Peter Deutsch

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman. Again, the commitment of the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) is so heartfelt and so real. For all Israelis who met her, I believe they felt that at the same time. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman), who has proven himself as perhaps the most articulate Member of Congress in giving a historical and complete perspective, and those comments come from members of my immediate family. I can even say that those comments come from members of my own immediate family.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I would yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel) who, before he was in Congress, was intimately involved in issues regarding the Middle East.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) knowing that he is going to introduce the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen). I believe there is no one in this Congress who is more personally committed to Israel's survival than her, and I have traveled to Israel with her and I have seen her action, her feeling. And especially from someone with her background who knows what terrorists have done and can do throughout the world.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman. Again I would hope that the gentleman can continue to stay in the Chamber. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I know I had chills up my spine as the gentleman was speaking, he spoke so forcefully on the issue. I yield back to the gentleman from Georgia, but knowing that he is going to introduce the gentleman from Florida, I would say of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Diaz-Balart), I think he stands almost alone in this Chamber, but clearly in a unique position, as someone who is incredibly insightful about world events and incredibly insightful about the evil that exists in the world, incredibly insightful about what can be done to fight that evil, and, in fact, has unfortunate personal knowledge of it because of his background and his family's background. He has traveled to Israel with me on at least 1 occasion, and I have seen his personal involvement, his personal connection to the struggle of the people of Israel. I am just very proud that he is with us this evening on this Special Order.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I would point out that we literally, across the country, we have had Members throughout America today speak from the heart about what their connection and their hopes and their prayers are this evening.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. This has been an evening where we have tried to elaborate on a couple of different themes. From a historical perspective, this is Israel's Independence Day, but also we try to share information, both with those viewing and with other colleagues. I think one of the questions which is a basic question is why are the Israelis presently making incursions into towns like Ramallah and Bethlehem and Nablus and Jenin. I think one of the things, and I put this map back up just, again, to give a perspective which many, or in fact most, Americans have, but it is a perspective to think about, that the entire state of Israel is about the size of New Jersey. In fact, my congressional district, the northern border of my district is the Palm Beach County of Florida; the southern border of my district is Key West, Florida. In fact, the length of my district is longer than the length of the state of Israel. The reason I mention that is just the size. If people have been to Israel, and especially for the first time, the thing that I think is so striking, besides the incredible sense that history is reality, that we can be on the steps Jesus walked on, or we can see the wall of the temple, or we can see the city of Jericho, and look out where Moses was not able to enter the promised land but actually see the mountains, besides the historical reality of the sites of the country is the size of the country. People talk about neighborhoods like Ilo or Pisgot sev as if they are far away. They are Jerusalem. Those are neighborhoods that are being shot at. Just the country itself, the area between Natana and the West Bank is 12 miles. Twelve miles in my district would be the equivalent of from the city of Fort Lauderdale to north Miami Beach, from Fort Lauderdale to Dade, distances which people of south Florida can appreciate how small they are. But again, why did Israel make those incursions? They made those incursions really because of the chart on the left, and also I am going to change charts and add an additional chart which we had showed earlier. What Israel's people had suffered, not just over the last 18 months but disproportionately over the last several months, is hard for us to comprehend the level, again, based on the size of the country. One of the phenomena of 9/11, the attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, is most Americans in a sense were not just affected, but directly affected. Most of us know someone personally that had a tragedy that occurred, and we have seen it. We have literally felt it. It is hard for us to contemplate what it would mean, again, with the comparable numbers of seven 9/11's in America, literally seven 9/11's, almost