Sanctioning the Use of Civilians as Defenseless Shields Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3342) to impose sanctions on foreign persons that are responsible for gross violations of internationally recognized human rights by reason of the use by Hizballah of civilians as human shields, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members might have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include any extraneous material in the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am rising in strong support to this Shields Act, as we call it, which sanctions Hezbollah, sanctions them for their use in southern Lebanon of not only families, but entire villages as human shields; and let me explain this.

As we have discussed today, the Iranian-backed terrorist organization, Hezbollah, has constructed an entire military apparatus in the nation that sits just north of Israel's northern border in Lebanon. It is now complete with missile production facilities that are intended to strike at Israel's civilian centers.

I do want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Gallagher) for his leadership because he has helped bring this critical attention to us today.

But, in the process, as we talk about Hezbollah, they have placed Israeli and Lebanese civilians directly into the path of the conflict. If you go to that border, as I have done, you can see command post after command post, not manned by the Lebanese Armed Forces. Those flags you see are not Lebanese flags, they are Hezbollah battle flags. And they man those posts, surrounded by antitank and infantry positions, surrounded by underground tunnels and rocket launchers and arms depots. In short, countless Lebanese villages are, in effect, military bases, the ones that are right along that border, financed and equipped by Iran.

No one has the right to sacrifice the lives of innocent women and children, and certainly not those dedicated to the twisted and evil goals of destroying the State of Israel.

When I say I have seen this firsthand, in 2006, I was in Haifa during the war that Hezbollah was conducting with Israel, and Hezbollah forces used human shields extensively in a cowardly effort to protect their rocket launchers from counterattacks by Israeli forces. I watched as those rockets came into civilian populations in Haifa and exploded there, and sent those civilians to the trauma hospital.

In Rambam trauma hospital, as they were bringing people in, I asked for the count that day. There were 600 victims, wounded victims of those attacks, being treated in that hospital--Arab Israelis, Jewish Israelis, Druid Israelis, all of them victims of those Hezbollah attacks.

It seems--and by the way, when you see the devastation, every one of those Iranian-made missiles has 90,000 ball bearings in it, and that is what they are launching on schools, civilian areas. They attempted to hit the hospital itself.

It seems that Hezbollah and its Iranian backers are willing to fight to the

last villager there in their quest to annihilate the people of Israel, yet neither Hezbollah nor Iran has been held to account by responsible nations for these egregious crimes.

While Foreign Minister Zarif of Iran was coddled by the EU, this issue was never raised, not by us, not by the EU. We never raised this with the Iranians as a serious issue. We have to because the willingness to overlook these human rights violations is why we find ourselves in the position that we are in today and why this legislation is critically important.

This bill calls on the U.S. and its partners to hold Hezbollah and Iran accountable through targeted sanctions and appropriate action at the United Nations Security Council.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Foreign Affairs,

Washington, DC, October 23, 2017.

Hon. Bob Goodlatte,

Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Goodlatte: Thank you for consulting with the

Foreign Affairs Committee and agreeing to be discharged from

further consideration of H.R. 3342, Sanctioning Hizballah's

Illicit Use of Civilians as Defenseless Shields Act, so that

the bill may proceed expeditiously to the House floor.

I agree that your forgoing further action on this measure

does not in any way diminish or alter the jurisdiction of

your committee, or prejudice its jurisdictional prerogatives

on this resolution or similar legislation in the future. I

would support your effort to seek appointment of an

appropriate number of conferees from your committee to any

House-Senate conference on this legislation.

I will seek to place our letters on H.R. 3342 into the

Congressional Record during floor consideration of the bill.

I appreciate your cooperation regarding this legislation and

look forward to continuing to work together as this measure

moves through the legislative process.

Sincerely,

Edward R. Royce,

Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Gallagher). He is a member of the Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees. He is also the author of this bill, along with Mr. Tom Suozzi of New York.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lethinen), who chairs the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Garrett), who is a member of the Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security Committees.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from Virginia an additional 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I did want to say I have had the opportunity to travel extensively with Mr. Engel and to observe him and his work here in this House for many years. He has always transcended partisanship in my view, but, more importantly, from my standpoint, he has been a servant of the national interests here and the core values of the United States of America and our attempt to represent those core values around the world.

I want to take this moment, especially given his eloquent statement here about these values as he spoke about Hezbollah. These are values that I think all of us should share.

