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Floor Speech
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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, we are back in the Senate and kicking off a new year, which will undoubtedly be busy and certainly challenging. There is a lot of work for us to do, and one of our most crucial tasks is to address the national security supplemental appropriations bill that President Biden has requested.
As you know, that bill includes relief for not only Israel but also additional assistance to Ukraine and provides additional money for the Indo- Pacific--hopefully to deter potential Chinese aggression in that region--and, of course, the border, which is another story for another day.
But today, I would like to talk about the challenges we face in the Middle East. Today, the global threat environment is unlike any we have seen in recent memory, perhaps in our lifetime.
I just returned from a trip to the Middle East with a bipartisan group of colleagues from the Senate Intelligence Committee. We had an extremely busy schedule, but it was very productive. We had 22 separate meetings with leaders across the region, from Jordan to Saudi Arabia, to Israel.
We also had the opportunity, as I indicated, to travel to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Minister of Defense, Galant, and also members of the intelligence community there in Tel Aviv--the Shin Bet, which is responsible for domestic security, and, of course, Mossad, the legendary intelligence agency of the Israeli Government.
We all know that on October 7, the world shifted and changed in a dramatic way in Israel when Hamas entered Israel by air, land, and sea. They committed horrific acts of murder of babies and children and innocent civilians. They raped and tortured and beheaded innocent people--beheaded innocent people. They dismembered the bodies of their victims and captured hostages to use as human shields and bargaining chips. It was a day of infamy that will live in the minds of Israelis for the rest of their lives, and it should be a warning again--if we need another warning--to the rest of the region and the rest of the world.
For the people of Israel, this was not unlike our experience on September 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 Americans were killed by a terrorist attack here in Washington, DC, and, of course, the plane lost in Pennsylvania when brave passengers on that plane prevented an attack, perhaps on the very Capitol Building here in Washington. Of course, on September 11, thousands of families lost husbands, wives, parents, and children because of evil terrorists in pursuit of a fanatical ideology. That is what Israel experienced 3 months ago.
Compared to the United States, of course, Israel is a very small country. It is home to roughly 9.3 million people. I represent a State of 30 million people. So Israel has roughly about a third of the population of the State of Texas. But in Israel on that day, October 7, the lives of 1,200 people were lost. Based on the population, this would be equivalent to roughly 36,000 Americans dying on 9/11--an absolutely mind-boggling thought.
Just as most Americans can remember where they were and what they were doing on that terrible day of 9/11/2001, nearly every single Israeli who is old enough to remember the attack will forever recall the events of that terrible day. They will never--they will never-- forget the pain that their country and their people have endured and the threat to their very existence that terrorist attack represents.
As might be expected, I am proud to say that over the last 3 months, the United States has stood strongly in support of Israel--one of our closest allies; the only democracy, really, in the Middle East. We provided military assistance and repeatedly affirmed that Israel has a nonnegotiable right to defend itself.
In recent months, as has occurred throughout America's history, some Americans have voiced skepticism: Why should we care? Why should America be involved in these conflicts so far away from our shores? They ask, and it is a fair question: Why should we care about the outcome of a war that is happening thousands of miles away? Given the challenges we face here at home, they ask, why should the United States invest in Israel's victory and the defense of Ukraine against the invasion by Russia? The threats that are occurring in the Indo- Pacific--why should we care about those threats?
Well, the answer when it comes to Israel is simple: Terrorism will not be confined to Israel or the Middle East as a region. What happens there will not stay there.
Now, I know that sometimes we have to relearn the lessons we learned the hard way many years ago, but the lesson of 9/11 is that our oceans, the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, do not protect the United States against terrorist attacks on our own soil. That is the hard lesson we learned on 9/11, and we should not forget it.
The evil that the world witnessed on October 7 is not limited to Hamas. Hamas, of course, is a terrorist organization committed to the destruction of Israel and the elimination of the Israeli people from the map. This is a sickness, a perversion of a great religion that is shared by terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East.
But we should not be distracted by looking at just Hamas because it is Iran that is the head of the octopus. Its tentacles of terror--its proxies--extend throughout the region and threaten to destabilize the Middle East and potentially start a much larger war.
Iran's terrorist proxies include not only Hamas but also Hezbollah in Lebanon, to the north of Israel; the Houthis in Yemen, on the Arabian Peninsula; the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza and the West Bank; and, of course the Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq, who have attempted as many as 100 different attacks on American troops and America's interests in the region. Iran provides these groups with funding and with weapons and training to enable these attacks like the one that was committed by Hamas on Israel.
But that is only one example. Iranian-led proxies in Iraq and Syria are attacking U.S. forces, as I said. Hezbollah is launching consistent assaults on northern Israel. The Houthis are disrupting global commerce and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, as well as launching unmanned aerial vehicles in an attempt to essentially assault and bomb Israel.
Iran is a country driven by an ideology that calls for the destruction of Israel, but Iran would not stop there.
The Supreme Leader of Iran once labeled the United States as Iran's ``No. 1 enemy.'' We see that view borne into action today as Iran supports Russia in its ongoing war on the people of Ukraine and through its strategic cooperation with China.
