'Israel Is Right To Hit The Leaders And Masterminds Of Terrorism': Graham Reacts To Haniyeh Death

last month

At a press briefing on Wednesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) spoke about the death of Hezbollah commander and a Hamas chief political leader.

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Transcript

00:05On Tuesday, Hezbollah's most senior military commander, Fiad Shukur, was killed in a strike

00:11in Beirut, Lebanon.

00:15He played a central role in the October 23, 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks

00:22in Beirut, which killed 241 U.S. military personnel and wounded 128 others.

00:29There's a $5 million bounty on his head by the United States when he was killed in Lebanon.

00:37Tuesday, yesterday, Hamas' chief political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in a strike

00:45in Tehran, Iran.

00:48He's been the political leader of Hamas since 2017.

00:55Israel is right to hit the leaders and masterminds of terrorism, organizations bent on the destruction

01:04of the Jewish state, anytime, anywhere.

01:09It is time to end the charade that the world is playing when it comes to Hamas, Hezbollah,

01:16and Iran.

01:17They're one in the same.

01:20So I will be proposing legislation, a resolution, since the Senate resolution I introduced today,

01:29that says that any escalation by Hezbollah against Israel that leads to a major confrontation

01:38should be viewed as an attack carried out and executed by Iran.

01:45During the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy rightly indicated that an attack emanating

01:50from Cuba against the United States would be an attack emanating from the Soviet Union.

01:57We would hold the Soviet Union liable for any attack coming from Cuba because Cuba was

02:04a proxy of the Soviet Union.

02:07That same doctrine, in my view, applies to Iran.

02:12What should the target list include?

02:19Not only should Israel hold Iran accountable for any escalation by Hezbollah, the United

02:27States should do the same.

02:29What should the target list include?

02:32It should include those facilities most vital to the funding of terrorism.

02:37It should include refineries.

02:48If Hezbollah attacks Israel, it's my hope they will have one less refinery than they

02:54do today.

02:56It is time to hit the Ayatollah in the pocketbook.

03:01His oil refineries are the lifeblood of his regime.

03:06Without those refineries, they would not be able to fund terrorism.

03:10So I am going to ask the body to take up this resolution in September and see where the

03:16Senate is on the idea that Iran and Hezbollah are the same.

03:23Without Iran, Hezbollah has no money, they have no technology, no weapons to wage war

03:28against Israel.

03:32I just read the Director of National Intelligence report regarding the status of the Iran nuclear

03:39program.

03:40It was unnerving.

03:43And I would urge every member of the House and the Senate to read it.

03:47The advancements made by the Iranian regime regarding weapons-grade plutonium is unnerving.

03:57Their ability to enrich to weapons-grade is now a matter of weeks, not months.

04:04Their ability to weaponize the material has advanced, and it is now time for Congress

04:12to lend their voice to the proper response.

04:16Today I'm introducing a resolution that would authorize the use of military force by the

04:22United States to stop an Iranian nuclear breakout.

04:29The resolution would be triggered if the President determines that Iran possesses uranium enriched

04:37to a weapons-grade level, a nuclear warhead, or possess a delivery vehicle capable of delivering

04:45a nuclear device against Israel or other allies of the United States.

04:54Iran will keep going until somebody tells them to stop.

04:59It is time to put red lines on their nuclear program.

05:03The idea of ambiguity is not working.

05:08As we talk about their program, their program gets larger and more lethal.

05:14After having viewed the DNI report, I believe it is a certainty that if we do not change

05:23course, Iran will in the coming weeks or months possess a nuclear weapon.

05:30This in my view would be the ultimate game changer in the Mideast.

05:36The response of the Arab world would be to acquire their own nuclear device, would have

05:42a nuclear arms race in the Mideast, and in many ways would be on the road to Armageddon.

05:53Haniyeh, the negotiator for Hamas, is not a moderate.

05:59There were no moderate Nazis, and there are no moderate members of Hamas.

06:05He knew what the organization was about, and I hold him responsible, as Israel did,

06:11for the attack of October 7th.

06:14He was killed in Iran.

06:16Why was he in Iran?

06:18He was in Iran to pay homage to the new president of Iran, a so-called moderate.

06:26At the ceremony acknowledging the election of this new moderate, the audience was chanting

06:33death to America, death to Israel.

06:37To the world, wake up before it's too late.

06:40Israel's not the bad guy here.

06:42It's radical Islamic terrorist groups surrounding the state of Israel that's bent on the destruction

06:48of the Israeli state that are the bad guys, and the ultimate Satan in this power play

06:55in the Mideast is Iran.

06:57I'm going to challenge the American political system to acknowledge the obvious, that the

07:03most provocative regime on the planet is Iran.

07:07They're the largest state sponsor of terrorism.

07:10They're trying to develop a nuclear weapon, not a peaceful nuclear power program.

07:14They're bent on the destruction of Israel, and eventually us.

07:19It is now time to put them on notice, hold them accountable for their proxies, and make

07:25them pay a price for the discord they've created in the world, particularly the Mideast.

07:32These 12 young children who were killed on a soccer field were killed by the Iranians.

07:39Hezbollah was the agent of the attack.

07:41October 7th, slaughtering of 1,200 Jews was done by the Iranians through Hamas.

07:48To our friends in Israel, if you're hit by Hezbollah, strike hard, strike lethal, and

07:56include Iran on the target list.

'Israel Is Right To Hit The Leaders And Masterminds Of Terrorism': Graham Reacts To Haniyeh Death

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