Resolution condemning the endemic restrictions on freedom of the press and media and public expression in the Middle East and the concurrent and widespread presence of anti-Semitic incitement to violence and Holocaust denial in the Arab media and press.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 1127) condemning the endemic restrictions on freedom of the press and media and public expression in the Middle East and the concurrent and widespread presence of anti-Semitic material, Holocaust denial, and incitement to violence in the Arab media and press, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the resolution and yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, in January of this year, the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia held a hearing entitled ``That Which Is Not Obligatory Is Prohibited: Censorship and Incitement in the Arab World.'' We received testimony from three witnesses, one each from Freedom House, the Committee To Protect Journalists, and the Anti- Defamation League. What we heard was not a surprise, but was still shocking. As a result of that hearing, I drafted this resolution and would like to ask all of my colleagues to give it their utmost consideration.

It is sad to note that in the 21st century, there is still not one Arab country that can be described as ``free'' by the metrics used by Freedom House, and frankly, by anyone actually familiar with the concept. While there are very significant differences throughout the region in the latitude given to public debate, political argument and press and media freedom, with the notable exception of Israel, not one Arab country can argue that its public square is truly open to all and that their government protects, rather than restricts, that freedom.

The ugly and typically stupid hand of the censor is unfortunately not a rare sight in the Middle East. It is not only ubiquitous, it is, in fact, often attached to the arm of the editor, the producer, the copy- writer, or the publisher. According to the United Nations' Arab Human Development reports, while Arab societies have, in general, failed to keep up with other developing nations, in the mechanisms of censorship in the Arab world, they have shown a remarkable degree of institutional adaptation and technological savvy. Their success in stifling debate and narrowing acceptable opinion is all the more remarkable given the frequent failures of Arab bureaucracies in meeting the basic needs of their people for things like education, infrastructure, economic opportunity and clean governance.

Countries that can't ensure that their citizens are literate or have clean drinking water still find the resources necessary to operate the red pen of the censor, or the self-serving manipulation of the truth endemic to government-owned, government-controlled and government- operated media. It would be nice if these ugly and ultimately self- defeating practices were merely the problem of other people in faraway places. We could pity them, think gravely about the words of Thomas Jefferson, and bless the wisdom of our Founders who, in a world of despots and danger, saw that a free press and free speech were the indispensable safeguards of our Republic and our liberty.

But we don't live in a world that gives us immunity from the troubles of others. Three thousand Americans paid the price for that lesson on September 11, 2001. If we don't visit the world's bad neighborhoods, they will visit us. The fact is, the world has grown smaller, and fair or not, the grievances between the peoples of the Middle East and their governments can be, and often are, attributed to the United States. We saw this phenomena metastasize in Iran in the late 1970s. And

we've heard the same complaints explicitly from al Qaeda's leaders. As a nation with vital national interests in that region, we have wisely built strong ties with the governments of almost all of the Arab States.

Unfortunately, while these ties have brought greater stability to the region, they have also aligned us with governments that don't share our values when it comes to political and civil human rights. Don't think for a moment that the people of these countries have not noticed. The United States speaks constantly of freedom, but is the ally of authoritarians. The United States prizes and celebrates the first amendment to our Constitution, but is in league with nations that abuse and imprison journalists. The United States uses taxpayer money to train others in the rule of law, but also works hand in glove with security forces of other governments that not only sniff out and destroy terrorists, but often do likewise to their own civil leaders and political reformers.

Like it or not, we are entangled in the conflicts between Arab publics and their governments. It is not our role nor our duty to choose the form of government for any people but ourselves.

But that does not forbid or restrict our right, and I would say our obligation, to speak out for the values that we believe are universal, including speaking out to our friends who sometimes believe that their extensive cooperation entitles them not only to our understanding and support, but our silence. I don't agree, and I don't accept such a formulation. In the end, such an approach will produce neither stability for them nor security for ourselves.

As a nation that has strayed badly over the past several years from our own ideals, we have an obligation to be humble and circumspect in condemning others. Much of the credibility America used to enjoy when speaking out on human rights has been squandered by short-sighted and morally debilitated agents of fear. But we are still a nation of ideas and a people dedicated to certain universal values, that all people are created equal, that the rule of law and due process are not luxuries but fundamental human rights, and that the freedom of speech, conscience, association and the press are not gifts from governments or rulers, but the shared inheritance of all humanity.

Moreover, for purely selfish reasons, we have ample cause to be concerned. Many of the same Arab governments which we are turning to help stabilize the region, and in particular, to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, are the very same governments that, with a wink and a nod, are helping stir the pot of bitterness and discontent among their own citizens.

For example, Arab governments that say small steps toward normalizing relations with Israel are too hard because of public opinion often use government-owned, government-sanctioned or government-controlled press and media to disseminate stories of imaginary Israeli massacres, Jewish blood-libels, alleged Israeli medical experiments on Palestinian children, and for bigots with a taste for history, cheap Arabic- language translations of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kempf.

