Political Quotes

“I have to rise in opposition to this resolution. There are several reasons why I think this further complicates the peace process. For one, it does not condemn unilateral acts by both Israelis and Palestinians, but only the Palestinian authority. The House leadership brought it up under suspension of the rules, so there are no amendments that would make it a more balanced bill. The committee refused to consider an amendment that would have achieved that objective, and so the perception is going to be that we are acting in a biased, unbalanced manner even though our intelligence community, as the ranking member of the Committee on International Relations has said, has reported that the Palestinian authority is doing everything it can right now to comply with the Oslo requirements. We are in a terribly delicate situation. I do not think that it is in anyone's interest to declare a Palestinian state on May 4. For one thing, it plays into the hands of the right wing elements in Israeli politics with elections occurring in 2 weeks. For another thing, it means that Mr. Arafat is going to find it much more difficult not to declare Palestinian statehood because it is going to look as though he is bowing to the pressures of the American political system. That is not in our interests. Mr. Arafat is our best hope right now, like it or not, for advancing the peace process.”