Watson Coleman: “we have all learned in our personal lives that in times of difficulty and challenge, all the extraneous matters of life…”

“we have all learned in our personal lives that in times of difficulty and challenge, all the extraneous matters of life disappear and we wisely cling to those relationships and values we hold most dear. As we as a nation confront a dangerous set of circumstance in the Middle East, we would be wise to do the same thing. The United States made a solemn, unequivocal, irrevocable commitment to the State of Israel in 1948. We did so for two reasons. First, we were responding in moral revulsion to centuries of persecution of the Jewish people around the world and specifically in Nazi Germany. Second, we were affirming the formation of a democratic society in the Middle East because we believed, then and now, the democracy is, in Lincoln's words, ``the last best hope of Earth.'' That commitment had absolutely nothing to do with politics, partisanship or the price of a gallon of gasoline. Today on this floor we renew that commitment to Israel, and by doing so, remain faithful to our own creeds and national moral identity. We as a nation are committed to democracy and the rule of law. We believe that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. We know from our own history that many disagree with that commitment. We know that those values are not self-actualizing. Sometimes free nations have to fight violent people to preserve the circumstances under which they can live in peace and freedom.…”