Tom Lantos: “when a democracy is under siege from terrorist assault, it must defend itself. I am proud of our Nation's response to…”

“when a democracy is under siege from terrorist assault, it must defend itself. I am proud of our Nation's response to the horrors of September 11. For the last 18 months, Israel has been a democracy under siege; and it has responded in the only way that any democracy must, it has defended itself. It has not asked for this war any more than we asked for ours against al Qaeda and the Taliban. But when democracies come under terrorist attack, it is morally incumbent upon us as the world's leading democracy to express our solidarity. That is what this resolution does. Since September 2000, terrorist suicide bombers have claimed 180 innocent Israeli lives, a number proportional to 9,000 Americans, three times the lives we lost on September 11. This past weekend on the Jewish sabbath, Palestinian terrorists murdered four Israeli civilians, including a 5-year-old child. This was not collateral damage, Mr. Speaker. This was the deliberate and premeditated murder of an innocent little girl. Mr. Speaker, there is no difference between the pain and anguish felt by a bereft Palestinian mother or father who lost their innocent child and the heart broken Israeli mother or father who lost theirs. But as we mourn equally the innocent causalities on both sides, we dare not treat equally those who act out of self-defense and those who act out of terrorist designs. There is no moral equivalence in this struggle.”