Do Better Than Me

PRESS OFFICE OF SENATOR DOUGLAS BUTCHER (R-TX) Speech In Fort Worth: Statement On The Israel-Hamas War Text of speech by Senator Douglas Butcher to the Eggs & Issues forum at Texas Christian University Good morning. It’s an honor to be here today. I’d like to start by thanking the local chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha here at TCU. As the national honor society of political science, they have always taken a role in bringing speakers to this campus to address the issues of the day. I was honored to accept their invitation. So thank you them and the political science department for this event. As we know, there is a major conflict between Israel and Hamas. It has captured the attention of the world and brought out intense passions on both sides. But, even as we see protests on college campuses across this nation, some of which have exposed rabid cauldrons of boiling anti-Semitism, we will be told that the issues ahead of us are complex. Indeed, we will be told that. Yet, the reason we hear that message of complexity is because the issues are actually quite simple. Can a nation which sees innocent people slain on a peaceful day respond to those forces of terrorism with force? That’s it. When we view the history of that region, it is one in which Israel experiences an attack and responds. The Yom Kippur War. A surprise attack on the holiest day of Judaism. The Six Day War. Military incursions by Egypt in shutting down the Straits Of Tiran. Even in 1948, when the nations of the Arab world tried to deny the existence of Israel and attempted its destruction, we have seen this cycle. Every instance has been an attack on Israel met with retaliation. And in each of those moments, when Israel has stood against those raging foes, it is demonized for that self-defense. As college campuses in this nation are filled with protests chanting “from the river to the sea” it is the same thing again. It is a cycle straight from Ecclesiastes. What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. And as there is nothing new under the sun, it is vital that our nation cannot shrink into the shadows and abandon our allies simply because some believe that the most regressive hatreds are progressive virtues. Antisemitism has always been a fuel for the worst of our humanity. I go back to the early 20th century. Henry Ford, a virulent Jew-hater, was poisoning the world with the Dearborn Independent, espousing the kind of vile garbage that today would probably convince the most stupid and gullible among us that wildfires are started by Jewish space lasers. But that had an impact. There’s a reason Dearborn is the home of the second-oldest American mosque, built in 1937, as Lebanese Muslims brought those hatreds to Dearborn. That gutter legacy lives on in that city as visible members of the left, sitting members of Congress, mainline hatred. And we must be wary of that on our side of the aisle too as we have learned from Candice Owens and some of the stuff I’ve heard from Tucker Carlson lately. That’s critical to remember. The loudness of voices is not the same as moral right. Last December, we saw protests at the Brite Divinity School here at TCU turn violent. We’ve seen the polls that show how Jewish students are feeling increasingly unsafe to public identify as Jews. Remember, while the First Amendment gives those anti-Semitic voices a right to speak, it does not give them the right to be heard. Through the distorted lens of moral relativism, we are on verge of losing sight of our humanity. In that light, our nation must make it clear where we stand. We stand with Israel. We stand with civilization. We stand with humanity. And we stand against terrorism and hatred. That is not complexity, but the most fundamental, self-evident, and simplest of truths. Thank you and God bless.

This outlet has gone live in Q1 2024

This outlet has gone live in Q1 2024.