[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 331-332]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          EGYPT TALKING POINTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
the remainder of the hour as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is my honor and privilege to be 
recognized to address you here on the floor of the House of 
Representatives.
  I thank the gentlewoman for yielding and for her presentation here 
tonight and the collection of people who came down to support her 
initiative and her agenda.
  I thank the men and women who have stepped up and put on the uniform 
and actually those, also, who have risked their lives who were not 
formally wearing the uniform to defend our country.
  I am one who, I think you know, Mr. Speaker, has great reverence for 
our constitutional values and the pillars of American exceptionalism, 
the underpinnings that make this a great nation. One of the things that 
we have been able to do as a great nation is be able to inspire others.
  If we look around the world, there are those who think that the only 
thing that could happen that is good to somebody is if we just bring 
them into America and give them access to our welfare benefits and 
maybe they will become good Americans and all will be right with the 
world, but I don't know if they have done the geography very well, Mr. 
Speaker, and recognize that we can do a lot more good by helping people 
where they are so that they can help themselves.
  One of the most important things we can do is not send the wealth of 
America over to give people money and food and housing. That goes on 
from time to time, and there is a good number of times it is very well 
justified. But the best thing we can do is inspire others to live and 
model after the freedom of the United States of America. Then they can 
help themselves, Mr. Speaker.
  I think of a time I sat down with several Ambassadors to the United 
States from Israel. We had a meeting over here in a room just off the 
House floor. They were explaining to me that they had adopted Hebrew as 
their official language. They did that, I believe, in 1954. They formed 
their country in 1948.

                              {time}  2000

  And I said: ``Why did you establish an official language and why did 
you resurrect essentially a dead language''--Hebrew--``that had not 
been used in common discourse or business or politics''--except for 
prayer--``for 2,000 years?''
  And they said they saw the success of the United States with the 
common language that we have. English is our common language.
  They wanted a common language for Israelis. They wanted something 
that would be unique, something that would bond and bind them together, 
because they had seen the successful model here. They were inspired by 
the successful model of assimilation that came about because of a 
common language. So they adopted Hebrew as their official language in 
Israel.
  I was quite impressed, Mr. Speaker. I was quite impressed that 
America would inspire a country that had all the world history to draw 
from, yet they look at the model we have here to

[[Page 332]]

