Jewish
Frontier

The following remarks were delivered on the floor of the United States Senate by Senator Robert Torricelli, Democrat of New Jersey, on May 15, 2002.

Mr President, throughout all of my adult life, I have traveled frequently to Israel. I have had the honor of knowing almost all of Israels principal leaders. As many Americans, though I am of the Christian faith, I have always felt a strong identity with the struggle of the Jewish people and the survival of the Jewish State.

I believe the American relationship with Israel is complex: Our sense that Israel represents the edges of Western civilization; the identity of a struggling people simply desiring to survive; the sense of humanity's obligation to the Jewish people who have survived the Holocaust; and, of course, an inevitable American identity with a democracy, a pluralist state that shares our most basic value. Through this association, I have witnessed Israel in many struggles. Years ago, all Americans marveled at Israels ability to overcome extraordinary military adversity in the 1967 war facing overwhelming conventional arms against them. In 1973, a similar array of armed forces having entered the very heart of Israel and being turned back was a demonstration of remarkable courage and sacrifice by the Israeli people. In the years that followed, there was the conventional conflict in which Israel's triumph was matched by her ability to stand down mounting strategic armaments from the Syrians, the launching of limited missiles from Lebanon.

In each of these conflicts, courage, determination, guile, and skill allowed Israel to survive. None of these things, however, would have prepared any of us for the conflict in which Israel is now engaged. Previous generations overcoming strategic weapons and conventional weapons and the guerrilla warfare of the war of independence are in some ways little preparation for what the current generation of Israelis are experiencing. It is the ultimate test of any Western society. It goes to the heart of the ability of any country to be able to endure when terrorism strikes the center of our cities, destroys our families, interrupts our means of transportation, denies the ability of our economies to function, our democracies to vibrantly engage in debate in the prospect of such terror.

It is a conflict not simply between two sides but two centuries, two concepts of life, two abilities to organize society. I felt confident in Israel's previous wars, despite the odds, the overwhelming weapons, or the disparity of manpower because courage and intellect would dictate the result. There is no amount of courage, no amount of intellect that can face down a terrorist bombing. This is a different war. It is dangerous.

My concern is amplified by the voices in Asia and Europe that were once so sympathetic to the struggling Jewish State that are now at best silent and often giving comfort to Israel's enemies. Those Europeans which shared American responsibility for the children of the Holocaust somehow have forgotten. Those in Europe who admired the courage of the Israelis in building a democracy are silent. Those Europeans who in every case would reach out to another democratic society with an identification, a brotherhood of pluralist democracies, now seem to fail to find any identity in Israel.

There are so many emotions that this brings forward for Americans. It should thus be said at the outset, if in this struggle Israel and America must stand alone, then Israel and America never stood in better company.

In this struggle, victory will not be by the numbers. We will not be intimidated by the coalitions or silenced by the critics. This is a fight about principle. And the strength of the Jewish cause in Israel may best be defined by its objectives. Jews want to survive in their own homeland. This is not a struggle about conquest or wealth or national pride; it is survival. Jews stay in Israel or they die with their backs to the sea. That is what the struggle is about.

I recognize that many of our European friends, for their own economic or political reasons, may no longer identify with Israel. They may have made their arrangements elsewhere.

History has a short memory. To them, the obligations of the Holocaust or the promise to the Jewish people of their homeland may be a distant memory. Maybe Israel and America will fight alone, but it should not be forgotten that we may fight alone, but this is not our fight alone.

If terrorism succeeds in Israel, who among us would doubt that its next battlefield will be Europe? Certainly no one in my State of New Jersey doubts that it will be America. We have seen terrorism. Woodrow Wilson once said that America's two best friends were the Atlantic and the Pacific. They have become very little friends. Terrorism in another part of the world, halfway around the globe, offers no comfort to any American by its distance; it can be here tomorrow.

The fight for Israel's security is the fight for the security of every free nation, whether they are aligned with Israel, whether they wish Israel well. She fights our fight, and her fate is our fate.

There are many obstacles to a peaceful resolution in the Middle East. I believe profoundly that there will never be a military answer to the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis. These are two people of some common ancestry who live in a shared land. Both will learn to live together.

