Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act--Motion to Proceed--

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, it has been just 6 months and a week since October 7. The whole world was shaken as a flood, as they actually called it, an Al-Aqsa flood of Hamas terrorists came through the wall separating Gaza and Israel in multiple places, and over the next several hours, they murdered 1,200 Israelis. They took 253 hostage, including 133 who are still hostage still today--6 months and a week.

Last week--now, I guess, 9 days ago--I was in Israel. I spent time with Israelis to meet with multiple different leaders and get a chance just to be able to talk to different folks in different parts of the country to see what is going on, on the ground.

This is a painful moment for the entire world but definitely a painful moment for Israel and for the entire region. We think back just 7 months ago and all the conversation was normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. And then a group of Hamas terrorists stepped in and killed as many people as they possibly could in an effort to also kill that normalization that is happening around the entire region, to do whatever they could to be able to drive a wedge, and so that peace could not continue to advance in the region.

What has happened since then has been painful for the entire world to watch, but it has been really painful for the people in that region more than anyone else.

I traveled to the far southern tip of Israel, along the border with Egypt, to be able to meet with some of the folks who are in that area, to be able to talk about the relationship between Egypt and Israel and what is happening day to day. I traveled to the kibbutzes that literally are right on the border with Gaza that are now vacant and empty and devastated.

I can't even begin to explain to this body, unless you have seen it before, the pain of walking through a large kibbutz where there were hundreds of people who lived just a few months ago and now to see every building shot up with bullet holes, burned, destroyed, and think at 6:38 that morning, during a Jewish holiday, on that Saturday morning, October 7, many people were still asleep when a group of Hamas terrorists came into their homes and murdered many in that village and took many hostages from that kibbutz.

We could literally walk by the doors, and the person who was walking with us could say: That family died, that family is a hostage, that family died, and go door-to-door as we walked around to be able to see it.

The person who was walking us through could even walk us through his own home, which was obliterated, and his son's home right there who died, and then he could point to Gaza and say: My other son is over there in Gaza right now.

At the same time, flowers were blooming and the grounds were beautiful and you realize the irony of this moment. Hostages being held in Gaza, families who are struggling every single day trying to make sense of this craziness and trying to figure out why a peaceful kibbutz, living their lives, farming, manufacturing, was overrun by a group of terrorists.

Right up the road we stopped by the Nova festival site, which is an absolutely beautiful location for outdoor concerts, for venues, for gathering, and has been for years. The trees and the setting, it is just beautiful. But the day that we were there, there were echoing noises of artillery that was being fired off literally within hundreds of yards of us as we were meeting with some of the folks who survived the Nova festival.

One person in particular whom we got a chance to be able to chat with and to be able to pick her brain about the ``what happens next'' was in one of the bomb shelters because there was a launch of missiles coming at them, but then those bomb shelters became places where literally they were sitting ducks for the terrorists as they came in with gunfire.

We traveled all the way to the north, had the opportunity to be able to visit with some of the mayors who are right along the border with Syria and with Lebanon, where whole towns are evacuated, whole towns where people can't survive the onslaught of artillery coming at them constantly.

We lose track of the fact that there are about a quarter million Israelis right now who are internally displaced as well, who live along the border with Gaza or live along the border with Lebanon or Syria. Those folks have also had to flee because while the world in the last several days has talked about 330 drone strikes, missile strikes, ballistics and cruise missiles that have come from Iran directly, for some reason, the world has lost track of the fact, not about the 330 bombs and missiles that have come at Israel in the last week, but the 12,000 rockets that have been fired at Israel since October 7--12,000.

Mr. President, 9,100 of those rockets have come in from Gaza launching at civilians in Israel; 3,100 of those rockets have been launched from Lebanon, from Hezbollah, into the north of Israel; and 35 rockets have been fired from Syria at Israel.

And I asked people: How many rockets would be fired at your house before you would respond in a way to be able to make it stop? Israel has had 12,000 fired at them since October 7. The United States has never ever put up with that without responding in a forceful way to say we are going to make it stop.

