[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Page 5568]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 5568]]

                             ANTI-SEMITISM

  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, I rise to make a statement on a 
matter that troubles me deeply. I do so with considerable reluctance.
  It concerns a good friend of the United States, a country that for 
twenty years has been one of the bedrocks upon which the search of 
peace in the Middle East has rested. Here I speak about the Arab 
Republic of Egypt. I am loathe to bring to this floor anything that 
mars the image of the country that produced a leader of the courage and 
vision of Anwar Sadat.
  I am told that the time is never right for such a statement. This is, 
as the experts always say, a ``critical moment in the Middle East,'' a 
``turning point,'' or a ``cross-roads.'' A wrong word here and a 
misplaced gesture there, I am told, and the pendulum may swing from 
tension to confrontation. Well, they may be correct. But then the time 
may never be right to speak out.
  The wrong that has been committed in Egypt on a daily basis is one 
with which we in the West sadly have far too much experience. Indeed, 
it is a wrong that mars our history at its very roots and is something 
that we can never work too hard to remove from our thoughts and our 
consciousness. But because I know how far we have come in ridding this 
curse from our minds and hearts, and because I have come to learn how 
much it has become daily fare in the newspapers, airwaves, and pulpits 
of Egypt, I have put aside my reluctance to speak out on this issue 
today.
  The issue is anti-Semitism.
  I am not speaking of critiques of Israeli policy, but a resurgence of 
acerbic anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. I am speaking of the 
coarsest sort of hatred of Jews as Jews, the kind of hatred that 
pollutes the mind, infects the soul and ensures that peace remains 
stone cold.
  Caricatures of Jews that could have been lifted directly from the 
pages of Der Sturmer seem to have been transplanted directly into the 
leading Egyptian newspapers; accusations of far-fetched Jewish 
conspiracies that are restricted to the radical fringe in our country 
are daily fare of the elite press in Cairo--cartoons that are 
grotesque, stories that are lurid, articles that are filled with 
nothing but hate, loathing and intolerance. I have a long catalogue of 
vile statements, pictures, cartoons, and articles, but I will not sully 
the reputation of this chamber in reciting them to you today. I will, 
however, request inclusion in the Congressional Record of selections 
from several major Egyptian newspapers in recent months. These media 
outlets are all state-owned, pro-government newspapers.
  It is a sad reality that anti-Semitism exists in many parts of the 
globe, alongside its first cousins of racism, sexism, xenophobia, and 
other forms of intolerance. And I am the first to admit that we as a 
nation do not have clean hands here. But what separates our experience 
from the terrible form of anti-Semitism that we see in Egypt today is 
that we denounce it from the secular and religious pulpits of our 
society. We give it no sanction and no sanctuary in our public life. 
And we fight it wherever it rears its ugly head.
  Unfortunately, in Egypt the opposite seems to be the rule. Some of 
the vilest forms of anti-Semitic literature are published not in the 
sensationalist opposition press but in the major newspapers owned and 
operated by the Egyptian leaders who either dismiss the numerous 
examples of anti-Semitism as the stuff of far-left or far-right fringe 
groups or rush to hide behind the four word safe haven of ``freedom of 
the press.'' It is disappointing that Egyptian leaders do not take to 
the airwaves, opinion pages or pulpits of their country to denounce 
anti-Semitism and condemn those who would traffic in hate.
  It is particularly disappointing that Egyptian leaders do not take a 
stand against this hatred because of its history and its role. Egypt is 
a leader in the Arab world, which affords her enormous influence. Egypt 
has been a brave leader in the pursuit of a peace that, on this issue, 
has sadly lost its moral compass. Two generations after the Holocaust 
and the founding of Israel, I, for one, can no longer sit idly by as I 
watch a new generation of Middle Easterners grow up inheriting an 
ideology of hate. Nor can I sit idly by as we Americans annually funnel 
close to $2 billion to Egypt, some of which subsidizes a government-
owned press which promulgates hatred and corrupts the minds of its 
readers.
  Therefore, I believe that there needs to be a clear, unequivocal and 
systematic effort by the Government of Egypt to repudiate the purveyors 
of anti-Semitic hatred, to build a culture of tolerance on which the 
prospect of real peace can flourish.
  As I said at the outset, I rise today with extreme reluctance. I want 
to be clear that this is not an issue regarding the freedom of the 
press in Egypt; rather, it is a call to action. I hope my colleagues 
will join me in sending a message to our friends in Egypt that such 
ugly and despicable anti-Semitism rhetoric must be repudiated 
officially and strongly at every level.

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