Carr for Congress - Israel Position Paper

By Elan S. Carr

BACKGROUND

I am the son of refugees who were rescued by the State of Israel.

My mother was a young girl in Iraq when Iraqi authorities arrested her father for being Jewish. She remembers crying as he was paraded through city streets in leg irons. She remembers visiting him in prison. And she remembers having to leave him behind as she, her mother, and her baby brother fled to Israel as refugees.

My step-father and his family fled to Israel from Bulgaria during Nazi occupation. My father-in-law fled to Israel from communist Romania. And like so many other Israelis, my mother, my step-father, and my father-in-law each proudly wore the uniform of the Israel Defense Forces and defended, by arms, the right of Israel to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

For my family and me, the modern State of Israel truly represents the "hope of 2000 years," and I feel that hope personally and profoundly. I grew up speaking fluent Hebrew, I visit Israel every year, and I speak Hebrew with my own children at home. In 1996, when I had the opportunity to give something back to the country that had done so much for my family and me, I left the New York firm where I had been practicing law and spent nearly a year in Israel helping to create the first-ever public defender's office there.

During the 10 months when I lived and worked in Israel, I saw first-hand the ravages of suicide bus bombings, watched as Hizbullah's rockets rained down on northern Israel, and witnessed the angst felt by Israelis of all ages who struggled daily with existential threats to their families and their country.

My experiences in Israel helped me to realize how critical it is that the United States maintain our own military preeminence in the world and stand resolutely against terrorism and radical Islam. In service of those principles, I joined the U.S. Army and eventually deployed to Iraq. During my combat tour overseas, I helped to lead an anti-terrorism team in life-saving missions throughout Iraq, and I prosecuted terrorists who had attacked Americans. These roles gave me a deep understanding of the dangers we face, and of how best to protect America and our allies.

As a Member of Congress, I will be a leader on all issues that bear on the U.S.-Israel relationship and on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. My personal history and that of family, my intimate knowledge of Israel and Israeli society, and my understanding of the threats faced by both the United States and Israel will inform every decision I make and will render me an influential voice among my colleagues. The results of my leadership will be a stronger and more prosperous America, and a safer and more secure Israel.

STATEMENT ON THE UNITED STATES-ISRAEL RELATIONSHIP

The United States has no better ally than the State of Israel, and Israel has no better friend than the United States.

The remarkable relationship between the two countries is based on deeply-rooted values, including love of freedom and peace, equal rights for woman, minorities, and gays, an open and self-critical press, a commitment to the rule of law, and a strong military governed by decency, human rights, and international law. These are some of the values that have made America the world's greatest society, and they are values that Israel exemplifies. Additionally, shared interests and common threats have brought the two countries even closer.

The United States must stand strongly in support of Israel. Support for Israel must be a core principle of U.S. foreign policy, must be bi-partisan and unwavering, and must not depend in any way on which Israeli political party is democratically elected to lead Israel's government.

We must continue to expand and enhance our security and defense cooperation with Israel. We must also stand with Israel publicly and diplomatically. Any disagreements between the two counties should be resolved privately, because diplomatic distance between us makes each of us more vulnerable to our enemies.

America's commitment to foreign aid is a hallmark of our international leadership and a key component of our efforts to promote peace and stability throughout the world. The United States must not reduce its foreign aid commitments, because doing so will only impose upon us far greater costs in the future. Similarly, America's military assistance package to Israel is an investment in our own security. That investment must not only continue to ensure Israel's qualitative military superiority in the region, but it must be made commensurate with the rising threats in the Middle East, so that Israel may always have the tools and flexibility to meet those rising threats.

STATEMENT ON IRAN

Since the revolution of 1979, Iran has been among the world's leading sources of violence, instability, and danger. I have personally been exposed to Iran's evils. In 2003 and 2004, when I served as an Army officer in Iraq, Iranian training and Iranian weapons claimed the lives of many brave Americans with whom I served, and created widespread destruction in numerous Iraqi cities. On multiple occasions, I myself endured rocket fire and small arms attacks at the hands of Iran's proxy armies. Iran's pernicious mischief has cost us dearly in Iraq, undermined Lebanon's hopes for stability, and subjected our allies, especially Israel, to terror and violence. And most urgently of all, Iran's relentless effort to acquire a nuclear weapons capability is perhaps the single greatest threat to peace and security in the world today.

Iran must not be allowed to acquire, or even further to approach, a nuclear weapons capability. In seeking a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program, the United States must not in any way diminish the punishing economic sanctions that succeeded in forcing Iran to the negotiating table. Congress must not hesitate or delay in giving the President the authority to impose new sanctions, without need for further legislation, should negotiations with Iran stall. And in every aspect of our dealings with Iran, the United States must back its policies with a credible and real threat of military force. Only through backbreaking sanctions, coupled with a credible and real threat of military force, will the diplomatic efforts now underway have any chance of obtaining the result that the United States, Israel, and the world desperately require.

Any negotiated settlement with Iran must include, at minimum, complete dismantling of Iran's capacity to enrich uranium, complete dismantling of Iran's capacity to produce plutonium, an end to Iran's intercontinental ballistic missile program, an end to Iran's appalling human rights abuses of its own citizens, and an end to Iran's proxy wars throughout the Middle East.