on a daily basis not being able to go to the grocery store or to have a celebration, a bar mitzvah or a wedding without an incredible concern of a violent attack. The suffering, the direct acts of terrorism that Israel had been facing, were unprecedented for any nation, for any nation. And can we expect any nation to do nothing? In the previous special order, I talked about two watershed events that occurred as recently as 3 months ago, 12 weeks ago. One was the Karine-A, the ship that the Israeli commandoes commandeered, and it had over $20 million of sophisticated weapons from Iran that the Palestinian Authority bought. Now, originally, Chairman Arafat denied any involvement with that ship. His only plausible deniability, in a sense, was he was not on the ship. But let me be specific. It has been discussed in the public domain at this point. Both the Americans and the Israelis had direct knowledge of Chairman Arafat's personal involvement in the purchase of those weapons. Again, as has been discussed in the public domain, Colin Powell called up Chairman Arafat and said to him, why did you do this? These weapons were not rifles, they were mortars, sophisticated mortars, sophisticated weapons. We have seen pictures of them and a listing of those weapons. Chairman Arafat's response to Colin Powell was, what weapons? What ship? I had nothing to do with it. But again, as I said, in the public domains, the Israelis and the Americans were aware of what occurred. Colin Powell said to him, we are going to show you the evidence. The evidence was presented to him. Yet, he then still said, what involvement? What ship? If we think about that, how could we expect to have any negotiations, any relationship, any prospect for a final status with someone who outright lies to us when we know that that person is lying? That is number one. The second incident over the last 12 weeks, which was really a watershed incident, was a sniper attack on the Israelis at a checkpoint, the Israeli soldiers. About six Israel soldiers were killed in a matter of a couple of minutes. For anybody who has been in Israel, or just again, the map of the small size of Israel, once that occurred, those sniper attacks, those sniper rifles could shoot several miles, so with a line of sight in the building we are in now, if someone was on the roof of this building with a sniper rifle, they could shoot literally, God forbid, someone standing in the driveway of the White House over a mile away. Now, once that occurred and no one was trying to prevent that, after those incidents occurred, the Israeli government decided to go into some of these communities and literally go house to house and wall-to- wall to do what no one else was trying to do: to stop the terrorism that was affecting their people and killing their people on almost a daily basis. That is exactly what the Israelis were doing; no less, no more than America did and America must do in response to the attack on us on 9/11. I think that is what the previous speaker talked about, the ambiguity issue. There is united 100 percent support in the United States of America for President Bush's efforts on the war on terrorism, for the efforts of the American men and women who are fighting that war in Afghanistan. And we are 100 percent, there is no daylight between any of the 435 Members of this Chamber on that issue, because we understand and we agree completely with the President's assessment of that threat to America, and we agree with the assessment of the threat to America from Iraq and from Syria, from North Korea, in terms of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. We will do everything we can as a society and as a nation to prevent those things from happening. We will do anything. I think those people understand that, because we have shown that we will do anything. There is no question that what is happening in Israel is a level of terrorism unprecedented for a country. Can we expect the Israelis to do anything less than us? Can we expect them to do anything? Can we ask them to do anything less than us? If anything, what we should be doing is praising them for those efforts, supporting them for those efforts because those acts of terrorism must end. Those acts of terrorism, again, I think as has been pointed out by my colleagues, are not just acts of terrorism against Israel. Make no mistake about it. Those acts of terrorism are not just acts of terrorism against Israel. They are acts of terrorism against the United States of America, and when a bomb goes off in an Israeli pizzeria, an Israeli cafe, an Israeli banquet hall, the perpetrators of that action are as much trying to kill civilians in Israel as they are trying to destroy the United States of America, and what our actions should be as a society and as a country should be to prevent that from happening because if we do not prevent it there, I think unfortunately it is only a matter of time till it comes here. So we are brothers and sisters with the people of Israel in this area. We are fighting together this war of terrorism, and we should not be trying to stop it. We should be trying to help it for it to come to a successful conclusion.