And Still I Rise

Floor Speech

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Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. And still I rise.

I rise as a very proud unbought, unbossed, and unafraid liberated Democrat. In the spirit of Shirley Chisholm, she was, as she proclaimed, unbought and unbossed.

I rise also as the scion of the enslaved Africans whose lives were sacrificed to make America great. I rise as the progenitor of Slavery Remembrance Day, August 20, Slavery Remembrance Day. All of these things are important to me because all of these things are associated with my history.

So I rise today in the spirit of Shirley Chisholm. I rise to speak and address an issue that is little known to most persons. The issue has to do with domicide.

Domicide. I will repeat this again in just a moment, but I think it will serve us well to articulate it at this moment. Domicide is the widespread or systematic destruction of homes, often during conflict.

I will be saying more about it in just a moment.

This is to whet your appetite, if you will, Mr. Speaker, to get you in the frame of mind such that you will start to give some thought to this word ``domicide,'' which more than likely you have not seen prior to today. Domicide is something that is new to most of us.

In addressing this issue of domicide, I would like to read from an article published by NPR styled: ``What is `domicide,' and why has war in Gaza brought new attention to the term?''

It is an article that was written by Becky Sullivan on February 9, 2024, in NPR. These are the words of NPR:

``One of the most staggering statistics to emerge from the war between Israel and the militant group Hamas is this: More than 650,000 residents of Gaza will have no home to return to once Israel completes its military campaign, the United Nations estimates.''

Once Israel completes its military campaign, there will be no home to return to.

According to NPR: That total amounts to nearly 30 percent of the territory's population. And `many more' will be unable to return home immediately due to damage to infrastructure and the danger of unexploded ordnance, the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, says.''

It is disturbing to note that some 650,000 residents in an area that has approximately 2 million persons, a little more than 2 million, will have no home to return to, and it is indicated that this will be the case once Israel completes its military campaign.

Let me step aside from the article for just a moment and say this: What Hamas did on October 7 was unthinkable. It was a dastardly deed. It will live in the annals of history with those other dastardly deeds that we all regret having to recall to our minds. It was horrible, it was unthinkable, and it is horrific. This is what Hamas did, and Israel declared war on Hamas.

Israel has a right to demand justice and to receive justice for the dastardly deeds perpetuated. Babies were killed, men and women were killed, and persons were decapitated.

Israel has a right to seek justice.

Israel declared war on Hamas.

Israel did not declare war on Palestinians or Palestine.

Israel did not declare war on the people of Palestine.

In fact, Mr. Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, had indicated himself that the Palestinians are victims. The Palestinians are victims.

Israel did not declare war on the Palestinians, but rather on Hamas.

I say this repeatedly with the emphasis that I have attributed to these commentaries because there are many people who have confused Hamas with Palestine and Palestinians. Many people assume that because of what Hamas did, Palestinians can suffer and it is okay; many people have concluded.

It is wrong to kill Israeli babies. It is wrong to kill innocent people in Israel.

Be that as it may, many people have concluded that it is okay to kill Palestinian babies and innocent Palestinians.

I am not one of them. I do not believe that in the name of justice you can commit an injustice and that injustice will be a justice. An injustice committed in the name of justice is still an injustice. What has happened to thousands of Palestinian babies in the course of this war on Hamas is an injustice.

Let me continue. I have indicated that some 650,000 residents of Gaza will have no home to return to once Israel completes its military campaign. This is according to the United Nations. It also estimates: ``That total amounts to nearly 30 percent of the territory's population. And `many more' will be unable to return home immediately due to damage to infrastructure.''

Now, this is in addition to the 650,000. In addition to the 650,000, many more won't be able to return home due to damage to infrastructure and the danger of unexploded ordnance, the United Nation's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA--I don't know how to pronounce it--OCHA says.

``As of early February, more than 70,000 housing units in Gaza have been destroyed and nearly 300,000 have been damaged. . . . `' This is according to the organization, OCHA, the one that coordinates the humanitarian affairs.

It goes on to say here in the article: ``Taken together, it represents 60 percent of all housing units in the Gaza strip.'' That is 60 percent of all housing units.

``Some researchers and human rights advocates say the destruction amounts to `domicide,'''--which I have called to your attention, domicide--``or the widespread or systematic destruction of homes, often during conflict.''

To a reader in a faraway place--this would apply to a lot of us.

``To a reader in a faraway place with no connection to a conflict, the numbers may feel abstract. But behind each of those numbers are families now experiencing the loss of their homes, said Ammar Azzouz, a research fellow at the University of Oxford and author of the book `Domicide: Architecture, War, and the Destruction of Home in Syria'.''