Moreover, in many Arab countries while there is ruthless and effective censorship, especially concerning political expression, somehow publication of vicious anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and even incitement to violence against Jews is allowed.

These things are bad enough, but in a place where the press is not free and where there are rules for what you can and cannot say, the fact that these forms of hatred-speech are not prohibited indicates an obvious and dangerous form of state endorsement. In the end, the outcome is a public that is not only less open to peace, but is less ready to engage with the modern world.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a violent one, and the news about it inevitably reflects that fact. Likewise, revolving the core issues of that conflict does not depend on a free and honest press in the Arab world. And no state and no government is or should be above correction, criticism and complaint, not the United States, not Israel, not anyone. And to state the blindly obvious, criticism of Israeli policy is not, by definition, anti-Semitic.

But there is also no question that the cumulative weight of unreasoned and incendiary hatred toward Israel or the Jewish people which has not only been allowed but in some cases inserted into the press and media by Arab governments or their proxies has made the Middle East more violent and more dangerous.

The resolution before us will not solve these problems. But it will send a message. We are not a nation capable of indifference to either hate or oppression. We have interests in the Middle East beyond oil, and expanding the scope of human freedom is one of them. We may have strayed from our ideals, but we are trying to come home.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Berman and Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen for their support in bringing this resolution before the House, and I urge all of our Members to support the motion and the underlying resolution.

I would reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Berkley), a leading spokesman on human rights and fairness.

We yield back the balance of our time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 1127, and I urge my colleagues to adopt this condemnation of the anti-Semitism that is sadly so widespread in the Arab media and the press.

As the resolution of my good friend and colleague, Mr. Ackerman, points out, this anti-Semitism often takes the violent forms of Holocaust denial and incitement to violence.

Madam Speaker, when political leaders fail to speak out against anti- Semitic hatred and incitement, the void is not only demoralizing to the victims, but silence actually enables the wrongdoing. Silence by political leaders, in particular, conveys official approval or at least acquiescence and contributes to a climate of fear and a sense of vulnerability.

It is tragic that modern Arab leaders have not done a better job of speaking out against anti-Semitism. We here in the U.S. Congress can speak out today. It is very important that we do so. But our words are not as effective as would be the condemnations from Arab leaders. Members of Congress are going to have to carry, as we go forward to Middle Eastern countries or meet with the leaders when they come here, the sentiments contained in this resolution, and again, as we have in the past, explain to them the importance of speaking out. We cannot remain silent any longer.

If this fight against anti-Semitism in the Arab world is to succeed, we need officials in the U.S. and Europe and again the Arab world to, without hesitation or delay, denounce anti-Semitic acts whenever and wherever they occur. There can't be any exceptions. The purveyors of hate never take a holiday or grow weary, nor should we. Holocaust remembrance and tolerance education must dramatically expand, especially in the Middle East where it is almost nonexistent, and must find a footing in the Arab world. We have to ensure that our laws and the laws of other countries punish those who incite violence against Jews. And it is not utopian to begin to encourage modern Arab governments to adopt such laws. It is time to push this issue harder, far harder than we have done so in the past.

Madam Speaker, on June 16, 2004, the Helsinki Commission held a hearing, and I chaired it, one of several in a series on combating anti-Semitism. Our prime witness at that hearing, as he had been previously, was one of the greatest, finest, most effective and certainly the most courageous human rights leaders the world has ever known, Natan Sharansky.

As we all know, Natan Sharansky spent years in the Soviet Gulag. Congressman Frank Wolf and I in the 1980s actually went to Perm Camp-35 where he had spent many of his years in solitary confinement, where he had been tortured, and met with many of the political prisoners who knew him well, and they had nothing but accolades and respect for this man.

He pointed out at our hearing that, ``Thirty years ago I was a dissident in the former Soviet Union. The irony is that 30 years later I am in the same job, collecting information about anti-Semitism,'' in that case as a cabinet minister in the Israeli government.

He pointed out that the new wave of anti-Semitism is characterized by two components. The first one is the so-

called new anti-Semitism, and the lines between anti-Israeli propaganda and anti-Semitic propaganda are blurred.

He said the second is the classical anti-Semitism, the old, deep, primitive prejudice against Jews used over and over again to hurt individuals. He points out that this time, these images and this promotion of anti-Semitism is coming mainly through state-sponsored and state-supported media in the Middle East.

He pointed out that if you want to be successful in this struggle, we have to, like any other evil, we must have moral clarity about the issue. It is important to define the line between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism. Israel, he said, is a strong democracy and the only democracy in the Middle East, and it is built on criticism from within and from without.

Of course, we support all forms of legitimate criticism, he went on, but it is very important to see the difference, draw the line between legitimate criticism and anti-Semitism.

