Shelley Berkley: “About three Augusts ago, a little over that, 3 rac{1}{2} ext{ years ago, I was part of a congressional delegation that…”

“About three Augusts ago, a little over that, 3 rac{1}{2} ext{ years ago, I was part of a congressional delegation that was on the border between the Gaza and Israel as the Israeli military was removing the last Israeli settlers from the Gaza. As you can imagine, Congressman, it was a very painful thing to watch, seeing families being torn apart, taken away from the lands that they had settled, where nothing had existed before they created their settlements, being taken from their neighbors and the villages that they created, truly oases in the desert, was hurtful. But I understood why the Israelis did it. They unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza with the hope that turning that land back to the Palestinians would have the desired effect of bringing peace to that area. Rather than the peace that the Israelis had hoped for, the Palestinians, particularly when Hamas took over, became not an area where one would build schools and homes and infrastructure and demonstrate to the world that the Palestinian people were able to create a state of their own, rather than demonstrating to the world that they were capable of self-governance, quite the opposite became the very harsh reality.”