Published: 01-08-09
Israel is doing what any nation must do – responding to terrorist aggression and protecting their citizens. . .
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) Texas’ senior Senator issued a statement today on the conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas:
“There should be no question that Israel like all sovereign nations has a right and a duty to defend its citizens against the unprovoked rocket attacks launched by Hamas terrorists from Gaza.
“In 2005 as a conciliatory gesture the Israelis pulled their military forces out of Gaza. Palestinian terrorists have since responded to that gesture by launching thousands of rockets from their safe havens in Gaza into Israel. These rocket attacks can have only one purpose – to strike terror in the hearts of their victims. These Iranian supplied rockets are not guided or precision weapons.
No one launching them knows where they will ultimately land and once launched they might just as easily land on a school house or a hospital as on a military target. The goal of these rockets simply put is to kill and terrorize all Israelis – be they civilian or military. No nation can or should tolerate that type of indiscriminate violence directed against their citizens.
“Unfortunately Hamas leaders have demonstrated time and again that they have little interest in peaceful coexistence with the State of Israel. Indeed their goal is and remains the complete destruction of Israel as a nation. To halt the rocket attacks Israel has pursued an aggressive military campaign to once and for all destroy the terrorists’ capability to launch rockets and terrorize innocent civilians in Israel and to punish those responsible.
Israel’s decision to respond with a ground invasion of Gaza rather than retaliatory air attacks is in fact proportional in its respect for innocent civilian life as a number of Hamas rocket launch sites and terror strongholds are located among neighborhoods and school districts. A ground invasion was the only way Israel could mitigate the loss of civilian life.
“I deeply regret the tragic loss of human life in Gaza and in Israel but there is no moral equivalency here as some have suggested. Israel is doing what any nation must do – responding to terrorist aggression and protecting their citizens.”
