Anthony Weiner

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained in my District on Tuesday, May 20, 2002, and I would like the record to indicate how I would have voted had I been present. For rollcall vote No. 171, the resolution recognizing the members of AMVETS for their service to the Nation and supporting the goal of AMVETS National Charter Day, I would have voted ``aye.'' For rollcall vote No. 172, the resolution expressing the sense of the Congress that continual research and education into the cause and cure for fibroid cancer be addressed, I would have voted ``aye.'' For rollcall vote No. 173, the resolution Recognizing the Importance of Good Cervical Health and of Detecting Cervical Cancer During its Earliest Stages, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. I would go even further than that. You do not need to go to Camp David at September of 2000. You can go to the Oslo process that began in 1993 that had the Israeli government entering into an agreement to end the occupation, to not only begin to foster democracy in the Palestinian region but to fund it. Many of the guns being used against Israeli soldiers today were provided by the Israelis because the Palestinians said we need a police force. The Israelis not only gave them uniforms and gave them funding but gave them the actual guns. You can go back to 1948, the birth of the Jewish state, where it was the Israelis who were prepared to say, listen, we will take a divided neighborhood, essentially, if it guarantees us peace. You can look at the Wye River agreement. You can look at the Mitchell plan. You can look at the Tenet plan. You can look at plan after plan where it was the Israelis who said yes, and it was the Palestinians that said no. But they said no because the only thing that it really was predicated on was peaceful coexistence, which leads one to believe that ultimately the Palestinian people themselves have to make a decision. They have to make a decision, do they want to continue to cross swords or do they ultimately want their own state? I think the Members who are here on the floor would agree that if this was a peaceful struggle, it would have resulted in a Palestinian state generations ago.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, something else that is important to keep in mind, in that period from October 2000 to today the Israeli government and the Israeli people have not only been fighting terror by military means, almost at the same time and, frankly, almost in a counterintuitive way, given the way we have handled our attack since September 11, is that they have continued to keep the doors open to negotiation. For example, when former Senator George Mitchell, who has some experience in negotiating peace in difficult parts of the world, when he traveled there, he came up with some principles of a plan, essentially to start a framework to get back to peace. It was the Israelis who said, although it asked for very difficult concessions from the Israelis, including lifting up the roots of many Israeli families and moving them out of their homes, the Israelis said yes. The Palestinians, who had to do essentially one thing, which was to stop bombing and stop firing, they said no. Then we sent CIA Director Tenet over to the area to see if they could perhaps get the wheels started to the Mitchell plan. Once again, asked tough things of the Israelis, including loosening up border crossings at a time when they knew terrorists were coming through those borders, Israelis said yes and the Palestinians said no. Even when Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Powell visited the area to try to negotiate peace, it was the Israelis who expressed a willingness and the Palestinians who would not relent in their violence. In fact, some of the worst violence in the area on the part of the Palestinians have come when U.S. emissaries, trying to negotiate peace, have been there. So at the same time, while a great deal of attention has been called to the fact of Israel going door to door trying to rout out terrorism, it should not be ignored that even in that context, even in the context of all of the carnage over the last 18 months, the Israeli people and their government have still said, do you want to make peace? We are ready to do it. I think that is to their great credit. Imagine for a moment if bin Laden or Mullah Omar presented himself next week and said, you know what? I want to negotiate. I want to negotiate the peace here. Maybe if the United States gives up Texas and Louisiana, I will leave you alone, and I do not just say that because they are Republican areas, I would say to the Speaker, we are prepared to have a negotiation. We would laugh at it. Yet, in Israel, despite the carnage that they have had, they have been negotiating at the same time, hoping against hope that the Palestinian people would choose peace over violence.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that is important about the story that the gentleman has just told, the Israeli people, because of their fundamental belief in democracy, something that our country shares and something that over 373 Members of Congress recognized when the resolution passed, on the other side of this debate is a group of people, the Palestinians who, in their schoolbooks, in their classrooms, even on their television screens, are preaching hatred. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) made the mention of Nelson Mandela as a peacemaker. One does not have to go that far. One can look in that same region of the world not so long ago and look at the courageous stand of Anwar Sadat. One of the first things he did when preparing the Egyptian people who had been in a hateful, passionate war with the Israelis, one of the first things that he did as a sign of his courage that ultimately led to his death, is he turned to his own people in Arabic on Egyptian television and said, look, it is in our interests to make peace. We do not do it because we like them. We do not do it because we like their presence in the area, but it is because it is in our interests. On the other hand, despite the requirement in the Oslo Accords that they stop teaching hate in their schoolbooks, they stop teaching hate to their children, the seeds of hate keep getting planted every day. This morning, if you flip on Palestinian TV during the cartoon hour, you will see commercials aimed at young children that have a playful song that says, put down your books, take up your arms, directed at young children. We see protests in Nabulus. We have parents with their children on their shoulders, children like in all of our districts, except in these cases they have pretend suicide bomb belts around their waists. The thing that I fear the most is irrespective of our intentions, irrespective of the feelings of the people of Israel and irrespective of even the best instinct of the Palestinian people, the seeds of hate that we are planting today among Palestinian children will take a generation to eradicate. That is the fundamental difference here. Someone should be held responsible for that, and I think that person should be that of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Florida, and this is something that is easily verified, there has not been a single instance in the history of the conflict where, with the possible exception being the preemptive strike in the war of 1967 that the Israelis have initiated violence. When we see these images on television of kids throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and Israeli soldiers responding, invariably those are organized efforts by Palestinian protestors to engage in a highly publicized exchange. There is not anyone who believes, for example, that the Israeli military had any interest in going into Ramallah, for example, knocking on doors looking for terrorists, had it not been for the fact that there had been horrific slaughters of innocent victims, including those observing the Passover holiday.

