[IMC-DC] Demand Dick Armey Retract Call for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians

Thu May 2 22:50:13 PDT 2002

Is he mad?
_____________________________________________________________________
>ADC Action Alert:
>Demand Dick Armey Retract Call for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians
>
>
>Last night on MSNBC's highly-rated program Hardball, House Republican
>Majority Leader Dick Armey ( R-TX) called for the ethnic cleansing of
>Palestinians from the occupied territories and endorsed Israel's
>conquests of those lands.  Armey said that he "is content to have a
>Palestinian state" but is "not content to give up any part of Israel for
>the purpose of a Palestinian state." He defined the Palestinian
>territories occupied by Israel-East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza
>Strip-as Israel.  He also said he has "thought this through for a lot of
>years" and believes that Palestinians living in the West Bank should be
>removed. Armey stated that "there are many Arab nations that have many
>hundreds of thousands of acres of land, soil, and property and
>opportunity to create a Palestinian state." An incredulous Chris
>Mathews, host of Hardball, repeatedly gave Armey the opportunity to
>clarify that he was not calling for the ethnic cleansing of all
>Palestinians from Palestine, but the House Republican chief refused to
>do so:
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Well, just to repeat, you believe that the Palestinians who
>are now living on the West Bank should get out of there?
>Rep. ARMEY: Yes.
>
>
>Armey's call for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians is an
>endorsement of massive war crimes probably rising to the level of crimes
>against humanity. Armey owes the American and Palestinian people, and
>indeed the entire world, an immediate retraction and apology.  The
>complete transcript of his remarks can be read in the transcript below.
>
>
>ACTION REQUESTED:
>
>
>ADC urges all its members and supporters to contact Dick Armey and
>demand that he not only retract but also apologize for his endorsement
>of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
>
>
>House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX)
>301 Cannon House Office Building
>Washington, DC 20515-4326
>
>
>Tel: 202-225-7772 (Personal Office)
>Fax: 202-226-2028 (Personal Office)
>
>
>Tel: 202-225-4000 (Congressional Leadership Office)
>Fax: 202-226-8100 (Congressional Leadership Office)
>
>
>Comments can also be sent via his website at: <http://armey.house.gov>
>
>
>TRANSCRIPT
>Hardball with Chris Matthews (9:00 PM ET) - CNBC
>May 1, 2002 Wednesday
>
>
>CHRIS MATTHEWS, host: Congressman Dick Armey of Texas leads the
>Republicans in the US House of Representatives.
>
>
>Congressman Armey, Mr. Majority Leader, why is the Congress about to
>pass a resolution supporting Israel at a time that the president is
>trying to walk a line between Israel and its Arab neighbors?
>
>
>Representative RICHARD ARMEY (Republican, Majority Leader): Well, we've
>had--we feel very strongly in the House of Representatives that we have
>a moral obligation to protect the safety, security and freedom of
>Israel. And the Congress wants to speak on that, both bodies want to do
>so. We've discussed it with the White House, and everybody is
>comfortable. We will go--go ahead with that tomorrow.  It is very
>important to the world that Israel be--the freedom of Israel be
>protected and honored.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: What good is this going to do anybody?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: Well, I think, again, we--we want to make the point...
>
>
>MATTHEWS: To whom?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: The president of the United States is trying to make a
>transition in foreign policy from what it has been to what it must be in
>the future.  We can no longer appease aggressors in the Middle East.
>There obviously will never be a peace.  The goal is no Jews between them
>and the sea, and we must make it very clear that if you want to talk
>about peace and talk the talk, you must walk the walk, and that must be
>respect for Israel's right to live freely, safely and securely.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: OK.  Let's talk about the realities over there.  There's a
>fight between the Arabs and the--and the Israelis over who owns the
>Pal--all of Palestine.  Do you support the idea that there be a
>Palestine state alongside Israel?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: I am perfectly content to have a Palestinian state alongside
>Israel if it is a state that honors others borders.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: You are in total, 180 disagreement with Tom Delay who said
>this week that the entire West Bank belongs to Israel and it belongs to
>that country that's not an Arab country.
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: I...
>
>
>MATTHEWS: It should not have a statehood.
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: No, I'm perfectly content to have a Palestinian state.  I am
>not content to give up any part of Israel for that purpose of that
>Palestinian state.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Wait a minute.  Tom Delay's, whose resolution you're going to
>put on the floor tomorrow and schedule, has said that the entire West
>Bank, he calls it Judean Samaria, belongs to Israel. How can you say
>that this resolution doesn't support the Delay position which is Israel
>has a right to grab the entire West Bank?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: No, I--I'm content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank.
>I'm also content to have the Palestinians have a homeland and even for
>that to be somewhere near Israel, but I'm not content to see Israel give
>up land for the purpose of peace to the Palestinians who will not accept
>it and would not honor it.  It is time to...
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Well, where do you put the Palestinian state, in Norway?  Once
>the Israelis take back the West Bank permanently and annex it, there's
>no place else for the Palestinians to have a state.
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: No, no, that's not--that's not at all true.  There are many
>Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of land
>and--and soil and property and opportunity to create a Palestinian
>state.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: So you would transport--you would transport the Palestinians
>from Palestine to somewhere else and call it their state?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: I would be perfectly content to have a homeland, just
>as--most of...
>
>
>MATTHEWS: But not in Palestine?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: Most of the people who now populate Israel were transported
>from all over the world to that land and they made it their home.  The
>Palestinians can do the same, and we're per--perfectly content to work
>with the Palestinians in doing that.  We are not willing to sacrifice
>Israel for the notion of a Palestinian homeland.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Right, no.  No, that's not the question and that's not your
>answer.  The question here is: What is the future of the Palestinians
>who are fighting Israel right now?  You say there future is somewhere
>besides Palestine.  That runs in the way of US policy going back to
>1948.  It runs--it runs completely against the president's policy and
>every policy I've heard a president take, which is that Israel has to
>give up its settlements on the West Bank and give it back to the Arabs
>in exchange for peace.  You say the deal should be the Palestinians
