[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 103 (Tuesday, June 18, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Page S4121]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ANTI-SEMITISM

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it has been a few weeks now since most 
of America's college students went home for the summer. The outbreak of 
organized hate that swept the campuses of the Nation's so-called elite 
universities has somewhat quieted down. Apparently, even the most 
zealous of Hamasnik tent-dwellers had summer plans to attend to. Some, 
no doubt, expect to join the radical road show for a reunion tour of 
Chicago during the Democratic National Convention in August--as if 
Chicago's own soft-on-crime politicians haven't done enough to damage 
what used to be a thriving city.
  But even as places like Berkeley and George Washington University are 
cleaned and repaired after their occupation by Marxist vandals, the 
shameful events of this past spring have left deep and lasting scars. 
At Columbia, the task force responsible for investigating rampant anti-
Semitism on campus in the wake of October 7 has released a new report, 
and the findings are chilling. On top of well-documented outbursts by 
student radicals, members of Columbia's faculty turned classrooms into 
safe spaces to indulge the world's oldest form of hate. So I would like 
to share with our colleagues some of the initial coverage of the 
report.
  One professor encountering a Jewish-sounding surname while reading 
names before an exam asked the student to explain their views on the 
Israeli government's actions in Gaza. Another told their class to avoid 
reading mainstream media, declaring that ``it is owned by Jews.'' A 
third revealed a student's complaint about an offensive comment 
regarding Jews by publicly displaying their email to fellow students.
  This isn't coming from the professional activists who swept in to 
occupy the academy. It is coming from the heart of the academy itself. 
The rot runs deep. It is impossible to ignore. The scourge of anti-
Semitism is a blight on once-prestigious institutions across our 
country, and unfortunately it reaches from college campuses right here 
to the U.S. Capitol.
  Next month, a growing list of elected Democrats will boycott a joint 
session of Congress welcoming the duly elected leader of the world's 
only Jewish State and the only democracy in that region.
  Their plans, of course, are predictable. When Prime Minister 
Netanyahu last addressed Congress in 2015, nearly 60 Members refused to 
attend. In the years since, Washington Democrats have ceded more and 
more influence to despicable causes like the Boycott, Divest, and 
Sanction movement and to high-profile newcomers who traffic in 
unvarnished anti-Semitism.
  I am proud to live in a country that, as our former colleague Ben 
Sasse has put it, protects people's rights to make abject idiots of 
themselves, and far too many powerful people have taken the horrific 
attacks of October 7 as an invitation to do exactly that. But I am also 
proud to live in a country that the world expects to stand with our 
allies, and the President's conduct towards America's closest ally is 
straining that expectation. Unfortunately, so is the conduct of other 
elected Democrats.
  Grotesque attempts to interfere in Israel's politics by calling for 
the removal--the removal--of its Prime Minister have lowered the bar 
for outrageous behavior, and micromanagement and withholding assistance 
have repeatedly made Israel's task to restore its security and bring 
terrorists to justice even more difficult.
  Next month's joint session ought to be an opportunity to demonstrate 
to the world that America's commitments to allies facing existential 
threats cannot be held hostage by the loudest fringes of our politics, 
that they are not at the mercy our lapses in moral clarity.
  The last thing a sovereign democracy under siege needs is a public 
tongue-lashing from the White House or a scolding speech from the floor 
of the Senate. Israel needs the weapons the President has withheld. It 
needs the time and space to finish the job against terrorists trying to 
destroy it. It needs the freedom to operate on its own timetable based 
on tactical reality in the Middle East, not on the political whims in 
Washington. And Americans should be united in support.

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