Israel

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on a different subject, I want to speak on President Biden's recent decision to withhold certain offensive U.S. weapons from Israel that might be used in an assault on Rafah.

I support President Biden.

It is not, as some have characterized, a failure to support Israel in a dangerous region after a genuinely horrific Hamas attack--and October 7 was such an attack. It is instead a warning from one of the most pro- Israeli U.S. Presidents to an ally that a full-scale assault on Rafah could not only add to the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza but undermine any long-term stability in the region.

Let me also remind those critics that President Biden recently helped coordinate, with the use of American forces, a dramatic defense of Israel against an Iranian assault.

Anyone who doubts Joe Biden's commitment to Israel is misguided. But he has reached his limit with Prime Minister Netanyahu and his response in Gaza and focus on his own political survival more than anything else.

His blunders protecting civilians and allowing the flow of aid were noted in the national security memo reported to Congress last week. Let me elaborate. Last week, several of us met with the Jordanian King, Abdullah II--a deeply thoughtful leader who knows the region well. He is a key ally of the United States, and he has made peace with Israel. He, like Middle East expert Tom Friedman, argued that simply leveling Gaza and furthering the humanitarian crisis without a long-term strategy for peace is no strategy at all for Israel. A path forward can only happen with the support of Arab nations in the region.

President Biden has been urging Prime Minister Netanyahu to offer this broader vision, one that likely includes normalization with Saudi Arabia and eventual peace with a Palestinian State--a vision that could be undermined with a massive assault on Rafah.

As Tom Friedman posed to Netanyahu in a recent column, ``What do you want more--Rafah or Riyadh? Do you want to mount a full-scale invasion of Rafah to try to finish off Hamas--if that is even possible--without offering any Israeli exit strategy from Gaza or any political horizon for a two-state solution with non-Hamas-led Palestinians?''

Shortly after the horrific attack on October 7, I warned our Israeli friends to learn from our mistakes made in the fog of rage and pain after September 11. You do not want ill-thought occupation of Gaza to become your Fallujah, and, as also learned in Iraq, one needs the trust of the local civilian population to help counter terrorist groups.

We were speculating recently on how many innocent civilians have been killed in Gaza in an effort to eliminate Hamas. The number is staggering. This is another reason President Biden reached his limit with Netanyahu. The devastating civilian toll in Gaza is not only a moral and humanitarian problem; it is a strategic failure.

More than 40 years ago, an American President was furious about the photos of civilians killed by Israeli shelling in Lebanon. That President then called Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, dressed him down sharply, and told him the excessive assault had to end. Over the course of this President's term, he used the power of U.S. weapons sales, including delaying or withholding certain warplanes and arms, to influence Israeli war policy as well as to criticize Israeli actions in the region at the U.N. Security Council. That President was Ronald Reagan.

Reagan wrote in his diary about the difficult call with Begin:

I was angry. . . . I told him it had to stop or our entire future relationship was endangered.

So I urge those who are resistant and vocal about President Biden's actions to reflect on Ronald Reagan's similar moves to help our Israeli allies from making strategic, tragic mistakes four decades ago or reflect on the words of former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan, who before his death concluded that Israel over the years ``achieved a long string of impressive tactical successes but also disastrous strategic failures.''

I have long supported a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians. In fact, out of the devastating Yom Kippur War came an unimaginable yet lasting peace between Egypt and Israel. It can happen.

So with the right leaders on both sides, it can be done, and we have a responsibility in the United States for a renewed push on all sides towards this goal--one in which Israeli and Palestinian children can once and forever live in safety, peace, and dignity.

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