[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 8 (Wednesday, January 15, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Page S159]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 ISRAEL

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the Jewish people have faced many libels 
and many libels over their history--in their case, for millennia. 
Today, the Jewish State faces the dirty libel--can you believe it?--of 
committing genocide, all while defending themselves from Hamas.
  Remember, Hamas has pledged to destroy the Jewish people in their 
homeland. Now, that happens to be real genocide. Israel's accusers cite 
large civilian casualty numbers traced to Hamas's self-reporting. As we 
know, Hamas has a history of inflating numbers, of not distinguishing 
fighters from civilians, and of listing male soldiers as women or 
children. A recent report by the Henry Jackson Society confirms that 
the widely cited Gaza casualty statistics suffer from all forms of 
falsifications.
  Still, as we would all agree, any civilian death in Gaza is a real 
tragedy. While Israel goes out of its way to issue warnings to 
civilians, Hamas actually encourages civilians to ignore evacuation 
warnings while embedding in schools and hospitals to use civilians as 
human shields. Hamas officials are on record that they seek civilian 
casualties for propaganda effect.
  The definition of ``genocide'' in the United States and also under 
international law focuses on the intent to destroy, in whole or in 
part, a national ethnic, racial, or religious group.
  A very recent Amnesty International report adopts a new definition 
just to tar Israel with that disgusting libel. Amnesty International 
Israel was not involved in the report and, as you might expect, rejects 
its central claims.
  So I want my fellow Senators to know that I, too, reject this bias 
and this misleading report, and I say: Shame on them.
  I yield the floor.

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