Israel

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. Madam President:

Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts . . . Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror . . . These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our Nation into chaos and retreat.

These were the words of former President George W. Bush speaking to the Nation on the evening of September 11, 2001. But they could have been repeated word for word by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of the heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas that left more than 1,400 dead in Israel on October 7.

As Americans, we know the horror of living through the mass murder of our fellow citizens in a shocking terrorist attack; to be overcome with these intertwined feelings of insecurity and fear, fury, and grief; to be filled with the deep righteous desire for justice and retribution a need to reconcile the moral universe by making the perpetrators of these crimes pay a heavy price. And we know that, even as the impulse to avenge may subside, there remains a need to deter, to show your enemies that aggression against us will be met with overwhelming force.

Nine days after September 11, President Bush presented an ultimatum to Afghanistan's Taliban government:

[H]and over the terrorists, or . . . share in their fate.

The United States moved swiftly to mobilize the support of the international community and the overwhelming capabilities of the U.S. military to destroy al-Qaida and wrest control of Afghanistan from their Taliban hosts. It was a just mission. Neither America's security nor the moral order of the world could have been preserved if the Taliban remained in power, having made possible al-Qaida's training and planning to execute the September 11 attack. Americans rallied around the invasion of Afghanistan--so did the world.

In thinking back on those early days in the fall of 2001, America was looking for partners, not second-guessers or critics. We would not have taken kindly to lectures about how we should go about meting out justice or keeping our Nation safe. Either you were with us or you were against us. With 3,000 Americans dead, that was our mindset, and it was an entirely understandable one.

Israel must seek justice for the 1,400 of its citizens murdered by Hamas on October 7. Israel must bring to justice those who planned and executed the attacks, and it must seek to destroy Hamas as an armed group or, at the very least, destroy its capability to carry out terrorist violence against Israelis. Israel must defend itself, just like we had to do in 2001. This is the state's obligation to its people.

And I, for one, will be there to support Israel, just like our friends were there for us 20 years ago. And I, for one, am glad to see this body, the U.S. Senate, coming together--Republicans and Democrats, who fight over a lot of things--in our joint show of support for Israel's defense.

But here is what I also believe. I believe that part of the way that we support Israel is providing them with funding and with arms in order to destroy Hamas's military capabilities, but I also believe that we should be sharing the lessons that we learned from our response to September 11 and the successive two decades of wars waged in the name of counterterrorism.

If we are going to be honest with our friends in Israel, then we need to admit that we often failed to see beyond our fury and that we made mistakes by not understanding what came next after the invasion of Afghanistan and the decapitation of our enemy. We had a day-one strategy, but we did not have a day-two strategy, and we paid a horrible price.

After al-Qaida fled and the Taliban government collapsed, we spent 20 years trying to ``win'' without a clear idea of what ``winning'' was, how it would be accomplished, or how that was actually linked to making America safer.

Now, let me be clear. The challenge Israel faces from Hamas is different in really important ways from the al-Qaida threat to the United States, and the lessons of America's global counterterrorism campaign do not neatly map onto Israel's current crisis. For one, the physical proximity of the threat is meaningful. Hamas does not operate from a safe distance. It exists right next door, in Gaza.

America had no experience in or with Afghanistan before the invasion--not so for Israel and Gaza. They know each other. They have an intimate history, and that history impacts the effectiveness of the fight to come.

Another key distinction is the disposition of the enemy. Hamas is not hiding in caves in the Tora Bora. They are both a military and a political entity. They live in a tightly packed corridor that is home to more than 2 million people. Many of them have nothing to do with Hamas.

So there is no perfect comparison between Afghanistan and Gaza, but there are enough similarities that we should be confident in sharing with our friends in Israel the lessons that we learned, the mistakes we made--mistakes that Israel could avoid.

The first of those mistakes was lacking a realistic conception of success. In Afghanistan, we set about the total and complete elimination of ``ungoverned space'' and ``terrorist safe havens''; but after 20 years of fighting, of raids, of targeted strikes, we finally came to terms with a really harsh reality: Our tactics were often producing more terrorists and insurgents than they were eliminating. We were far too cavalier about civilian casualties and the humanitarian cost of our pursuit of the Taliban, and it ended up simply making the Taliban stronger.

Today, Israeli leaders talk about totally eliminating every last Hamas fighter. It is an understandable objective, given the terror that Hamas rained down on Israel. But is it realistic? Can the Israeli military destroy an entire movement--not just a terrorist organization or an armed group but a political entity that administers territory? Is there a risk of our fate in Afghanistan--creating more terrorists than we eliminated--repeating in Gaza?

Another mistake we made in Afghanistan was believing that every proposal we put down on paper could, through the sheer force of American will, become a reality on the ground. We drew up a viable plan to replace the Taliban's kleptocratic theocracy with corruption-free parliamentary democracy. But Afghanistan was not a fit for that plan, and our plan, which looked good on a PowerPoint, was destined to fail.

What was an achievable outcome that we eventually, 20 years later, settled on was eliminating al-Qaida's ability to attack the United States and creating the political conditions on the ground in Afghanistan so that al-Qaida would never again be granted safe harbor. But, of course, that outcome didn't need to take 20 years. It was likely available to the United States much earlier in the conflict.

If Israel does mount a ground invasion, the question is, of course: What comes next?

Hamas administers Gaza. So if Hamas is eliminated, who takes their place? Does Israel reoccupy Gaza in the long run and run Gaza directly? That would seem like a recipe for perpetual conflict. Or does Israel imagine that the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority could step up and administer Gaza? I won't go into a full analysis, but there are very few Middle East watchers who bet that that is a long-term, viable arrangement.

Some Israeli leaders suggest that the question of the future status of Gaza is a matter to be addressed after Israel has ``won the war.'' But what we learned in Afghanistan is that the very concept of ``winning'' is meaningless if it is not built around the conditions of a sustainable peace.

And what is the realistic possibility of building a post-Hamas governing structure in Gaza, particularly when the only immediate alternative would seem to be a renewed and indefinite occupation?

If there isn't a satisfactory answer to these questions, then the military planning is incomplete.

But, make no mistake, America is going to support Israel in its time of need, with funding, with weapons, with whatever they need.

But I raise these questions only because there are important lessons that can be drawn--not perfect parallels but important lessons that can be drawn--from both our successes and our failures.

We had to invade Afghanistan. We had to take out the Taliban. It was the only way to square the moral universe. Israel must strike at Hamas. Israel must destroy their military capabilities. It is the only way to restore the balance of the moral universe. But supporting Israel also means helping them learn from our successes and our failures and to not reflexively repeat the same mistakes we made 20 years ago. Friends support friends, but friends also level with friends.

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