Mr. WEINER. If the gentleman would yield for a question. Perhaps you can offer a little bit more explanation. One of things that came up frequently on the floor among the opponents of the resolution was that we have to foster an environment where the moderate Arab nations could help a peace take hold in the Middle East. Perhaps the gentleman could explain to the Members where those weapons came from. Did they not come from a so-called moderate Arab state? And I am curious as to whether it seems like the export of someone who is interested in peace in the region.

Mr. WEINER. What about the Karin-A?

Mr. WEINER. If the gentleman will yield, there is a broader political point here as well. And that is the Israelis have arguably tried everything under the sun to deter these kinds of attacks. That did not work. Now they are doing what they can to respond. Some in the Chamber last week or 10 days ago in arguing against the resolution said perhaps we should recognize the grievance of the suicide bomber, sit down at the table and negotiate with them. What lesson does that send to the next guy who is going to fly a plane into a tall building in the United States? What lesson does that teach the person who is sitting at home in Nablus or in Jenin about whether or not they should go and take up violence, not only against Israel but against the United States or anyone else with whom they might have a grievance. We have to be very careful when we do what sometimes happens in the State Department here in the United States and we offer this sense of we kind of understand where they are coming from when they blow up a bunch of children in a shopping center. I believe we embolden further attacks. I believe we make it steadily, piece by piece, part of the political debate. It was truly mindboggling for me to listen to it. And we should stress very few Members of this Chamber, the gentleman showed pictures of his visit to Democrats, to Republicans, overwhelmingly from all regions of this country, this House and stood up and said we understand what Israel is facing. We support her in perhaps one of the strongest pro-Israel resolutions this House has ever passed. Imagine for a moment if we did it. Imagine if we were a little more lukewarm and said, maybe we see the beef that the Palestinians have when they engage in suicide bombings. That creates more violence. I remember distinctly in June of 2001, Tel Aviv discoteque bombing. Horrific event. Someone gets in line at a discoteque on a Saturday night, teenagers all around, blows themselves up, blows up over a dozen young people around them. Quickly the United States, even the European community, which has never been very friendly to Israel, editorial pages everywhere said how outrageous, how disgusting it truly was. What happened? Israel did not respond immediately, and the Palestinians also recognized, you know what, we have gone too far. We are no longer getting sympathy and now people are recognizing how bloodthirsty we appear to be. It created a week, maybe 10 days of quiet. When we strongly condemn these things, when we do not prevaricate, when we do not equivocate, when we do not draw these lines of equivalency that somehow justify the lines of terrorism, we save lives. That is something people have to understand. When they stand here, it almost sounds as if they are justifying the violence. In the quotes that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) read, I think it really does embolden some 15-year-old young person to say, maybe this is the way I will get my meaning; and they will be the next homicide bomber. As we have seen from these weapons, and I have said it on this floor before, this is a problem for Israel, true. But just the way a katusha rocket can shoot down an El Al plane, it can shoot down a Continental Airlines plane, God forbid, or a U.S. Airlines plane, God forbid. The same people who are getting these weapons, because they think murder is a way to get their means, believe me, we are not miles and miles away as we learned on September 11.

Mr. WEINER. If the gentleman from Pennsylvania will yield, what is interesting, I would say to the gentleman from Florida, that that dynamic has been portrayed several times in the media, that there are so many parallels between the 17-year-old that straps dynamite to his or her chest and the 17-year-old that might have been taken as an innocent victim. But the fact of the matter is that that suicide bomber, that homicide bomber, is bringing the Palestinian people further, not closer, to their objective of having a homeland. I do not think any of us would agree in this body that if the Palestinians announced and did more than announce, they actually began to operate without violence and to sit down and really negotiate for a Palestinian homeland, if they would have done that arguably years and years ago, it would be a reality today. We have to recognize one thing that some of my colleagues did not recognize in the debate. Someone who blows themselves up and anyone around them blows them to bits is not engaged in political speech. They are not engaged in debate. They are not furthering the cause of bringing the two sides together. What they are doing is murdering people. We have to recognize what sometimes often gets overlooked is this notion that someone who is engaged in suicide bombing is acting out of desperation that was created by another set of instances. There are all kinds of circumstances in the world that have been resolved without suicide bombing. In fact, most political conflicts in the world, thank God, do not result in one group of people attacking the civilians of the other side.

Mr. WEINER. Let me give an example and the gentlemen in their most recent visit, I am sure, visited some victims in the hospital. I had the opportunity to visit a 15-year-old girl who was the victim of a homicide bomber. She was not killed, thank God, but she showed me her x-ray that included in it 18 hexagonal nuts that was packed around dynamite that were used as projectiles projected into her young body. This is savagery. This is not something that brings the debate any closer to closure. It is not something that brings the two sides closer.

