Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that calls for a pause in the Israel-Hamas war were not appropriate because “nobody would call on the United States to engage in a ceasefire after September 11, 2001.”

Partial transcript as follows:

KARL: And, Congressman Lawler, we’ve heard what sounds like frustration coming from the Biden administration about getting — about Israel actions in terms of protecting civilians in — in Gaza, and, you know, humanitarian pauses. How does the prime minister view this? Does he still feel that he has the full and total support of the Biden administration and the U.S. government?

LAWLER: Yes. And, obviously, that’s the purpose of our delegation trip here, is to show our strong support, in a bipartisan fashion, for the state of Israel. Just, you know, a week and a half ago, we passed a resolution in strong support of Israel in condemning Hamas.

What is clear is that Israel is engaged in efforts to provide humanitarian relief. They’ve been engaged in efforts to get civilians out of the northern part of Gaza.

But for those calling for a ceasefire, they totally misunderstand the situation here. Hamas is not someone, some organization that is going to abide by a ceasefire. They are hell-bent on eradicating the state of Israel and eliminating the Jewish people. You’re not dealing with rational, reasonable people here. And, you know, Israel needs to be able to defend itself. Nobody would call on the United States to engage in a ceasefire after September 11th, 2001. And I think it’s irresponsible for us to call on Israel to do that when they’re trying to defend themselves.

The bottom line here is, yes, we need to provide humanitarian relief and we want to avoid civilian casualties. But these 11,000 civilian number that keeps getting repeated by the press is factually wrong. Within that number, thousands of Hamas terrorists have been killed. And, obviously, Hamas is using these civilians as human shields. And so, the oppressor here, the people that are responsible for the deaths in Gaza is Hamas.

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