Tuesday, January 6, 2009

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on Israel
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

Mr. President, I rise for a few moments to address two subjects, the first will be about Israel and the second about the passing of Griffin Bell.

All of us are deeply concerned with the conditions in the Middle East, most recently in the last 12 days, the actions in Gaza, the loss of human life and the conflict.

But there is a necessary perspective we all must understand. In November of 2007, I stood at the last Israeli outpost overlooking Gaza. In fact, if you watch Fox or CNN or NBC or ABC tonight, where you will see those reports coming from, I stood on that very spot just a little over a year ago.

Also, I went to Sderot, the Israeli settlement outside Gaza, that since mid year last year has received 1, 2, 3, 10, 15 missile attacks, random attacks coming out of Gaza dropping on this Israeli settlement for no reason at all but the absolute ability or desire to terrorize the Israeli people and destroy that settlement.

What Israel has done by moving into Gaza is a major military operation. In some reports that you see on television or you read about in the papers, you would think it was unprovoked and unnecessary. The opposite is true. It has been provoked for 15 months by Hamas in Gaza. The Israelis have finally drawn a line in the sand and they have moved in to try to protect the best interests of their citizens.

For perspective, Gaza and Sderot are a little bit like Arlington and Washington. You are not talking about a large land mass, you are talking about a very narrow, tight area. It would be similar to South Carolina and Georgia lobbing missiles back and forth.

What would happen if one of those States did it? We would immediately react to protect our citizens and protect their lives and their livelihoods. That is what Israel is doing.

I pray every night that somehow and some way we can be a catalyst for ultimately a lasting peace in the Middle East. But surrendering to terrorism or the acts of terrorism such as Hamas has been taking out on the Israeli people is no way to go. I support the Nation of Israel. I believe they are doing the right thing to confront head-on the terror that has been imposed on them.

It should not be lost on any of us that the supplies that have gotten into Gaza through what is known as the Eisenhower Passageway, which is from Egypt into Gaza, have been military materials being flown in and then taken in through tunnels basically by operatives of Iran. Just as what happened in Lebanon a year ago with Hezbollah and the Lebanese, the same thing is happening today between Gaza and the Palestinians and the Israelis.

The catalyst for the conflict is another nation, Iran. It wants to diffuse the focus on its producing of nuclear weapons and instead keep turmoil in the Middle East to use it to its benefit.

As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I take very seriously my responsibility to look upon every nation in this world as a nation we should respect, as a nation we should dialogue with, and as a nation we should work with. But we cannot and we must not turn our head away from a nation that is causing terror to be invoked against innocent people such as Iran is doing against Israel through the Palestinians in Gaza.

So I hope and pray these difficulties end tonight. I hope and pray there is not another loss of life. But as long as Hamas is unwilling to enter into a meaningful peace, a meaningful effort to stop the terror, one that can be trusted and verified, then Israel is doing precisely what it should be doing in the best interests of its people. It is doing no less than we in this Congress and America would do were we attacked in the same way in the same time. In the first part of my remarks, I stand in solidarity with the people of Israel in hope and prayer that the hostilities end but not because of surrender; because ultimately we confront terror and get people to lay down their arms, not for a day, not for a cease-fire but for generations to come.