<nettime> from Coco Fusco: Demand Dick Armey Retract Call for Ethnic Cleansing of

["Lachlan Brown" <lachlan@london.com>]

  [text verified @ <http://www.adc.org/action/2002/02May2002.htm> --mod (tb)]

ADC Action Alert: 

Demand Dick Armey Retract Call for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians 

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. 

Armey's call for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians is an 
endorsement of massive war crimes probably rising to the level of crimes 
against humanity. Armey owes the American and Palestinian people, and 
indeed the entire world, an immediate retraction and apology.  The 
complete transcript of his remarks can be read in the transcript below. 

ACTION REQUESTED: 

ADC urges all its members and supporters to contact Dick Armey and 
demand that he not only retract but also apologize for his endorsement 
of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. 

House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX) 
301 Cannon House Office Building 
Washington, DC 20515-4326 

Tel: 202-225-7772 (Personal Office) 
Fax: 202-226-2028 (Personal Office) 

Tel: 202-225-4000 (Congressional Leadership Office) 
Fax: 202-226-8100 (Congressional Leadership Office) 

Comments can also be sent via his website at: < TITLE="http://armey.house.gov>" TARGET="_blank">http://armey.house.gov> 


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. 


-- 

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