CONTRIBUTED BY THE OFFICE OF SEN. KATIE BRITT
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL — U.S. Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) joined a bipartisan group of colleagues, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin (D-Md.), for a press conference to discuss what they saw and heard while on the ground in Israel on Oct. 22.
The delegation of senators visited Israel as part of an official trip to the Middle East to meet with key leaders, advocate for regional stability and long-term sustainable peace and emphasize the United States’ unequivocal support for Israel in the wake of the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7.
“I want to start by thanking Sen. Graham,” Britt said at the press conference. “Thank you for getting this group together. You and Senator Cardin put together a group of bipartisan senators — each of us set foot in this country not as a Democrat or a Republican. We set foot here united as Americans, standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel.
“When we walked in the room today and talked to the families of these hostages, I listened as a mom, I listened as a wife, as a daughter, as a sister,” Britt said. “Thinking what these families are going through, thinking what each individual hostage is going through is absolutely unbearable. When we watched the videos and heard the stories today, the things that happened were unthinkable. The loss of life — kids having to watch their parents be murdered. Parents having to watch their children be burned to death, women having to be raped, kids decapitated. It’s disgusting, it’s despicable and it is pure evil. Make no mistake, I believe that people of all faiths can coexist in peace and prosperity. But I do not believe that good can coexist with evil. And when evil rears its head, we must look it in the eyes, and we must take it down — and Hamas is pure evil. Israel has every right to defend herself — and not only the right — they have the obligation, the obligation to their children and their children’s children. They have an obligation to the innocent. They have an obligation to the peace-loving people of this world. And that is ultimately what we want. We want Hamas to be destroyed and we want peace to be restored.
“President Reagan said that ‘evil cannot exist if the good are unafraid.’ Iran, Hamas — we stand here today to tell you that we are unafraid. We stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel. We will take you down.”
In addition to Sens. Britt, Graham and Cardin, members of the delegation include Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.Dak.), Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).