make such a definitive thing as to bring back a language that had not 
been utilized in common discussion for 2,000 years.
  I give you that example, Mr. Speaker, because I come here tonight and 
I want to talk about Egypt and how it is that the United States of 
America inspires people around the world in ways that we may not 
realize.
  I come to the floor tonight, Mr. Speaker, to commemorate and 
celebrate and give notice to and congratulate the Egyptian people. 
Yesterday they swore in and convened their parliament. That is Egypt's 
first parliament in nearly 4 years.
  It is a great day for Egypt, and it is a great day for liberty 
worldwide. It is a great day for the United States to see that there 
are others around the world who are inspired by our system of a 
representative form of government.
  I extend my congratulations to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and to 
the new speaker and drafter of Egypt's Constitution, Ali Abdel-Al, but 
also to Mr. Moussa, whom I met with on at least two occasions as he 
chaired the committee to draft the Egyptian Constitution.
  The citizens of Egypt have achieved an important foreign policy 
milestone, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday was that day. I was curious that they 
would convene on a Sunday. Only under extreme circumstances would we 
start our day here on a Sunday.
  However, Egypt is a Muslim country. It is about 95 percent Muslim--it 
has got a higher percentage of Christians than people might think--and 
they go to mosque on Friday. In fact, I learned that the Christians 
have their services on Friday as well. That way, Sunday is a workday.
  But, in any case, the short history and the most recent history of 
Egypt is really astonishing. I point out that it seems as though our 
administration has missed the importance of this.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I will just go through some of the history of Egypt 
as we commemorate and congratulate them for convening their Parliament 
now under a legitimized constitutional government of the sovereign 
nation-state of Egypt, a country that we need to expand and strengthen 
our relations with and a country that can be a central player in 
stabilizing the instability all throughout the Middle East.
  It is important that Egypt be a significant component of that effort 
that is going forward not just in this administration, but into the 
next administration and for a long time.
  Back in 1981, President Mubarak took power. He held power for 30 
years. In that 30-year period of time, some people thought that he was 
a strong man and that he dealt harshly with some of his opposition that 
was there. It may be true. I am not here to defend President Mubarak.
  When President Obama took office, it was clear that he had a 
different view of President Mubarak than I have expressed here. He went 
to Cairo to give a speech in Egypt on June 4, 2009.
  And I remind the body, Mr. Speaker, that President Obama, then-
Senator Obama and a candidate for President, in the spring of 2008 made 
a statement roughly similar to the fact he believed his middle name 
means something to the rest of the world.
  And when they recognize and see his middle name, they all know that 
he can communicate with them in a certain way that someone who doesn't 
have that middle name doesn't have that particular tool.
  And so shortly after that--being elected President and then armed 
with that conviction--President Obama traveled to Cairo, Egypt, and 
gave his speech on June 4, 2009, at Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
  Now, Al-Azhar University is essentially the global center for Islamic 
thought. They have Islamic scholars there that are respected worldwide 
within the world of Islam.
  So to send a message to the Muslim world, there wasn't a place that 
was more effective than going to Al-Azhar University to give his June 
4, 2009, speech.
  It happens to be a fact, Mr. Speaker, that the seating arrangement 
was arranged, we have to presume, with the approval of President Obama. 
And who sat in the front row, Mr. Speaker?
  The leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood were seated in the front row 
when President Obama gave his speech at Al-Azhar University. That sent 
a powerful signal to the Egyptian people, a signal that the President 
of the United States supports the Muslim Brotherhood.
  Now, I don't bring this up as speculation, Mr. Speaker. I bring it 
back to the floor of the Congress because I am speaking from hands-on, 
eye-to-eye experience in talking with the Egyptian people and some of 
their leadership and some of their press.
  They say to us: ``Why does President Obama support the Muslim 
Brotherhood?'' That is a bit of a tough question and is a hard one to 
rebut when they are seated in the front row at Al-Azhar University.
  Well, this brought about a significant amount of unrest. It 
contributed to the unrest, is probably a more reasonable way to 
describe this, Mr. Speaker. As the unrest grew in Egypt, we also heard 
messages coming out of the State Department.
  For example, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a statement 
very similar to: Mubarak needs to be gone yesterday. And so the push 
from the Obama administration, the push from the State Department, 
then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and others, began to put 
pressure on Mubarak.
  While this is going on, the Arab Spring erupted about January, 
February 2011. Of course, it was multiple countries throughout the 
Middle East that had unrest. And there was significant unrest in Egypt, 
as we know.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, the pressure built and the demonstrations that 
took place in Tahrir Square were intense. Some of them were violent. We 
saw on television the massive amounts of people that were on the square 
and weren't going to leave.
  With the trouble that was there, finally, on February 11, 2011, 
Mubarak stepped down. When he stepped down, that left a bit of a void 
that was still wrapped up in the chaos.
  During that chaos, there were primarily Muslim Brotherhood activities 
consisting of mobs that were attacking Christian churches, attacking 
the Evangelical churches that are there, and attacking the Coptic 
Christian churches that are there. In fact, the persecution went on in 
multiple cities around Egypt. There were multiple churches that were 
burned and razed to the ground. Some were just gutted by fire.
  Well, in June 2012, Mohamed Morsi came to power. He is the face and 
the voice--and may still be--of the Muslim Brotherhood. As Morsi came 
to power, they began to see how the Muslim Brotherhood would rule 
Egypt.
  The protests died down for a while, and then they ramped back up 
again, Mr. Speaker and got worse and worse and worse and more intense.
  And so the protests accelerated up to January 25, 2013. There were 
many protests. Egypt was more or less very difficult to govern and rule 
because of the protests against Morsi and because of the way that Morsi 
had mishandled government and the way that the Muslim Brotherhood, with 
their heavy hand, had worked against many of the Egyptian people.
  Morsi was the duly-elected President. And I believe the number was 
4.6 million Egyptians that came to the polls out of 83 million 
Egyptians altogether. So it was a low percentage of turnout, but they 
saw him get elected.
  And then, as he essentially disempowered the legislature and 
disempowered the judicial branch of government, there was a democratic 
election for Morsi, an election one last time. The dictator had taken 
over, and the Egyptian people knew it. And they began to push back, Mr. 
Speaker.
  So the protests accelerated from January 25, 2013, on throughout that 
spring. And then, as we watched, there was a funeral at the main Coptic 
church in Cairo. The Muslim Brotherhood mobs attacked the funeral and 
killed people. And so that is a brutal division within the society that 
took place. That was April 7, 2013.
  Throughout that summer, the Christian groups were gathering together, 
Mr. Speaker, and during that period of time they would have regular