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I would appreciate it. This is a copy of a letter that the Israeli troops in some of the locations the Palestinian Authority uncovered arjons. These are people who are saying these are not accurate documents. I think that is hard to believe and not credible at all in terms of where they have been found and the authenticity of them. In fact, this particular one I do not think is even being challenged at this point in time. The reason I think it is significant, tied directly into the comments just being made about 1947 is what is Chairman Arafat's goal or the goal of the Palestinian authority. Is it peace with Israel or the eradication of Israel? I think why this particular letter is so significant is that it is a letter to the Arabs who live in Israel. Israel is a Jewish state but has a significant population of nonJews who are treated as equal citizens with equal rights, but what is significant is that this is a letter to the Arabs who live in Israel that was circulated amongst the group in Israel, literally calling for a war, a violent war within Israel proper today, not in the West Bank, not in Gaza. So I think that from the perspective of the Israelis and I think the real question, this is concrete specific, in Arabic to Arabs, what Chairman Arafat's goals are, not an independent Palestinian state living side by side with Israel, but literally the eradication of the state of Israel.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I think that is an incredibly important statement because what we have acknowledged today is that Chairman Arafat not only was a terrorist in the incidents the gentleman was describing in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, but literally into the 21st century. And one of the things that has been uncovered, again, are internal documents of the Palestinian Authority off of hard drives of computers so it is not credible that this is not authenticated, real information. These are copies which literally has Chairman Arafat's signature. These are two that are available, and these are specific requests of payments for terrorists, for people who are engaged in specific acts of terrorism. From the bar mitzvah ceremony, there are specific names of people and specific amounts that Arafat personally signed and approved, $600 per person. The other chart is a list of 10 people, specific terrorists; and what is interesting, the gentleman that sent the letter was just captured by Israelis, and he viewed himself as working directly for Chairman Arafat. So the terrorism that is described is not terrorism of 5 years ago or 5 months ago. The dates are interesting, September 19, 2001, and this is January of 2002. The Arafat era is over, and I think there has to be an acknowledgment by the United States that that era is over. We have said repeatedly we cannot negotiate with terrorists, and that in fact is what Mr. Arafat is. We cannot negotiate with him. He cannot be a leader. He cannot be a partner. The Palestinian people have a right to choose their leader, but that leader cannot be a terrorist if they expect to be a state.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, it is not that they have not, but they have not been given a choice. One of the things that has been pointed out on this floor is that Chairman Arafat was supposed to be the leader, and he was elected in 1996, but that term expired in 2000. In 2000, there was supposed to be an election that he did not allow to take place.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow evening I am going to have the opportunity to have an interactive town meeting that will be available for people not just in Florida, but through satellite coordinants throughout the country. If people have questions, the former American ambassador, Martin Indyk, will be there. The e-mail address to ask questions is FL20townhall@mail.house.gov. The 800 number is 1-800-931- 1303. The satellite coordinants can be acquired through our Web site. I welcome those comments.

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Bernard Becker, South Florida's National Commander of the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America. Mr. Becker has been a strong voice and a driving force behind the Jewish War Veterans as an influential leader in the fight against anti-semitism. Like all men and women of the Jewish War Veterans, Mr. Becker has courageously served our nation in the armed services, and is now working to ensure good relations between the U.S. and Israel--an increasingly meaningful objective. Bernard Becker, an active member of the United States Air Force from 1950 to 1954, proudly served our nation during the Korean conflict. He subsequently served in the Air Force Reserve until 1958. Mr. Becker then served in a number of veteran leadership roles, and eventually with the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America, both as the National Commander and as a National Convention Co-Chairman. During his tenure with the organization, Mr. Becker has been consistently recognized for his outstanding leadership and unwavering dedication to America's veterans. Mr. Speaker, Bernard Becker has served his country with honor and pride. I am confident that as the Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America continue to fight bigotry and hatred, Mr. Becker will continue to lend his knowledge and leadership to this cause.

