Political Quotes

“Mr. President, nothing in this bill refers to Israel, and nothing would apply to Israel. To imagine that any money could be removed from Israel, we would have to imagine that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accuses Israel of not protecting the Embassy. It is a canard, and it is a typical one that has been used many times. Nothing in the bill says we would have no aid to these countries. It simply says to these countries that if they protect our Embassy--Libya, if you continue to cooperate and send back terrorists and catch the assassins, you will continue to get our aid. It conditions aid on behavior. Right now, aid is not being conditioned on behavior. We have Pakistan, which has actually tortured a friend of America's. Dr. Shakil Afridi has been tortured for a year by the Pakistani Government. The Foreign Relations Committee has done nothing to address that, and so we have Dr. Shakil Afridi now in prison for years--for the rest of his life, essentially. I don't see any action forthcoming from the Foreign Affairs Committee. What I would say to my colleagues is this is a bill that places restrictions on foreign aid, it does not end foreign aid. It doesn't breach the Israel-Egypt treaty or the Camp David Accords. It is a canard. It is brought up routinely to try to prevent any changes or reform in foreign aid. We always hear it is going to end aid to Israel. It is a canard. What I would say to my colleagues is this bill does not end foreign aid.…”