Mr. WEINER. We heard similar language throughout some quarters of the Arab world in reaction to September 11, is that this is what happens if you do not have an energy policy we like or a foreign policy or an agricultural policy, we send 15 suicide bombers to murder 3,000 Americans. We have to recognize, and we have to be able to separate. This is at its fundamental element a complex and gut-wrenching dispute over land. It is difficult. We have difficult political subtexts. We have biblical subtexts. We have historical subtexts. But these things cannot be resolved in an environment where one side is attacking the other side in the most savage and most despicable ways.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, while the gentleman is looking for that, if I could ask the gentleman to yield for a moment. One of the things that is important is we frequently listen to what Mr. Arafat says to Western television in English, and then you go read what he says to his own people in Arabic, and it is a world of difference. You can hold a press conference in the United States for CNN saying this is a terrible thing that has happened, and then, as you pointed out, he turns and says in Arabic something entirely different.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for his statements today and for that kind compliment, and also for organizing these opportunities. We frequently in the House of Representatives are reduced to sometimes 2- or 3- or 5-minute debates on large global issues. This is now an opportunity, and it is the third or fourth time we have gathered to have kind of a reasonable discussion and back and forth about what are essentially very complex issues. I want to also offer my thanks to the gentleman from Indiana who spoke earlier. We also have a tendency sometimes in politics, particularly in this age of conflict debate, to be overly morally certain about our position on things. Sometimes we have debates about obscure tax policy or telecommunications policy, and sometimes we go at it on the floor of this Congress as if there is no doubt in our mind with absolute certainty that our position is correct. One thing that I would hope we would be able to agree upon is there is no moral underpinning for sending one's child out to go to a pool hall and then have them blown to bits by a suicide bomber. Those 16 young people who were killed in the latest homicide bombing, what crime did they commit? What political role did they occupy? What was it that their killing accomplished? What form of political debate is it that was being engaged in when they were blown to bits while Prime Minister Sharon was visiting here in the United States? There is no moral justification for it. There are no political ends that they seek to get that justifies that type of horror. I would agree with what the gentleman said, the gentleman from Florida. The idea that some have embraced or even rationalized that type of activity, saying it is a function of a political discussion or a political debate, however feverishly pitched it might be, over who controls a given piece of real estate in the Middle East, these are 16 families that are going to be sitting down to dinner tonight with their young child missing from the table, blown to bits by a suicide bomber. In that context that 350 of our colleagues, Democrats and Republicans from all parts of the country rallying last week to the cause of the U.S.'s support for Israel, and it was led, frankly, by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel), there are very few things we agree upon in those large numbers. But among those who argued against, there were certain myths that seem to have been repeated on this floor again and again, and in some cases they were responded to eloquently, and sometimes they were kind of left out there in the air. One of them is the myth that somehow Israel has to just give peace a chance, that they have not sufficiently offered opportunities for peace to take hold in the area. I think, and I have said before here, we can argue that Israel has tried every strategy. They tried the couple of yards at a time, trying to get to the first down marker. They tried the Oslo process, started in 1993, step-by-step, giving and conceding more to the Palestinians in terms of control of territory. At this time, 97 percent of the territories are under Palestinian control as a result of the Oslo process. Border checkpoints had been eased as a result of the Oslo process. Well, that three yards and a cloud of dust strategy was tried. What was the result? More violence; no concessions when it came to things like not teaching young people in the Palestine territories to hate Israel; to removing reference in their textbooks referring to Israel and Jews as evil entities. So the Oslo process was tried by the Israelis and rejected in large measure by the Palestinians. Then Camp David, as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) mentions. That to me was kind of like the Hail Mary pass. Well, let us see what will happen if we try giving them everything they ask for. Well, that was not only rejected, but it was met with no counteroffer on the part of the Palestinians and the largest outburst of violence called the Second Intifada. Well, what do we have left? Now we have plans to get to plans to get to plans. And those, too, Israel has embraced and the Palestinians have not. We had the Mitchell Plan, very tough for Israel, telling them to withdraw from settlements of areas that many people believe in their heart of hearts are part of Israel proper. Israel accepted the Mitchell Plan; the Palestinians refused. Then you have the Tennant Plan to get you to the Mitchell Plan. Again, it requires very tough things of Israel. Israel said okay, we accept it. It was CIA Director Tennant here from the United States, sent on behalf of our government, who negotiated this plan. The Palestinians said no to that. We even had the Chaney Plan to get you to the Tennant Plan to get you to the Mitchell Plan. Even this level of incrementalism Israel chose to accept. The Palestinians said no because they refused to do thing one, which was to stop the violence, stop it for a period of time, allow negotiations to take place. So the first myth that came up in the debate on the floor was that Israel needs to just give peace a chance and we in the United States need to step back, not be as supportive of Israel, because she has not. Clearly a myth. The second myth that has emerged again and again in this debate and it has seeped into the mainstream media is that the problems there are a product of Prime Minister Sharon's intractability; that if it only was not Sharon and the way he behaves in his bellicose manner, maybe we would not have all of these problems. Well, I would make two points about that. One is the Intifada that has started this violence, that has led to 76 suicide attacks since October of 2000, started under Prime Minister Barak. Frankly, he was in for 4 months while this violence was ratcheted up and ratcheted up and ratcheted up. No one could argue that Prime Minister Barak was so anti- Palestinian, bellicose and confrontational. He actually lost his prime ministership because he was too generous in what he was offering the Palestinians. Yet that is conveniently ignored by opponents of Israel today who want to lay this all at the feet of Ariel Sharon, with the simplistic explanation of what is going on. Let us not forget something else. Virtually every corner of Israeli political life today has articulated support for Prime