Israel's Modern History

Floor Speech

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to discuss the comments made recently by Secretary Kerry regarding Israel and apartheid.

I am not going to be one of the many people that are probably calling for Secretary Kerry's resignation in that regard. I too work in the arena of public policy, and I understand that sometimes you make mistakes in the things you say, you say things that you didn't necessarily intend to say.

I think it is very instructive to talk about it for just a few moments here. I want to remind everybody that Israel first fought a War of Independence in 1948 and 1949, and then fought again in 1967 in the Six Day War and then again in 1973 with the Yom Kippur War.

During these periods of time, they were attacked, unilaterally attacked by their neighbors. Some people say: Well, we need to go back to those pre-1967 borders. I ask anybody who was attacked, who has been in a fight where somebody sucker-punched them, who was the aggressor, why is it incumbent upon Israel to return the spoils of the war? Folks attacked them, they fought the war, and they won, and they want to secure their population. Because of that, some people think that somehow Israel is the oppressor. They reacted to an act of aggression.

I just want to also read statements from President Obama from 2008 regarding the usage of the term ``apartheid'':

There's no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, but injecting a term like apartheid into the discussion doesn't advance that goal. It's emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and it's not what I believe.

That is not what Americans believe either.

I think for me and what I want to tell anybody that is watching and anybody that is listening is, this should be proof positive; finally, the evidence of what many conservatives and many people who support Israel have been saying for the last 6 years. Finally, what we are seeing is--if this isn't proof, I don't know what is--the thoughts and the feeling and the mindset and what is in the heart of this administration regarding Israel. This is what they believe. This is who they are.

If you support Israel as the only ally, the only true ally for America in that part of the world, if that is who you support, then you must recognize this for what this is, Mr. Speaker. It is an abandoning. It is not only an abandoning of our ally, our great ally and our true friend, but is a castigation of who they are.

When we think about what apartheid is, Israel doesn't represent any of that. It is an open democracy that lets people live freely and participate within the confines of their security situation, and as the representative before me discussed, rockets being rained down upon them, homicide bombers coming into their children's school and blowing up their children, blowing up their buses on a busy street or a cafe where people are just trying to have a meal. That is their daily life. And we are supposed to castigate them for defending their nation, for their leaders defending their nation against that, and that is somehow apartheid?

The physical, racial, financial, I mean the spiritual and emotional oppression for the sake of race, that is apartheid. That is not what Israel is doing. That is not what Israel is about. That is not what Israel has done. Israel has tried to live peaceably in

that region of the world among its neighbors. It has fought to exist. It fights every day to exist.

For the Secretary of State to use that term in describing who Israel is, what they are as a people, what they are as a government, it is not only reprehensible, it in my mind truly defines, it very clearly illustrates what this administration believes. So if you are a supporter of Israel, if you are a supporter of the only ally, the true ally of
the United States in that region of the world, it is time for you to take stock. If you have been a supporter of this administration, it is time for you to take stock in that support. Is it justified? Is it realistic? Is it what you really believe? Because if you believe what this administration believes, then you believe that the only answer is for Israel to continue to give, to give of itself to its neighbors who hate it, who are continually trying to destroy it, who refuse after all these years--1947--after all these years, continue to refuse as a matter of just negotiation to acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a state.

How much longer will it take, Mr. Speaker? How many more years until these other organizations--you know, the taxpayers, the United States taxpayers, fund the Palestinian Authority and their effort to pay stipends to prisoners who blow up Israelis, who blow them up. It is seen as their job. It is like a paycheck. If you go to prison, you get paid for doing it, and the more heinous it is, the more you get paid.

Yet, somehow Israel is supposed to turn the other cheek yet again and give of itself to people that blow it up. Even after they give, let's face it, after they give, because they have offered to give time and time and time again, we all know, Mr. Speaker, it is not going to be enough. Because the people that call Jews and Israel descendants of apes and dogs and pigs, they are not going to stop thinking that just because Israel agrees to whatever concession they demand. They won't stop until there is no Israel. That is their goal. That has been their stated goal, and it hasn't changed.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to again highlight to anybody that has supported this administration because of their support for Israel, see what it is, look it in the face. It has shown itself finally for what it truly is. It is not support of Israel, it is support of a political agenda that makes Israel continue to bleed, and it is unacceptable for the United States of America to turn its back on this longstanding ally.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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