The Geneva Convention, itself, establishes standards for international law, and it does so for the protection of civilians in a war zone. They specifically prohibit, under that Geneva Convention, of course, the use of civilians as human shields. It is article 58 of the Convention's additional protocols that require parties of any conflict to avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas.

So, to date, Hezbollah's arsenal is well over 100,000. As I shared with you, all of them are manufactured today by Iran. Those rockets and missiles of various ranges today include precision-guided missiles.

I spoke earlier of 2006, the second Lebanon War. That actually should be called the Hezbollah war. At that time, as I talked about the 600 victims that were in the trauma hospital, they were down to an inventory of 10,000 missiles. Today, they have, in the hands of Hezbollah--again, because of Iran--over 100,000 such rockets and missiles.

So I think, yes, Hezbollah has blatantly violated the well- established laws of armed conflict. It has targeted civilians for more than two decades in both Lebanon and Israel. As a result, both peoples are victims of Hezbollah's--and, frankly, of Iran's--brutality, and it is high time we hold them accountable. This we try to do in this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank, again, Mr. Engel, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of this measure. Let me start off by thanking Representatives Gallagher of Wisconsin and Suozzi of New York. Mr. Suozzi is a very valued, new member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and I want to thank both of them for their hard work on this bill. And, as always, I want to thank Chairman Royce for his leadership.

This is the first of three measures that we are considering today to crack down on the terrorist group, Hezbollah. I have been focused on this challenge for a long time. More than a decade ago, I wrote a law to get Syria out of Lebanon and, with it, Syria's support for Hezbollah.

But this is a group made up of extremists, and they will always try to find new ways to gather resources and spread their reach, all in aid of its dangerous and violent agenda, which is undermining Lebanon's political independence; supporting Iran's activities, aggressive activities throughout the region; fueling chaos and war in Syria; and threatening our ally, Israel.

We need to do everything in our power to isolate Hezbollah. We need to crack down on its recruiters and financiers. We need to cut off its supply of weapons, and we need to silence its propaganda machine.

The three measures we will now consider will help us meet this challenge. The first is a new sanctions bill aimed at Hezbollah's use of innocent civilians as human shields. It would ban entry into the United States to anyone who uses human shields on behalf of Hezbollah, and it would freeze whatever assets they have in the United States.

This bill would call upon our Ambassador to the U.N. to push for multilateral sanctions for the same behavior, and it would require the administration to keep Congress apprised about whether certain Hezbollah leaders would be caught up in the web of these sanctions.

It is a good bill and a piece of a broader strategy to cut the legs out from under this odious group.

You know, some our friends in Europe like to say: Well, there are really two parts of Hezbollah. One is the military wing, and one is the humanitarian wing, and the so-called humanitarian wing takes care of people who are in trouble, who need aid, who need help, and that is the way the story goes.

The fact is, a terrorist organization is a terrorist organization. You cannot cut it in half and say one wing is good and the other wing is not. A terrorist organization is not good. A terrorist organization kills innocent people. A terrorist organization doesn't want peace, they want war, they want killing, they want people to continue to suffer. So let us remember, Hezbollah is a terrorist group.

Hezbollah is primarily financed by Iran. Assad was losing the war in Syria on at least two occasions, and, on those times, Syria had an infusion of Hezbollah fighters sent by Iran on the side of the Assad regime to prop up Assad. And after they did it, the Russians came in and propped up Assad.

So let's remember the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians who have been murdered in Syria in the Syria civil war. That is Hezbollah, a terrorist organization--bombs in Israel against innocent civilians, bombs every place else.

We cannot sit idly by. And so this bill, again, is a piece of a broader strategy to cut the legs out from under this odious group.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support it. I urge everyone to do the same, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Suozzi), my colleague on the Foreign Affairs Committee, a fellow New Yorker, and one of the new good members of our committee, and coauthor of this important bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Frankel), a valued member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time to close the way I always do.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues on both sides for their hard work on this bill. I want to remind my colleagues that, just a few years ago when the last war was raging in Gaza, the other terrorist group, Hamas, used civilians as human shields. We had a resolution on the floor of this House condemning it, and I was very, very proud that that resolution passed unanimously.