``This is the house of a family,'' he goes on to say, ``of the saving, the livelihood, the dreams, and the future of the people.'' This is what Azzouz said.

Let me just elaborate for just a moment.

This is the house of a family. Can you imagine your home being destroyed? You have done nothing wrong and your home is destroyed.

He indicates that savings will be destroyed. Most people don't buy homes with cash; they have to save. In this country, they have a mortgage for some long period of time, perhaps 30 years, even more if you have to refinance for some reason.

But this is your home and you invested your life savings to a certain extent in this home, so your savings are lost if your home is destroyed.

The livelihood, this is a means by which people can make a living. Some people literally have home offices for various businesses that they are engaged in. Your home is a place that allows you to dream of better things, of better places, of better times; dreams about things that have happened to you and things that you plan to do.

Your home provides you the opportunity to think big, dream big, and believe that there is a better opportunity in the future, but it is lost once your home is destroyed.

It is the future of people. Homes have been the means by which people have been able to finance a child's education. Homes have been the means by which persons can start a small business with the equity that they have in the home. Homes have provided people with a future.

He goes on to say, ``And when the world's gaze''--when the world's attention, if you will, when the world is no longer looking at Gaza and the Palestinians, he goes on to say, ``When the world's gaze moves on and forgets about what happened, this pain and suffering and rupture remains with the people for decades. . . . `'

You don't lose your home, have your home blown away, bombed, destroyed, and just forget about it. It becomes a nightmare. Your dream becomes a nightmare. You will for years, decades, perhaps the rest of your life, remember that you lost your home and then you have to start all over again.

If you are young, starting all over may be something that you can accomplish with a degree of ease, but many of these persons who are losing their homes in Gaza are not young. They are not starting all over as youngsters who have years ahead of them. Many of them are seeking a place to call home, shelter, if you will, in places that have been destroyed. Maybe there is a corner that they can move into and perhaps they can pull some cover over themselves at night. They bring their babies with them, their children with them as they move into these places to try to find shelter.

Let's take a look at one possibility.

This is a depiction of destruction in Gaza. You have two adults with children out front. I don't know that this is their home, if they were ever living in any of these areas that are represented in the picture, but this is a place where someone dwelled and, as you can see, it has been destroyed.

This has to be painful when you realize that years of savings, years of building, and repairing all gone up with one bomb that has our fingerprints on it, by the way, because we have provided largesse to Israel.

Some might say, well, maybe the money didn't go directly toward that bomb. Perhaps not. Perhaps not, but as my colleagues from across the aisle like to remind me, there is something called ``fungibility,'' meaning that moneys that are set aside for one thing, once you acquire some additional dollars, you can use that money for other things.

We have our fingerprints on this destruction, and we ought to be concerned about the harm that it is going to cause not just in the near future but in the distant future, immediate harm, as well as long-term harm.

I continue now with the NPR article. For fear that some may have missed the last paragraph, I will read it again. ``This is the house of a family, of the saving, the livelihood, the dreams and the future of people.''

This is what Azzouz said, ``And when the world's gaze moves on,'' when the world is no longer paying attention, if you will, ``moves on and forgets about what's happened, this pain''--these are the persons who will experience the pain to a certain extent--``and suffering and rupture remains with people for decades, because this was their lost life, their lost time, and they grieve for it.''

Your life is in your home. Your time is in your home. We have to start to think about what is happening to people now as a result of our largesse. Our largesse is permitting this kind of thing to happen to people that war has not been declared against.

Remember, the war was declared against Hamas, not the Palestinians.

Continuing with the NPR article. ``Domicide has come to be a feature of conflict in the Middle East''--this is what he said--``from Mosul in Iraq to Aleppo and Homs in his native Syria. Azzouz and others argue that this kind of destruction wreaks deep psychological damage on people.''

Can you imagine how hurt you would be mentally if you have your home destroyed and you have done nothing wrong and you are innocent? Can you imagine how this pain lingers within your mind?

He says it is ``deep psychological damage on people, for whom the loss of their home means a deeply felt loss of security.'' No home. You have lost your security. The home is a place where you feel secure. You lock your doors. You are there with your family. Everybody is in and you feel safe and secure. It remains a place of loss of security, of comfort, and memories.

The memories of the children growing up and the many little things that happen in the home. The baby taking his first step in the room where, in some cases, the baby was born, unfortunately.

Now, the article in NPR moves on to what the numbers show in Gaza.

