NOTICIAS

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined State of the Union with Jake Tapper to discuss Iran’s attack on Israel and what comes next. See below for highlights, and watch the full interview on YouTube y Rumble.

On the goal of Iran’s attack on Israel:

“Iran’s goal has always been the same, and that is to make Israel an unlivable place. Iran knows it cannot beat Israel militarily. But what it does aspire to do is make Israel an impossible place to live and a place no one wants to visit. I hear a lot of talk right now about how this was a performative attack, and how none of [the drones or missiles] got through. It’s good that those strikes did not get through, but what do you think the tourism numbers are today in Israel and in the next couple of weeks? What do we think the business numbers are going to look like? All of this is harmful to the Jewish state, because that is the goal of Iran ultimately. 

“And that’s why they want us out of Iraq. That’s why they want us out of Syria. That’s why they want to overthrow the king in Jordan. And that’s why they want to continue to surround Israel from Gaza, from Lebanon — they aspire, one day, from Jordan — from Syria, from Iraq — to have all these proxies, and from Iran, that are able to attack Israel and make it an unlivable place, so that the Jewish state will collapse from within economically and socially. 

“That is their goal. That is their aspiration. That is why many of those drones had lights on, so you could see them coming in. And the terror aspect of that, and that’s what we need to understand here, is that the core of all of this is not simply to respond to the death of an IRCG [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] killer, but it is also to continue to move forward on this plan to make Israel an unlivable place.”

On how Israel should respond to Iran’s attack:

“I’m not going to tell Israel what to do, because I’m not the one that was attacked by 300 rockets and missiles and drones. I do know that Israel has a very clear military doctrine, and that is that they respond to attacks with something much more severe. It is how they have survived. This is a country, a Jewish state, that in its very first hour of existence was attacked from multiple directions by multiple countries, and it has not stopped since then. They have faced constant threats to their existence on a repeated basis throughout their history. In fact, their history is defined by that. And so they have made the decision that they respond to attacks on Israel disproportionately. And it is the reason why we have not had another 1973 or 1967 situation. 

“Now, I imagine that Israel does not want a full-scale war either, and one of the ways they prevented it in the past is through the kind of deterrence that comes from a firm attack. So I expect that they will respond. I don’t think they’re going to ask us, nor do they need us to help them in that regard. Ours has been largely a defensive posture. 

“What I don’t understand is why Joe Biden and the administration would leak to the media the contents of a conversation in which he tells Netanyahu he doesn’t think [Israel] should respond at all. It is the continuing part of this public game that they are playing, which frankly encourages Iran and Hezbollah, which we haven’t even talked about, and the Houthis, and all these other elements, that are targeting Israel.”

On passing supplemental funding for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan:

“When it comes to Israel, the House has on two occasions now passed Israel funding. It sits languishing on the floor of the Senate. I know there was an effort by Senator Roger Marshall to pass Israel aid. This was a couple months ago. It was blocked by the Democrats. So we could go on Monday to Washington, D.C., and we could pass aid to Israel right away.

“The House has already acted. And I imagine if the Senate were to send the House an Israel aid bill on Monday, the House will pass it. I have little doubt about that, because they’ve done it already before….

“I am prepared to help Ukraine. I want to see us deal with the southern border too, and that was the negotiation, that was the agreement. That’s what was going to happen. And it didn’t happen. What they came up with was unacceptable when it came to the border. I remain a supporter of helping Ukraine. But I’m an even bigger supporter of helping America. I’m an American senator, and so I hope those two things can happen in conjunction. 

“But when it comes to Israel, this is something that has long enjoyed strong bipartisan support. We can vote on it on Monday. It should be able to pass unanimously. If not, we should take votes on it, and I am confident the House will pass it very quickly thereafter, because they’ve done so already.”

On Israel’s strike close to the Iranian consulate in Damascus:

“What Israel hit was an annex building next to a consulate. It was an annex building occupied by IRCG agents who were targeted. They are on the ground in Lebanon every single day, coordinating and helping Hezbollah and others in the region attack Israel. 

“I think lost in all of this, as we talk about the 300 launches against Israel yesterday, just the night before, 30 to 50 rockets were launched from Lebanon by Hezbollah against Israel. There are close to 90,000 currently internally displaced Israelis that cannot return to their homes in northern Israel because it is under constant bombardment from Hezbollah. How is Hezbollah attacking them? They are using the targeting information being provided by those IRGC agents, the weapons being provided to them, and these long range missiles, rockets, and precision-strike weapons being provided to them by [those IRGC officials.] 

“This is almost a daily occurrence. It’s almost like, ‘Yeah, there were another 50 rockets yesterday.’ Those are the guys running that. And those guys are legitimate military targets. And they were struck in an annex building that was near the consulate. That’s what that was. 

“[Are we] just going to let those guys sit there behind some desk and continue to coordinate the delivery of weapons and intelligence information so that Israelis cannot live in the north? It is part of the strategy. It’s just like the Soleimani stuff, where all these people went around crying because Soleimani was killed. They called it an assassination. This guy, his hands were drenched in the blood of Americans because of the IEDs that they helped provide in Iraq during that conflict. These people are legitimate military targets.”

On how the United States should respond to Iran’s attack on Israel: 

“I support defending American troops in the region. We have people stationed in the region in multiple countries, and we sent them there. Whether people like them being there or not, the bottom line is that we sent these young Americans there, and our job is to protect them. I’m in favor of doing anything we can to protect them and prevent them from being attacked. 

“But Israel is not asking us to launch attacks on Iran. I’ve never heard the Israelis come to us and say, ‘Will you help us?’ or, ‘Will you attack Iran or go in after Iran?’ They’re not asking for that. But I think we go from that to the other extreme, which is Joe Biden telling Netanyahu, ‘Take the win, don’t do anything.’ And then his people leaked it to the press. 

“[The Biden Administration] knows that Israel is going to respond. They know this for a fact. So why would the White House leak it? There’s only one reason they leak that, and that is so when Israel does respond, the White House can say, ‘We told them not to do it,’ and in some way appease the so-called peace activists.

“People who were out yesterday cheering the launch of hundreds of rockets and drones and missiles against Israel, people that are out there cheering military attacks of this scale and scope, are not peace activists. These are antisemitic, anti-Israel, pro-terrorist elements out there. And we need to stop calling them peace activists. They are not peace activists. Peace activists do not cheer massive attacks against other countries, which is what they were doing yesterday.”