Minister Sharon's efforts to weed out terrorism wherever it can be found, essentially has articulated support for the Bush doctrine, Israeli style. So the myth that this is a Sharon-created problem is just that, a myth. A third myth that was repeated again and again, and I heard it last night on the news again, is that the Israelis have used excessive force on the face of the onslaught of terrorism. We have as of this morning dropped one bomb for every member of the Taliban in Tora Bora. We have unleashed a record number of armaments in that area. We do so because we know how important it is to do whatever is necessary to root out the Taliban, to root out bin Laden and to root out his henchmen. The Israelis have made a different decision. They are not flying over the Palestinian territories, going to Ramallah and saying there is 44 of these suicide bombers coming from Ramallah, we are going to level Ramallah. They are going house to house, down dark alleys, and making a conscious decision to increase the number of casualties. Excessive force? If the Israelis really wanted to root this out in a way that we have done it in Tora Bora, they would do it from afar. But they will not do that. It is not the way they are as a people and it is not the way they choose to deal with the Palestinians as a people either. So what has happened? Israelis going door to door with pictures of wanted terrorists, knocking on the door, trying to find them, and they are getting killed as a result. Far from excessive force. The exact opposite. Probably the most moral execution of a war you can possibly imagine. And the standoff that goes on today at the Church of the Nativity. Can you imagine, just imagine for a moment, first of all, the utter contempt of the terrorists to seek refuge in such a holy place. But can you imagine any other country with 13 assassins, suicide bombers, people who have done harm, can you imagine for a moment one of the evil men that attacked my city of New York, imagine if we knew one of them was in a local church? Would we encircle it and wait and wait and wait until they came out, out of respect for that church? Probably not. No country would do that perhaps except for Israel. Why? Because Israel has been the caretaker of the religious crossroads of the world for its entire 44 years with the utmost respect. Anyone who visits Israel can attest to that. If you look at the various places, an entire government commission was created, a government agency was created just for the purposes of protecting and ensuring the health and security of non-Jewish holy sites in the Holy Land because that is the way Israel chooses to do it. So this idea that excessive force has been used is another myth. And the final myth, and this is the one that perhaps is a favorite of those in the media, and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) referenced it earlier, is the notion that we have to create an environment that the moderate Arab states can help us forge. Where is this moderate Arab state? Is it Iran, who tried to export 50 tons, I believe is the number, of armaments that cannot only be used against Israeli citizens, ships and planes, but just as easily against a United States ship or plane or people? Is that our moderate friend? How about the Saudis? The Jerry Lewis of fundraising for suicide bombers. Are they the moderates that produced 15 of the 19 suicide bombers? Are these the people that came to the United States to meet with our President of the United States and engage in a front page New York Times lecture about our moral responsibility? This is the country, this totalitarian regime that is run by a few hundred princes and potentates? Who are these moderates? Maybe it is Syria, Hafez Assad, the new head of Syria? He is an ophthalmologist or an orthopedist or an orthodontist. I do not know what he is. He was educated at the Sorbonne so we start to say maybe he is going to be the moderate face of the Middle East. What does he do? He turns over his government in whole, in toto, to Hezbollah which continues on the other front that Israel has, their northern front, continues to use Lebanon as a launching place for more terrorism. This is another myth that the moderate Arab states will rise up. I will tell you who is going to rise up. The people of the Palestinian territories will rise up and say what the Egyptians said, what the Jordanians have said, and what other people who have sought to make peace have said. In every case where someone said to Israel, here is our hand of peace, there has been peace. The Egyptians decided through the heroism of Anwar Sadat, maybe we should learn to get along, live together. Peace did not take that long to do. King Hussein of Jordan made the same decision. The moment that it comes that the Palestinian peoples choose through a nonviolent, through negotiations that they want a homeland, that they want an economy that is not in rubbles, that they want to peacefully co-exist with Israel, I can tell you that it will happen in weeks. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) correctly points out the occupation is hardly even an issue any more. The Israeli people, the Israeli government say we will negotiate an end to the occupation in exchange for peaceful co-existence. Let us not forget that in the final analysis, Israel is ringed by Arab nations who fundamentally like the idea that the Palestinian people are waging a war against Israel. They are a surrogate army. It is the Palestinian people themselves that have to make the decision. They say we no longer want leadership that turns over our faith to Hamas to go blow up children at a pool hall. We no longer want to turn over our faith to Yasir Arafat who says no to an offer of everything simply because he wants to continue to negotiate or because he does not want Israel's right to exist. When the Palestinian people rise up and say, you know, my little 5- year-old girl should not be seeing cartoons on Palestinian terrorism saying put down your books, put down your toys and pick up your guns, when the Palestinian people decide they are not going to go to protests, holding their 5, 6-year-old boys and girls on their shoulder with mock suicide bombs around their waists, there will be peace. Until then it is the United States supporting a peaceful country of Israel who is trying desperately to do what we have been doing since September 11; desperately trying to survive, trying to have an environment where they are not afraid to send their kids to school, not afraid to send them out for a slice of pizza, not afraid to send them out to a pool hall. I would ask my colleagues how they would feel in their town and neighborhoods and cities all across this country if they did not feel comfortable that they could send their child out for a slice of pizza without knowing whether they would be blown up by some person wearing dynamite laced with nails, ball bearings and hexagonal nuts. That is what Israel confronts. We in this Congress in a magnitude that is rarely seen around here, 350-some-odd votes, said we in the United States understand what Israel confronts, and we stand shoulder to shoulder with them.