There has been a lot of conversation about Rafah, so I had a lot of conversations with Israeli leadership to be able to talk to them about the plan and what they are going to do.

You see there are Hamas brigades. Now, when we think about terrorism, often it is just random terrorists who are gathering. But Hamas actually has a military structure with brigades that they have actually put together of fighting brigades. Most of those brigades have been broken up. The remaining brigades of Hamas terrorists are all living underground at Rafah.

And while we need to do everything we can--and I had great conversations with Israelis about everything that they are doing to protect civilians and protect civilian lives that have nothing to do with this onslaught of terrorism, they are also keenly aware that the people who are living underground in Rafah are making public statements on social media that as soon as this war is over, they are coming again to do another October 7. And the Israelis are being very, very clear: We are not going to allow that to happen. We are not going to allow our Israeli citizens to be slaughtered in their beds early on a Saturday morning again.

So they are doing everything they can to be able to prepare for that moment, to be able to stop the group of terrorists who are living underground. It is interesting to me when I think about the Hamas terrorist organization. In the United States, our military trains and prepares itself to get between violence and civilians. Hamas does the opposite. Hamas actually trains and equips to put civilians between its military and violence.

They put the civilians on the top layer while the safe shelters underground are occupied by the terrorist armies. It is stunning to me just the mental difference between the two and how jarring that that really is.

Interesting conversations I had with some of the Israeli leadership, as well, just to be able to chat with them, to say: You can't eliminate Hamas by trying to be able to attack them over and over again to be able to eliminate all people who think like Hamas and who are actually a part of Hamas.

And their response was interesting to me. Their response was that we fully understand we are not going to obliterate everyone who is in Hamas. We want to stop the threat that is coming at us, but we understand that there will be members of Hamas in the future who will still think that way. And their response to me was there are still Nazis in the world right now. There are still people who claim to be a Nazi or a neo-Nazi right now, but the difference is, they don't run Germany. And their first goal was that we want to end Hamas's rule, a terrorist organization having the capacity to run the entity right next door to us.

We understand that there will still be people who think like that, but we want to show them there is a better way. And we still want to be able to have peace with our neighbors.

You see, this connection between Hezbollah and Syria and Hamas is Iran's plan and has been for a long time to build what they are calling a ring of fire around Israel. It was their way of protecting themselves--for the Iranian regime--that if they made it so violent around Israel, Israel would never actually attack Iran. That was their plan.

What is interesting was Israel has been working to be able to build a ring of ice around Iran. That is the Abraham Accords. As Iran is trying to make the region more violent, Israel is trying to make the region more peaceful. It is stark when it is side by side, isn't it? Israel is working to build relationships and has with UAE and with Bahrain.

They have had longstanding relationships with Jordan and with Egypt. They are working in their relationship with Saudi Arabia as they have even added Morocco into the Abraham Accords.

They are building a ring of ice into the region to bring the temperature down in a violent, hostile area, and for the folks who are in Hamas, they hate the thought of that because they don't want normalization; they want violence and control. And as they scream, ``from the river to the sea,'' they mean the death of every Israeli, and, quite frankly, every Jew worldwide. And they have been clear about that.

Now, what do we need to do as Americans? I think we need to be attentive in several areas. One is, Russia has formed an alliance with Iran. Many of the weapon systems that are being shot right now at Ukrainians are actually Iranian weapon systems, and we should not ignore that. This alliance between Russia and Iran continues to grow. In just the past several years, Russia has dramatically increased its number of military bases in Syria.

They have now gone over 100 there, and there are 103 bases now in Syria that are Russian active bases. We should pay attention to that.

For Iran, we have seen clearly what they are doing, how they continue to attack. Again, there is this focus on 330 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles that were fired at Israel just this past week. What people may not be tracking is what continues to happen from Lebanon, with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah continuing to attack Israel.

Just in the past 24 hours, Hezbollah has attacked northern Israeli communities and cities six times in the last 24 hours. But, of course, no media is covering that. But if you are in one of the communities that is now vacant in northern Israel--and that they fled and they are living in hotels or with relatives or fled to some other location from northern Israel--they are keenly aware of what continues to happen there.

