[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 121 (Thursday, July 25, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5525-S5527]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ISRAEL

  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, we all had the opportunity yesterday to 
be able to hear Binyamin Netanyahu speak to a joint session of 
Congress. It is the fourth time Binyamin Netanyahu has spoken in 
Congress.
  This particular invitation was different, though. During a time of 
war, it is much more heightened than it has been for a long time. He 
came in a very serious tone to be able to tell America and Americans: 
Thank you for standing with us as Israel.
  And the second thing we heard from him over and over again is: Don't 
forget why we are in this war.
  He introduced hostages that have been released. He introduced 
families whose loved ones are still hostages. He introduced members of 
the IDF who lost limbs or fought against terrorism. And he reminded 
Americans that more than 1,200 people died on October 7 of last year, 
and 253 people were taken hostage at that time.
  This war would be over right now if Hamas would release their 
hostages. This is not a war that Israel started. There is a barrier and 
a fence between Israel and Gaza. Gaza was there; Israel was there.
  But thousands of terrorists from Hamas crossed through that barrier 
early on Saturday morning on October 7, on a Jewish holiday, and 
slaughtered children in their beds, killed moms and dads, and carried 
out the worst act of terrorism that Israel has ever seen. So Israel is 
responding.
  Prime Minister Netanyahu committed again that they will continue to 
fight until they bring every single one of those hostages home, even as 
they continue the negotiations to try to stop the war.
  Currently, Israel is literally surrounded by enemies coming at them. 
It is something we lose track of in the United States. Israel now faces 
Hamas actively attacking them through terrorist actions and continuing 
to threaten, as Hamas leaders, even in the past month, have said that 
if given the opportunity, they would come back and do an October 7 all 
over again. They never relented. And they continue to put civilians 
between them and harm to try to protect the lives of the militants by 
using civilians as shields.
  But many Americans forget that Hezbollah from the north in Lebanon 
continues to launch rockets consistently into Israel every day. And 
80,000 Israelis currently are internally displaced inside Israel, 
fleeing from their own homes; and they have been away from their homes 
now for 10 months because 10 or more rockets a day are coming into 
northern Israel as they continue to launch at them over and over.
  While American media has ignored that, the people of Israel cannot, 
because they live under that threat every single day. From the West 
Bank, there continues to be attacks that are happening on a weekly 
basis. From Syria, there continues to be attacks from Iranian-backed 
militants there. The same with Iraq.
  And just in the past 2 weeks, Yemen has landed one of their attack 
drones inside a neighborhood in Tel Aviv. Now, they have launched 
hundreds at Israel, but this was the first time they actually struck 
one of their targets. And Houthi leaders inside Yemen celebrated by 
saying: We have finally killed some Israelis.
  Israel is literally surrounded every single day. All of those 
militant groups are all funded by the Iranian regime--all of them. We 
as Americans sometimes point at Iran and say: They are the problem. And 
we lose track of the simple fact it is not the Iranian people. The 
people of Iran live under the oppression of the Iranian regime that 
they would like to be free from as well.
  But the entire region is destabilized by the actions and the 
terrorist activities of just that Iranian leadership and that regime. 
They are funding Hezbollah. They are funding Hamas. They are funding 
the militants in Syria and in Iraq. They are funding and providing all 
the trajectory for the Houthis and attacking ships in the Red Sea, as 
well as launching at Israel on a regular basis. It is Iran that is 
doing that.

[[Page S5526]]

  And we as the United States should do whatever we can to apply the 
maximum amount of pressure on Iran and on that regime to be able to 
shut off the flow of money and shut off their ability to be able to 
sell oil worldwide so we can continue to be able to put pressure on 
them so they are not flowing money to terrorist organizations that are 
attacking Israel on a regular basis.
  Now, I understand that what I have just stated is controversial to 
some people in the United States. As Binyamin Netanyahu was speaking 
yesterday, at Union Station, just four blocks from where I am standing 
right now, there were people that were waving Palestinian flags, 
climbing on the statue of Christopher Columbus with spray paint, 
painting on Christopher Columbus's statue--four blocks from here on 
Union Station--``Hamas is coming,'' while they burned American flags 
and burned Israeli flags. Four blocks from here.
  I am keenly aware that not every American is supportive of what is 
happening in Israel. But we are the United States of America. Israel is 
our ally. She is a functioning democracy in the chaos of the Middle 
East, and we should continue to stand with Israel because she is facing 
terrorism, just as we have faced terrorism.
  As Binyamin Netanyahu reminded all Americans yesterday, Iran really 
wants to destroy America. Just Israel is between Iran and America, so 
they go after Israel first.
  There is something growing in America though. And it is a growing 
anti-Semitism that is occurring, something Senator Rosen and I have 
talked about for years. We talked about what is happening on college 
campuses. After October 7, the anti-Semitism on our university campuses 
nationwide has now exploded into full view. What has been trained into 
students by faculty that are anti-Israel is now bearing fruit in public 
demonstrations. It is funded by we don't know who yet, but definitely 
organized and funded and well-equipped.
  Today, Senator Rosen and I held an anti-Semitism hearing with college 
students from six different college campuses. They came and told their 
story of what it is like to be a Jewish student on an American college 
campus. And I think this body needs to be able to hear their story, 
because not everyone was able to be in that hearing today.
  Let me just share the stories, because for some people, they just set 
it aside and say: There are a few places and there are minor things 
that are happening, but it is no big deal. Let me share what Jewish 
students on six different college campuses are saying to us in the U.S. 
Senate today.
  There is a student that is from Columbia University. I will leave the 
names out to be able to protect them. She gave us testimony today 
saying this:

