu is just 
a real pain to deal with. So it really doesn't show a love for Israel 
really. That was more of a loves Israel not.
  Then, the comments in 2011, when Prime Minister Netanyahu last year 
was on his way, coming to the United States--he was going to speak to 
an AIPAC convention here--and it seemed to be rather short notice. The 
President hurriedly consulted with people that he trusted. Imam Magid, 
who is president of the Islamic Society of North America. Of course, 
they are a named coconspirator in the Holy Land Foundation prosecution 
for supporting terrorism. ISNA, Islamic Society of North America, he's 
the president of that organization. And we heard on the news that Imam 
Magid had been consulted. In fact, Imam Magid, the president of this 
coconspirator supporting terrorism, was even invited to the inner 
sanctum of the State Department to hear the speech that he had 
apparently, according to sources, had helped give advice to President 
Obama on.
  So, during his comments, President Obama says that Israel should 
return to its 1967 borders. And people that are familiar with Israel 
and know the history of that area, including going back to 1000 or so 
B.C. when King David was the ruler in that land--1,500, 1,600 years or 
so before a man named Muhammad came to Earth. Anyway, he's suggesting 
that Israel, in those comments, should return to those borders, which 
military people indicate make Israel indefensible. That's why they were 
so subject to attack in 1967. So that really was not a comment 
suggestive of a love for Israel. That's really more of a loves Israel 
not.
  Then the Obama administration, they have wholly failed to condemn any 
of the Palestinians' building of illegal settlements. Here the 
Palestinians keep building and building in areas they're not 
authorized, that are illegal settlements being built, and we hear not 
one single word from the Obama administration about the illegal 
settlements being constructed by Palestinians. That also included his 
criticism of Israeli housing plans for East Jerusalem. So that's really 
a loves Israel not on that one as well.
  You've got the Obama administration's decision to eradicate missile 
defense programs that would have helped Israel. There are articles and 
information about that. Obviously, since it didn't help Israel to have 
eradicated missile defense programs that would have helped Israel, 
despite some that would, that actually is an act that indicates loves 
Israel not.
  Now, I think it was a wonderful thing that Prime Minister Netanyahu, 
in 2010, was invited to the White House. That was a great thing, very 
good of the President to invite him. But all of the reference to that 
visit seemed to make very clear that when the President intentionally 
snubbed the Prime Minister who had traveled all this way to meet with 
the President, and he was left waiting for an hour or so while the 
President went off with his family--they knew that Prime Minister 
Netanyahu was coming, he came by invitation, and yet the President 
created an intentional snub, unless his staff, of course, is so 
incompetent they didn't let him know that the leader of our dear ally 
Israel was waiting in the White House to visit. But anyway, he went and 
dined with his family. Also, it was considered by most who know about 
internal relations to be quite a snub that, although the President's 
been pictured with all kinds of folks in the Middle East that would 
just as soon Israel be eliminated from the map, to refuse to have a 
picture with him, which was the norm, really was an indication of loves 
Israel not.

