August 3, 2006—Congressman Trent Franks (AZ-02), a founder of the Congressional Israel Allies Caucus, rebuked Democratic Congressman Dingell for his comments made during an interview on Sunday.  Mr. Dingell asserted, “I don’t take sides for or against Hezbollah or for or against Israel,” when he was asked about the conflict between the nation of Israel and the terrorist group, which is sponsored by Iran and Syria.

 Franks responded, “Hezbollah’s ideology and practice is decapitating humanitarians with hacksaws on television while they scream for mercy, cowardly hiding behind women and children while launching rockets deliberately targeting innocent civilians, continually breaking treaties of peace, and forcing children to blow themselves to pieces to effect the murder of other innocents.  Conversely, Israel's ideology and practice is decades of peace efforts, defending innocent life, and respecting every gender, race, and creed.  Mr. Dingell's recent comment suggesting moral equivalence between these two polar opposite ideologies simply beggars description.  The mindless moral relativism that deliberately ignores all truth and equates the merciless terrorism of Hezbollah with free nations defending themselves and their innocent citizens, is more dangerous to humanity than terrorism itself.

“Brutally torturing and murdering innocent human beings for the express purpose of striking terror in the hearts of your fellow human beings is bad. Protecting the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of your fellow citizens is good.  If freedom in the world is to survive, free people all over the world must throw off this nearly invincible ignorance and moral cowardice and face terrorism for the evil that it is.”

Trent Franks is the Congressman from the 2nd Congressional District of Arizona.  He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and Vice Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee