The United States Congress will make sure that Israel has all the tools necessary to defend itself because its battle against terror groups is also America’s battle, US Representative David Kustoff (R-TN) said in Jerusalem as Israel battles two Iranian proxy groups on its border.
“In your fight to eradicate Hamas and any other genocidal extremist group that threatens your way of life, America is with you all the way,” he said.
Kustoff spoke at a special event in the Knesset to mark the creation of the first-ever Knesset-House Parliamentary Friendship Group.
He stood in the library flanked Israeli and American flags, in the presence of US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew and Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana.
No negotiations with terrorists
“We will not negotiate with radical terrorists,” Kustoff said. "We will not surrender to kill us, and we will not allow evil to prosper. This fight is not one to endure alone,” he said.
“We will work together until we wipe terrorism off the face of the earth, and until Israel lives at peace with their neighbors,” Kustoff said.
“I will do everything in my power to make sure that Israel has the tools” that it “needs to defend herself and to destroy the forces” that seek to eradicate the values of the Western world, Kustoff explained.
The attacks by terror groups against Israel are also an assault on a “free and liberated society” and “a direct attack on morality, on truth, on reason, and on goodwill,” he stated.
Similarly, he said, Congress has stood firm against “the blatant and brazen forms of antisemitism that have arisen in the United States and all over the world.”
The event was held amid a period of tension between Israel and the United States over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy with regard to the IDF’s two front wars, particularly the conflict in Gaza.
Netanyahu irked Washington in particular when he publicly complained about the slow walking of arms to Israel, which Congress had already approved. He then said that Lew had promised him the issue would be resolved.
At the Knesset event, Lew stressed the Biden Administration’s support for Israel, particularly its military support.“Israel should know, and I believe, does know, that the United States will always be a close ally, as President Biden said on October 10 and on so many occasions since we have Israel's back,” Lew stated.
The US commitment to Israel's defense is ironclad,” he said, adding, “That's going to change. Similarly, our efforts to bring all of the hostages home will not cease until we succeed.”
He recalled that Congress had approved $14 billion in military assistance to Israel, “This aid ensures that Israel's stockpiles of munitions are replenished. The IDF is the most sophisticated military in the Middle East, and the US support guarantees that this won't change,” he said.