Stand With Israel

Stand With Israel

When I was stationed on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier deployed off the coasts of North Korea and China, I was one of seven Tactical Action Officers on board. The seven of us were charged with leading watch teams responsible for the ship’s self-defense. We reported directly to the ship’s Captain and, if there was an imminent threat, we had weapons-release authority to defend the $8 billion ship and the 5,000 precious American lives on board.

To do our job effectively, my watch teams and I followed the Navy’s “defense in depth” strategy. The basic concept was that in order to protect the carrier, we would position layers of technologically-advanced and resilient American cruisers, destroyers and frigates on the carrier’s perimeter which our enemies had to confront and defeat before reaching the carrier. Thus, the stronger our perimeter ships were, the safer the aircraft carrier was from our enemies. This strategy is analogous to the approach America must follow with our ally Israel.

Earth is home to almost eight billion people and 195 countries. The unfortunate reality is some fraction of those people and those countries’ leaders want to kill Americans. They are bred to hate who we are and what we stand for. While everyone there is not our enemy, we must acknowledge that the highest density of those belligerent anti-American groups is in the Middle East. These adversaries, who call for “Death to America,” want the same terror brought upon their neighbor Israel.

Even an ocean’s distance between the United States and these terrorists wasn’t enough to prevent those who perpetrated the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center from doing so. For more than 70 years, the state of Israel has also been under attack. Our ally Israel has been faced with threats to her safety and security since her establishment in 1948. Since then, 3,500 Israelis have been killed and 25,000 have been wounded in acts of terror. From suicide bombings to indiscriminate rocket fire on civilian targets, Israel faces threats from the terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on a near-daily basis.

Israel is the battle-tested cruiser to America’s aircraft carrier. In addition to the moral imperative that comes with protecting an ally who is constantly unjustly attacked, for our own country’s sake, we must continue to invest in Israel’s defense against those who would want to do and have done Americans harm, too. In Congress, I will support the $3.8 billion in annual security assistance to Israel as negotiated in the U.S.-Israel MOU, the continued sharing of intelligence, joint cooperation in cybersecurity and counterterrorism, and continued funding for the lifesaving Iron Dome missile defense system. Likewise, I will oppose proposals that would empower our adversaries such as the Iran Nuclear Deal. Doing so is essential to our own national security.