{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=3A3AE750-9813-40D0-BC93-67F5DF147C6C", "McConnell: Support For Israel Means Moral Clarity And American Strength", "2023-11-14", "2023", "2023-11", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding support for Israel:\n\n\u201cToday, our nation\u2019s capital will welcome a rally of Jewish Americans and friends of Israel.\n\n\u201cThe participants in today\u2019s events are gathering in mourning, in worry, in fear, and in shared resolve.\n\n\u201cIn the dark days since the terrorist massacre of October 7th, their message has been crystal clear:\n\n\u201cThere is no moral equivalence between terrorism and self-defense. Israel has a right to exist. And Jews everywhere have a right to live without fear.\n\n\u201cThese basic truths should be obvious and unimpeachable. But if anyone failed to see the creeping advance of anti-Semitism across the West in recent years\u2026\n\n\u201cIf any corner of our society let itself believe that this unique hatred of Jews had been confined to history\u2026\n\n\u201cThat na\u00efve fiction was shattered on October 7th, and swept away by the hate that has poured across college campuses and city streets throughout America and the West over the past month.\n\n\u201cIn just the first week after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad murdered 1,200 Israelis, harassment, vandalism, and assault against American Jews rose 400%.\n\n\u201cBut the peaceful people gathering in Washington today aren\u2019t here to ask for pity for themselves. They\u2019re here on behalf of the more than 240 hostages \u2013 including a three-year-old American boy and at least eight other Americans \u2013 who cannot speak for themselves. They\u2019re here with a clear message for their leaders: Stand with Israel.\n\n\u201cSince October 7th, I\u2019ve spoken repeatedly about the challenges Israel faces as it works to protect its people, bring the hostages home, and destroy Hamas\u2019 capability to wage war.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve talked about the terrorists\u2019 reprehensible record of systematically violating the customary laws of war. Their expropriation of humanitarian aid.\n\n\u201cTheir cold-blooded practice of putting command centers and weapons caches in hospitals, schools, and even mosques.\n\n\u201cTheir grotesque penchant for using innocent Gazans as human shields. And of course, the threat of further violence from Iran-backed terrorists on a second front.\n\n\u201cThis is why I\u2019ve urged the Biden Administration to give Israel the time, space, and support it needs to bring these savages to justice.\n\n\u201cHow quickly some in the West have become confused about the crystal-clear distinction between terrorism and self-defense.\n\n\u201cHamas sought this conflict. Hamas perpetuates it by holding hostages and continuing its terrorism. And those of us who live out of range of terrorist rockets should pause before second-guessing Israel\u2019s response.\n\n\u201cThis is a time that demands moral clarity \u2013 on campuses, in newsrooms, in Congress, and at the sharp end of American military strength.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s also time to restore credible deterrence against Iran, the chief underwriter and architect of violence against Israel and against American forces in the Middle East.\n\n\u201cIn less than one month, Iran-backed terrorists have targeted U.S. servicemembers in Iraq and Syria 52 times.\n\n\u201cFrom the abandonment of Afghanistan to the de-listing of the Houthis to our failure to respond to proxy attacks on our friends in the region, the Biden Administration has made Iran\u2019s job actually easier.\n\n\u201cAnd now, as America dithers over support for our friends in Ukraine, Tehran is throwing itself firmly behind Putin\u2019s Russia.\n\n\u201cIt will take more than demolishing a couple warehouses to show our adversaries we\u2019re credible. Iran and its terrorist networks must know that violence against America or our allies will meet swift and overwhelming lethal force.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:49:58Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=3A3AE750-9813-40D0-BC93-67F5DF147C6C"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9357528761029243, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}