U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., spoke at the Israel Solidarity Rally in Miami on Wednesday.
A transcript of Rubio’s speech is below.
“I am honored to be here in this place, but unhappy and sad to be here on this occasion. It is a place that stands as a memorial to six million lives lost at the hands of an ancient evil, an evil that was defeated in its manifestation at that time, but that has survived and exists to this day. Sometimes it appears on flyers and graffiti on a wall or idiotic statements on social media. But sadly, just a few days ago, it appeared in slaughter and brutality and barbarity at the hands of degenerates.
“There can be no coexistence with people of this nature…. This is not a territorial dispute or a political dispute. This is a very simple fact. This organization that likes to talk about occupation, they have occupied Gaza. Their name is Hamas. It is an organization whose mission statement is explicit and unequivocal. They want to kill every Jew in the Middle East or drive every one of them out of the region. And they want to create an Islamic fundamentalist Palestinian state that reaches from the Mediterranean to the Jordan.
“That is their stated goal. That is their mission. And that is why they raped young women. That is why they slaughtered babies. That is why they took senior citizens captive. That is why they did these things. And no nation, no people in the face of an enemy that seeks your ultimate and complete destruction can be asked to be patient, can be asked to be measured, can be asked to be proportionate in this conflict.
“We are aligned with a nation that was created in the aftermath of the horror that was the Holocaust, by the international community that came together to say that never again would there not be a homeland for the Jewish people, and that never again would those Jewish people be defenseless in the face of this ancient and evil poison. But it has been tested from the day it was founded, and now it is tested in the greatest trial it has faced in at least 50 years. It was the single deadliest day for Jews since the end of the Holocaust. And now the world must decide whose side they’re on, and how they will respond.
“It is my view that this conflict and this response cannot be like those in the past. It is not my decision to make. For it is the people of Israel and the brave men and women that serve in the IDF that will have to confront and defeat this enemy. But it is my view that this enemy must be destroyed, must be eradicated, must be eliminated, must be degraded, and cannot be allowed to continue to exist. To be clear who the enemy is, the enemy is Hamas and their patron in Tehran.
“I’ll close with this. Our job, first and foremost, is to serve as a voice, because today, the world is horrified. Today, the world sees these images and hears these stories and raises their voices together with us. But the weeks, maybe months to come, will be difficult. [There will be] difficult choices to make. Conflicts like these are never easy, but there is no other choice but to move forward and eradicate these killers, these degenerates. When those days get difficult, there will be voices that say, maybe you’ve done enough. Maybe you’ve re-established deterrence. Maybe you’ve sent a message. This is not about deterrence. This is not about sending a message. This is not even about retribution or retribution. This is about confronting a group that wants to destroy you and destroying them before they achieve their goal and their purpose.
“I cannot speak for the entirety of the U.S. government, but I can tell you this. As long as I am one of those 100 voices…, I will be one of those that will be raising their voices and saying, not only does Israel have a right, it has an obligation and a duty to eliminate these Hamas killers, and that the United States must provide them with everything they need to achieve that goal. Israel will not ask for a single American soldier. They will not ask for a single American airstrike. They will do the job themselves, and we will help them.”
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