Democrats and Republicans alike took a break from the chaos of Washington, D.C. to jointly raise tens of thousands of dollars for a charity working to replenish Israel’s rapidly-depleting medical resources.
For much of the day, Congress feuded over who the next Speaker should be. But after hours, a bipartisan group cobbled together in just a few days by the Republican power couple of Charlie and Lisa Spies and emceed by Townhall's Katie Pavlich made it clear that in the battle of what many in attendance called “good versus evil,” the United States stands resolutely with its ally Israel.
Following Hamas terrorists’ surprise assault on Israel that left over 1,300 Israelis, Americans, and Europeans slaughtered in scenes that seem straight out of the Middle Ages, Israel’s medical supplies depleted quickly. Mark Gerson, the cofounder of United Hatzalah, a volunteer emergency response service that operates free of charge in Israel, spoke in Washington, D.C., about how dire the humanitarian situation is, while also laying out how horrible the scenes are on the ground.
“What these terrorists did, they did everything that can be done to a human body except devour it,” one of the responders told him.
Initially, Israeli first responders thought that the calls coming in early two Saturday mornings ago were pranks “because they were truly unbelievable,” much like how many at the peace concert across from Gaza thought that the Palestinian paragliders flying in to slaughter and kidnap them were part of the act. In the aftermath of the immediate response, Gerson said that “what we thought would last ten to eleven months was gone over the weekend.”
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Of course, brutal savagery followed. One of Gerson’s colleagues spoke about how among the Israeli medics who responded immediately to the active terrorist sites was a Muslim Arab-Israeli, who was confronted by Palestinian terrorists. He begged for his life in fluent Arabic, reciting passages of the Koran to prove that he was a Muslim. It didn’t matter; he was shot in the face and murdered.
Representative Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat, portrayed the stakes simply. “To fight for Israel is to fight for truth. It is good versus evil. Hamas must be eliminated from the Gaza Strip. There can be no appeasement and there can be no ceasefire so long as they have hostages.” Moskowitz, a Jew, said that the scenes we’re currently witnessing remind him of what his grandma told him about the Holocaust — but now, they’re complete with gruesome images and a media landscape hell-bent on blaming Israel for acts of terrorism committed by groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad. “Every news organization, right, was out there [falsely claiming Israel blew up a hospital]. And the international [media outlets] are the worst.”
Representative John James, a Michigan Republican, viewed the conflict through a very different personal lens. “For someone who, both my parents are from the Jim Crow South…the first thing that I thought of was what if they were hanging black men from trees in Starkville, Mississippi? What if they were lynching women and raping them in Oxford, Mississippi? What would happen? What would we think if this were happening to black people right under our noses? That's what happened with so many of our Jewish brothers and sisters, right across the pond in Israel, just this past week,” he said.
“No one wants to live this bad history,” Moskowitz said. But that’s the challenge James feels is necessary. “We like to talk about what we would do if the Holocaust happened or slavery happened. Well, this is the largest number of casualties that's happened since the Holocaust. And I would like you to know and just understand when you look in the mirror, that this is how you're responding to the modern day Holocaust. This is how you are standing up to the evil and the hatred and the anti-semitism has taken many forms in the past millennia.”
Organizers are aiming to quickly raise tens of thousands of dollars to purchase medical equipment to rush overseas. They were helped out by many in the room, including Representative Glenn Grothman, who cut a check right there on the spot himself.
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