SPOKANE, WASH- Congressman Michael Baumgartner (WA-05), who is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has just returned to the United States following a bipartisan congressional delegation trip to Israel.
The congressman sat down with NonStop Local’s Bradley Warren for a conversation about the trip and the situation in the Middle East. Immediately, the Congressman shared his experience after visiting the site of the October 7 terrorist attack.
“One of survivors of that terrible attack told us what happened to her, she had been shot with a ricochet in the back of her head and she had a lot of blood coming out and so she was able to play dead while the Hamas terrorists came by and shot her friends,” Congressman Baumgartner said.
The site is about a mile from the Gaza Strip and he said while there he could gun fire in the background, as it is still very active.
The bipartisan group was led by the Speaker of the House, Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer. The Congressman estimates 30 members from both parties went on the trip.
The Congressman spoke to U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We [Netanyahu] talked a lot about the threat from Iran,” Congressman Baumgartner said, “the world is much safer today for what Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump did over the month of July and the 12th day war in degrading Iran.”
In response to the hypothetical, “lets say the hostages are released, where does Netanyahu go from here, because there are a lot of people who don’t think he’s willing to stop at that point” The congressman responded with:
“The focus needs to be on defeating Hamas, the next focus needs to be on continuing to use American diplomatic resources to help the Israelis work with the Arabs to expand the Abraham accord.”
The Congressman said more nations need to continue to recognize Israel’s right to exist.
“In the first Trump Administration they made a lot of progress with the Abraham accords, where the UAE and Bahrain, Morocco joined Jordon and Egypt in recognizing Israel’s right to exist […] what we want to do as Americans is support those efforts diplomatically [in reference to relations with the Saudi’s and Israelis] to extend piece in the Arab nations and also root out the terrorist networks,” Congressman Baumgartner said.
In response to France and Great Britain announcing they possibly would recognize a Palestinian state the Congressman said the moves from the Europeans are unfortunate.
“They [the Europeans] have basically emboldened Hamas, Hamas needs to release the hostages and then they [Hamas] need to go into exile,” Congressman Baumgartner said, “it’s unfortunate when these European nations give some strength to Hama and that needs to not happen.”
When asked about getting aid to the people of Gaza, the Congressman said he was supportive and would like to see better distribution in the south where Hamas has deeper control.
“That’s [the south is] where Hamas is using food aid as leverage to keep control of the population,” Congressman Baumgartner said. “We want to see the American effort expand and we want to see the Hamas-led effort reduced […] we want people to be fed but it is a very dangerous situation […] what the Israelis are essentially attempting to do is what we did in Iraq – something I got to be a part of, which was a clear-hold-build strategy, that we did in Baghdad, where you have to clear the terrorists out and then you have to hold onto the territory—this war could be over tomorrow if Hamas released [the hostages.]”
The Congressman said more than one time the only way for the situation to change, is for those hostages to be released that is a major sticking point for the Israelis and nonnegotiable.
“Its very clear who the bad guys are here,” Congressman Baumgartner said.
The Congressman followed up with that he believes the president has done a good job degrading the threat of a Iran – pointing out that Hamas was funded by Iran as a proxy group. He feels and extension of the Abraham accords and the opening an economic corridor through the Middle East to Europe could bring deeper stability to the region.
“The terrorists need to be defeated and that’s not something that can be rushed,” Congressman Baumgartner said. “there is zero excuse for these hostages not to be released.”
In response to questions about protests over the situation in the middle, the congressman said it is ok to disagree, he touched on the first amendment and how it’s important, saying we might learn from you when you express your disagreements, there might be things we actually agree on. He ended by saying that peaceful protests are great.
