Israel: America Stands with you
ISRAEL: AMERICA STANDS WITH YOU -- (House of Representatives - July 26, 2006)
Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House out of order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from Arizona is recognized for 5 minutes.
There was no objection.
Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, a tyrannical government cares not about the fate of an individual citizen. But in a free country to murder a single innocent citizen is to provoke a fight with the entire nation. This is one of the great differentiations between Hezbollah and Israel. While desperately trying to retrieve two of her soldiers who were abducted by Hezbollah terrorists, Israel takes great lengths to minimize civilian casualties. Conversely, Hezbollah takes great lengths to maximize civilian casualties in Israel while making breathing barricades out of the innocent men, women, and children in Lebanon.
Time and again Israel has made efforts for peace. Israel fully withdrew from Lebanon. Then she uprooted from Gaza. She was thanked with rockets, mayhem, and bloodbath.
The recent kidnapping and murder of Israeli citizens and soldiers were definitive acts of war. Hezbollah terrorists, along with the nations of Syria and Iran, who support them, are the aggressors, Mr. Speaker. And now as Israel has risen up to defend herself, along with each of the individual citizens whom she loves, we hear cries from the U.N. and other quarters for Israel to restrain herself.
What if, on 9/11, Mr. Speaker, the outcry was for the United States to restrain ourselves? Or what if Israel had listened to such calls for restraint 15 years ago when she learned that Saddam Hussein was building a nuclear reactor? The United States and our coalition forces would have faced terrorists with nuclear weapons when we lifted the iron hand of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
You see, Mr. Speaker, Israel understands that the entire world faces an evil, poisonous ideology that causes mothers to leap for joy when their children blow themselves to pieces in order to kill other innocent human beings. Israel understands that a dark ideology like that must never be allowed to gain nuclear weapons.
And why does the rest of the world not seem to understand that? This is the same ideology that murdered Olympic athletes in 1972, that took American hostages in Iran, that murdered Marines in their barracks in 1993, that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, Riyadh in 1995, the Khobar Towers in 1996, the embassy in 1998, and the USS Cole in 2000.
And then, Mr. Speaker, this murderess ideology massacred nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11.
And today this is the same ideology that is launching rockets into Israel to kill innocent civilians. And, Mr. Speaker, lest we forget, it is the same ideology that is working feverishly to gain nuclear weapons, to terrorize the Western world in ways that we cannot yet imagine.
Seven decades ago, Mr. Speaker, another murderess ideology arose in the world. The dark shadow of the swastika fell first upon the Jewish people of Germany. And because the world did not respond to such an evil, it began to spread across Europe until it lit the fires of World War II's hell on Earth, which saw atomic bombs fall on cities and over 50 million people dead worldwide. All because, Mr. Speaker, the world's free people did not respond in time.
History has taught us that evil ideologies must ultimately be defeated in the minds of human beings. But in the meantime, in the meantime, Mr. Speaker, they must often be defeated upon the battlefield.
The battle Israel fights in these days is a battle to protect all of humanity from an evil ideology that has no respect for innocent human life anywhere on the Earth. That is why, Mr. Speaker, Israel's war is our war, and if there is hope for peace and freedom in this world, free peoples across this world just unite to defeat this hellish ideology of terrorism. This time, Mr. Speaker, we must not wait too long.
So may the people of Israel take comfort in these days, knowing that America stands with you. May you find victory, and may the light of God's peace shine down upon the streets of Jerusalem, forever.
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