       In the fall semester alone, I endured harassment in the 
     middle of the night and repeated vandalism of my property and 
     resident-assistant bulletin boards, resulting in eventual 
     removal due to constant damage.
       I also experienced both traditional and cyber bullying. 
     Within the first week of the October 7th attacks, people 
     began to glare at me, or ignore me entirely, turning away 
     from me even if I greeted them by name. By the end of school 
     year, friends of mine who are now--

  As she said--

     former friends did not even want to be seen with me. But 
     while my experience was harsh, others endured much graver 
     conditions. I have friends who were spat on and physically 
     attacked; I know people who did not leave their dorm rooms 
     for days [at a time] because they were too afraid of what 
     might happen to them. This is, of course, not even to mention 
     the encampment nor the demonstrations at individual Columbia 
     school graduations that--while I hate to admit it--really did 
     spoil the entire ceremony . . . And throughout it all, these 
     students have waved the Palestinian flag. But this has never 
     been about Palestine; it has not even truly concerned [about] 
     the war in the Gaza Strip. It has always been a protest 
     against the existence of a Jewish State.
       At Columbia, people chant that zionists are not welcome, 
     calling on ``death to the Jewish State.'' One student leader 
     said that ``zionists don't deserve to live.''

  Another student from Rutgers University said:

       We tracked [and] endured [and] experienced more than 200 
     incidents of bias/antisemitism since October 7. This 
     represents the supermajority of all bias incidents on campus. 
     This has created an environment where Jewish students feel 
     unsafe, especially since the attack October 7th, with almost 
     300 days passing without a sense of security on campus or in 
     their classrooms at Rutgers.
       Throughout the last week of the semester and during finals 
     in the spring, there was an encampment in solidarity with 
     Hamas, a U.S.-recognized terror organization, on [Vorhees] 
     Mall in the heart of the College Avenue campus that disrupted 
     classes, student learning, and threatened the safety of 
     Jewish students on campus.

  That is at the second campus. The third campus, George Washington 
University, a student there said to us:

       On the night of April 29, encampment participants staged a 
     riot, ripping down the fences that were put up by the 
     university around the yard. They stood on the pile of fences 
     while chanting euphemisms for mass murder and desecrating a 
     statue of George Washington.
       Signs in the encampment bore the words ``final solution'' 
     and swastikas. Another read, ``Israelis go back to Europe, 
     [your real homes]. Protesters claimed to be fighting for 
     peace yet [they] preached the opposite, chanting: We don't 
     want no 2 states,'' ``Globalize the intifada,'' and ``Hamas 
     are freedom fighters.'' One student said, ``when we say we 
     don't want Zionists here, we really mean it.''

  At Ohio State University:

       On my campus, Jewish sorority girls were spat on while 
     selling bracelets with the words ``I stand with Israel.'' Two 
     assailants vandalized our Hillel building, our center for 
     Jewish life while screaming anti-Israel and anti-Semitic 
     obscenities. Two Jewish students were assaulted and spent the 
     night in the hospital after being physically stopped on the 
     street. A group of Jewish girls had pennies thrown at them. 
     Early one morning, several men approached the Jewish Alpha 
     Epsilon Pi fraternity, screaming--

  I am not going to say it--
     and throwing bottles at the house. Students for Justice in 
     Palestine entered our main library and chanted antisemitic 
     slogans for over an hour without facing any consequences.

  Interestingly enough, in my home State, we had a student that was 
there that had transferred from another university to the University of 
Oklahoma. He had said he wanted to be able to find ``a legal education, 
free of fear of having to bite my tongue; forced to hide my identity 
and [my] thoughts'' all the time. He thought his best chance would be 
to attend a law school on a campus like the University of Oklahoma.
  He said he came there and he openly discussed his faith to see what 
the climate would be like. He said:

       The spirit of Dr. Ada remains strong.

