House Armed Services Committee Chairman Strongly Backs Measure
A powerful House committee chairman strongly endorsed a pending House resolution that recognizes the right of Israel to defend itself against rocket and missile attacks that Hamas terrorists are launching from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas broke a cease-fire and began lobbing missiles into southern Israel, and after a few hundred of them struck buildings and caused Israeli civilian casualties, Israel responded by sending armored cavalry troops into the Gaza Strip to hunt down and take out the terrorists.
Israel also used air strikes against Hamas.
Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee that oversees the U.S. military, said the Israeli military properly acted to protect Israeli citizens from being killed in the Hamas fusillade.
Skelton noted that Israel “has been our ally since President Truman recognized this country in 1948.”
Israel was restrained for some time after the Hamas attack began, Skelton said, until finally Israeli leaders “could no longer tolerate relentless attacks on its citizens by Hamas and took military action to prevent future attacks.”
While some pro-Palestinian figures have criticized Israeli military action to eliminate Hamas terrorists, because some Palestinian civilians have died, other analysts have assailed Hamas for placing its terrorists and weapons caches in apartment buildings, schools, mosques and other places, effectively using civilians as human shields.
“Israel must defend itself, as would any nation in the face of such provocation,” Skelton said.
“The United States and the international community must work to support an enduring cease fire that ends missile attacks by Hamas, prevents illegal arms and explosives from entering Gaza, and sets in motion a diplomatic solution that will allow Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace. Only when the cycle of violence in this troubled region is broken will Israelis and Palestinians be able to enjoy the peace and prosperity that people everywhere deserve.”
The resolution strongly endorses Israeli rights to self-defense when attacked, saying the Jewish state has a “right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza,” while “reaffirming the United States strong support for Israel, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.”
The resolution lays out some basics: that Hamas doesn’t recognize the right of Israel to exist, and that “Hamas was founded with the stated goal of destroying the State of Israel.”
Further, the United States has designated Hamas a terrorist organization.
The United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations require that Hamas recognize Israel’s right to exist, renounce violence, and agree to accept previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.
But “in June 2006, Hamas illegally crossed into Israel, attacked Israeli forces, and kidnaped Corporal Gilad Shalit, whom they continue to hold today,” the resolution notes.
“Hamas has launched thousands of rockets and mortars against Israeli population centers since 2001, and has launched more than 6,000 such rockets and mortars since Israel withdrew its civilian population and its military from Gaza in 2005,” the resolution continues.
Further, “Hamas has increased the range and payload of its rockets, reportedly with support from Iran and others, putting hundreds of thousands of Israelis in danger of rocket attacks from Gaza,” the resolution warns.
Also, “Hamas locates elements of its terrorist infrastructure in civilian population centers, thus using innocent civilians as human shields,” the resolution continues.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Dec. 27 that “we strongly condemn the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and hold Hamas responsible for breaking the cease-fire and for the renewal of violence there.”
She added on Jan. 6 that “the situation before the current events in Gaza was clearly not sustainable. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis lived under the daily threat of rocket attack, and frankly, no country, none of our countries, would have been willing to tolerate such a circumstance. Moreover, the people of Gaza watched as insecurity and lawlessness increased and as their living conditions grew more dire because of Hamas’s actions which began with the illegal coup against the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. . . . A ceasefire that returns to those circumstances is unacceptable and it will not last”
So the resolution “expresses vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security, and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders, and recognizes its right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens against Hamas’s unceasing aggression, as enshrined in the United Nations Charter.”
Further, the resolution “reiterates that Hamas must end the rocket and mortar attacks against Israel, recognize Israel’s right to exist, renounce violence, agree to accept previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, and verifiably dismantle its terrorist infrastructure.”
The resolution also favors U.S. efforts toward “a durable and sustainable cease-fire in Gaza, as soon as possible, that prevents Hamas from retaining or rebuilding its terrorist infrastructure, including the capability to launch rockets and mortars against Israel … thereby allowing for the long-term improvement of daily living conditions for the people of Gaza.”
The resolution also calls on all nations to condemn Hamas for deliberately embedding its fighters among Palestinian civilians, using them as human shields, and to lay blame squarely on Hamas for breaking the cease-fire.
The resolution also calls on Egypt to crack down and stop the smuggling of weapons from Egypt to Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, and “calls for the immediate release of the kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been illegally held in Gaza since June 2006.”
Israeli defense leaders and defense contractors are working independently and with U.S. military leaders and contractors to develop Israeli anti-missile systems to help defeat the Hamas attacks.
As well, Israel might better defend itself if the United States builds the European Missile Defense system, if Israel is permitted to tap into data from the missile-detecting radar that would be installed in the Czech Republic, which would spot any missiles launched by Iran.