>leave?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: That's right.  Palestinians say the deal should be the
>Israel--that--that the Israelis leave.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Have you talked about this with the president?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: I happened to believe that the Palestinians should leave.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Have you ever told George Bush, the president from your home
>state of Texas, that you think the Palestinians should get up and go and
>leave Palestine and that's the solution?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: I'm probably telling him that right now.  This is...
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Have you thought this through?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: I have thought this through.  I've thought it through for a
>lot of years.  I believe that Israel is the state for the Jewish people.
>It needs to be honored.  It needs to be protected.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Yeah.  That's not what you're saying.  You're saying Israel
>should expand its borders to the Jordan River...
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: No.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: ...and kick out all the Palestinians?  That's what you just
>said.
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: I am--I am content to have Israel occupy that land that it
>now occupies and to have those people who have been aggressors against
>Israel retired to some other arena, and I would be happy to have them
>make a home.  I would be happy to have all of these Arab nations that
>have been so hell bent to drive Israel out of the Middle East to get
>together, find some land and make a home for the Palestinians.  I think
>it can be done.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: So the president, who has been dutifully, for the last couple
>of weeks, trying to get the Israeli army to withdraw from the West Bank,
>should stop that, let the Israeli defense force take over the West Bank
>and hold it and make it part of Israel?  You completely disagree with
>the president's policy then?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: I am--I am perfectly content to have Israel hold and occupy
>the land that it has at this moment.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Well, how about though-how about the Jenin in Samaria?  Tom
>Delay, whose measure you're putting on the floor tomorrow, says that all
>the West Bank, Jenin, Judea, Masada, everything belongs to Israel. It's
>not occupied territory.
>  It's Israeli.  Is that your position?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: Well, first of all, Chris, I think we have to be real
>careful on how you are interpreting jo--Tom's provision.  I think Tom's
>provision is principally and primarily that the Jewish people have a
>right to defend themselves.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Well, just to repeat, you believe that the Palestinians who
>are now living on the West Bank should get out of there?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: Yes.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: OK.  Thank you very much.  More with Congressman Dick Armey
>coming back.  You're watching HARDBALL.
>   (Announcements)
>
>
>MATTHEWS: We're back with Congressman Dick Army who is head of the
>Republican Party.  He's majority leader of the US House of
>Representatives.
>
>
>Mr. Armey, the president's people, somebody in the highest levels of
>this administration, is leaking the fact that the United States is
>planning to attack Iraq sometime in next year.  Do you think that would
>require a congressional resolution?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: I don't know that that leak is out there.  It's--I'm missing
>it if it's out there.  I have to tell you, Chris, in the last year or
>so, I've come to where I hardly trust anything I read in the papers
>anymore until the president of the United States tells me himself that
>he is planning such an operation.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Yeah.  So he never mentioned that in the meeting--in the
>breakfast meeting today he never mentioned Iraq?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: No, he certainly did not.  He certainly--he certainly did
>not and he certainly did not talk about any kind of military operation
>relative to Iraq.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Just so the people out there know where the House of
>Representatives stands, does the--does the House of Representatives have
>to vote to support a US military attack on Iraq if the president chooses
>to make one?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: I would think that as we've seen this president and his
>father act in the past, before he took any kind of military action that
>deployed our troops on a field of conflict, he would probably come to us
>and ask for our support and our consideration in the matter.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Well, under the Constitution, would that be necessary?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: I think the con--you'll have to go to a constitutional
>scholar on that.  There's so much confusion on that point right now.  I
>cannot answer it within a hypothetical context.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: OK.  Let me ask you about this bad news we got this week from
>Director Mueller, who is head of the FBI, that they haven't found a
>shred of paper that gives us any idea of how the September 11th horror
>was--was concocted, planned, carried out.  No evidence at all.
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: Well, I--you've got a bunch of people hiding in caves,
>working out plans and scheming and plotting.  Why are we upset that we
>don't have any hard paper trail on that?  I--I would never have expected
>to have found one.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: How do we--how do we feel that we've ended the war against
>al-Qaeda and caught the people who did what they did September 11th?
>How do we know we've won that war?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: Well, I don't know for sure when you know you've won that
>war. We don't know how many people are scattered all over the world.
>This is a--a case even where if you caught and killed bin Laden you got
>a snake that can continue to crawl and continue to be dangerous even if
>the head has been cut off it.  So you have to stay vigilant for a very,
>very long time.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Whose head would you rather get, Mr. Leader, Mr. Armey? Would
>you rather get the head of Osama bin Laden or the head of Saddam Hussein
>if you had it on the platter?  If you were a salome right now and--and
>St. John was offering you a head, which head would you demand?
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: Well, I think right now the world would say 'We--we've got
>to stop bin Laden who is--who has said, "I'll take this terror to every
>corner of the world."'
>
>
>MATTHEWS: Right.
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: Saddam Hussein is--at least is confining himself, as it is
>right now, to his own territory, although we're sure he's supporting
>terrorists across the world.
>
>
>MATTHEWS: I like--I like you now you've said what I wanted you to say
>finally which is we've got to get bin Laden.  Thank you very much, US
>Congressman Dick Armey of Texas.
>
>
>Rep. ARMEY: OK.
>---
>Chris Toensing
>Editor, Middle East Report
>1500 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Suite 119
>Washington, DC  20005
>
>
>t (202) 223-3677
>e ctoensing at merip.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


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