The United States must continue to send a clear, strong signal that it is completely behind Israel, and President Joe Biden should have declared the country's unwavering support "a lot sooner," Rep. Mark Alford said on Newsmax Saturday.
"Three weeks ago, the world changed when Islamic terrorists invaded Israel and butchered a lot of people," the Missouri Republican said on Newsmax's "America Right Now." "We've got to continue to send a clear, strong signal that we're 100% behind Israel."
Meanwhile, Alford said he "would give the president a C" when it comes to how he's handled the crisis.
"I think he should have come out a lot sooner from the Oval Office declaring our unconditional and unwavering support for Israel," he said.
Biden has sent aircraft carriers and other assets into the region to "make sure that they see we have their back," Alford said, 'but we've got to continue to not doubt them. Let them go into Gaza and let them eradicate Hamas once and for all."
But as "Hamas is the bad guy," it doesn't work to equivocate the Palestinian people with the Israelis, Alford added.
"We know there's going to be casualties on the Palestinian side," said Alford. "That is why the Israeli Defense Forces have given them time to leave ... where they can come in through the northern end and start cleaning out the tunnels and try to rescue as many hostages as possible. To try to somehow equivocate the plight of the Palestinian people with that of the Israeli people is just wrong."
According to AP, Gaza's Ministry of Health released on Thursday its first detailed report of civilian casualties, which totaled 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 minors.
Alford on Saturday also discussed how new House Speaker Mike Johnson will be able to keep the Republican conference together with the looming government shutdown deadline on Nov. 17, and acknowledged that it will "be tricky."
"You know that Kevin McCarthy was fired by the aid of our conference and the rest of the Democrats because he wanted a continuing resolution," he said. "These are kind of tricky waters to wade through. I know the new speaker is able to do that."
But still, the Senate "is intent on jamming us up right before Christmas with an omnibus bill," Alford said. "We can't have it, so the solution is to go to a short-term CR right before Christmas. That is not a good idea. The only viable option is to extend the CR until April and have these 1% automatic cuts kick in in January. That is going to put immense pressure on us to get our job done."
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