We need to condemn these terrorist groups no matter what they do, but when they use people as human shields--innocent people--and then try to blame the other side for the death, it is not something that we can countenance or stand for at all. I hope that we rise to the occasion this time, as well, because I can think of nothing more despicable than using innocent civilians as human shields.

These bomb factories are built in mosques, they are built in schools, and they are built in playgrounds. They are built where children are. They are built because they are daring Israel and the United States to go after them when we know that there will be human casualties. It is really a despicable position.

Here you have two terrorists groups, Hezbollah and Hamas. One is Shia; one is Sunni. It doesn't matter. They are both out to kill people. They are both out to terrorize people. They are both out to do the opposite of what we try to do in the United States: lifting people up.

They need to be stopped, and this Congress needs to keep sending strong messages with teeth behind them to the world that we will not sit idly by and allow these terrorist activities to happen.

Using civilians as human shields is really the lowest of the low. The fact that Hezbollah would put innocent men, women, and children in harm's way as human shields tells you everything you need to know about this organization. It is a cowardly practice by a gruesome group, and it cannot and shall not be tolerated.

This measure puts us on record again condemning this terrorist group, and it gives the administration more tools to deal with one of Hezbollah's worst tools, more tools to deal with Hezbollah to stop its terrorist activities. So I urge a bipartisan ``yes'' vote.

I thank Chairman Royce again for his collaboration with us on both sides of the aisle. That is one of the great things about the Foreign Affairs Committee because we realize that partisanship stops at the water's edge. When we are talking about terrorist groups and we are talking about antidemocratic groups, they affect us all. It is important that this Congress sends strong bipartisan measures and a strong bipartisan voice to say we will not tolerate these atrocities.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote from all my colleagues on both sides, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel for their bipartisan leadership and the model that they show all of us on this committee in the work that they do together, and for their mentorship as well.

I would also like to thank and applaud my colleague and friend, Mike Gallagher, for his leadership on this bill, and for working so closely to get this done. We are very grateful to him for his work here.

The Shields Act that I rise in support of right now will sanction Hezbollah members and their supporters for the use of human shields. It also seeks to punish the governments that enable such war crimes, including their primary supporter, Iran.

This summer, I visited Israel and I stood near Lebanon's southern border, not far from where Hezbollah threatens Israel's security. In the over 30 years since Hezbollah in 1983 killed hundreds of Americans when it bombed the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, they have become one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations, not only in Lebanon, but across the entire Middle East.

In 2006, it provoked a war with Israel by killing and kidnapping soldiers in cross-border raids, and then for nearly a month rained rockets down on Israel cities, killing dozens of civilians. Journalists and human rights groups found that it fired many of these rockets from populated areas, even from inside private homes and other civilian buildings.

That war ended more than a decade ago, but Hezbollah remains committed to Israel's destruction. It has spent millions to replenish its arsenal, which now includes up to 150,000 missiles scattered across southern Lebanon, much of it concealed in mosques, hospitals, schools, and homes where civilians are used as human shields.

Hezbollah has continued its provocative actions on the border between Lebanon and Israel. It has killed and wounded Israeli soldiers. It has threatened bombings of gas fields and chemical plants. It has tried to smuggle advanced weapons into Lebanon. It has built an expansive network of tunnels through civilian neighborhoods. The civilians caught in its destructive web of terror would have no safe haven if Hezbollah started a war.

Hezbollah has also expanded its nefarious activities regionally, most notably playing a major role in the Syrian civil war, deploying thousands of its own men to prop up Bashar al-Assad's vicious regime. Hezbollah members are fighting alongside a Syrian army that has killed almost half a million of its own people and driven millions more into exile.

In the process, it has trained for its next war with Israel. The Israeli intelligence official have said that the group has learned frightening skills in urban warfare from its years on the ground in Syria. It did all of this, of course, at the behest of its Iran patrons who continue threatening to rain warheads down into Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

From Iraq to Gaza, from Yemen to Bahrain, Iran's proxies have been at the center of the chaos consuming the Middle East. But Hezbollah remains Iran's oldest and deadliest proxy, and its actions in Syria deserve particular attention.

In town after town, Hezbollah's militants prevented civilians from fleeing the Assad regime artillery. Activists have accused the group of carrying out mass killings and torturing refugees and other civilians. Hezbollah is one of the main reasons Assad's murderous regime continues to stay in power in 2017. Hezbollah is not only a threat to the people beyond Lebanon's border, it is a threat to the Lebanese people. The U.N. has implicated Hezbollah in the assassination of a Lebanese Prime Minister. Its use of civilians as human shields endangers the Lebanese people every moment of every day.