                              {time}  1330

  Now, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the Obama 
administration planned to send $147 million to the West Bank and to the 
Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
  Well, Congress had made very clear, since we have the purse strings 
under the Constitution, that there should not be money being sent to 
any organization that is supportive of terrorism. Hamas is a named 
organization that supports terrorism. And yet, this administration has 
decided to send a group who has made very clear they want to see Israel 
eliminated, wiped off the map--sending them $147 million is not really 
evidence of a love for Israel, so that would go in that category.
  Over here, you also have President Obama stating that all his friends 
in Chicago were Jewish, and that he was sometimes accused of being a 
Jewish puppet. Well, for those people who accused the President, 
according to the President only, of being a Jewish puppet, and that 
always his friends in Chicago were Jewish, well, that is some 
indication of a love for the Jewish Nation of Israel.
  The President's administration though, earlier this year, leaked to 
The Washington Post of the time window in which Israel would take out 
Iran's nuclear program. Well, any ally is supposed to know that if you 
go leaking information, putting it out there in public, that damages an 
effort of your close ally to defend itself, that's not a good thing. 
It's not a sign of love and affection for an ally when you leak 
information that would prevent or harm the efforts of that ally in 
defending itself. So that was not a good indication of a love for 
Israel; more of a ``Loves Israel Not.''
  And then also, the Obama administration had a leak to the media that 
Israel was going to use the Azerbaijan airspace to take out Iran's 
nuclear program. Well, if that's the kind of thing you do for friends, 
America's not going to have a lot of friends for very long because our 
friends will know, wow, Israel is said to be one of America's closest 
allies, and yet they're leaking information about private deals that 
their so-called ally has made to try to defend themselves. That surely 
would fall into the category of ``Loves Israel Not.''
  And then also, you have the immense pressure that was placed by this 
administration on Israel not to defend itself without the United 
States' permission. Does a friend really do that? I thought we believed 
in the sovereignty of our friends, our nation friends, so they could 
make their own decisions about self-defense. I thought that's the case. 
And yet, we keep hearing reports, reading reports about pressure by 
this administration on Israel not to take action to defend itself. So 
that's really in that category as well, ``Loves Israel Not.''
  Then also, the Obama administration has never rejected or condemned 
the racist, hateful teachings about Jewish people going on in the 
Palestinian schools in the Middle East, and in some Muslim schools here 
in the United States. No condemnation or rejection at all could be 
found anywhere. And yet, anyone that cares to see the kind of hateful, 
biased, nasty things that are being said about Jewish and Israeli 
people just need let our office know.
  There are people in Israel, there are Web sites that can provide that 
information. They've gotten copies of textbooks. There are commercials 
that are run. There are great events that Palestinian areas, in fact--
that are even named for Palestinian terrorists, Islamic jihadists that 
blew themselves up and killed a lot of Israelis. And yet, we have no 
condemnation from this administration of any of that type activity.
  Israel, of course is repeatedly warned by this administration to be 
nicer to the Palestinians, and we can't find any evidence that this 
administration has ever warned the Palestinians, quit inciting hatred 
in your children for Jewish or Israeli people.
  And the list goes on, helping us assess the evidence of whether 
President Obama is for or really against Israel. Since his comment this 
week, he's not going to tell us any more how he feels about Israel. 
We'll just look at the evidence.
  Continuing, we remember not long after President Obama came into 
office he traveled to Turkey, to Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, apologized 
to them on behalf of the United States. Somebody uses really good word 
choices, a beautiful group of words about the United

[[Page 8172]]

States being divisive and dismissive. Anyway, really nice words in what 
many dubbed as the apology tour. That really was not a strong sign of 
love and affection for Israel.
  And then we have the fact that this President, although he went on an 
apology tour all around our so-called ally, Israel, he never actually 
went to Israel. I don't know, you can't blame him. Maybe he'd be 
concerned that Prime Minister Netanyahu would leave him sitting around 
twiddling his thumbs while Prime Minister Netanyahu went and had dinner 
with his family.
  But I've met with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I'm not anybody, and yet 
he took time and was very punctual in his meeting, so I really don't 
think the President should have to worry that Prime Minister Netanyahu 
might try to snub him the same way. I think President Obama would find 
Prime Minister Netanyahu to be very congenial, as he normally is. 
Although again, we go back to the President's comments when he didn't 
know the mic was open indicating he didn't have a lot of love for 
having to deal with Prime Minister Netanyahu every day.
  So as for now, until we actually have a visit from President Obama to 
Israel, that really has to go into the ``Loves Israel Not'' category.
  And then of course, we have the Obama administration's support for 
the Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power in Egypt. This administration 
was encouraging Mubarak to step down, get out of the way, and actually 
made quite interesting quotes about the radical Islamist protesters in 
Egypt.
  But anyway, they supported the Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power in 
Egypt and have reached out in numerous ways to the Muslim Brotherhood, 
thinking that this may really be a good thing, indicating a great thing 
for the Middle East. Well, it may be a good thing for the Muslim 
Brotherhood, but we have the documentation, the quotes are easily 
accessible, about what the Muslim Brotherhood truly stands for, and 
they want to see Israel gone.
  So some would say, well, it's a good thing when any administration 
reaches out to a people. But if that people, if the leaders of a group 
are demanding that a dear, close, friendly ally be wiped off of the map 
and have to live under a caliphate, not Judaism, which the President 
says he knows more about than any other President, apparently--but live 
under a caliphate, which, of course, as Ahmadinejad believes, the 12th 
imam, the Mahdi, will be coming back.

