Israel's Right to Protect Itself

Floor Speech

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Mr. BENTIVOLIO. I thank the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Stewart). He is a true friend of Israel and a friend of mine as well.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of Israel and its right to self-defense as it faces the ongoing threat of terrorist rockets from Gaza.

Picture the scene. You are walking down the streets of Tel Aviv. You look around you. You see men, women, and children of all ages. To your right is an elderly man with a walker. A few paces ahead is a mother with her stroller. It is peaceful. It is calm. It is the embodiment of urban normality. And suddenly you hear it. Everyone instinctively knows what it is and, in a split second, everything changes. It is the red alert siren. A rocket is racing toward the city at breakneck speed. Only seconds remain to find refuge in a bomb shelter. And the rocket could land anywhere: on a preschool, on a hospital, on a random family home, or perhaps on the mother and her stroller up ahead.

Mr. Speaker, this is the threat that Israel faces from Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza, which deliberately target Israeli civilians, which indiscriminately kill, maim, and terrorize, and whose sole purpose is to destroy the State of Israel.

When faced with such a complete absence of basic moral inhibition by a brutal enemy, it is Israel's right--nay, its duty--to forcefully respond in order to eliminate the threat. It is not disproportionate. It is self-defense, pure and simple, and it is precisely why the State of Israel deserves our unwavering support at this time.

It is also why no government that claims to be interested in peace can credibly partner with a group like Hamas. It is past time for the Palestinian Authority's president to dissolve his unity governing arrangement with this appalling terrorist group.

We can't have it both ways. We can choose to make peace with Hamas or with Israel.

As for me, I have made my choice. I am proud to support the Jewish State, and I stand with Israel because Israel embodies all the values I embrace--peace, democracy, tolerance--while the values of Hamas--hate, extremism, violence--violate everything I believe.

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