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Floor Speech

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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, 3 weeks ago, Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists murdered 33 Americans and 1,400 Israelis in the deadliest terrorist attack since September 11, 2001. These depraved savages killed more Jews in a single day than any time since the Holocaust.

Israel is now at war and on the verge of what could be its bloodiest battle in a generation. And the struggle is real. It is not only fighting Hamas and Gaza, it is fighting a confederation of Iranian- trained, funded, and armed terrorist organizations. From the Houthis in Yemen to Hezbollah in Lebanon, to Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, Iran is besieging Israel by proxy. At the same time, Iran is conducting extensive attacks against Americans in the region.

Since Joe Biden took office, Iran and its proxies have attacked American forces more than 100 times.

Let me say that again: 100 times.

That is why we need a person of strength as the U.S. Ambassador in Israel. We need an ambassador who is a champion of the American-Israeli relationship who can bridge the Democratic-driven divide in the alliance. We need an ambassador who is clear-eyed about the Iranian threat and prepared to confront it.

Instead, President Biden has nominated Jack Lew, who at times seems a better friend to Tehran than Jerusalem. The U.S. Senate should reject this nomination to be Ambassador to Israel. A vote for him is a vote to subvert, not strengthen, our ally in its time of need.

As President Obama's Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew was the leading proponent of the disastrous Iran nuclear deal. The deal delivered more than $100 billion to the ayatollahs. Mr. Lew called the agreement a strong deal and said:

[I]t will make our country safer, it will make our allies safer, and it will make the world safer.

He apparently didn't consult our allies, though, before making that statement because our allies in Israel certainly didn't agree. In fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu called the agreement ``a very bad deal.'' And one poll found that 73 percent of Jewish Israelis believed that the deal posed an existential threat to the Jewish State.

Prime Minister Netanyahu was so opposed to the Iran deal, which Mr. Lew championed, that he traveled to the United States and addressed a joint session of this Congress to urge our opposition.

Mr. Lew condemned Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech as ``beyond the pale'' and ``a huge mistake.'' Apparently, Mr. Lew also did not consult our own Democratic leader, the Senator from New York, who also voted against the disastrous Iran deal.

Worse still, Mr. Lew stood with President Obama when he refused to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel. This was nothing but an act of spite by Barack Obama against Israel's leadership. Yet Mr. Lew stood by his boss, dismissively asserting that ``I don't think it's a great thing for Israel to always have only the United States standing between it and condemnation.''

So, according to Mr. Lew, I guess it is better to have Israel condemned than to have Israel's back. Mr. Lew, apparently, doesn't understand that doing what is right is sometimes lonely business.

The next American Ambassador to Israel must be prepared for the hard and lonely work of sometimes standing up against the rest of the region and, indeed, the rest of the world in defense of American and Israeli interests.

Mr. Lew's glib comments demonstrate that he lacks either the nerve or the will to stand up for Israel when it really matters and the chips are down, as they are today.

But Mr. Lew didn't just advocate on behalf of the Iran nuclear deal or attack its Israeli critics; he lied to Congress to protect the deal--indeed, to go beyond what the nuclear deal required. Mr. Lew told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the summer of 2015 that Iran would ``continue to be denied access to the [American] financial and commercial market.''

Mr. Lew also testified that Iranian banks ``will continue to be denied access to the world's largest financial and commercial market.''

But 7 months later, in early 2016, Jack Lew's Treasury Department granted a license to convert almost $6 billion of Iranian assets into American currency using our financial system. This was not required by the Iran nuclear deal. This went over and above the dictates of that deal. But apparently Barack Obama and Jack Lew felt bad for the murderous ayatollahs because they weren't getting enough economic benefit out of the deal.

He even pressured two American banks to complete the transaction, and they, sanely and patriotically, said: No thanks. We don't want to touch Iran's blood money.

If that is not lying to Congress, I don't really know what is. But in addition to lying, Mr. Lew neglected to inform Congress that his department was sending its representatives around the world to encourage foreign countries and companies to do business with Iran.

According to a Senate committee report, authored by former Senator Robert Portman, the Treasury and State Department conducted more the 200 so-called road shows in foreign cities to encourage economic engagement with Tehran.

Again, this is not required by the nuclear deal with Iran. Nothing said Jack Lew and his agents at Treasury had to act as the de facto investment bankers and business agents for the murderous ayatollahs.

He apparently felt so much sympathy for the ayatollahs that he and John Kerry, as Secretary of State, would send their agents all around the world, hustling up business for Iran's terror regime.

And now this is the man who is going to represent American interests in Jerusalem? The Senate should not confirm Jack Lew, a man who has lied to Congress both by omission and overt dishonesty. The Senate should likewise not confirm a man who has acted as the de facto business investment banker and business agent for the blood-thirsty ayatollahs.

Mr. Lew's supporters have claimed that although flawed, we need an ambassador to Israel during this crisis, and Mr. Lew is the man in offering. But the fact is, no one is better than Jack Lew. And the sooner we defeat his nomination, the sooner we can find someone worthy of this critical post.

I know my Democratic friends say we have to confirm Mr. Lew to show our support for Israel. I would turn that around and say: We have to defeat Mr. Lew's nomination to show that our Nation is finally serious about confronting the ayatollahs in Iran. And there is no clearer or immediate action that Senators could take to show a new direction for U.S. policy on Iran than to reject the nomination of one of the architects of the Iran nuclear deal.

Both the United States and Israel deserve a lot better than Jack Lew. I urge my colleagues to oppose his nomination.

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