Hawaii’s congressional delegation continued Monday to condemn the U.S.-
Israel military strikes on Iran, calling them unauthorized and avoidable while the Hawaii Republican Party voiced full support for
President Donald Trump’s actions.

“This is a war of choice,” U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz said on the Senate floor. “It did not have to happen. There was no imminent threat from Iran.

“The American people — left, right and center — do not want another regime change war in the Middle East,” Schatz said, adding that Congress has a duty to debate and vote before authorizing prolonged military force.

U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda criticized the president’s unilateral military action and urged Congress to reassert its constitutional authority.

“When we go back this week, we’ll be voting on the War Powers Resolution,” she said, calling on lawmakers to “rein in this president.”

The comments on Monday reflected concerns within Hawaii’s congressional delegation about Trump’s failure to seek approval from Congress before launching the country into war.

But the Hawaii Republican Party released a statement on Saturday standing “firmly in support of decisive action to confront the dangerous Iranian regime.”

“For years, Iran’s leaders have funded and directed terrorist proxies that target American forces, including direct threats to U.S. troops stationed across the Middle East,” the party said.

It emphasized Hawaii’s role in U.S. defense and noted the presence of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and military families on the islands.

“Our sons and daughters serve in every theater,” the party said. “Attacks on American troops are personal to us.”

The party expressed full support for Trump’s actions, saying the United States has “both the right and obligation to respond with strength and clarity.”

But U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono and U.S. Rep. Ed Case called on Congress to exercise its oversight responsibilities.

“The President’s unilateral decision to strike Iran for purposes of regime change is a clear violation of the Constitution, which gives Congress, not the President, the sole power to declare war,” Hirono said in a statement on Saturday.

Case echoed that the lack of an imminent threat from Iran required Trump to seek Congressional approval for attacking Iran.

“As there has been no demonstration of an imminent threat to our country, this action is not authorized and that cannot be ignored,” Case said in a statement also released on Saturday.

Tokuda spoke Monday
at the headquarters of
Hawaii’s largest union, the Hawaii Government Employees Association, which endorsed her bid for reelection, citing her efforts on
behalf of working families and pushing back against Trump administration
policies.

HGEA said “vital public services” are under assault by a “lawless federal administration,” warning that proposed federal cuts could force states to consider layoffs and reductions in essential programs.

Randy Perreira, HGEA
executive director, said the stakes of the upcoming midterm elections extend beyond party politics and directly affect workers’ livelihoods and civil rights.

“Everything is at stake
in this election: Our jobs, health care, retirement security and even our most basic civil rights,” Perreira said. “Words are easy — there will always be politicians who tell you what you want to hear. That’s not Jill.”

Perreira said Tokuda has been “on the front lines” for working families and framed the endorsement as a response to what he described as efforts by “anti-union extremists” in Congress to cut funding for health care and safety net programs.

Hawaii voters will decide the winners of the Aug. 8 party primaries, followed by the Nov. 3 general election. Although Trump’s name won’t be on the ballot across the country, the general election results are anticipated to serve as a referendum on his policies.

Tokuda, who represents the neighbor islands and
rural Oahu, thanked the union and emphasized the broader political moment as she prepared to return to Washington for a possible vote this week on the War Powers Resolution addressing U.S. military strikes on Iran.

“I’m deeply honored to receive the support from the working men and women of HGEA,” Tokuda said. “This election is crucial to protecting our local values from the assault of our rights and provide opportunities for our working families to not just survive, but to thrive.”

Most visitors think Oahu’s North Shore stops at Haleiwa because that is where traffic builds to pandemonium, where beach parking fills earlier than you can imagine, and where sitting in your car between the familiar lineup of surf breaks and food trucks largely defines the experience. Once people have crawled through and found a place to stand at Waimea or Sunset, the mental box gets checked, and the car points back toward Honolulu fast, as if everything worth seeing has already been seen. But it hasn’t.

Instead of turning around at Haleiwa, we continued west on Farrington Highway and watched the storefronts fall away in the rearview mirror. The line of rental cars thinned fast as the road narrowed and the mountains got closer to the pavement. On the ocean side, long stretches of sand opened up, and within a few miles, we were seeing more wind in the ironwood trees than cars on the road or people on the beach.

