Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 418. I know of no further debate on the…
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 418.
I know of no further debate on the measure.
I ask unanimous consent that the preamble be agreed to and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.
Mr. President, 1 week ago, I came to this floor to try and pass this very resolution that condemns the violent, genocidal, anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions on our college campuses all across this country. Sadly, I was blocked by one of my Democratic colleagues. And since then, the situation at our universities has only worsened.
I offer you just two examples. I could multiply these examples, sadly, but let's just take two.
On Tuesday of this week, just 2 or 3 miles from where we stand now on the floor of the U.S. Senate, at the George Washington University, pro- Hamas students projected onto the side of the university library various anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, pro-genocide slogans, including ``Glory to Our Martyrs,'' in reference to the terrorists who attacked the State of Israel, and not just the State of Israel, but who committed cold-blooded murder of babies, cutting off their heads, shooting women and children in their homes, executing soldiers as they lay sleeping in their barracks.
These same students projected other slogans onto the library wall: ``Free Palestine From the River to the Sea''.
What does that mean? Well, it is a reference to Hamas's longstanding call for the extermination of the State of Israel.
Let's just be clear. This is a reference to their call for genocide of Jews in the Middle East and everywhere they can get their hands on them. This is what is going on, on our college campuses.
If you talk to the students who were there at George Washington University
that night, what they will tell you is, they feared for their safety; they feared for their lives; they don't know if they are any longer welcome on campus or physically safe on campus.
What did the university do in the wake of this attack? Well, the answer has become all too familiar. Virtually nothing. They issued a statement saying that the students weren't authorized to project these genocidal slogans onto the library wall, and that is about it.
We have to do a heck of a lot better than that.
Last night, at Cooper Union, an institution of higher education in the State of New York, Jewish students were barricaded inside their own library as a pro-Hamas group rampaged through the building shouting violent slurs at these students and then pounded on the library doors seeking to gain entrance.
This morning's New York Post reads: ``Cooper Union barricades Jewish students inside library as pro-Palestinian protesters bang on [the] doors.''
The students who were there last night spoke of being herded into the library, of campus security saying they didn't think they could protect them; campus security then locking the doors to the library to try and keep the Jewish students inside and an angry mob assembling.
There are photos of this. Don't take my word for it. The video is available everywhere. Go look for yourself.
An angry mob of pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas students were banging on the windows--the glass windows--of the library at the Jewish students who were literally barricaded inside.
These students were calling 9-1-1, calling their relatives, asking for help. Eventually, an hour or more later, campus security reportedly took them out through the back door. They couldn't walk out the front door of a library in their own school. They had to be taken out the back for fear, I guess, of their safety, perhaps also for appearances.
I can't help but think, 50 years ago, 60 years ago, the President of the United States had to activate the 101st Airborne Division to make sure African-American students could go to class in this country without being physically assaulted. Is that what it has come to now on America's college campuses?
Are we going to have to activate the National Guard to see that Jewish students can go to class in safety without being in fear of their lives?
I would just say this: As a nation, we must speak with one voice and say that there is a right, and there is a wrong; there is good, and there is evil; and threatening to kill an entire class of people is wrong and it is evil.
Speaking up, shouting in support of genocide is wrong, and it is evil. Threatening the lives of your fellow students because they are Jewish is wrong, and it is evil.
Plainly, these institutions of so-called higher learning have failed these students. These students have clearly no idea what right and wrong means. You project stuff like this on a library wall while your Jewish classmates stand in fear for their lives, you don't have any idea about what right and wrong is.
Clearly, these institutions have failed these students, which is why we need to speak with moral clarity now. This is a teachable moment. This is a moment for us to say that genocide is wrong, that terrorist attacks against Jews are wrong, that threats on the lives of Jewish people anywhere--the Middle East, in this country, Europe, anywhere--is wrong.
This shouldn't be hard. But we have to do it so that these students and everywhere within the sound of our voice can understand what right and wrong means--can understand the moral gravity of the situation we are now confronting.
That is why what we are doing today matters, and that is why I am pleased today that we are able now, finally, to pass this resolution that explicitly names the rhetoric, explicitly calls out the language of pro-violence, pro-genocide, and says that is wrong.
Now, I want to be clear. Our First Amendment--of which I am a great defender--our First Amendment allows people to say the most terrible things--vile, horrible, reprehensible things. The First Amendment, as I have often said, is the right to be wrong. And these students are absolutely wrong.
So they may have the right to say these things--although I must add, nobody has the right to threaten violence against other Americans or anybody within their ambit. They may have the right to say terrible things, to say that they are in favor of genocide, to say that they want to see Jewish people killed. They may have the right to say those things, but that doesn't mean that we have to agree with it. That doesn't mean that we have to say: Oh, that is morally neutral. Sure, you can say it, fine. We have no opinion.
No, no, no. The answer to that kind of hateful, virulent, dangerous speech is speech with moral purpose. It is language with moral clarity. It is a moral stand that says: No, that is wrong. That is not us. That is not the United States of America. That is what we are doing right here, right now, on this floor today.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