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 87th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. On April 24, 1915, the government of the Ottoman-Turkish Empire rounded up approximately 600 leaders and intellectuals of the Armenian community and executed them. This was the beginning of the first genocide of the 20th Century. Shortly after that, the Ottoman-Turkish government disarmed all of the Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army, separated them from their units and executed them, too. From 1915 to 1923 the Ottoman-Turkish government, on a systematic campaign to wipe out the Armenians, killed more than 1.5 million men, women, and children. Despite the eyewitness accounts from then U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, detailing the events in 1915, the U.S. government did nothing. And if that isn't bad enough, since 1915 the U.S. has refused to recognize that the Armenian Genocide even occurred. Elie Wiesel has called the denial of the genocide a ``double killing'': ``denial of genocide,'' he wrote, ``seeks to reshape history in order to demonize the victims and rehabilitate the perpetrators and is, in effect, the final stage of genocide.'' And Elie Wiesel was right. But what is most horrific, is that today, 87 years after the Armenian Genocide began, the United States still has yet to officially recognize this tragedy. We came close in the 106th Congress when a vote was scheduled on House Resolution 398. This resolution would have acknowledged the Armenian Genocide and provided training for our Foreign Service officers so they would be able to recognize and react to ethnic cleansing and genocide. But a vote never occurred. We chose not to act. Last year, in April 2001, the President called the events of 1915 a ``forced exile and annihilation'' but he would not call this a genocide. Some listening to this debate may wonder why it is so important that we bring this message to the House floor year, after year, after year. Simple. It is important for two reasons. The first is that we must honor those who lost their lives during the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The second reason is that while the Armenian Genocide was the first Genocide of the 20th Century, it was not the last. In Germany in the 1930s, Cambodia in the 1970's, Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and Rwanda in 1994 we saw history repeat itself again, and again and again and again. Until the United States is willing to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide and take concrete steps to acknowledge this tragedy, we cannot say that we are any closer to preventing this from happening again. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey and the gentleman from Michigan for arranging this very important special order today and yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, April 24, 2002, I was unavoidably detained and missed rollcall vote No. 107. Had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida and the gentleman from Georgia for once again organizing this. There is a period of time between the commemoration of the anniversary of the Holocaust and this period where we commemorate this evening the birth of the State of Israel, and those two things, of course, are inextricably linked. We have heard over the course of the last hour an extraordinarily well-detailed, particularly by my friend from New Jersey, a detailed history of the last 44 years. I would like to spend just a moment talking about some of the ways we, in our rush for the 24-hour news cycle, our rush to try to understand things in 2-minute blurbs, have drawn many of the wrong conclusions about events going on today in the Middle East. One of the things that is frequently pointed to as a source of the problem that we currently face in the Middle East, people have pointed to the current leadership of Israel, Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister, and said it is his intransigence that has led to the explosion of violence. Well, to say that ignores the fact that in fact this intifada began shortly after Camp David II, on September 29, 2000, a good 4 months before Sharon would even take office. Prime Minister Barak, the person who was at Camp David who had made the extraordinary concessions that we have heard about this evening, it was he, perhaps the most flexible, some in Israel almost say too flexible, leader of Israel, that was in power at the time that this explosion of violence began. Second of all, the notion that Ariel Sharon's government and the people of Israel are not willing to enter into an agreement to end the violence is not true. The Mitchell Plan, which was a very long period of time headed up by former Senator Mitchell, included very difficult concessions for Israel, including things such as they had to withdraw from settlements. Israel has accepted it. It is the Palestinians that have said they will not. Why will they not? Because the first element of the Mitchell Plan is there has to be a cessation of violence and then a cooling off period, a reasonable first step toward any peace plan. It is the Palestinians that have rejected it. Then came the Tenet Plan, where the CIA Director went there to try to negotiate steps again to cool down the violence. It was Israel who said we will agree to the Tenet Plan. We will agree to loosen up the restrictions at the border crossings, to allow commerce to move more freely, if the Palestinians agree to stop the terrorism. Again, it was Israel who accepted and it was the Palestinians who said no. So this idea that the present Government of Israel has been inflexible, intransigent, and that is what has led to the violence, is simply not. Second of all, there have been some terrible images on television about the events that have gone on in the Middle East and the efforts by the Israelis to crack down on terrorism. I would say at the outset, Mr. Speaker, no war is civilized. Whenever you are engaged in a war, it is going to produce some unwanted fatalities; it is going to produce some images that are most troubling, particularly to those of us in a peace-loving nation. But unlike the way other wars have been prosecuted, unlike the way we, for example, in Afghanistan waged the war at Tora Bora, from the safety of the skies, if you look at how the Russians waged war against Grozny, where there is not even a single building left standing in Grozny now, Israel made a different and arguably the most compassionate decision they could that they were going to go into places like Ramallah, go door by door, house by house, looking for people who had made it their business to go into discoteques and to go into Passover seders with human bombs laced with nails and ball bearings and blow innocent civilians up. And what has been the result? Some people say why Ramallah? What is it about that town that has made it the subject of these house-by-house searches? There have been 35 terrorist attacks originating from that city alone in the last 18 months; 417 Tanzim, all elements of the Fatah movement controlled by Yasser Arafat, these are the people he has on the speed dial of his phone, have been operating out of Ramallah. This is a place where two IDF reserve soldiers in October of 2000 who accidently took a wrong turn, and, just so you understand, these are reserve soldiers, these are 18- and 19-year-old boys, who were serving their mandatory service in the military, took a wrong turn and were lynched and hung from a Ramallah police station that Israeli dollars paid to build. All of these things went oncoming from Ramallah. The Jerusalem cafe attack that killed 11 people and wounded 50 took place in Ramallah. Well, door to door the Israelis have been going, trying to find those that would do harm to their people. I would read a quote from Secretary Rumsfeld talking about the necessity to sometimes go and get terrorists before they come and get your people. This