                              {time}  1340

  Anyway, that really wasn't showing a lot of love for Israel. Of 
course, Israel expressed a great deal of concern. They had concerns 
about what was going on in Egypt. Mubarak was a problematic man, a 
problematic leader, but at least he was trying to keep up the 
agreement, the treaty with Israel. He at least made some pretense that 
he was trying to protect the Egyptian-Israeli border.
  Now we have the Muslim Brotherhood, who has no such intention, and it 
didn't take an intelligence department to advise this administration of 
that. It certainly should have been clear. Yet, in 2011, President 
Obama was calling the radical Islamist protesters in Egypt ``an 
inspiration to people around the world,'' and he stated he supported a 
new regime in Egypt. Well, you had radical Islamists; you had the 
Muslim Brotherhood; and as we see in these elections as they go 
forward, the Muslim Brotherhood is taking charge, and they have no 
interest in agreeing to the treaties that have long since been made 
with Israel. Although they have come back and said, Well, we might put 
it up to a vote, the same people who are voting the Muslim Brotherhood 
into power, because they know the Muslim Brotherhood wants to see 
Israel gone, will obviously not be supporting a treaty.
  So those kinds of comments that put Israel at such extreme risk on 
their border just cannot be deemed to be an indication of a loves 
Israel. It's more a loves Israel not.
  Then we have the fact that, though Syrian leader Assad has been 
ruthless in killing and abusing his people and has not been helpful to 
Israel to the extent Egyptian leader Mubarak was, this administration, 
the Obama administration, has failed to support the Syrian rebels the 
way it did the Egyptian rebels. That has really been interesting to see 
how that developed.
  For example, in Libya, gosh, the President says he didn't need 
support from Congress because there were people like NATO and the 
Muslim Brotherhood. There were folks who wanted us to help get rid of 
Qadhafi. Well, Qadhafi was sure no angel, and he certainly had blood on 
his hands, but Qadhafi was not a threat to Israel, and this 
administration militarily--militarily--supported the people who are a 
threat to Israel, unapologetically. Now, there were some games, some 
wordsmanship games--wordsmithing went on by this administration--
saying, Look, look, this is really a NATO action. Guess who makes up 60 
percent or more of the NATO military. Guess who gives more to NATO than 
anybody else. It's the United States. So it was a little bit of sleight 
of hand to say, You know, Libya really is more of a NATO action. It's 
not really us.
  It is very clear. This administration has not demanded the ouster of 
a leader with blood on his hands, who continues to abuse and kill 
Syrians who want some freedom. This administration hasn't supported 
those rebels the way they did in Libya and the way the administration 
called for Mubarak to be gone--forcefully. So that's also a loves 
Israel not.
  Then you've got to note that the Obama administration's support for 
giving Israel's enemies money and weapons has been at the same time 
Israel has been given assistance. That's not showing a lot of love for 
Israel, but the Obama administration has supported providing Israel 
financial aid that they can use to buy U.S. weapons for Israel's 
defense. Well, now, there's a good one to show some love for Israel. So 
this administration has shown some love for Israel by pushing to 
provide them with financial aid to buy U.S. weapons for their own 
defense. Unfortunately, that comes at the same time the administration 
keeps supporting Israel's enemies--giving them money, pushing to give 
them money and weapons--at the same time Israel is getting that same 
assistance.
  Then there is one other thing that I think is worthy of note. I 
believe it was 2 years ago--in May 2 years ago, I believe--that the 
Obama administration voted with Israel's enemies to require Israel to 
disclose any and all nuclear capabilities or weapons. Israel is a tiny 
country in the middle of a number of countries and of hostile peoples 
that want to see Israel gone, and nobody has made that more clear than 
Ahmadinejad. It is certainly worthy of note that it was right after 
this administration parted from decades of tradition of support for 
Israel--and their very tenuous situation there in the Middle East--that 
it sided with all of Israel's enemies and voted to require them to 
disclose all they really had that could protect them.
  It brought to mind that story from the Old Testament about King 
Hezekiah and how King Hezekiah was confronted by Isaiah. Those of us 
who believe what's printed there believe that God sent the prophet to 
confront Hezekiah, and he basically said, What have you done with these 
people from Babylon, with these leaders that came over from Babylon?
  This is a Texas paraphrase, but basically, King Hezekiah said, Oh, I 
took these Babylonian leaders around, and I showed them all our 
treasure, and I showed them all the defenses we have in the armory.
  In essence, Hezekiah was told by Isaiah, You fool. Because you have 
done this, you're going to lose your country. And he did. Actually, he 
begged the Lord to let it not be on his watch, and it ends up being 
under his son's, but that's another story.
  The point here that came to mind, though, is we were demanding that 
Israel do what Hezekiah similarly did, which made their country 
vulnerable and caused them to lose their country--and we voted with 
Israel's enemies to demand that. This administration did. Congress 
would never have