I applaud the leadership and the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee for continuing to find ways to crack down on Hezbollah and Iran.

Today there are four suspension bills on the calendar: H.R. 1698, the Iran Ballistic Missiles and International Sanctions Enforcement Act, which prevents Iran from undertaking any activity related to advancing their ballistic missiles program; H.R. 3329, Hizballah International Financing Prevention Amendments Act of 2017, which restricts Hezbollah's ability to raise money and recruit for their nefarious activities; H. Res. 359, which urges our European allies to drop their false distinction between Hezbollah's political

wing and its military wing, and designate them in their entirety as a terrorist organization; and, finally, my and Mr. Gallagher's legislation, H.R. 3342, the Shields Act.

We must pass these four bills to continue to reduce the influence of a group and its primary backer, Iran, that have menaced their neighbors and their own people for far too long. By passing H.R. 3342, the bipartisan Shields Act, we will send a strong message that the United States of America will not stand for the use of innocent civilians as pawns in the destructive chess game of Iran's and Hezbollah's effort to destabilize the region and the West.

Mr. Speaker, I applaud my colleague, Congressman Gallagher, for his leadership. I am proud to join him in this effort. I ask my colleagues for their support.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 359.

I would first like to thank Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel for their leadership on the committee in bringing this resolution forward. I would like to thank my friend from Florida, Congressman Bilirakis, for working with me on this resolution. I thank as well Chairman Ros-Lehtinen for her leadership on the subcommittee and ensuring that we have the opportunity to move forward together.

Mr. Speaker, in 2013, almost exactly 1 year after a Hezbollah suicide bomber blew up a bus in Bulgaria, killing mostly Israeli tourists, the European Union took action to finally designate

Hezbollah a terrorist organization. However, they only designated what they called Hezbollah's military wing as a terror group and not its political wing.

The United States has been clear that this was a false distinction then and it remains a false distinction today. Hezbollah is one unified terrorist organization, and it is led by the terrorist, Hassan Nasrallah. It is one unified Hezbollah that is responsible for the horrific acts of terror against Europeans, Americans, Israelis, and others across the Middle East and around the globe.

It is one unified Hezbollah that has helped prop up the Assad regime, and it is complicit in the death of half a million Syrians and the dissolving of a once thriving nation. So this one unified Hezbollah should be designated as a terrorist organization so we can increase international cooperation to isolate and dismantle this group.

This morning, Mr. Speaker, the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee held a hearing on next steps for our Iran policy. There, I noted that 2 days ago we marked a solemn anniversary, because 34 years ago, on October 23, two Hezbollah suicide bombers blew themselves up at the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, killing over 300 U.S. and French servicemembers, peacekeepers, and civilians. That attack, like so many of Hezbollah's deadly terrorist activities over the past several decades, was sponsored and directed by Iran.

While our Nation built a memorial honoring the victims of that attack, Tehran built a monument honoring the perpetrators of that attack. A full EU designation of Hezbollah now would help demonstrate Europe's commitment to cracking down on Iran's use of proxy terror groups, destabilizing the region, and attacking Western interests.

Now, I understand that the EU has legal concerns about this designation since Hezbollah has infiltrated Lebanon's political system. However, I would just offer this observation. The terrorist organization Hamas operates as a political party in Gaza, yet the EU still rightly lists the entirety of Hamas as a terror organization. That has not impacted their ability to support Gaza reconstruction, just as designating Hezbollah would not prevent them from supporting Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

Last year, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Arab League both designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. They made no distinction between the military and political wing, despite Lebanon being a member of the Arab League. I hope the EU took note of that.

I thank the Speaker for bringing this resolution to the floor so that my colleagues can join me in sending an important message to our European friends and allies. More can be done to counter the Iranian proxy Hezbollah, and that begins with calling them what they are, a terrorist organization committed to the destruction of Israel and undermining the values and interests of the United States.

Our EU friends must acknowledge as well the values and interests of Europe. The world knows that Hezbollah is a terrorist group. It is time for the European Union to end its false distinction and join us in designating all of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution and to send them that message.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, Chairman Ros-Lehtinen, Congressman Bilirakis, and to my colleagues on the Foreign Affairs Committee and other Members for their work on the three measures today aimed at curbing the terrorist group Hezbollah.