Most visitors leaving Haleiwa head east toward Sunset Beach and Pipeline, where traffic stacks up endlessly and parking lots overflow. We went the other way. Out toward Mokuleia, the commercial North Shore disappears fast, and what replaces it is space. There are no visitors circling for stalls and no steady lines at food trucks. You can pull over without searching for the one open spot in a packed lot, and entire sections of beach sit quietly without the usual cluster.

Dillingham Airfield and the working North Shore.

One of the first landmarks after Mokule’ia Beach (which we will write about soon) is what most people still call Dillingham Airfield, though its official name is Kawaihapai Airfield. It is owned by the U.S. Army and managed by the State of Hawaii Department of Transportation under a 50-year lease, and it has been operated as a military installation since the 1920s, with HDOT taking over management in 1962. HDOT leases 272 acres of the 650-acre Dillingham Military Reservation and operates the single 9,000-foot runway, with the civilian side used heavily for gliders and skydiving while the Army retains first priority for air/land operations and uses the field for helicopter night-vision training.

As we drove past, it did not feel like a visitor attraction at all, even though you can spot the roadside signs for glider rides and skydiving. A small single-engine plane rolled down the runway and lifted off against the Waianae Mountains, then a glider followed, towed upward before separating and moving almost silently above the coastline. It is one of those North Shore scenes that makes you slow down without thinking about it, because it looks like real working Oahu rather than the marketed version, with runway, mountains, and open water all in the same frame and very few people around to make it feel like a production.

Camps that have been here for generations.

Close to the airfield are two oceanfront camps that rarely enter any typical Oahu visitor’s plans. The first is Camp Mokuleia, which sits along the shoreline and is owned by the Episcopal Church. If you’re not on a retreat, you can rent a campsite or tentalo on the beach. A little farther west is YMCA Camp Erdman, which opened in 1926 and is approaching its 100th anniversary, still renting oceanfront cabins and yurts to the public.

The accommodations are straightforward, with sand steps away from the doors and long views of the horizon. This is not a resort strip, and you won’t find any valet stands or infinity pools. Families gather around grills, kids move freely between cabins and the beach, while the ocean feels part of the daily backdrop more than it is an Instagram photo opportunity.

Camp Mokuleia tentalos start at $100 a night. Camp Erdman yurts and cabins range from $250-$450 per night for up to 6 guests. For context, the average vacation rental in the Mokuleia area lists above $500 a night.

The shoreline here is not known for calm, protected swimming, and currents can be strong without lifeguard towers stationed every few hundred yards. The beach also has a lot of coral, which keeps swimmers more limited than some other beaches. And that fact alone keeps casual beach traffic lighter, and it helps explain why this stretch feels so different from busier Oahu North Shore stops. The camps and the character of the water belong to the same landscape, shaped more by geography than by commercial branding.

Where the pavement ends.

Eventually, Farrington Highway reaches a gravel lot where the pavement stops and a locked gate marks the entrance to the Mokuleia section of Kaena Point State Park. There is no visitor center funneling people through an entrance plaza. Instead, there is open sky, steady trade winds, and a handful of parked cars facing a dirt road that continues on foot toward the westernmost tip of Oahu, where you can meet the road that comes from the other side. This is truly a part of Oahu that most visitors never see.

Hikers follow the old railroad route for roughly 2.7 miles to Kaena Point itself, where seabirds nest behind protective fencing and monk seals are sometimes seen along the shore. The trail is exposed, hot, and largely flat, with no services and little shade, which naturally limits casual foot traffic. Consider not trying it in the middle of the day. But, standing at the end of the paved road, with the Waianae Mountains behind you and nothing but raw coastline ahead, feels less like arriving at any Oahu attraction and more like standing at the literal end of the island.

What stood out most was how little competition there was for space. There were only a few cars in the lot when we arrived, and long portions of the beach were untouched compared with the chaotic churn nearby at Haleiwa. It was a bit windy, the mountains anchored one side of the horizon, and the coastline extended westward without any indication that you were sharing it with scattered other people.

If you have been to the North Shore more than once and believe you have already seen it, have you ever kept driving past Haleiwa until the pavement runs out? It’s worth the drive.

Photo Credits: © Beat of Hawaii at Kaena Point State Park, Oahu.