JOE MALONE FOR CONGRESS…MA DISTRICT 10: ELECTIONS ARE COMING….SEE NOTE
THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY IS IN SEPTEMBER…..ON JULY 20 MALONE’S OPPONENT PERRY WAS FEATURED…..BUT MALONE IS THE MORE APPEALING, ATTRACTIVE CANDIDATE WITH THE BEST RECORD….STAY TUNED
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JOE MALONE FOR CONGRESS
Position Paper on US-Israel Relations
Posted on Jun 30th, 2010 |
Like most Americans, I admire Israel and support Israel’s independence, its security, its accomplishments and its friendship with the United States. Also like most Americans, I appreciate that Israel has always sought peaceful relations with its neighbors, and that, despite unprecedented concessions to achieve peace, Israel now faces an existential threat as great as when it was invaded by six Arab armies in response to its declaration of independence in 1948. As your Congressman, I will help preserve and protect Israel’s right to defend itself and to make its own decisions about negotiating trustworthy and enforceable treaties with all of its neighbors to achieve peace, just as it did with Egypt and Jordan. I will oppose all efforts to force Israel to accept unilateral concessions to those who remain committed to Israel’s destruction.
Why I Support Israel
I support Israel because it is a democracy, believes in the rule of law administered by an independent judiciary, cherishes the education and development of its children, contributes well beyond its weight class to science, art, literature, medicine, and economic advancement, and helps other countries in need generously. Most of all, however, I support Israel because helping Israel survive and prosper is in America’s interest.
I believe that America’s security ultimately depends on the spread of democracy and the benefits to life that representative government and the rule of law bring to ordinary people in every country that is free and democratic. It is for that reason that every American government since the birth of Israel has affirmed and reaffirmed the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel.
Israel is threatened today as it has not been since it was founded. On its borders, Hamas and Hezbollah are dedicated to Israel’s destruction. In violation of UN resolutions, Syria is arming Hezbollah with thousands of missiles, many of which are long range and threaten Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Iran, which denies the Holocaust ever happened, and may soon possess nuclear weapons, promises to “wipe Israel off the mapâ€. Even the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s supposed negotiating partner, which has been promised a Palestinian state on conclusion of successful peace negotiations, refuses nearly twenty years after Oslo to recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state. Despite all this, Israel has always defended itself from its enemies and sought peaceful, bilateral relations with its neighbors, and asks only that it continue to be able to do so. For Israel to do that, it needs the United States to protect it in the UN and other international organizations hostile to Israel and it needs the same consistent material support that the United States has provided for years.
It is essential to United States interests that the world understand that the United States will not waver in protecting Israel diplomatically and in providing necessary material aid. If the support of the United States for Israel’s ability to defend itself is seen to wane, and our promise of an unbreakable bond then rings false, how can any other country have confidence in American promises of protection in adversity? Will our Arab friends continue to resist Iran, our European friends, Russia or our Asian friends, China, merely because we speak brave words to reassure them that, when they are pressured, the United States will be there for them? Acting in their own interest, I am convinced, they will make their deals with powerful neighbors. When that happens, the progress of democratic expansion will be reversed and the power and influence of authoritarian regimes will be advanced, all to the detriment of American security, human rights, religious freedom, protection of women and children and political dissent.
Furthermore, a weakened Israel will invigorate Islamic terrorists threatening the United States. Especially among Islamic terror organizations, Israel is a conveniently-located surrogate for the United States. Contrary to the catechism of Israel’s and America’s critics that American support for Israel recruits terrorists, if we stand by as Israel is damaged internationally or, worse, act to weaken Israel in a futile pursuit of an imposed peace, it will be for the terrorists like blood in the water to sharks. And then, it will be a short step to intensifying terror in the United States. The terrorists hate our shared values, freedoms and tolerance, and they believe that, if Israel’s future can be put in doubt, so can ours.
