[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 147 (Thursday, December 4, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6345-S6346]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        INCITEMENT TO VIOLENCE AGAINST ISRAEL MUST BE CHALLENGED

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, as we hope for peace in the Middle East, 
some parties in the region are making peace less likely by inciting 
violence against Israel. It is imperative to recognize these words and 
actions for the poisons they are to achieving peace. An excellent 
November 23, 2014, opinion piece by Jeffrey Robbins in the Boston 
Herald entitled ``U.S. mute as Abbas incites violence'' articulates why 
silence is the wrong response to the anti-Israeli rhetoric and ideology 
that encourage further violence and terror. Jeff is a former delegate 
from the United States to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, 
and I believe my colleagues and the American people would benefit from 
reading the entire piece, which I ask unanimous consent to have printed 
in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Boston Herald, Nov. 23, 2014]

              Robbins: U.S. Mute as Abbas Incites Violence

                           (By Jeff Robbins)

       At a meeting in Jerusalem last December, a State Department 
     official was asked about the unremitting anti-Semitism 
     emanating from Palestinian officials, their continuing 
     celebration of the murderers of Israeli civilians and what 
     the United States was doing about it. It was ``a challenge,'' 
     she said, adding that it was ``our position'' that 
     Palestinian incitement of violence was ``unhelpful'' to 
     peace. Beyond this banality, she had nothing to offer.
       This week's massacre of worshippers in a Jerusalem 
     synagogue--following the Palestinian murders of Israelis in 
     recent days by

[[Page S6346]]

     stabbing them and by running them over--raises yet again the 
     disquieting question: has the Obama administration's 
     fecklessness about confronting Palestinian incitement of 
     terror served to enable it?
       In the last few weeks alone, the Palestinian Authority has 
     posted cartoons of an Israeli pulling down his pants and 
     preparing to ``rape'' an Arab woman representing a Muslim 
     holy site. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas praised the 
     Palestinian shot while attempting to assassinate an Israeli 
     as a ``martyr'' who was destined for heaven. A new hit song 
     on Palestinian social media calls for listeners to ``destroy, 
     annihilate [and] blow up'' Israelis. Al-Quds University has 
     created the ``Martyr Ibrahim Al-Akhari Tournament'' to honor 
     the man who recently murdered two Israelis and injured 13 
     others by running them over with his car.
       Despite the fact that American taxpayers provide $500 
     million to the Palestinian Authority annually, the Obama 
     administration has failed to use that leverage to pressure 
     the recipients of American aid to stop its incitement. Though 
     then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton warned back in 2007 of the 
     need to ``stop the propaganda to which Palestinian children 
     are being exposed,'' the administration has declined to 
     demand that the Palestinians cut it out.
       It is bad enough that the president has not lifted a finger 
     to pressure the Palestinian Authority to put an end to 
     incitement to murder. Even worse, his administration has 
     conducted itself in a way which, however unintended it may 
     be, has effectively green-lighted anti-Israelism of the most 
     vicious sort--which in turn fuels the kind of violence that 
     has left European Jews fearful for their lives and Israelis 
     reeling.
       This has included years of publicly derisive treatment of 
     Israel that has conveyed to Israel's enemies and others that 
     it stands alone, encouraging the conclusion that attacks on 
     Israel--political and physical--have no consequences as far 
     as the United States is concerned.
       Earlier this month the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, told the Carnegie Council for 
     Ethics in International Affairs that Israel deserved credit 
     for having gone to ``extraordinary lengths to limit 
     collateral damage and civilian casualties'' in trying to 
     defend itself from Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza. Dempsey's 
     praise placed the administration's scornful, damaging 
     criticism of what were obviously unintended deaths of 
     civilians in Gaza during this summer's wholly defensive war 
     in stark relief.
       Whether by giving interviews witheringly critical of 
     Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at particularly 
     sensitive moments or by using obscenities to castigate him, 
     the White House has encouraged the impression that Israel is 
     a fair target for those who wish it ill.
       The administration's scornful treatment of Israel has 
     registered deeply with Israel's enemies, who have been 
     encouraged to believe that America's ally is being cut loose. 
     And it has registered with particular force in the Middle 
     East, where the intensity of anti-Semitic incitement has 
     grown steadily.
       No serious person can claim that the administration wants 
     an upsurge of terror. But it is hard to deny that it bears a 
     share of responsibility for it.

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