is what he said on February 4, 2002: ``We have no choice. It is physically impossible to defend at every time, in every location, against every conceivable technique of terrorism. Therefore, if your goal is to stop terrorism, you cannot stop it just by defense. You can only stop it by taking the battle to the terrorists where they are and going after them.'' I would argue, Mr. Speaker, that it is the Israelis that are the foremost practitioners today of that, the Bush Doctrine. Finally, there have been perhaps some very troubling images of violence taking place around the Church of the Nativity, the birthplace of Jesus Christ. I have to say something very honestly. If there were Israelis inside that church surrounded by Palestinian suicide bombers, there would not be a moment of hesitation on the part of the Palestinians to go in, regardless of the destruction to the church. Not the case with the Israelis. And if you question what I say, Joseph's Tomb, a historic and important monument of the Jewish people, destroyed in October of 2000. An ancient synagogue in Jericho, torn to the ground also in October of 2000. You did not hear the type of protestations we hear now. Yet what are the Israelis doing? Day in, day out, soldiers, sometimes in the pouring rain, encircling the Church of the Nativity, trying not to do any harm to that location. In the meantime, the terrorist are within. The Israelis are waiting, and they are going to continue to wait until they emerge. Finally, let me conclude the way I began, and I thank the gentleman from Georgia and the gentleman from Florida once again. There is a inextricable link between the history of Israel, the history of the Jewish people, and their birth as a state. On Saturday, April 13 in the New York Times, a gentleman named Daniel Gordis wrote about what it is like to live in Israel right now and what it is like to be celebrating Yom HaAtzmaut, which is the Hebrew word for the commemoration of the birth of Israel, and Yom HaShoah, which is the commemoration of the HaShoah. And he concludes his article, and I would like to quote, and I will insert the entire article in the Record. ``On Tuesday night, my 12- year-old son, Avi, told me about a Yom Hashoah class discussion about whether the Holocaust could happen again, a session he said he found stupid. Why, I asked? Because, we have a strong Army, he answered. America is our friend, and look out there now. We take care of ourselves.'' ``The next morning I watched him head off on his bike to school with pride, security and confidence. That is a lot more than Jewish kids in Europe had a few decades ago, a lot more than some Jewish kids have in Europe this week. That is why we need this country. That is why we will fight to keep it.'' [From the New York Times, Apr. 13, 2002] Needing Israel (By Daniel Gordis) Tuesday was Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, an agonizing day. In the afternoon, at work, we gathered in a circle while some colleagues quietly read the names of relatives who had been exterminated by the Nazis. Some had long lists; one even brought pictures. During the ceremony, word spread that a group of Israeli Defense Force soldiers-- 13, it would turn out--had been killed in an ambush in Jenin. Another, in Nablus, fell to friendly fire. It is hard to describe what 14 soldiers means in this small country. People make frantic calls to find out where their husbands and fathers are. Then the hourly news announces to the entire country the location and time of each funeral. At such moments it feels that living here makes one part of an extended family. No one in that family wants this war. But very few people here think we can do without it. Israelis understand why we're fighting. We also know why our soldiers are dying. There are significant pockets of armed resistance in the Jenin camp, but there are also lots of civilians. So we can't just bomb from the skies. We send soldiers house to house, only to watch as Hamas fighters use those same civilians as shields. On Tuesday we paid a heavy price. We had 14 funerals because we won't fight this war the way the Russians fought in Grozny or the way the United States fought in Afghanistan--from the safety of the skies. Hardly a building in Grozny was spared in the bombing; the Russians knew the price they'd pay if they tried to fight on the street. If Israel hit a hospital from the skies the way that the Americans did not too long ago in Afghanistan, just imagine the world's reaction. Palestinians say we won't let their ambulances in Jenin. Yet two weeks ago Israeli soldiers stopped a Palestinian ambulance with a child in the back on a stretcher, and under him soldiers found an explosive belt. Palestinians say that we're not letting them clear their dead from the streets. The Israeli Army claims that's a lie, that the Palestinians are leaving the bodies there intentionally for good footage on CNN. Who's telling the truth? I don't know. Last week, when the siege around the Church of the Nativity began, many Israelis understood why we couldn't just shoot our way in, but the frustration was palpable. If it had been Israelis in a church, or a synagogue, and Palestinians on the outside, how long would the siege have lasted? Everyone here knows the answer. When the Palestinians burned down the synagogue at Joseph's tomb in October 2000, the Vatican didn't speak up. When they later destroyed an ancient synagogue near Jericho, European liberals didn't lose sleep. The siege outside the church began in foul weather. According to reports on Israeli radio, some soldiers stood for hours in the driving rain, making sure that none of the armed Palestinians inside would escape. All that afternoon, the residents of Bethlehem pointed at the rain and shouted: ``Get out of here. We hate you. The world hates you. And look, even the heavens hate you.'' Maybe the world does hate us for having the audacity to protect ourselves, for meaning it when we say ``never again.'' Maybe the world is secretly delighted that no war can be made to look civilized, so the Europeans and the Palestinians can point their fingers at us and say, ``See, they do it, too.'' Then maybe what they did won't seem so horrific, so unforgivable. One thing important to Jews is remembering. We won't forget the 20th century and the world's complicity, and when we recall this week, in which we buried 14 of our sons, brothers, husbands and fathers who didn't have to die except for our decision to do this fighting the hard way, we'll remember the world's double standard. On Tuesday night, my 12-year-old son, Avi, told me about a Yom Hashoah class discussion about whether the Holocaust could happen again--a session he said he found ``stupid.'' Why? I asked. ``Because we have a strong army,'' he answered, ``America is our friend, and look out there now--we take care of ourselves.'' The next morning I watched him head off on his bike to school, with pride, security and confidence. That's a lot more than Jewish kids in Europe had a few decades ago. It's a lot more than some Jewish kids have in Europe this week. It's why we need this country. And it's why we'll fight to keep it. ``We have no choice. . . . It is physically impossible to defend at every time in every location against every conceivable technique of terrorism. Therefore, if your goal is to stop [terrorism], you cannot stop it just by defense. You can only stop it by taking the battle to the terrorists where they are and going after them.''--U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, February 4, 2002.

