Madam Speaker, the recent unprovoked attacks on Israel are particularly notable because of the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005. Israel, as it has so often been urged to do, gave up land for the hope of peace. Yet what happened? From the day Israel withdrew, Hamas fired rockets at Israeli cities and villages every single day, followed more recently by Hezbollah rockets.
Can you imagine what the United States would do if terrorists rained down thousands of rockets on American cities from Canada? We would tell the Canadian government to stop it immediately. And if the reply was we don't want to stop it, as with Hamas, or we can't stop it, as the government of Lebanon says it cannot stop Hezbollah, we would not hesitate to bomb whatever targets were necessary and to invade whatever territory was necessary to stop the bombardment, and we would not cease until we had destroyed or disarmed the terrorists.
Similarly, we must not demand a cease-fire that leaves the Hezbollah or Hamas weapons and infrastructure intact.
This recent violence, this war, is the penalty we pay for looking away and urging restraint on Israel as Hamas and Hezbollah flouted peace agreements and built up terrorist infrastructures and arsenals of thousands of rockets as they openly proclaimed their intentions to destroy Israel and murder her people.
The Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, a Hamas leader, wrote in the Washington Post just last week that what matters are not the issues of 1967, but the issues of 1948, that is, the very existence of Israel. But the existence of Israel is not negotiable. But many seem not to have learned the lessons.
The European Union criticized Israel's response as disproportionate. What would the EU do if European cities were attacked as Safed, Haifa and Nazareth have been? How is Israel's response against strategic Hezbollah targets disproportionate to Hezbollah's intentional attacks against Israeli civilians? And since when do we demand that responses to naked aggression and intended genocide be proportionate? It was Colin Powell who said that military responses must be of ``overwhelming force.''
The violence can end only if Hamas and Hezbollah are disarmed. Otherwise, Israel will have to defend itself against future terrorist attacks, and innocent Israeli, Palestinian and Lebanese civilians will continue to die.
There is a role for diplomacy in the Middle East, but only when Hezbollah and Hamas are forced to stand down and Hezbollah forces are moved away from the Israeli border.
I extend my sympathy to the families of the victims of the attacks in Israel and in Lebanon, and I pray for the safe return of those captured. But I know that because the United Nations and the international community have failed to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure by diplomacy, Israel must be permitted to dismantle that infrastructure by force of arms if the killing is not to go on indefinitely. We must not stop her from doing so.
I strongly support the resolution.