Mr. DEUTSCH

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, the topic we are going to speak about this evening is, in a sense, a response to what is going on in the Middle East today; and specifically a response in terms of being not just sensitive, but supportive of what the Israelis are trying to do regarding terrorist acts in their country. The reason I put this chart up first is just to try to lay out a perspective of what has happened in Israel over the last several months. Israel is about 5 million people. The United States is about 300 million people. We are about 60 times larger than Israel. As all Americans know, on September 11, about 3,000 Americans died in an instant. The equivalent number in Israel would be about 50. Last month in Israel, the Israeli people sustained the equivalent of three September 11's, in the month of March. Since this calendar year, the Israeli people have sustained the equivalent of approximately eight September 11's. I think all of us understand what the United States' response, God forbid, would be, in that type of situation. We understand what the United States' response has been in response to September 11 itself. In fact, I have been very supportive of the President, and I do not think any Member of Congress has not been supportive of the President and America's efforts to eradicate weapons of mass destruction that have a direct effect on the United States. There has been no daylight at all between any of us for those efforts. I think the President gets it completely about the threat of international terrorism from countries like Iraq, Syria, and North Korea. But unfortunately, the President does not get it in terms of some of his response to the State of Israel, his specific responses that effectively demand that the Israelis withdraw their troops and their activities in terms of cities like Ramalah, Jenin, and Nablut. From an American perspective, to put it in some light, which is a very appropriate analogy, the United States of America does not have to have our men and women in Afghanistan. We are in Afghanistan because we have no choice but to be in Afghanistan to literally protect ourself at a national security level. We do not want to be there. I think everyone in the world or at least everyone in America understands, we have no national interest. We have no desire, zero, and I think Americans understand that we do not want to conquer Afghanistan, to colonize Afghanistan. At the same exact level, the Israelis have no desire to be in Ramalah, Jenin, and Nablut. And just as we are concerned about our sons and daughters, husbands and wives who are stationed in Afghanistan today, and in fact we have sustained the ultimate sacrifice in our troops, and the Israelis are doing the same today, and again our societies are very similar. As democratic societies, this is not forced military service. It is military service that an elected democratic body had to vote to send out the reserves. In the Israeli Knesset, an elected Prime Minister called up the reserves. An elected Prime Minister is sending people into combat, risking lives, and in fact sustaining losses. If we think again, we have seen what is happening. We read about it. And, unfortunately, there are people being killed on both sides. The Israelis are making an extraordinary effort to avoid any type of civilian casualties, and there have been some. The extraordinary effort is something that we need to be aware of. Unfortunately, Israeli defense forces, troops, their lives have been put at risk, and there is no question that additional Israelis have died because of the sensitivity of avoiding civilian casualties has occurred. I think all of us understand what would be happening in a different situation. And America joins that category, the extraordinary efforts that we did in the campaign, and we are still doing today, in the campaign in Afghanistan to avoid collateral damage. We all know that there was some, in fact, some significant collateral damage. We killed civilians in Afghanistan, and it is a tragedy that we did, but we made extraordinary efforts to prevent it, and at risk to our men and women as well. That is what is happening in a sense on the ground. But at the same time this is going on today, literally today, this evening, in both the United States and in Israel. The President has asked indirectly, even tried to order the Israelis out. If we think about what that message is, if we think about what had occurred, what brought the Israelis to this attempt, for their own survival, it was a series of suicide attacks that do threaten the day-to-day existence of the State of Israel. Mr. Speaker, can we conceive of any country in the world, and if we put ourselves in that kind of situation, can we conceive of the United States of America attempting not to try to protect itself? That is exactly what is going on. From a historical perspective, there were two incidents which were watershed incidents. One was the Karine A incident, which was the ship with over $20 million of weapons that came from Iraq that Israeli commandoes commandeered. Both the Israelis and the Americans had direct evidence of Chairman Arafat's personal involvement in the purchase and operation to bring those weapons into the Palestinian Authority area. And in fact the only plausible excuse Arafat had was he was not on the ship. As has been reported in the press, Colin Powell called Chairman Arafat after that incident and said, ``Why did you do this? It is a clear violation of Oswald bringing in weapons that raise the level of the conflict.'' His response was, ``Why did I do what? Why did I do what?'' Colin Powell on the other end of the phone said we have direct evidence of your involvement and that evidence was then shown to Chairman Arafat, and Colin Powell calls him back and says, ``Now that you have seen the evidence, what is your response?'' Chairman Arafat's response was, ``What are you talking about?'' If we think for a second what that means, who are we dealing with? Who are the Israelis dealing with? But more importantly, who are the Israelis dealing with. I would ask everyone to think about that type of response. How could any of us ever have any type of relationship, whether a business relationship or a personal relationship, with someone who literally, absolutely, totally lies? How can one have a relationship to try to do anything? What is that person's word worth? The second incident that occurred 10 weeks ago was a sniper attack on an Israeli checkpoint where six Israeli soldiers were killed. There was no attempt by anyone on the Palestinian side to prevent that type of attack. These sniper rifles can shoot several miles, an analogy of the distance from this building to the White House. Literally from a line of sight, someone could shoot with a sniper rifle from the top of this building, the Capitol, to the White House. Once that attack occurred and there was no attempt to stop it, and many people are aware of the geography of the State of Israel, effectively Prime Minister Sharon made a decision that the Israelis had to protect themselves. Not until that occurred did the Israelis enter any refugee camp. At that point the decision was made to effectively go door to door or wall through wall, house to house to confiscate every weapon, every suicide belt bomb, every rocket; and literally hundreds and thousands have been confiscated and have been taken. That is in fact a continuation. It is not by choice. I am joined today by a number of my colleagues. On the other side of the aisle, a Member who has been a leader in terms of things happening in the Middle East and is as concerned as anyone in the Congress, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley) who has worked from the first day he was in the United States Congress to try to bring peace to the Middle East.