The measures that we are advancing today represent smart and tough approaches that will respond to Hezbollah and its enablers, and will build stronger international support for this important effort. This measure and the others that we have considered today are a great example of the way that we can work across the aisle to help keep our country safe. I urge a ``yes'' vote on this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, that is very kind, but I am happy to yield to my friend from Florida, so I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank Chairman Royce for convening this mark-up on a number of substantive pieces of legislation. As our time is limited, I will focus on a few key items.

I am an original cosponsor of H.R. 3445, and I thank Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel, as well as my friend and colleague Karen Bass, for trying to strengthen the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

I would like to thank my good friend and fellow member of the New Jersey delegation, Albio Sires, for his bipartisan Global Health Innovation Act of 2017, H.R. 1660, of which I am a cosponsor.

This bill will allow us to exercise greater oversight over USAID programs and to gauge how effectively USAID is developing and utilizing innovations in health programs.

I support H.R. 3320 and commend Chairman Yoho for his work on this timely bill. The Chinese Communist government has been slowly squeezing Taiwan's international space, taking extraordinary measures to exclude Taiwan from multi-lateral institutions like the World Health Organization.

Such exclusions create real international blind spots that pose threats to global health and security. As you all know, SARS spread from Taiwan and China to other parts of the globe.

With the World Health Organization in particular, I intend to push for admission of Taiwan.

I commend Ranking Member, Mr. Engel, along with Chairman Yoho, Mr. Chabot, and Mr. Sherman, for putting together H. Res. 422, on Hong Kong.

The threats to Hong Kong's autonomy and its freedoms are real and progressing. These freedoms and the rule of law are vital economic interests of the United States and the foundation of the city's vitality, creativity, and entrepreneurial sprit.

Beijing has become more assertive in Hong Kong's affairs over the past several years and ramped up efforts to destroy the pro-democracy movement over the summer. Six legislations were disqualified through unprecedented interventions by the National People's Congress into Hong Kong's judiciary. The pan-democratic minority could stop pro-Beijing legislation in the past, but now it cannot. China can push through any measure it wants now with its block of unelected legislators.

And, as you all know, the Hong Kong government has re-sentenced the leaders of the peaceful Umbrella Movement of 2014. Joshua Wong, Nathan Law, and Alex Chow should now be considered Hong Kong's first political prisoners. They will not be the last, as new trails begin soon.

This resolution is needed but should not be our last word. That is why I introduced, along with Congressman Tim Walza (a fellow CECC Commissioner), the Hong Kong Human Rights & Democracy Act--a bill that I introduced in the last Congress and which has been introduced by Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Ben Cardin in the Senate.

I would urge my colleagues to consider this legislation and find ways to protect U.S. interests in a free and autonomous Hong Kong in addition to Ranking Member Engels' resolution which is before us today.

Hizballah is a cancer that has metastasized in Lebanon and threatens to invade nearly every corner of the region if we do not stay vigilant. H.R. 3329, introduced by Chairman Royce, would choke off additional sources of financial support for this malignant growth, particularly by targeting the group's grass roots fundraising enterprise that it expanded to circumvent existing sanctions. Building on the Hizballah International Financing Prevention Act that the House passed unanimously in 2015, this bill would require third-party sanctions on those who substantially support Hizballah fundraising operations.

The reports required in this legislation would also go further to ferret out the extent of the group's fundraising network, which it would rightly classify as a transnational criminal organization. Make no mistake: Hizballah is an international crime syndicate, wrapped in an Iranian paramilitary proxy, inside a terrorist organization, masquerading as a political resistance movement.

H.R. 3342 introduced by Mike Gallagher would direct our government to use the tools at its disposal to impose penalties on Hizballah for employing human shields to defend its installations and outposts. Hizballah's use of innocent human lives to protect its nefarious activities is a clear human rights violation and plainly demonstrates that Hizballah is an enemy of Lebanon's freedom-loving people. The bill also encourages the President to direct our Permanent Representative at the United Nations to use her voice and vote to push for a resolution condemning this sickening practice. I can confidently say that the United States could not ask for a stronger or more clear-eyed defender of American interests and the security of our most critical regional ally, Israel, at the UN than Ambassador Haley.