[[Page 8173]]

voted in the majority to do such a thing, but this Obama administration 
did.
  It's a dangerous time in the world, and it's time for America not to 
be stupid. Some have referred to Israel as being the free world's 
miner's canary, because as people know, in the old days, before 
sensitive electronic equipment, canaries were taken into mines so that 
if noxious, poisonous gas began to fill the air, the canary would die 
before the miners would, and if the canary keeled over dead, the miners 
would know they've got to get out or they could be next.
  Our assistance to Israel is as a democracy in the middle of a hostile 
world, a hostile area, with people who want to see our type of freedom 
and liberty gone, whose very definition of the word ``freedom'' means 
freedom to worship under a joint caliphate under shari'a law. But 
Israel's definition of ``freedom'' is like ours. We should be 
supporting Israel. We should not be supporting Israel's enemies.

                              {time}  1350

  Those who have studied history, you know that when a nation's enemies 
see that nation's strongest ally pulling away from him, that's when 
their enemies move against them. So was it any surprise that after the 
Obama administration voted with Israel's enemies to make Israel more 
vulnerable, that all of a sudden here came a flotilla to challenge the 
lawful blockade of the Gaza Strip that Israel had to at least try to 
ensure their own protection?
  Of course, that was a disastrous and embarrassing time for Israel, 
but I can't help but believe it goes back to this administration 
telling Israel's enemies we're standing with you and not with Israel. 
Yes, this administration has gone back and issued statements to the 
contrary. But when you look at the evidence, look at the unguarded 
evidence, look at the leaks, look at the support for whom, it still 
keeps coming back that even though this President says, I'm not going 
to answer any more questions about whether or not I support Israel, the 
evidence is clear.
  I hope in the ensuing months between now and the next inauguration, 
that this administration will go out of its way to assure Israel's 
enemies that despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel is not loved 
by this administration from past actions and comments, that it will 
take action if for no other reason than to try to help this 
administration win some votes that it's been losing. I don't really 
care what the reason is. I care about supporting our allies, supporting 
those who stand for liberty, who will allow freedom of worship by 
Muslims, freedom of worship by Christians, freedom of worship by other 
groups in Israel that Jews and Christians are not afforded in other 
countries that this administration keeps sucking up to.
  The evidence seems pretty clear. It keeps coming back--despite some 
minor indications to the contrary--that this administration loves 
Israel not.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________