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, in this great House, we have always stood shoulder to shoulder from all parts of this country, Democrat and Republican alike, strongly allied with the democracy in the Middle East, Israel, and with God's good graces, I hope we stand with her for at least another 44 years.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just wanted to comment on the points made by my colleagues about the expanse of time. We frequently get into the misguided notion that everything has to run on a 24-hour news cycle, that sometimes we see something unsettling and we think instantly it is going to change. I would remind my colleagues and remind those viewing at home that the first several weeks of the campaign against terror, against al- Qaeda in Afghanistan, we were all commenting, oh, my goodness, this does not seem to be working, this does not seem to be working; the terrorists seem to be surviving. Then suddenly, almost overnight, there was a collapse of the terrorist infrastructure that has made us today a much safer country. The same strategy is being pursued, although it was not their first choice, by the Israeli government. I think we make a mistake when we say, well, as unsettling as this is, it has to end tomorrow or the next day. It may take a while. It is estimated that for every suicide bombing, it takes 40 individuals to make that bombing happen. There is the person that puts the bomb together, that figures out the lock, that locates the person who is going to do it, that makes the harness that goes around. Destroying that infrastructure may take a little while. But the only way to do it is not to look at what is going to be on tomorrow's television, but to think about how we do it in the context of a military operation against a very difficult foe to catch. When we watch those images, and they are unsettling, there is nobody in Israel, I can say almost to a person, who thinks this is a desirable way to go, but it is the only way to catch them where they are. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

Mr. WEINER. If the gentleman will yield further briefly, also one has to wonder why it is when there are these stages of violence put on by the Palestinians, why there are always children at the front lines? It is because, simply put, children are being used as the stones of war. In a very cynical campaign to persuade us that children are being put in harm's way, they are. They are being put in harm's way by mothers and fathers who are being told by their leaders that is the pathway to peace.

Mr. WEINER. I want to thank the gentleman from Florida for organizing this special order, the gentleman from Georgia for his great leadership, and the previous speaker, and I want to pick up on something that the gentleman from Virginia mentioned. Some have spoken about the necessity that there be a process towards peace, and I do not think there is anyone who disagrees with that. But we also have to recognize that the process in and of itself is not an end; it is to be a means to peaceful coexistence. If you look at the history of the Jewish State, there have really been two things going on simultaneously. One has been her Arab neighbors and the Palestinians trying to wipe her from the globe; while, at the same time, time after time after time, efforts at peace have been embraced by Israel, only to have her pay the price in human lives. You can really look at it in two ways. Since 1993, there has kind of been the three yards and a cloud-of-dust strategy towards peace in the Oslo Accords; concession, concession, concession given by Israel, with the hope that it will be led into, by recognition by the Palestinians, ultimately peace for her citizens. When that did not work, when that broke down, Israel went for what was essentially the ``Hail Mary'' pass at Camp David, and gave the Palestinians, offered virtually everything; 90 percent of the territories that are now in contention, a divided Jerusalem, even concessions to try to work out questions of the refugees. And how is that met with? It was met with by a string of violence that goes on to this day. Seventy-three separate terrorist attacks have gone on, taking the equivalent, as the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutsch) mentioned, of 20,000 lives, if they were here in the United States. Some have asked, why does Israel go into house by house searches of a town like Ramallah? Of those 73 attacks, 40 of them came from people who lived in Ramallah. How do we know that with such certitude? Because it is no secret. They leave a videotape saying why they did it, and quickly they are given money. They are given a bounty by the Palestinian Authority for the great thing they have done. They have given up their young life for the cause of taking away the lives of Israelis. We have to recognize, and this is an unsettling thing for anyone to say, but certainly for us in a peace-loving democracy, sometimes the only way to stop someone from killing you is to go get them and stop them by force. We did not want to have to send people to go cave by cave in Afghanistan seeking out the terrorists, but that was the only option that we were faced with. It was not a subject that, if we could have negotiated, we would not have done it. Frankly, that is the position that Israel is in today. Some have paid a great deal of attention and given a great deal of credibility to the plan proposed by the Saudi prince that in exchange for Israel withdrawing to its 1967 borders, the Arab nations would offer normal relations, although Libya has said they do not want to go along and Iran said they do not want to go along and Iraq said they do not want to go along. But nowhere in this discussion has anyone really thought through, well, why is it that Israel's borders are not what they were in 1967? Is it because she is acquisitive? Is it because she is colonialistic? Is it because she is expansionist? Her borders are different than they were in 1967, because on two separate occasions she was attacked by her neighbors, who do not even believe she has a right to exist. And to a large degree, she has already made concessions to Egypt and Jordan. She has shown more than a willingness to give up land if it meant true peace. That is true, Mr. Speaker, today. You look at poll after poll of the Israeli people, even after the horrific events of the past month. You put down on paper a proposal that gets true peace for Israel to live with her neighbors, she would accept it. She would give up land, gladly do it. But sometimes there is no deterrent to violence. The only way to stop violence is to confront it directly. That is the unfortunate and untenable position that Israel is in. Let me just say, if there was ever a practice, if