Rep. John Curtis describes difficult visit to the Middle East

Utah Rep. John Curtis visited the Middle East this week as part of a congressional delegation, where he met with the leaders of Israel, Jordan and Egypt. He said his focus during the trip was on how to get the remaining hostages freed and on how to stop the fighting.
Curtis described his visit in his weekly email and video — a forum he uses to regularly discuss his “highs and lows” from the week. This week, he said, was particularly hard.
The high for the week was returning to a region he had first visited in 1979 as an 18-year-old BYU student on a study abroad program, he said.
“The low, it won’t surprise you, is the angst, the turmoil, the pain that’s happening here all around. We have seen some things that I can’t unsee,” he said. “I actually told a colleague I almost wish I had not come on this trip because of what I’ve seen. But it’s good too, because this perspective has been very helpful.”
Curtis is the Republican nominee in the race to replace Sen. Mitt Romney, who is leaving the Senate after a single term. Romney was in Israel one week after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, which he described as a “heartbreaking, heart-wrenching experience.”
Curtis said during his trip he visited the site in Northern Israel where earlier this month a bomb killed 12 Druze children and teenagers, and he also met with some of the families of the hostages still being held by Hamas.
“We met with the families of the American hostages, and have been very focused on this trip on how we return the hostages, not just the Americans, but all the hostages,” he said. “People may have forgotten that 45 Americans were killed on Oct. 7, eight were taken hostage. Five of those eight are believed to be alive. We’ve been very, very, very focused on this trip on figuring out how to get those hostages back.”
During his visit, Curtis said he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, and would also be visiting with the leaders of Qatar.
Besides freeing the hostages, Curtis said he was also focused on helping to find an end to the conflict in the region.
“It won’t surprise any of you to know that there is just vast frustration, vast anger all around at what’s happening here,” he said. “How do we find a way forward that allows our strong Jewish friends and allies, our strongest ally here in the Middle East and arguably around the world, to have the nation that they deserve and the peace they deserve. How do we end the destruction and the killing of so many people, and do so in a way that works. It seems a little elusive.”
Curtis was in Egypt when he filmed his remarks, and said he was reminded of his time in Israel in 1979, during which President Jimmy Carter helped facilitate the signing of peace accords between Egypt and Israel.
“I’ve seen the decades and decades of stability that that has brought into the region,” Curtis said.
When meeting with President al-Sisi, Curtis said he reminded him of that historic moment.
“And today, when I met with the president of Egypt, I brought that up, and I told him I fully expected him to be the kind of leader that (former Egyptian President) Anwar Sadat was, and find solutions and bring peace and harmony into the region. And I believe we can do it, but it takes those types of exceptional people and commitments to peace,” he said.