{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=65D82117-7A97-4234-875E-7113AF624B8B", "Moral Equivalency In America Makes Israel\u2019s Job Harder", "2023-11-06", "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 Israel\u2019s fight against Hamas terrorists:\n\n\u201cAs Israel continues to root out the Hamas terrorists who savaged innocent civilians on October 7th, the political left here in America appears to be engaged in a loud, public debate with itself over how exactly to differentiate indiscriminate slaughter and lawful self-defense.\n\n\u201cLast week, an especially radical House Democrat repeated to her followers a call to eliminate the Jewish state, \u2018from the river to the sea\u2019.\n\n\u201cThen, she attempted to explain away the undeniably genocidal connotation of this long-standing anti-Israel slogan as a call for, \u2018peaceful coexistence\u2019.\n\n\u201cApparently, Jews can live in peace with Palestinians\u2026 as long as they vacate Israel.\n\n\u201cUnfortunately, the shameful moral equivalence that has been creeping across elite and influential corners of the left has now been embraced by a former Commander-in-Chief.\n\n\u201cJust a few days ago, President Obama used the same breath to express his horror at both Hamas violence and a supposed Israeli \u2018occupation\u2019 of Gaza. In reality, the only force that has occupied Gaza since 2007 is Hamas. Not Israel.\n\n\u201cThe former President also said, \u2018all of us are complicit to some degree.\u2019 That is simply false. Responsibility lies with the terrorists.\n\n\u201cSo, Madam President, perhaps President Obama has forgotten the bloody campaign to defeat ISIS over which he presided. Or the destruction of cities like Mosul and Raqqa in pursuit of medieval Islamic tyrants who terrorized innocent civilians.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t recall President Obama doubting the righteousness of American efforts to support local partners in rooting out terrorists in Iraq and Syria. Where is that moral clarity in the face of Hamas?\n\n\u201cUnfortunately, that brings me to the growing number of our Senate colleagues who have called for a ceasefire in today\u2019s terrorist war.\n\n\u201cI would remind our colleagues that Israel had negotiated a ceasefire with Hamas over the summer. And we all saw where that led on October 7th. Returning to any such arrangement right now would be amnesty for the butchers of innocent Israelis and Gazans, alike.\n\n\u201cOnce again, let\u2019s remember who the aggressor is.\n\n\u201cHamas is blocking citizens from leaving Gaza city. Hamas has intentionally put its weapons caches inside schools, hospitals, and mosques, and its firing positions in the middle of civilian populations. Hamas has poured countless billions of dollars in humanitarian assistance into its terror tunnels.\n\n\u201cThese people are not freedom fighters. They do not want \u2018peaceful coexistence\u2019. They are savages, cut from the same cloth as ISIS and al-Qaeda.\n\n\u201cThere is no room for moral equivalency. The distinction between good and evil here is blindingly obvious.\n\n\u201cFortunately, some do recognize this. The Vice Chancellor of Germany, a member of his country\u2019s Green Party, didn\u2019t have any trouble finding the moral clarity this moment requires. In an address to the nation last week, he said, \u2018Hamas does not want reconciliation with Israel, but the extermination of Israel. And this is why it is pivotal to make it clear that Israel\u2019s right to exist must not be relativized. Israel\u2019s security is our obligation.\u2019\n\n\u201cAmerican politicians who cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the same should be ashamed.\n\n\u201cThis weekend marked 44 years since Iranian revolutionaries overran the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans hostage. Today, Americans are once again being held hostage by forces aligned with Iranian tyranny.\n\n\u201cMany more Israelis are being held alongside them. And Israel deserves the time, space, and support it needs to bring their terrorist captors to justice.\n\n\u201cIn the days immediately following October 7th, I warned that President Biden would be pressured to withhold this support, and that familiar and morally bankrupt calls for ceasefire would threaten Israel\u2019s ability to see its defensive operations through.\n\n\u201cBut here we are, nearly a month later, watching the movement to grant Hamas amnesty reach the highest levels of our government.\n\n\u201cWar is a bloody business. That is the reality Israel faces. We should be careful before second-guessing their efforts to get innocent Israelis \u2013 and Americans \u2013 home safely, and to destroy Hamas\u2019 ability to wage war.\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=65D82117-7A97-4234-875E-7113AF624B8B"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.465081935748458, "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"}