Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the chairwoman of the House GOP Conference, addressed the Israeli Knesset on Sunday and took a swipe at President Joe Biden while offering an impassioned message of support for Israel.
Addressing a committee room, Stefanik told Israeli lawmakers that “There is no excuse for an American president to block aid to Israel – aid that was duly passed by the Congress, or to ease sanctions on Iran, paying a $6 billion ransom to the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, or to dither and hide while our friends fight for their lives.” Notably, Biden and Senate Democrats had supported sending additional aid to Israel months before it finally passed the GOP-led House, which repeatedly voted down a bipartisan Senate bill to send additional support.
Traditionally, Americans on both sides of the aisle refrain from taking jabs at the president while overseas, which led to the late Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) coining the popular phrase “partisan politics stop at the water’s edge.”
Stefanik began her remarks with a steadfast pledge of support for Israel, saying, “Today I stand before you, not just as a leader in the United States Congress, but as a lifelong admirer, supporter, and true friend of Israel in the Jewish people.”
“You see, I am lucky to have had the privilege of traveling here many times before, but I must confess that this time feels different. The stakes are higher,” Stefanik said, adding:
Our
sense of moral, patriotic duty feels heightened, renewed. 226 days ago, we witnessed the most vicious, brutal attack on Israel and the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Our barbaric terrorist attack that claimed more than 1200 innocent lives. Civilian women, children, and the elderly were ripped from their homes and massacred, raped, beheaded. Jewish families were bound together and burned. Babies burned alive. Atrocities of humanity we must never forget and we must never relent. Israelis, Americans, and others were savagely kidnapped from their homes, beaten, tortured, and taken hostage to the terror tunnels beneath Gaza. And we must remind the world every day that there are still over 120 souls held hostage, 226 days of captivity, including Americans, held by Hamas terrorist thugs. Let me be very clear. We will not rest until the hostages are back home. This period calls to mind the many times forces of evil have tried to destroy Israel and the Jewish people.Since Israel’s first days of existence, there have been those who have sought out its destruction. You see, we see it saw the same eliminationist goal in 1948, during the fatiguing raids of the 1950s and 60s, in the 67 war, the 73 war, the successive wars against Hamas in Gaza, and again on that dark day, October 7th, 2023. What we are witnessing today is a story of the forces of good versus evil, the forces of civilization against the forces of barbarism.
The centrist Times of Israel
Watch the clip above.