But if our support for Israel is seen as unyielding, the United States will enjoy significant benefits. The confidence of other small states in American constancy will be reinforced, and the march of democracy can continue. Moreover, the goal of peace in the Middle East will be more likely of achievement because, from a position of unchallengeable strength, Israel can afford to take risks, its adversaries will lose hope in terror and force as a remedy for their anti-Israel aspirations, and the Palestinians can turn their energies to building a democratic society based on the rule of law and the pursuit of prosperity. How rapidly these objectives will be achieved may be anyone’s guess, but to my mind, trying to advance American security in this manner beats becoming a fair-weather friend to Israel, thereby diminishing confidence around the world in our constancy and, soon enough, being left to relying ever more heavily on risking the lives of young Americans to protect the United States.
What Israel Needs Now in Congress
Israel needs our elected representatives to speak out and explain to Americans and the world the justice of Israel’s efforts to defend itself and the generosity of its outreach in the pursuit of peace. But, while continual education of the public is essential, it must be accompanied by specific legislative action that achieves identifiable objectives. In particular, Congress must reject international attempts to delegitimize Israel or its right to self-defense, demand that our government honor previous understandings between Israel and the United States, and enact crippling sanctions on Iran that cannot be lifted absent Iran’s total and verifiable termination of its nuclear weapons program.
Accordingly, there is a constant need for members of Congress to act. Had I served in Congress during the current term, for example, I would have:
– voted to fund the annual military aid appropriation to Israel;
– supported Israel’s right to defend itself against unrelenting rocket attacks on its citizens in Operation Cast Lead;
– joined in rejecting the biased and false Goldstone Report; and
– signed the recent bipartisan letter to Secretary Clinton responding to the Administration’s counterproductive public diplomacy following the Vice President’s visit to Israel.
Moreover, I can think of at least three issues that are current and will remain current for some time that will need strong and unwavering Congressional support in the next Congress and beyond.
Sanctions on Iran
It is in the American national interest that Iran not obtain nuclear weapons. I do not take comfort that containment and the threat of retaliation will restrain Iran, as, it is claimed, these policies restrained the Soviet Union. I well recall growing up under threat that MAD might not work, and history shows that, even with a basically cautious Soviet Union, we were forced to risk a hot nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Anyone who thinks that it will be cheap or easy to defend against a nuclear Iran, even assuming its neighbors will support American defenses as vigorously as did NATO during the Cold War, needs a reality check.
Moreover, if the United States, in its own interest, does not act decisively, it is likely that Israel will. Most observers concur that Israel cannot tolerate living within missile range of a nuclear Iran that has threatened to exterminate Israel and its inhabitants. Since any attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities will be blamed on the United States by Iran and its allied forces, the United States gains nothing by delay, anemic sanctions and multilateral handcuffs. To keep Israeli forces at home, it is critical that the United States give Israel confidence that we will not permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
Congress is presently in the process of enacting tough, mandatory sanctions on Iran. Among other things, the legislation under consideration would force countries and companies trading with Iran, whether directly or through a shell, with choosing whether to do business with Iran or with the United States. I urge every member of Congress to vote in favor of H.R. 2194, the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2009. As a member of Congress, I will work to see that the requirements of that legislation are fully and promptly implemented. Further, if additional sanctions prove to be necessary, I will support all such efforts.
Finally, as a member of Congress, I will try to improve American policy with respect to the Green Revolution in Iran. Some of the actions that Congress can take include funding worthy Green Revolution groups, strengthening our ability to beam news and information into Iran, denying Iranian governmental officials transit rights, participating in international forums that feature the plight of ordinary Iranians, publicizing the names and heroic actions of Iranian citizens resisting the Iranian government, depriving the Iranian government of access to international banking services, and other such actions. To repeat, these initiatives will seriously weaken the Iranian government, and give all governments in the area, Arab as well as Israeli, confidence to rely on the United States instead of engaging in self-help, or worse, diplomatic capitulation to Iran.
