WASHINGTON–U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism and of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, on Sunday joined CBS News’ Face the Nation to discuss the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza and the need for bipartisan collaboration in Congress to address the problem at the U.S. border with Mexico.
On responding to the humanitarian situation in Gaza and preventing the proliferation of terrorism, Murphy said: “What we know is that there's a humanitarian disaster unfolding right now in and around Rafah. We have not been able to get in significant shipments of humanitarian aid, and so no matter how many people are dying from Israeli military operations, there are people dying every single day from an inability to access food and medicine. This is ultimately accruing to the benefit, not the detriment, of terrorist recruiting. And that's my big worry here. There's a moral cost to the number of civilians that are dying inside of Gaza, but when you continue to withhold food and aid from the people, that ultimately makes these terrorist causes stronger, not just in Israel, but around the world. Our own intelligence experts have told us that this is having a generational impact on terrorism, and so for many of us that want Israel to bring this military operation to a close and focus on the future political settlement inside Gaza, it is in part because we worry that this is a boon to terrorism groups around the world.”
Murphy continued, emphasizing the need for Israel to present a plan for post-war governance in Gaza: “I am amongst many of my colleagues who have called on Israel to pause military operations to try to get this humanitarian nightmare under control, and to take the time to come up with a realistic solution for what Gaza looks like after the fighting stops. What you have seen in the past few weeks is that as Israel clears out of certain areas, like northern Gaza, Hamas is just filling back in because there's no viable plan for governance. Israel has to take the time to both be less cavalier about the humanitarian costs but also come up with a plan for what Gaza looks like after the fighting stops, and the fighting is going to stop at some point.”
On effectively addressing the crisis at the U.S. southern border, Murphy said: “We have to just recognize that without updating the laws of the is country, without surging more resources to the border, we can't count on the numbers staying as low as they are today. And remember, today you have about 3,000 people crossing at the border on a daily basis. That's still a high number compared to what we saw ten years ago. And so for many of us, we are just heartbroken, we are sick over the fact that our Republican colleagues in Congress continue to vote against bipartisan border security that would give us the opportunity to actually give the President the resources and the authorities to make this a permanent change, to get the numbers under cool, on a permanent basis.”
Murphy continued, underscoring the need for Republicans to stop playing political games and support bipartisan reforms needed to solve the crisis at the southern border: “The President has such limited ability to issue executive orders that would have an impact on the border. He can't conjure resources out of thin air. If he were to try to shut down portions of the border, the courts would throw that out, I think, within a matter of weeks. I think the only thing that will bring order to the southwest border is bipartisan legislation. We have a bipartisan border bill, if Republicans decided to support it, it would pass and we could get it to the President's desk. It is up to Donald Trump and Republicans as to whether they want to solve the problem at the border or whether they want to keep the border a mess because it helps them politically in this upcoming election.”
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