Should negotiations fail, and should Israel launch a preemptive military attack on Iran, the United States must express strong and unequivocal support for Israel's actions, veto any condemnatory resolutions brought before the United Nations Security Council, and provide Israel with any matériel it requires in order to execute its operation decisively.

STATEMENT ON TERRORISM

I have witnessed the horrors of terrorism face-to-face, and few Americans can match my track record of fighting terrorism.

I have personally been in close proximity to terrorist suicide bombings in both Israel and Iraq. One of those attacks left a Tel Aviv street strewn with bloodstained Purim costumes that had been worn by children. Another attack that occurred a short distance from me succeeded in murdering the president of the Iraqi Governing Council. I directly witnessed small arms attacks in both Israel and Iraq, and I myself endured repeated rocket and mortar attacks in Iraq.

When I visit Sderot, as I have done on multiple occasions, I bring a personal understanding of what it is like to hear the scream of a rocket's tail fin only seconds before feeling the ground heave beneath one's feet from the terrible force of the explosion.

When I served as a U.S. Army officer in Iraq, I helped to lead an anti-terrorism team in life-saving missions throughout the country. I wrote classified reports on terrorist courses of action and how to defend against them. And then, when my combat tour of duty in Iraq was extended, I prosecuted terrorists who had attacked and injured Americans.

The United States must never project weakness in dealing with terrorist networks or their sponsors, nor can we afford to retreat in the face of terrorist attacks. The surest way to breed terrorism is to grant it victories. Instead, the United States must target terrorist leaders and infrastructure, paralyze the financial networks that fund terrorism, act strongly against state sponsors of terrorism, and promote societal progress and economic opportunity throughout the Middle East in order to undermine terrorist ideology.

Israel has the sovereign and inalienable right to defend itself, by itself, from terrorism and its sponsors. The United States must never act or express itself in a way that undermines Israel's sovereign right of self-defense. And we must always express strong support for Israel's right to employ military force to defend its borders and its citizens from terrorist attacks.

STATEMENT ON ISRAEL'S NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY

Throughout Jewish prayers and texts, peace is extolled as among humanity's greatest aspirations. No country in the world has done more to seek peace than has Israel. Despite the terrible costs of Egyptian wars of aggression, the moment Egypt was willing to make peace, Israel uprooted Jewish settlements and returned to Egypt the Sinai peninsula, an oil-rich land mass three times the size of Israel. In the hope of reaching a settlement with the Palestinians, Israel made repeated offers to give away vast parts of its ancient homeland so that the Palestinians can have a state of their own. And by disengaging with Gaza, Israel uprooted Jewish settlements and made territorial concessions even when the Palestinians refused to make peace with Israel.

Because Judea and Samaria are disputed territories over which both Israel and the Palestinians have claims, the only way to resolve the dispute over those territories is through honest negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians based upon mutual respect and recognition of the existence of conflicting claims.

The United States should support those negotiations. Only the negotiating parties can decide for themselves what concessions they are prepared to make. In its role as mediator, the United States may privately set forth suggested solutions to any of the issues discussed, but we must not pressure either party, nor make public pronouncements with respect to the contours of any potential settlement.

STATEMENT ON JERUSALEM

Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, and has been so since the reign of King David. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any other country or of any other people. Since its reunification in 1967, this shining city "of gold, and of bronze, and of light" has emerged also as a beacon of freedom, of tolerance, and of economic prosperity.

The United States must immediately recognize Israel's sovereignty over its ancient capital, require the Department of State to end its refusal to list Jerusalem as part of Israel, and move our embassy to Jerusalem. The United States must never pressure Israel to cede any part of Jerusalem, to divide Jerusalem, or to attenuate in any way its sovereignty over the city.

STATEMENT ON THE "ARAB SPRING"

Convulsive change in the Arab world has brought with it both great hope and great danger. History has shown us that forces of extremism and tyranny will seek power during periods of instability--even when instability arises from genuine and hopeful movements of democratic reform. American leadership in the Middle East is more critical today than ever before. Without our vigorous leadership, the great potential of the Arab Spring will be lost to the forces of radical Islam. Such a tragedy would imperil both the United States and Israel, and we must not allow that to happen.

STATEMENT ON THE DELEGITIMIZATION OF ISRAEL

Israel is a deeply moral and law-abiding country, and a role model for the world. The efforts by some to delegitimize Israel are nothing other than a modern manifestation of anti-Semitism. That Israel is regularly singled out for criticism within the United Nations and at the hands of certain Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), even as the most horrendous human rights violations in the world are ignored, is a grave injustice.

The United States must condemn any and all efforts to delegitimize Israel and must act strongly against any efforts to boycott Israel.

As the current international president of Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), I have been a leader in opposing efforts to delegitimize Israel on college campuses. I have made it one of AEPi's top policy priorities to stand strongly with Israel and to oppose the notorious Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movements that are prevalent on college campuses today. And by training hundreds of students to become leaders of the pro-Israel movements on their campuses, AEPi under my leadership has played a central role in opposing and often defeating anti-Israel legislation and activities on campuses throughout North America and Europe.