  I will have to tell you that story another time. It is a great story 
on Dr. Ada.
  He said:

       I . . . have . . . been warmly received by everyone there, 
     and am receiving the educational experience I wish [I could 
     have received at Indiana University].

  Then I have to tell you this story. A student from Oregon 
University--she came and said:

       Flyers were handed out glorifying the Palestinian 
     resistance and celebrating the ``Al Aqsa flood''--

  That is the October 7 attack--

     as an act of ``decolonization.'' Signs called for the 
     abolition of the state of Israel, saying: ``from the river to 
     the sea.''
       One graffiti on campus asked, ``How many children did you 
     eat today?''
       When we brought these concerns directly to the University 
     President, we were blamed for not properly reporting these 
     incidents--even though it was entirely unclear where hate 
     bias incidents of this nature were to be reported. It felt 
     degrading. It felt like [it was] victim blaming.

  She asked this question and made this statement. She was very kind. 
She said:

       I want to thank Senators Rosen and Lankford for introducing 
     the bipartisan Countering Antisemitism Act--which takes 
     tangible action to address some of the issues I have talked 
     about today.

  She said this:

       I hope you will work together to get this legislation to 
     the finish line and to deliver for Jewish students who are 
     nervously anticipating entering another challenging academic 
     year this fall.

  What was she asking for? She made it very specific. She wants this 
body to act, to speak out for Jewish students that in a few weeks are 
going to be headed back to their campus, wondering if their campus will 
be the same as it was when they left it, because when they left at 
graduation, there were pro-Hamas rallies at graduations and people 
shouting down Jewish students on campus, belittling them and attacking 
them. They are wondering: If I go back to school at all this fall, what 
will I face? That is not an unrealistic question.

[[Page S5527]]

  So the students that spoke to us asked for some very specific things. 
One is that administrators on university campuses should actually 
enforce the code of conduct on their university campuses--what a 
radical idea. If you have a code of conduct, actually enforce it. Don't 
enforce it on some groups and not on others.
  Some of these students said that on their campus, the protesters that 
were shutting down the library and shutting down graduation got 
meetings with the administration to negotiate what to do and Jewish 
students did not.
  If you have a code of conduct on a university campus--and all of them 
do--don't allow hateful speech and actions to occur on your campus, to 
shut down the education. Don't tell--some of these students faced from 
the administration ``I would encourage you not to go to the library 
today'' when their tuition helped pay for that library the same as 
everyone else's. But to say to one group of protesters ``They have 
taken it over. They really have the occupation. I wouldn't go there. It 
is not safe for you''--why don't you do something crazy, 
administrators? Why don't you make your campus safe for everyone? That 
is one request they have.
  The second request they had was--Congress passed the IHRA definition 
of ``anti-Semitism.'' The House has already passed it. The State 
Department right now uses the International Holocaust Remembrance 
Alliance--the IHRA--definition for ``anti-Semitism'' and has used it 
for more than three decades. It is not controversial for our State 
Department, but we have never required the Department of Education to 
also have that same definition.
  What is happening on university campuses right now is that all these 
statements are being made, as some of the students said today, that 
sound a lot like what Nazi Brownshirts said in Germany years ago to 
Jewish students, being said on American college campuses now, but 
university officials are saying: We don't have a good definition of 
``anti-Semitism,'' so we can't really say that it is anti-Semitic 
hatred.
  We all know it is.
  This body should take the same definition that our State Department 
has used for decades and require the Department of Education to also 
use that same definition of ``anti-Semitism.'' That shouldn't be a 
radical jump for us. The House passed it. We should pass it. That was 
the second request they had.
  The third request they had was to pass the act that Senator Rosen and 
I have already passed through committee to bring it to this body. It is 
noncontroversial, but this body of the Senate has not taken it up. I 
would ask the majority leader to bring up that legislation dealing with 
anti-Semitism before students return to campus this fall to give a 
clear message to those students that the United States stands for 
everyone having the opportunity to be able to speak out their point of 
view, live their faith, and live without fear--especially in an 
educational environment.
  If students want to be pro-Hamas on a university campus, I think it 
is foolish, I think it is a terrible thing to do, but you have the 
right to do it. But you do not have the right to be able to silence and 
intimidate Jewish students on campus at the same time. You do not have 
the right to do that. They have the right to live their faith in safety 
and to be able to go to the school of their choice. It is the United 
States of America. Right now, we have pro-Hamas demonstrators trying to 
frighten Jewish students away from campuses of their choice. That needs 
to stop.
  This body needs to take up the act that Senator Rosen and I have 
brought--that should not be a controversial issue--and to speak out on 
behalf of all those students that are just looking for someone to stand 
with them. So why don't we do that?
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________