During an interview released on Tuesday’s edition of “Pod Save America,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) said that while Hamas is a terrorist organization that wants to destroy Israel, “if the legacy of the attack on October 7 becomes continuing escalating violence in turn, then Hamas will have already won” and “Increasing death and devastation will not end death and devastation.” And we have to “somehow” “disrupt” the Hamas mindset and he hopes that “somehow, people on both sides of that conflict, that all of us can tap into the best of our faith and moral traditions” while also arguing that “people who are on different sides of a conflict…all love their children.”
Warnock said he is “exploring all the ways in which we use the tools we have to get our ally to do what is necessary to honor the humanity of Palestinian children and to recognize that Palestinian children are every bit as precious as Israeli children. … [A]s I’ve been looking at the situation in Gaza, I’ve thought about the fact that adversaries and people who are on different sides of a conflict, here’s the thing they have in common: They all love their children. And if somehow we can look into other — into the eyes of other people’s children and see our own, if we actually believed that the ability of other people’s children to thrive is inextricably connected to the future of our own, what set of choices would we make? … And so, we’ve seen just, devastation that is unspeakable. First, with, — not first, but in recent months, with October 7. We can’t turn our eyes away from what happened and the death that happened, the sheer human cruelty, sexual violence used as a weapon of war, elderly people, little babies and children taken, the kind of gratuitous violence and brutality of it all, we can’t turn away from that. But we also cannot turn away from the devastation that we’ve seen in the wake of that. There’s an acronym they use in Gaza that basically says, wounded child with no surviving family.”
He added, “Here’s what I know: Increasing death and devastation will not end death and devastation. And so, we’ve got to get on another road. And I hope that, somehow, people on both sides of that conflict, that all of us can tap into the best of our faith and moral traditions as we think about the meaning of Ramadan and Passover, Easter on the horizon for those of us who are Christian, that we can tap into these traditions, center the children, and find our way to a two-state solution that honors the humanity of Palestinian children and Israeli children.”
Warnock further stated, “I know there are those who say, well, what are we going to do about Hamas? Which is a terrorist organization bent on the destruction of Israel, I take that seriously. But, if the legacy of the attack on October 7 becomes continuing escalating violence in turn, then Hamas will have already won. Hamas is not just an organization. In fact, I think the ideology is much more dangerous, much more lethal, especially now, than the organization. It is an ideology that lies in a place deeper than any of the tunnels beneath Gaza, and, somehow, we’ve got to disrupt that mindset.”
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