[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 180 (Wednesday, November 1, 2023)]
[House]
[Pages H5185-H5186]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      CONFLICT IN THE MIDDLE EAST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Sherman) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, the scenes from Gaza are horrendous, and 
people want the fighting to end. Some call for a cease-fire. Hamas 
needs to hear those calls and agree to free the hostages and turn over 
its rockets, and then we can have that cease-fire.
  There was a cease-fire on October 6. Hamas broke it and killed 1,400 
Israelis.
  What would happen if we had a cease-fire leaving the rockets and arms 
in Hamas' hands?
  Today, Ghazi Hamad, a high-ranking Hamas official, said exactly what 
would happen. He said: We will repeat October 7 one, two, three, four, 
five times, as many times as it takes, until Israel is annihilated.
  We need a true cease-fire, and we can achieve it only if Hamas is 
disarmed.
  I have been a pro-Israel activist for 60 years and a member of the 
Foreign Affairs Committee for nearly 30. Israel has one friend in the 
world. Hamas knows that. America is divided and partisan. Hamas knows 
that. The terrible scenes in Gaza show that Hamas is willing to die for 
one thing, and that is to put those scenes on American television to 
undercut support for Israel to make sure that that support is not 
bipartisan.

  Last week, we showed bipartisan support, with 97 percent of the 
Democrats and 99 percent of the Republicans voting for a strong 
resolution. Unfortunately, our Speaker has decided to undercut that 
and, in doing so, help Hamas achieve its most important geopolitical 
objective.
  For 60 years, when an Israel resolution comes to this floor, it 
passes overwhelmingly with support on both sides of the aisle. 
Tomorrow, that changes because the Speaker is bringing a nakedly 
partisan version of the support for Israel bill to this floor.
  Mr. Speaker, you have only been in office for a week and already you 
are achieving Hamas' geopolitical objectives. Why? Supposedly, to pay 
for the cost of aiding Israel, they are going to slash the IRS budget. 
CBO today just indicated that that will cost us over $26 billion in 
revenue and will increase the cost of aiding Israel.
  I am here to say, as the co-chair of the Bipartisan CPA Caucus, as 
someone who has taught tax law at Harvard Law School, and as someone 
who headed the second largest tax agency in this country, that that CBO 
number is way too low. The long-term effects will be devastating on our 
ability to collect taxes.
  We need a bipartisan bill before this floor, not a bill that 
supposedly is going to help Israel but actually is designed to hurt 
Israel, help Hamas, and die in the Senate.
  Now, the numbers coming from Gaza about casualties are something that 
a CPA should look at. We know what happened at Al Ahli Arab hospital. 
They dramatically overstated the casualties. Then, America said, with a 
high degree of confidence from our intel community, that that was a 
rocket fired by Hamas or Islamic jihad that failed to reach its target 
and instead fell on a Palestinian hospital.
  Even if you accept Hamas' statistics, our press goes further and 
exaggerates their number.
  First, Hamas will tell you that they include in their statistics dead 
Palestinian combatants, and so our press reports the number as if that 
somehow is Israel's fault.
  Hamas will tell you that they include in those statistics those who 
die from the one-third of Hamas rockets that crash into Gaza, yet our 
press will report that statistic as if that is a number Israel is 
responsible for.
  As to those who die from Israeli ordnance, keep in mind that is 
because of Hamas' use of human shields. They were in Israel and could 
have stood and fought the Israeli Defense Forces. Instead, they quickly 
retreated behind their human shields.
  Finally, those who say that we have more deaths in Gaza than in other 
terrible events happening in the world, this is clearly false. We have 
had over 600,000 deaths in Ethiopia. The press didn't report it, but it 
still matters.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an open letter dated November 1, 
2023, from the Association of University Heads, Israel, to accompany my 
speech on the floor today.

       Dear Colleagues:
       We, the leaders of Israeli universities and research 
     institutions, write to express deep concern over the 
     discourse emanating from academia following the devastating 
     Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the inadequate 
     response, in many cases, by academic leadership.
       On that darkest of days, in a tragedy unprecedented in 
     Israel's 75-year history, the Hamas terrorists infiltrated 
     into the country and murdered more than 1,400 people, 
     including infants, children, students, and senior citizens--
     Jewish, Muslim, and Christian alike. The attack also included 
     the abduction of 240 civilians of all ages into Gaza; 
     additional missing persons have not yet been identified and 
     accounted for. In the aftermath of these horrific events, we 
     find it disturbing that certain narratives from academic 
     institutions misrepresent the situation, or, in the worst 
     cases, actively target Israelis and Jews.