Yes, this war is about the future of Israel, but it is also about the future of Iran. Tehran stands to gain a lot from Hamas's war against the Israelis, and the United States must continue to stand for the unequivocal defeat of Hamas. Anything less would embolden Iran and its terrorist proxies and aid them in their ambitions for regional hegemony.
Our colleagues are working hard to reach an agreement on a national security supplemental appropriations bill that will include aid for four security national priorities, as I mentioned: Israel, Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific, and the southern border.
When it comes to Israel, some want to set conditions on U.S. aid and thus attempt to micromanage Israel's fight for its very survival. This, I would suggest, is nothing but hubris, plain and simple.
Imagine if other countries tried to tell the United States how we should have conducted our fight against al-Qaida after 9/11, right after the smoke had cleared and after the bodies of 3,000 Americans had been buried; if other countries had told us ``No, you can't go after the terrorists' threat this way; you have to do it that way.'' Our Nation had just lost 3,000 innocent lives through a series of terrorist attacks. Imagine if others tried to dictate the means by which we defeated that threat and protected our country. Would we have allowed them to tie our hands when it comes to our own defense? Absolutely not. We would have chided them for their naivety and dismissed any attempt to treat terrorist organizations with kid gloves or to treat them as a rational power.
A number of Americans are concerned--we are all concerned, I would suggest--by the number of civilian casualties in Gaza.
But the primary cause of civilian casualties in Gaza and in Israel is Hamas, the terrorist organization. There is no question that when war is declared as Hamas declared war against Israel on October 7, that innocent people will be hurt, perhaps even killed. But there is no question that Hamas's own tactics are the reason the loss of life in Gaza is so high.
These terrorists have a long history of using Palestinian civilians as human shields to protect themselves. Hamas operates a vast network of tunnels beneath Gaza--some 500 kilometers by one estimate--and they shield their terrorist overlords in those tunnels from the dangerous fighting above ground. This is where they store critical supplies like water, food, and fuel, which are being kept from the Palestinian civilians who need that humanitarian assistance. It seems likely that these tunnels are the hiding place for more than 130 remaining hostages.
I met with the grieving families here in Dallas, TX, who lost loved ones to this conflict on October 7, whose loved ones are hostages of Hamas today in Israel. And we also met with another group of Americans who have family members who are currently hostages of Hamas in Gaza.
Well, a video was shared online of a Hamas gunman who was captured and interrogated by Israeli officials. He said that Hamas shelters in tunnels and basements under clinics, schools, and hospitals because they know the Israelis will not target those locations because of their concern about collateral damage and the injury and, perhaps, death of innocent people. So Hamas deliberately places innocent Palestinians between its terrorist foot soldiers and incoming rockets.
We should remember that it was Hamas that initiated this war with their brutal massacre of Israeli civilians, including women and children--even infants--that were just going about their daily lives that represented no threat to them. It is Hamas that knowingly uses the Palestinian people as human shields. It is Hamas that rejoices at every Palestinian killed because it broadens their support and strengthens their narrative and helps them recruit more support.
The world should not condemn Israel for defending itself against terrorist attacks, just like the world did not condemn the United States when we defended ourselves against al-Qaida following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The world should condemn Hamas for its indiscriminate use of civilian infrastructure to protect its own foot soldiers.
As the fighting continues, we can't lose sight of the jarring difference between two sides of this conflict. There is no moral equivalence between Israel and the terrorist organization known as Hamas or, as I mentioned earlier, the head of the octopus, which is the regime in Iran.
This is not a battle between two nations. This is a battle between good and evil. Additional assistance for Israel is crucial to not only the future of the Jewish State but to the stability of the region and the future ambitions of Iran. If Hamas emerges from this war with nothing more than a black eye, it will send a message to Iran and its terrorist proxies that their war against Israel and the Western world is worthwhile. And it will continue and it will intensify and it will expand.
Given the chaos that is unfolding in the Middle East today, the very last thing the world needs is an emboldened Iran. I hope in the coming weeks, the Senate can finally make progress on the need for assistance for Israel. The House passed an Israel aid bill on November 2--November 2, more than 2 months ago--and the Senate has done nothing except preach to Israel on the means by which some believe it should defend itself from those determined to wipe it from the face of the Earth.
This is not a time for preaching to Israel, our most steadfast ally in the Middle East, about how to defend themselves. It is a grave disservice, I believe, to do so.
So there is a lot at stake, and the eyes of the world are on the United States. Again, as I said earlier, no American wants to see us involved in conflicts around the world. But, unfortunately, it is our responsibility, not just because we come to the aid of others who have been innocent civilians and people who have been viciously attacked by terrorists but because this virus, this contagion, will spread beyond Israel, beyond the Middle East, and to other parts of the world, including the United States.
If there is a lesson we learned from 9/11, it is that our oceans--the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans--will not protect us. So what happens in Gaza, what happens in Israel will not stay there.
Taking action to ensure our top ally in the Middle East has its back would be a great place for us to start this new year. The clock is ticking, and the Senate needs to act soon to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defeat Hamas and confront the growing threat from Iran.
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