The Peace Process
Many people think that the peace process between Israel and the Arab world began with the Oslo Accords in 1993. Actually, attempts by the Jewish community in the Middle East to negotiate peace predates even the UN recognition of Israel in 1948. What is clear from the unbroken history is that the repeated and continual attempts by Israel and its predecessor Jewish community were met with total rejection until the 1978 Camp David Accords led to a peace treaty with Egypt. Since then, only Jordan has additionally recognized Israel by virtue of an agreement reached by King Hussein and Yitzhak Rabin in 1994. All other neighboring states and the Palestinian Authority refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state and, indeed, have engaged instead in terror and the most hateful anti-Jewish propaganda imaginable.
Throughout the repeated refusals of Israel’s neighbors to recognize Israel and commit by treaty to live together in peace, Israel has continually reached out and taken risks to attain peaceful coexistence and bilateral relations with its Arab neighbors, and it has taken great risks to demonstrate its good faith. At Camp David, Israel readily surrendered the entire Sinai to Egypt. After Oslo, Israel turned administration of the West Bank over to Yasser Arafat and the PLO. More recently, Israel turned Gaza over to the Palestinians and Southern Lebanon to the Lebanese government.
Regrettably, bearing those risks has exacted a terrible price: The Second Intifada, two wars with Hezbollah, terror, suicide bombings and rockets raining down on Israeli citizens, have taken well over a thousand Israeli lives and maimed thousands more, children and adults both.
To my mind, the Israelis have more than demonstrated their willingness to negotiate a fair peace agreement with the Palestinians. It is hard for me to believe that Arafat and the Palestinian Authority rejected Israel’s offer at Camp David in 2000, a sentiment shared by President Clinton. It is even harder to understand why, instead of negotiating in good faith, the Palestinians launched the Second Intifada after rejecting that offer. The only explanation is that the Palestinian leadership still dreams of making the Israelis give up hope. Accordingly, I support the fence that the Israelis were forced to construct to protect their communities from terror attacks.
Now, the parties are supposed to be negotiating under the principles proposed by the Quartet. The United States and Israel also reached understandings with President Bush’s administration regarding conditions that should prevail pending agreements reached by the Israelis and the Palestinians of their own volition in direct negotiations under the Quartet principles. As a member of Congress, I will support negotiations based on these principles. Until the parties reach a negotiated agreement, however, I will oppose demanding new unilateral concessions from the Israelis or any kind of imposed result.
Jerusalem
Jewish families have been living in Jerusalem for hundreds of years. Except for the years between 1948 and 1967, they had lived in all sections of Jerusalem, including the eastern part of Jerusalem, which itself includes the Old City. The reason Israelis did not live in eastern Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967 is that, during the 1948 war of independence, the Jerusalem resistance could not hold out, despite the success of the Israeli forces elsewhere against the invading armies of the Arabs. Not only were the Israelis excluded from residing in eastern Jerusalem after 1948, during that period, their synagogues, cemeteries and other holy places were desecrated and their schools, hospitals and other buildings were ruined. Not just Israelis, but Jews generally were denied access to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, which I understand is the holiest site in Jewish tradition. In contrast, since 1967, the Israelis have protected all holy sites in Jerusalem, Muslim, Christian and Jewish alike with a sensitivity that was never shown them. In fact, after the Israeli capture of all of Jerusalem in 1967, the Israelis placed the management and control of the Temple Mount in the hands of the Muslim Waqf, a futile gesture as it turned out. Instead of gratitude, as an element of a campaign to deny that the Temple and any ancient Jewish connection to Jerusalem ever existed, the Waqf has abused its authority and dug up and destroyed irreplaceable archeological artifacts of the Temple period.
In light of this history, I believe that the Israelis, and only the Israelis, should decide how Jerusalem is to be addressed by the parties during final status negotiations. That means that, pending agreement on final status, the government of Israel, including the city government of Jerusalem, should decide all ordinary affairs in Jerusalem, including land use, government services and commercial regulation.
Congress has repeatedly recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and I intend to support continuing efforts to transfer our embassy to Jerusalem.
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