Opposition to Gaza Resolution and U.S. Intervention in the Middle East

I rise in opposition to this resolution, uh, not because, uh, I am taking sides and, and picking who the bad guys are and who the good guys are, but I'm looking at this more from the angle of being a, a United States citizen, an American,

and I think resolutions like this, uh, really do us great harm.

Uh, in many ways, what's happening in the Middle East, and in particular with Gaza right now, we have some moral responsibility for both sides, uh, i-in a way because we provide help and funding, uh, for both Arab nations and Israel.

And, uh, so we definitely have a moral responsibility, and especially now today, the weapons being used to, uh, kill so many Palestinians are American weapons, and, uh, American funds espe-es-essentially are being used, uh, for this. But there's a political liability which I think is something that we fail to look at because

too often there's so much blowback from our intervention in areas that we shouldn't be involved in.

You know, Hamas, if you look at the history, you'll find out that Hamas was encouraged and really started by Israel because they wanted Hamas to counteract Yasser Arafat. And you say, "Well, yeah, that was better then and it served its purpose,

but we didn't want Hamas to do this." So then we as Americans say, "Well, we have such a good system, we're gonna impose this on the world. We're gonna invade Iraq and teach people how to be Democrats. We want free elections."

So we encourage the Palestinians to have a free election.

They do, and they elect Hamas. So we first indirectly and directly through Israel help establish Hamas, then we have election, then Hamas becomes dominant, so we have to kill them.

You know, it, it just doesn't make sense.

During, during the '80s, um, you know, we were allied with Osama bin Laden, and, uh, we were f- uh, con- uh, contending with the Soviets.

It was at that time our CIA thought it was good if we radicalized the Muslim world.

So we financed the madrassa schools to radicalize the Muslims in order to compete with the, with the Soviets.

There's too much blowback. There's a lot of reasons why we should oppose this resolution. It is not in the interest of the United States.

It's not in the interest of Israel either.