[[Page H5186]]

       We find ourselves facing a war on two fronts: one against 
     the atrocities of Hamas, and another in the global arena of 
     public opinion. Regrettably, we have noticed an alarming 
     trend in which Israel, despite its right to self-defense, is 
     mischaracterized as an oppressor. This is a false equivalence 
     between the actions of a murderous terrorist organization and 
     a sovereign state's right to defend its citizens, which 
     unfortunately results in the loss of innocent Palestinian 
     lives. Any attempt to justify or equivocate Hamas's brutal 
     and grotesque actions is intellectually and morally 
     indefensible.
       It's unsettling to note that many college campuses have 
     become breeding grounds for anti-Israel and anti-Semitic 
     sentiments, largely fueled by a naive and biased 
     understanding of the conflict. It is ironic that the very 
     halls of enlightenment in America and Europe, ostensibly the 
     bastions of intellectual and progressive thought that are 
     your campuses, have adopted Hamas as the cause celebre while 
     Israel is demonized. Universities, as hubs of enlightenment 
     and rational discourse, must take responsibility for the 
     views they perpetuate.
       There is no moral equivalency here. Let's be clear: Hamas 
     shares no values with any Western academic institution. Hamas 
     is an organization that has repeatedly pledged to annihilate 
     Israel and its people.
       Its ideology is antithetical to the values of human life 
     and the liberal values we hold dear. Hamas funnels 
     international aid into armament rather than to the welfare of 
     its citizens. While Israel uses its weapons to shield its 
     citizens, Hamas uses its citizens as shields for its 
     weapons--which it hides in hospitals, schools, and mosques. 
     It is crucial to distinguish between Hamas' terrorist 
     objectives and the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian 
     people for statehood. The conflation of the two only serves 
     to fuel hatred and ignorance.
       Academic institutions stand as lighthouses in the 
     intellectual landscape, and we ask you to illuminate them. 
     Your roles as leaders of these institutions confer upon you 
     an extraordinary responsibility: to guide the moral and 
     ethical development of your students, to imbue them with the 
     ability to think critically and to discern the nuances that 
     separate right from wrong. Freedom of speech is a cornerstone 
     of academic freedom, but it should not be manipulated to 
     legitimize hate speech or to justify violence.
       We urge you to delineate the boundaries between 
     constructive discourse and destructive propaganda, and 
     promote evidence-based, nuanced thinking that challenges 
     simplistic narratives. Expose the falsity of justifications 
     for acts of terror; expose and condemn disingenuous 
     statements; and reject hypocritical voices that justify 
     murder, rape, and destruction in the name of ``resistance''.
       Moreover, we expect that Israeli and Jewish students and 
     faculty on university and college campuses will be accorded 
     the same respect and protections as any other minority. The 
     principles of inclusivity and campus safety must 
     unequivocally extend to include Israeli and Jewish members of 
     your academic communities. Just as it would be unthinkable 
     for an academic institution to extend free speech protections 
     to groups targeting other protected classes, so too should 
     demonstrations that call for our destruction and glorify 
     violence against Jews be explicitly prohibited and condemned.
       What the world witnessed on October 7 were not methods to 
     help disadvantaged peoples build better futures for 
     themselves. The events of this terrible day should be taken 
     as a wake-up call to all of the dangers of nihilistic 
     organizations like Hamas and ISIS that represent the very 
     opposite of freedom and liberty.
       As leaders of Israeli universities, we have been heartened 
     by clear statements of solidary and support for Israel, which 
     are, at their heart, statements in solidary with humanity, 
     enlightenment, and progress. At the same time, we are calling 
     for a sea change in clarity and truth in academia on the 
     matter of Israel's war against Hamas, so that light will 
     triumph over dark, now and always.
       Signed,
       Prof. Arie Zaban, President of Bar-Ilan University, 
     Chairperson of Association of University Heads--VERA;
       Prof. Daniel A. Chamovitz, President of Ben-Gurion 
     University of the Negev;
       Prof. Alon Chen, President of Weizmann Institute of 
     Science;
       Prof. Asher Cohen, President of the Hebrew University of 
     Jerusalem;
       Prof. Leo Corry, President of the Open University of 
     Israel;
       Prof. Ehud Grossman, President of Ariel University;
       Prof. Ariel Porat, President of Tel-Aviv University;
       Prof. Ron Robin, President of University of Haifa;
       Prof. Uri Sivan, President of the Technion-Israel Institute 
     of Technology.

                          ____________________