VanHollenWatch.org

Van Hollen Watch is an ad hoc organization of citizens who are outraged and embarrassed that our Congressman from Maryland's Eighth District in Montgomery County, Chris Van Hollen, took a leadership role in condemning Israel in a July 30 letter to Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. How dare he call on Israel to implement "an immediate ceasefire" at a time when Hezbollah was firing hundreds of rockets into Israel and the kidnapped Israeli soldiers were still at Hezbollah's tender mercies?

At the time of Van Hollen's letter Israel was engaged in a war with a terrorist organization that was hiding in civilian areas, launching thousands of rockets into Israel from within civilian areas and using civilians as human shields, and yet Van Hollen castigated Israel because, in Van Hollen's words, Israel went "beyond the destruction of Hezbollah's military assets." Van Hollen said he would only support Israel's military action if Israel were to " limit its attacks to clear, identifiable military assets," as if Hezbollah allowed such things to exist outside civilian areas. Is Israel simply to endure terrorist attacks which target Israeli civilians? Should Israel turn the other cheek because Hezbollah chooses to hide, store and fire its weapons from the heart of civilian areas? Van Hollen should reserve his outrage for Hezbollah's targeting of Israeli civilians and its cynical use of willing Lebanese civilians as human shields.

Nowhere in his letter does the Congressman note that these southern Lebanese towns are Hezbollah strongholds where the population voted for Hezbollah in Lebanese elections and which provide cover for Hezbollah fighters. Despite this fact, Israel's air strikes were limited to areas from which Hezbollah was launching its attacks and transporting and hiding ordnance. Israel did not bomb the Christian neighborhoods of Beirut, because they were not providing shelter for Hezbollah.

The Congressman notes with great anguish the 750,000 refugees from southern Lebanon but is silent on the million refugees from northern Israeli cities and towns. Where is his concern for the Israeli refugees?

Representative Van Hollen throws in the canard that the only solution to the turmoil in the Middle East will be resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the necessity of re-establishing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. "It is essential that the United States renew its efforts to resolve this festering issue" he writes. Where has he been? Peace process? HAMAS was elected to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority primarily because of its explicit goal to destroy Israel and establish a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The turmoil in the Middle East vis-a-vis Israel will be resolved when the Arab states in the area recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

The Israel-Palestinian conflict is not the cause but the result of a decades-old inability and/or refusal by most of the Arab world to accept a sovereign Israel in its midst, by repeated efforts to annihilate Israel, and by an anti-Israel coalition of ultra-radical fanatics and their regimes dedicated to pushing Israel and the U.S. out of the region altogether.

The road to peace lies not through Jerusalem, as Congressman Van Hollen suggests. It lies through Beirut, Damascus, Tehran, Arab media, mosques, schools and universities that spew inciteful, genocidal, anti-Semtic propaganda and the numerous jihadist enclaves of murderous fanatics who will settle for nothing less than the cleansing of all "infidels" from the Middle East.

As a result of significant criticism, Congressman Van Hollen made an effort to backtrack from his statements in an August 11 letter to constituents, but this second letter was too little and too late. The damage from the first letter to Secretary Rice was already done. More importantly, with Chris Van Hollen continuing to represent the Eighth District, nothing in the second letter indicates that he understands the existential threat to Israel (and the U.S) posed by Iranian and Syrian sponsored terrorism and Islamic extremism throughout Israel and the world.

Congressman Van Hollen has never before taken a leadership position on an issue involving Israel. His vaunted voting record on pro-Israel legislation is limited to instances when there are already an overwhelming majority in favor of the legislation. He has never initiated or been an original sponsor of any of the pro-Israel legislation.