- 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.
The complete transcript of his remarks can be read in the below.
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.
http://www.counterpunch.com/armey0502.html
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- Comment
Alton Raines
- 5-3-2
-
- Armey is a moron. Clearly he supports the racist state
of Israel, planted there by the UN in 48 (a plan which I believe was devised
to bring absolute instability to the region, not to make a safe haven for
Jewish refugees from European persecutions) against 2000 years of historic
occupation of the land by a wide variety of peoples (not all Arabs). Before
the UN charter, Jews, Bedouins, Coptics, Arabs of every kind (not all Islamic)
and even Africans and European Gentiles as well as Arab and Turkish Christians
and Zoroastrians settled and lived in the land as neighbors IN PEACE for
hundreds of years, the land from which the Jews were dispersed in 70 A.D.
The Hebrews took that land originally by force from former occupants. Their
only claim to the land is Biblical, and if by the Biblical claim they stand,
then their own scriptures clearly made possession of the land absolutely
conditional, and those conditions were utterly violated -- hence, they
were removed. Since the land was not theirs to begin with, and since their
own God told them to get out and sent armies against them (it's in their
scriptures, and its on those sacred scriptures the Jews lay all their claims
to the land) and allowed them to be dispersed, and since several other
peoples have, by conquest, overtaken the land repeatedly, and more recently,
before 1948, a complete hodge-podge of peoples lived there without conflict
-- the Jews have zero legitimate claim to the land (other than a bogus,
racist charter by the UN) and the Palestinians have every right to demand
a homeland in the place where their ancestors have settled for hundreds
of years. The PLO is not capable of procuring this because, like the Zionist
regime it opposes, it too is equally racist and bent on destruction. Arafat
doesn't give a rats ass about peace or land, otherwise he would have accepted
the last offer which was practically everything the PLO asked for. The
U.S. Support of the racist state of Israel is shameful. It's a pity the
Palestinian people have such mindless jerks as their leaders, but far worse
is the US/Israeli confederacy legitimizing purely racist agendas in the
region.
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