Mr. DEUTSCH. It would be more than that. Six or seven times.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor) who is an outstanding new Member that again, from the day he arrived, has thrust himself and been involved in foreign policy issues, particularly in the Middle East, and has worked as hard as any Member to try to gain peace in the region.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner), who also is active and has traveled in this region many times and is personally involved with many of the leaders in the region as well.

Mr. DEUTSCH. I would like to yield to the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Rothman, who is viewed by his colleagues as an expert in this area and has been very influential.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey. We have had a great deal of discussion about Chairman Arafat specifically and the interest to try to resolve the conflict. One of the things which has been pointed out by several of my colleagues is the Camp David agreement, where literally, Israel put on the table an offer which was far beyond any of the so-called red lines that Israel had ever talked about before, giving up the vast sections of Jerusalem, an independent state, giving up 98 percent of the area in the West Bank and Gaza and, in fact, equalizing the area, the other 2 percent, far beyond, actually the Temple Mount itself, the holiest place to Jews in the entire world. Literally, an offer on the table that was far beyond anything that any Israeli leader had ever talked about; in fact, something which, for those who follow Israeli politics understand could never have been approved by the Israeli Knesset. And Prime Minister Barak had actually said this and was ready to bring that proposal to the Israeli people, effectively a plebiscite, and it was unclear whether it would have passed, but it probably would have passed. When that offer was made and even enhanced at the Taba discussions, it was rejected by Chairman Arafat and the Palestinians. In any negotiation, and I ask people to think about their own lives and their own interactions with people, in any negotiation, if someone made what you know is your bottom, bottom, bottom line, you know that you cannot possibly, under any circumstances go further, and the person on the other side of the table rejects that, can you actually believe that there is any possibility for an agreement with that person? When Prime Minister Sharon has talked about this war as a war of Israel's survival and Israel's war of independence, I think there are some real points that lead to that; and that has also been a theme for most, in fact probably all, of the speakers at some level this evening, that there is still to this day not an acceptance by Chairman Arafat and by many Palestinians of Israel's, literally, their right to exist.

Mr. DEUTSCH. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Let me again mention a follow-up to that point directly. The modern State of Israel, as the gentleman pointed out on his chart, is 54 years old, and there are still many in the Palestinian community who again do not accept Israel's right literally to exist, want Israel to be destroyed, and for many in the Palestinian community, Israel is viewed no differently than the crusaders who took 150 years for the crusaders to leave. It is only a third of the way to that time frame. But I think for those of us who understand the history of the State of Israel, it is not crusaders. I think part of what is going on now, and we can see it ourselves on TV or read about it, is that the Jews that are there are not leaving. This is a permanent home. This is not a temporary home. This is not a way station for the Jewish people; this is a permanent residence. I think when the Palestinians understand that, and I think that they will understand it, maybe they will not understand it this week or this month or maybe even this year or maybe even this decade, but when they understand that, the peace that the gentleman talked about that was on the table at Camp David will be an accepted peace.

Mr. DEUTSCH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield the last moments of my time and, hopefully, he will be able to claim some of his own time, to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).