``More than half of all buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed as of February 2, according to analysis of satellite imagery by a team of researchers at Oregon State University.''

This is NPR now quoting Oregon State University researchers as well as it says here, `` . . . the City University of New York. In northern Gaza, the most populous area of the territory before the war, as much as 82.9 percent of all buildings were damaged or destroyed.''

This is in northern Gaza where people were told you have to move because the military is coming and you will be safe if you move to another area, which we have found not to be the case, by the way.

Let's take a look at another picture.

This is a representation. This is Gaza. I am not sure that it is northern Gaza, but if you look at the destruction here, you can see the lost dreams, the hopes, the security. The destruction is almost unimaginable. It is unimaginable in the sense that this is being perpetrated on innocent people.

Here is an example of an innocent person, a young Palestinian child. Obviously, we should be concerned first about this child. The home and other tangible things are important, but first about this child.

This child may have no home to return to. Notice I said may. I don't know this child's personal history, but may have no home to return to. This child is injured, suffering, may have no home to return to. If not this child, some child who has been injured will have no home to return to.

And when you see this child, as I have begged in the past and I appeal to you now, don't just see a Palestinian child, see a human being, a human being that is suffering. See an Israeli child. See your own child, care, and have a heart. Understand that injustice in the name of justice is still injustice. This is an injustice.

Many of the persons who had to leave their homes did not leave in the mode of transportation that would be familiar to us. Here is a family. They are having to vacate, and in so doing, they find themselves with what appears to be as much as they can carry on a cart that is being drawn with a donkey.

They are already poor, already in poverty by standards that we recognize. They lost their home or are leaving their home. I don't know their personal history, so I can't say that these persons lost their home in the bombing, but I can tell you that somebody similar to these persons, if not these persons did, when the numbers that I called to your attention are as large as they are.

So it may not be these persons, but it has been some people that have had to evacuate, had to vacate and move on because the bombs were coming, and they came.

Here is another picture of a child suffering. We can conclude that the child is suffering because the head is bandaged, and there is some sort of tube that has been inserted in the child's mouth.

Suffering, I keep bringing this to your attention because we cannot allow the Palestinians to become just casualties of war. That is all-- just casualties of war.

I refuse to allow Israelis to be casualties of war, innocent people, and I am going to stand for the Palestinians in the same vein as I stand for the Israelis. They are not just casualties of war. These are human beings.

If this child survives, 10, 15, 20 years from now, what will the psychological impact of this be on that child? Some 20 years from now, how will this impact this child's behavior? Does anybody really care, or do we just want to bomb what we see as Gaza and Hamas into oblivion? Do we just want to bomb them into oblivion and, in the process, kill innocent babies?

Nobody could claim that this baby was a part of Hamas. This baby looks to be not older than 3 or 4 years of age at most, probably. I am being generous in saying 3 or 4. This is a baby.

We are the United States of America. We care about people. We are the country with the Statue of Liberty. We are the country with the words: All persons are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We are the country that pledges allegiance to a flag, and we announce as we do so that there should be liberty and justice for all.

We are the United States of America. We cannot condone this. We cannot condone it. We cannot, in one breath, condemn the killing of innocent Israelis, innocent babies in Israel, and then condone this, find some way in our minds to justify that it is okay for this to occur.

If you hurt an Israeli baby, you have done something dastardly. Well, this is a baby, too. For those who believe in the right to life, does this child have a right to life? I say yes.

Continuing, an NPR article, not Al Green. This is from NPR, published on February 9, 2024, written by Becky Sullivan. This is NPR:

``More than half of all buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed as of February 2, according to analysis of satellite imagery by a team of researchers at Oregon State University and the City University of New York. In northern Gaza, the most populous area of the territory before the war, as much as 82.9 percent of all buildings were damaged or destroyed.

``Israel's military says its strikes in response to October 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel and killed 1,200 people. . . . `'

Let me just stop. I am going to finish the sentence, but I have to say this. ``Killed'' is too polite a word for what Hamas did. It really is. When you decapitate people, ``killed'' is not the word that we can use, and ``decapitation'' is too polite. These are words for polite society.

What they did was something that human beings ought not have to witness.

Let me conclude with this. Friends, we have to care because we have our fingerprints on these issues, and I only pray and hope that we will do something to help the people of Palestine.

Humanitarian aid is absolutely necessary, and I pray that the country that provided the largesse that made much of this possible will be the same country to provide the humanitarian aid to help the people of Palestine who are suffering immeasurable harm.

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