Editor’s Note: The following is a slightly condensed version of an address delivered by Representative DeLay (R-TX) to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Boca Raton, Florida, on the evening of Feb. 1, the day of the Shuttle Columbia disaster.
Friends, we gather tonight on an evening of sorrow and national mourning in both the United States and Israel. We lost some courageous explorers earlier today.
Seven daring dreamers knew the full measure of danger they risked, and they shouldered those risks and pushed through the last boundary.
At this moment, America and Israel grieve together. I can think of no two nations that are so connected by so many timeless truths. We are kindred nations and tonight we are siblings in mourning.
Let us recall Nehemiah’s prayer repeating G-d’s instructions to Moses:
“If you return to me and obey my commands then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.”
In these moments of loss, we confront the ancient questions that torment the human mind: Persevere, or relent? Survive, or surrender?
Of all the peoples of the Earth, the House of Israel has answered these questions most defiantly.
You have persevered. You have survived. And you have prospered.
This is so because each of you has chosen to view the calamities of history not as ultimate defeats.
Power of the G-d of Abraham
Six million Jews died in the Holocaust. Almost all of European Jewry destroyed. Yet, the creation of the State of Israel was the answer of the Jewish people.
As you know, an Israeli astronaut, Colonel Ilan Ramon, was aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. He carried a drawing made by a Jewish child who died at Auschwitz.
That child, Peter Ginz, depicted the Earth as viewed from mountains on the Moon. Colonel Ramon himself said, “I feel that my journey fulfills the dream of Peter Ginz 58 years on.”
This is the great power of the G-d of Abraham that has blessed the Jewish people. It is what carries you from destruction to ever-greater glory.
I believe that the American people possess this same spirit.
President Theodore Roosevelt said, “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”
As the most fitting tribute to the astronauts who perished, let us recommit ourselves to the defining dream that dominated their lives: a bold vision for America and Israel in space.
I want to thank you again for having me here this evening. As sadness and loss surrounds all of us, it is good to be with men and women I call my friends.
Together, we have arrived at a defining hour in the history of free nations. And it is true that we live in an uncertain time.
Freedom on the March
Yet, I have never been more certain of the greatness of our nation. I come before you this evening with a message: freedom is on the march, and tyranny is in retreat.
Of course, our enemies have not surrendered. We are still at war, and total victory remains a distant objective, but we have great reasons for optimism.
President Bush, a man of remarkable courage, has rallied the nation. Our mission is clear. Our leader is strong. And our commitment is unwavering. The moral and military might of the United States has been enlisted in the pursuit of a principled foreign policy. It is a policy of timeless truths, and not passing conveniences. It is a policy that serves all nations, and not just one people.
