Anti-Semitism

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, it has been a few weeks now since most of America's college students went home for the summer. The outbreak of organized hate that swept the campuses of the Nation's so-called elite universities has somewhat quieted down. Apparently, even the most zealous of Hamasnik tent-dwellers had summer plans to attend to. Some, no doubt, expect to join the radical road show for a reunion tour of Chicago during the Democratic National Convention in August--as if Chicago's own soft-on-crime politicians haven't done enough to damage what used to be a thriving city.

But even as places like Berkeley and George Washington University are cleaned and repaired after their occupation by Marxist vandals, the shameful events of this past spring have left deep and lasting scars. At Columbia, the task force responsible for investigating rampant anti- Semitism on campus in the wake of October 7 has released a new report, and the findings are chilling. On top of well-documented outbursts by student radicals, members of Columbia's faculty turned classrooms into safe spaces to indulge the world's oldest form of hate. So I would like to share with our colleagues some of the initial coverage of the report.

One professor encountering a Jewish-sounding surname while reading names before an exam asked the student to explain their views on the Israeli government's actions in Gaza. Another told their class to avoid reading mainstream media, declaring that ``it is owned by Jews.'' A third revealed a student's complaint about an offensive comment regarding Jews by publicly displaying their email to fellow students.

This isn't coming from the professional activists who swept in to occupy the academy. It is coming from the heart of the academy itself. The rot runs deep. It is impossible to ignore. The scourge of anti- Semitism is a blight on once-prestigious institutions across our country, and unfortunately it reaches from college campuses right here to the U.S. Capitol.

Next month, a growing list of elected Democrats will boycott a joint session of Congress welcoming the duly elected leader of the world's only Jewish State and the only democracy in that region.

Their plans, of course, are predictable. When Prime Minister Netanyahu last addressed Congress in 2015, nearly 60 Members refused to attend. In the years since, Washington Democrats have ceded more and more influence to despicable causes like the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement and to high-profile newcomers who traffic in unvarnished anti-Semitism.

I am proud to live in a country that, as our former colleague Ben Sasse has put it, protects people's rights to make abject idiots of themselves, and far too many powerful people have taken the horrific attacks of October 7 as an invitation to do exactly that. But I am also proud to live in a country that the world expects to stand with our allies, and the President's conduct towards America's closest ally is straining that expectation. Unfortunately, so is the conduct of other elected Democrats.

Grotesque attempts to interfere in Israel's politics by calling for the removal--the removal--of its Prime Minister have lowered the bar for outrageous behavior, and micromanagement and withholding assistance have repeatedly made Israel's task to restore its security and bring terrorists to justice even more difficult.

Next month's joint session ought to be an opportunity to demonstrate to the world that America's commitments to allies facing existential threats cannot be held hostage by the loudest fringes of our politics, that they are not at the mercy our lapses in moral clarity.

The last thing a sovereign democracy under siege needs is a public tongue-lashing from the White House or a scolding speech from the floor of the Senate. Israel needs the weapons the President has withheld. It needs the time and space to finish the job against terrorists trying to destroy it. It needs the freedom to operate on its own timetable based on tactical reality in the Middle East, not on the political whims in Washington. And Americans should be united in support.

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