[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6387]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 RECOGNIZING THE JEWISH STATE OF ISRAEL

  (Mr. ENGEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I have just come back from a bipartisan trip 
to Israel where we met with top officials and really celebrated the 
alliance between the U.S. and Israel. Israel obviously is in a very 
dangerous neighborhood, and they were absolutely justified to carry out 
the bombing strikes in Syria where Hezbollah terrorists were attempting 
to get arms from Iran.
  What happens is Iran sends the weapons, the missiles through Syria 
into Lebanon to arm the Hezbollah terrorists. No nation would put up 
with having terrorists prepared to attack them without striking back. 
So I think it is very, very important that we support Israel in its 
quest to rid itself of the scourge of terrorism.
  Peace in the Middle East will come about when both sides recognize 
the other's right to exist. The problem has been that many of the Arab 
nations do not recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, and 
I think that really needs to change. I am glad President Obama said 
that he supports Israel in doing whatever it needs to do for its own 
self-defense, and I'm pleased that talks are being started with the 
help of Secretary Kerry to try to get peace talks online again. But 
again, in my estimation, peace will only happen when the Arab nations 
recognize the Jewish State of Israel.

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