there was ever an example of the Bush doctrine, it is tonight in Nablus. It is tonight in Ramallah. It is tonight in the West Bank. When President Bush unified our country and arguably unified the world around the principle that terrorism needs to be stopped, he said very clearly, it is not a matter for negotiations. He says it may take a while, and he says we will not rest until every terrorist is rooted out, pulled out by its roots, and, if necessary, killed in battle. That is what is going on tonight. That is what 18-, 19- and 20-year-old Israelis are giving their lives for tonight. And what is going on on the other side? Today on Palestinian television there were commercials running during the cartoon hour telling young children, put down your toys, take up your arms. That is the message that the Palestinians are sending to their side. What we are saying here tonight is that Israel is in an untenable position. She chooses not violence; she never has. She chooses not to settle these matters by force; she never has. She chooses instead to defend her people, and we should stand four-square with her in her desire to do that. I yield back to the gentleman from Florida, with my great thanks.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained in my District on Tuesday, March 12, 2002, and I would like the Record to indicate how I would have voted had I been present. For rollcall vote No. 53, the bill to expand the class of beneficiaries who may apply for adjustment of status under section 245(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act by extending the deadline for classification petition and labor certification filings, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Madam Speaker, today is the twenty-third of Adar, 5762 on the Jewish calendar, the Yahrzeit, or anniversary, of the passing of Ari Halberstam. It was 8 years ago today that he died as a result of wounds suffered in a terrorist attack on the Brooklyn Bridge March 1, 1994. America awakened to terrorism on September 11, but for years there were Imams in mosques in the United States, who were inciting hatred and glorifying terrorism. For years, there were voices trying to bring this to our attention, one of the loudest of which was Devorah Halberstam, the mother of Ari. When she was told that her son's death was a result of simple road rage, she refused to let the authorities whitewash history. It was not just because of her son, it was because she realized back then what so many of us did not realize until September 11, that terrorism can happen in the United States and that, unless we are willing to confront terrorism, we are doomed to see it happen again. On December 5, 2000, the FBI finally classified Ari's death as a terrorist incident. While it was heartening to see that they had abandoned their dogmatic view, this was a hollow victory. For 6 years, the FBI did not admit what it truly was. So today, as the candles burn in honor of Ari Halberstam, let us pause to remember the boy who was taken from us and let us stop to think of the lessons we should learn and let us pray that we have the wisdom to prevent attacks such as these from happening again.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, in 1912, Henrietta Szold founded the Daughters of Zion, an organization to meet the health needs of Jews and Arabs in what is now the modern State of Israel. Soon renamed Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, it has grown to be not only the largest Jewish organization in America, but also the largest women's organization. I rise today to pay tribute to Hadassah and all of the wonderful accomplishments of its ninety-year history. Today, Henrietta Szold's vision lives on. With more than 300,000 members and 1,500 chapters across the country, Hadassah is stronger than ever. While best known for the Hadassah Medical Organization, which is synonymous with expert medical care, Hadassah has expanded its services greatly to help so many people across the globe. From preventing the spread of AIDS in Africa to helping at-risk teens in Russia, Ethiopia and Israel, the women of Hadassah continue to serve the world community in addition to helping American teens develop their Jewish spiritual identity. The great accomplishments of Hadassah were recognized last year when Hadassah gained special consultative status as a non-governmental organization with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. This enables Hadassah to participate more fully in international deliberations over medical research and treatment, immigrant absorption, refugee welfare and the status of women and children--all the areas in which Hadassah has earned its reputation for expertise. I congratulate the Women of Hadassah for reaching this milestone, and I commend them for their many wonderful accomplishments during the past ninety years.

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained in my district on Tuesday, February 26, 2002, and I would like the record to indicate how I would have voted had I been present. For rollcall vote No. 39, the bill to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to provide for the acceptance of an affidavit of support from another eligible sponsor if the original sponsor has died and the Attorney General has determined for humanitarian reasons that the original sponsor's classification petition should not be revoked, I would have voted ``yea.'' For rollcall vote No. 40, the resolution expressing sympathy to the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo who were tragically affected by the eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano on January 17, 2002, and supporting an increase in the amount of assistance provided by the United States to the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. WEINER

Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, this past month, the Queens community of Belle Harbor was shaken by the crash of American Airlines flight 587. As many of you know, this neighborhood had already been hit particularly hard by the attacks of September 11, as dozens of Belle Harbor residents lost their lives to the attacks, many of them firefighters. A number of us have struggled to find the appropriate words to articulate our emotions during these times of unfathomable loss. At the memorial service for flight 587 the Sunday after the crash, Rabbi Michael Miller managed to find those words. I wanted to share his eloquence with my colleagues, and that is why I ask unanimous consent that these remarks be inserted into the Record. I hope that my colleagues will find them as comforting as inspiring as I have. Remarks at a Prayer Service for the Victims of the Crash of American Airlines #587, Sunday, November 18, 2001, 2:00 pm, Riis Park, Queens,