We have got to deal with the continued threat and awakening from Russia, but we have got to also think seriously about what is happening with the regime in Iran. We, as a nation, have tried to pacify Iran. We tried to isolate them diplomatically.

Now, I don't call for a military attack on Iran. No one wants violence and war. We are not interested in our sons and daughters being involved in another conflict. But to think that Iran is going to suddenly be peaceful, when their regime is intent on trying to destroy Israel at the time, should awaken all of us to the reality of where Iran really is.

It was also good to be able to see, when 330 projectiles were coming at Israel this week, that the Americans stood by their side. They shot down a lot of those. The Israelis obviously shot down the majority of them. But the British also were engaged in shooting those down. We had French that were engaged. But also the Jordanians were engaged. The Saudis were engaged. The region is pushing back on a violent Iran that is intent on making the region worse and more unstable, not better.

Iran has used the vacuum of what has happened in Syria to move in their radicalism across Syria, and they continue to make it a more and more toxic place in Syria and in Iraq.

We, as the United States, should turn up our sanctions even more. We, as the United States, should isolate Iran even more. We, as the United States, should use every leverage that we have to isolate not only their economy but to be able to be focused in on that regime, because, quite frankly, that regime is oppressing its own people.

Our problem, as a nation, is not the Iranian people. They are living under the oppression of the Iranian regime as well. It is the regime that is there. And while some Members of this body have called for a change in leadership in Israel, I would call for a change in leadership in Iran, because that is really the problem in the region.

And we should find ways to be able to apply as much pressure as we can on that regime and to be able to message to the people of Iran, as often as we possibly can: We see you in the oppression that you live under every single day, and we wish better for you--for well-educated young men and women who live under the oppressive thumb of that leadership.

Something else we can do as the United States is to stop allowing our soil to be the place where the Iranian regime can spew their hatred. This Thursday, the Iranian Foreign Minister is flying to the United States to be able to speak to a group of people at the U.N., and our administration has given him a visa.

I have called on Secretary Blinken to say, literally: This is one of the Iranian leaders who is a leading voice in the IRGC, who is a leading voice in the attack, in the preparation for October 7, who is a leading voice of hatred toward the United States and the West and our ally Israel. We should not extend a visa while Iran is attacking actively from their soil and from all of their proxies. We should not extend a visa to the Iranian Foreign Minister to come stand on our soil, in our country, and spew his hatred. If he wants to do that internationally, he can.

Now, I understand the U.N. is a body and a place where we have allowed voices from all over the world to come speak. But do you know what? There was a moment when President Obama denied a visa to Iranian leaders because of where they were. There was a moment when President Trump also denied some visas to some of the Iranian leaders because of what they were actively doing.

This is a moment when President Biden and Secretary Blinken should tell the Iranian Foreign Minister: Not this week, not right now, not at all.

When you are attacking our friends, we should not loan them bits of our soil to do it from our territory. We should make it clear that the Iranian leadership that oppresses its own people and attacks our allies--and, by the way, uses their proxies to murder Americans who are also serving in the region--we should make it very clear: We will not allow that on our soil.

I made it clear when I was in Israel that the people of the United States see the people of Israel. We understand what they are living under. And, as a nation that has faced terrorism in our Nation, we understand the emotion that they have at this point, and we understand their tenacity.

We, as the United States, should be very clear: We have an ally, and it is Israel. We are going to walk with her. We are going to help Israel in every way that we can because she has been attacked and is in the middle of the war.

And when you walk through the streets of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, you feel it. Just like when you are walking through the streets along the border with Gaza and Lebanon and Syria, you feel it. They are ready for peace. And Israel is actively building a ring of ice in the region to bring down the temperature of the region to push back directly on Iran's ring of fire.

We, as a Nation, should be clear on which one we support--those who are bringing peace or those who are bringing violence and hatred? We should make that continually clear and continue to be able to act on it diplomatically and, when we need to, to protect our allies in every way we can, like we did this week with Israel.

Let's pray for the peace of Jerusalem, but let's also stand by her.
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