On Monday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) responded to Israel launching attacks on Hezbollah despite President Joe Biden’s calls for a ceasefire by stating that he’s “glad Israel is at the point now that they’re no longer going to allow these threats to exist on their border. We saw what appeasement strategy looks like. It looks like what Hamas did on October 7. There was a ceasefire in place, and then Hamas launched war.”
Host Elizabeth Vargas asked, “I want to get your thoughts on what’s happening today in the Middle East. … There are reports today that Israeli troops are amassing along the Lebanese border, special forces raids from the IDF are already rading and going into Lebanon. What is your sense? I know that President Biden has been urging calm and hoping for a ceasefire. That does not look like that’s about to happen. There were reports today from U.S. officials that they had convinced Israel not to launch a ground invasion. What do you think is going on?”
Moskowitz responded, “Well, first, let me say good. I’m glad Israel is at the point now that they’re no longer going to allow these threats to exist on their border. We saw what appeasement strategy looks like. It looks like what Hamas did on October 7. There was a ceasefire in place, and then Hamas launched war. By the way, Hezbollah could have stayed out of that. But instead, Hezbollah came to the aid of Hamas and launched over 9,000 rockets into Israel, killed 16 kids on a soccer field, made 50,000 people flee their home[s] in the north of Israel. I don’t want to see a regional war and I don’t want to see a full-scale invasion of Lebanon. I do think Israel is going to do limited missions to kind of push Hezbollah terrorists and militants back further into Lebanon and continue to degrade Hezbollah’s capability to threaten Israel. Look, on October 7, Israel looked like a soft target. They looked like a soft target to Iran. The last couple of weeks, it doesn’t look so much like a soft target. It’s important that Israel re-establishes that deterrence so that Iran realizes that there’s — that they no longer want to mess with the state of Israel.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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