He gave us a way of discovering it, or pointing it out and exposing it. He called it the three D's. You know it is anti-Semitism when it is all about demonization, double standard and delegitimization.

At our hearing, Madam Speaker, he brought with him a 150 page study entitled ``Anti-Semitism in the Contemporary Middle East.'' The study surveys anti-Semitic reporting, editorials and editorial caricatures in the government-controlled press of Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. In the more than 100 editorial cartoons included in the report, Jews and Israelis are invariably represented as poisonous snakes, murderous Nazis and bloodthirsty crusaders. When I looked at it, I was sickened. It was disgusting.

The report found that vicious anti-Semitism expressly calls for massive terrorism and genocide against Jews, Zionists and the State of Israel. He pointed out as well in the report that the overwhelming majority of the propaganda again was from government-controlled media and from supposedly respectable publishing houses closely tied to those regimes.

In a brief review of the findings, classic European and anti-Semitic imagery is widespread in the Middle East, as is Holocaust denial and the identification of Israel as a Nazi state. The borders between anti- Semitism and anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism are blurred, almost completely blurred, the report found. Islamic religious themes, quotations and sayings are being widely mobilized to demonize Jews and Israelis and to justify the outright annihilation of the State of Israel and all its Jewish and non-Jewish supporters.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is increasingly portrayed as part of an internal confrontation between pan-Islamic nations and the infidels, Jews and Christians alike, who embody all evil. All Israelis, men and women and children, and Jews around the world, the report found, as well as their crusader allies, are held responsible for alleged crimes committed by the Jews.

He also showed at that hearing a movie, part of a movie, a 15-hour movie, an anti-Semitic film produced in Syria. That film was all about blood libel. He pointed out to us that that film is not seen just in the Middle East, and it ran for 15 hours every night during the Ramadan season, it is also seen in Europe.

We wonder why people are incited to hate Jews. We watched just a few minutes of it, and, again, it was despicable and made it seem as if blood liable was real.

Finally, Madam Speaker, Sharansky concluded by telling us that anti- Semitism is not only a threat to Jews. History has shown us that left unchecked, the forces behind anti-Semitism will imperil all the values and freedom that our civilization holds dear. We must not let that happen; to which I say again, and this resolution strongly suggests, we must not let that happen.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman from New York. I know that he has been an outstanding voice on this issue for as many years as I can remember. Long before I came to Congress to serve with him, I would watch him on C-SPAN as he spoke about this issue, and serving with him, I admire him all the more.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this important resolution. When we talk about peace in the Middle East, we so often get caught up in the specific details that we rarely discuss the fundamental problems in that region. Unlike our country, or Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, most countries in that part of the world have very little freedom of the press and therefore very little accountability to their people.

Such restrictions on free speech serve those Middle Eastern autocrats very well, keeping their populations in line and focusing the anger of the street outside of their own borders. The populations there have very little choice but to believe the daily insults that many state-run newspapers heap on our country and on Israel. They have no other avenue by which to get their news. So instead of rebelling against their own corrupt dictators, the people of the Middle East flood their streets to burn American and Israeli flags, with little or no hope that they can change events in their own countries that are controlled by these dictatorial regimes.

Mr. Speaker, such restrictions on speech not only condemn the people of the Middle East to intellectual poverty and ignorance, they make peace harder and harder to achieve. And it is not only the media, it is also the textbooks that need to be changed. From the Palestinian territories to Saudi Arabia, Middle Eastern children are taught that Jews are monkeys and snakes and worse, and that Israel must be destroyed because it has no right to exist. Such education, both in school and in the newspapers, and such disinformation, cannot create possibly a condition for peace.

With this resolution today, we can send a clear message to the Middle East that we, the United States of America, stand with those who seek a free press, those who want to bring out the truth and let freedom ring throughout the Middle East.

To quote the resolution itself, by passing this we will affirm ``the universal rights of all persons to freely and peaceably express themselves, to publish and advocate for their nonviolent beliefs, and to petition their government for redress of grievances.''

I thank the gentleman again, and I urge support for this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, today, I was proud to support, H. Res. 1127, a bill which condemns the endemic restrictions on freedom of the press and media and public expression in the Middle East and the concurrent and widespread presence of anti-Semitic material, Holocaust denial, and incitement to violence in the Arab media and press.

The people of Israel have been victims of violence and hatred for far too long. Not only are these peace-loving individuals targets of rocket attacks and terrorist actions, they are also victims of government- censored, hateful press. It is far too common for Arab media markets to condemn Israel and promote actions which foster violence and hinder the peace process in the region. Israeli reporters and journalists have been harassed and intimidated by Middle East government officials who have placed harsh legal restrictions on what news can and cannot be reported.

I strongly believe that the universal right of all persons to peacefully express themselves in a nonviolent way should be upheld in the Middle East. It is the responsibility of the United States and the global community to condemn this lack of freedom and work to promote an environment which fosters the license of nonviolent speech and press and peace.