As profoundly as I believe in a peace process, I am also convinced that unless the Palestinian Authority understands that terrorism will not succeed, that there is no military answer, and that at all costs Israel will survive, no negotiated settlement is possible.

There are those who may think that their military operations at the moment give them advantage in negotiations. There are others who believe their military operations hold not the promise of the West Bank and Gaza as a Palestinian State, but the destruction of the Jewish State in its entirety. To them, there is not a Palestinian State envisioned in the West Bank and Gaza, but in Haifa and Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

I have never represented any cause in the Middle East other than a negotiated settlement. I believe profoundly in the peace process as essential to the survival of Israel and in the interest of the Palestinian people, but I refuse to counsel Israel that it should negotiate with people bent on its destruction, or that it is of any value to engage in peace negotiations as long as their adversaries believe that a military victory is possible and Israels entire destruction conceivable.

It is almost axiomatic to declare that peace negotiations and peace settlements are historically nothing but a reflection of the realities on the battlefield. The reality that Americans and Israelis see is two people in a common land who need their own homelands. That makes peace negotiations by Americans or Israelis not only possible but inevitable. But no nation can negotiate with itself, nor can peace be unilaterally declared.

Unless the Palestinians, and not simply the Palestinian Authority but important elements of the society, recognize that such military outcomes are impossible, only then will peace negotiations be meaningful.

There are those in America who genuinely believe that by pressuring Israel not to respond militarily, not to seek terrorists in their own territory, we are giving good advice to the Israeli Government.

It is a difficult argument to understand in an American context. Who in this Senate would be counseling the U.S. government, after a terrorist attack, to exercise restraint? Which member of the Senate would suggest to our own military, if Chicago or Miami or Los Angeles were to fall victim to a terrorist attack, that we should not respond? Which part of the American arsenal would you withhold if it were American cities experiencing bombings, American buses being destroyed, American children losing their limbs?

I dare to say there is not a member of this Senate who would urge restraint or withhold a single weapon in our arsenal. The Palestinians may believe there is little for them to be grateful for today. Their cities are being destroyed. The Israeli Army has occupied parts of the West Bank. Gaza awaits an invasion. There is something, however, for which they should be grateful. If it were the United States of America that endured these attacks and not Israel, the response they have experienced from the Israeli Army would be a small shadow of the problems that would be visited upon them.

Finally, there are those in the Senate who wonder, with Israelis having to respond with their lives, the Israeli economy in shambles, what is it any American can do? How is it that in this moment of crisis we can exercise true fidelity with Israel in its fight for survival? Our words are important. So is our presence in Israel.

Nothing would demonstrate more our commitment to Israel than members of Congress, like the American people themselves, being present, exhibiting courage, showing our commitment.

In this Senate, we 100 have a different opportunity. The fight for Israel's survival is not only militarily decided, it is also economically decided. The Clinton administration 18 months ago, after the withdrawal from Lebanon, pledged Israel $450 million for supplemental assistance. It was to compensate for the withdrawal, to help recreate a security zone in the north of Israel, and for missile defense.

That money was never provided. Regrettably, the Busl administration never even included it in it recommendations for the Congress this year. At a time when Israelis look across the sea to America for confidence of their own survival, broken American promises are not helpful. Indeed, they are troubling The first thing this Congress can do is ensure that ever commitment is kept, all resources are given. In th current stage of this fight against terrorism, despite all the sacrifices of September 11 and the courage of our soldiers in Afghanistan, at this moment most Americans are not asked to sacrifice with their lives. We have experienced that before. It may come again. At this moment, the sacrifice is Israeli. The least we can do is help them with the means to win this war.

All of us look for the words telegraphed around the world to those who believe that the Jewish state was both created and will die in a single generation, words to put at rest those who are committing their energy and their resources to this war on terrorism against Israel. Here are mine: Israel is forever. As long as there is a United States of America, there will be an Israel. It took 2,000 years for the Jewish people to get home. They have been there for a single generation. They are not leaving. Those in Europe who would counsel or comfort her enemies, those in the Middle East who are bent on her destruction, would do best to accept that reality.

There is land enough for all peoples to decide their own governments and design their own futures. Let there be no question, for those who respect the will and the power of the United States of America, one of those peoples will be Jewish and one of those countries will be Israel.

I yield the floor.