Congressman Greg Walden (R-OR): “Mort (ZOA President Mort Klein), I want to thank you for your long term leadership of this organization – Well done! … Our peoples share a common interest in peace and Israel is a beacon of hope in a region awash in violence and intolerance … Systems developed in Israel knocked down impressive amounts of incoming missiles from Hamas in Gaza. This is a very important system. Iran is building weapons that can wipe Israel off the face of the planet. That cannot be allowed to continue. We must build on existing sanctions to tighten the screws on Iran. Together we’ll make sure that Israel is safe and secure and America as well.”
Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA) spoke of the bill he introduced to cut $500 million in U.S. aid to Egypt and to redirect it towards tuition for armed forces personnel. “We can’t justify giving money to Egypt when our own servicemen and women are suffering funding cuts to their tuition so I said, ‘Let’s take that $500 million right there.’”
Congressman Peter Roskam (R-IL): “Paul Johnson is a great historian, who wrote A History of the Jews. In the introduction, there is, he says, one group in history that has insisted that history has meaning. This claim to land and heritage are the foundation on which many Western virtues are founded. It is to be celebrated and defended. You are working for just that and I want you to be encouraged today.”
Congressman Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) said that “the pro-Israel feeling people have here is genuine because, apart from anything else, support of Israel is in the best interest of America’s foreign policy … As a loyal American, it is my duty to speak up for Israel and help build and defend the special relationship between us.”
Representative William H. Long (Billy Long, R-MO) opened by thanking ZOA ‘for the work you do because your work is extremely important … I back Israel, not because it is the right thing to do, but because it is the only thing to do … I am committed to getting every Member of Congress to visit Israel, because it is in visiting Israel that the strategic realities of the country become apparent to anyone who looks.” On the Iranian drive to obtain nuclear weapons, he said, “People need to understand that Iran is not only a threat to Israel but a threat to the United States.”
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein also addressed the crowd, thanking all of the ZOA activists for coming to Washington, D.C. to promote a strong U.S.-Israel alliance and a safe and secure Israel to the federal lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Klein stated that, “It is absurd that the Arab Peace initiative is being promoted by Secretary of State Kerry and the Arab world, which requires Israel to return to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines (with minor swaps) and which includes Israel giving away all of eastern Jerusalem to Palestinians and the entire Golan Heights to Syria. It also requires Israel to permit millions of so-called refugees to move into Israel, to establish a Palestinians state and, only after Israel does all that, will the Arabs consider normalizing relations with Israel, but not accepting Israel as a Jewish state.”