mr. alford: thank you, mr. vice chair. mr. speaker, i rise today as my colleague did before me, nick langworthy, to express my support for the state of israel in its war for survival, basically, against the terrorist hamas group. we need to make one thing perfectly clear in this body, that we stand with israel. no matter what. as mr. langworthy just said, we just got back from israel. in fact, 16 congress men and women with many of their spouses went as well. this was a trip to gain insight, to gain context and perspective, to be educated about the plight of israel and what they are facing in this war with these brutal savages, the hamas terrorists. .... what we saw, mr. speaker, was horrible. we went to a kibbutz in the southern part of israel, it was one of our first stops. this was a village -- basically, a kibbutz is a village or gathering of people. it was a beautiful village at one time. we went there and it was frozen in time, tricycles were left out on the sidewalk area, clothes were pulled halfway out of the drier. fo