Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2025
Floor Speech
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Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Chair, I thank my good colleague from California for yielding me time.
I want to say how absolutely unconscionable it is that my colleagues are offering an amendment to prevent our U.S. Government from even citing the Palestinian death toll.
Since 1948, Mr. Chair, there has been a coordinated effort, especially in this Chamber, to dehumanize Palestinians and erase Palestinians from existence. The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians did not end in 1948.
Today, Mr. Chair, we are recognizing the Israeli apartheid government carry out a genocide in Gaza in real time. This amendment is an attempt to hide it.
Let me remind you all of the words of the Israeli Defense Minister who said: ``We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals.''
They don't even see Palestinians as human beings, Mr. Chair. Here we are, my colleagues wanting to prohibit our own U.S. officials from even citing the Palestinian death toll.
Let me read into the Record the latest casualties of Palestinians killed: 37,718 Palestinians, including more than 15,000 Palestinian children. More than 86,377 Palestinians have been injured. Six children, Mr. Chair, are killed in Gaza every single hour.
Palestinians are not just numbers. Behind these numbers are real people--mothers, fathers, sons, daughters--who have had their lives stolen from them and their families torn apart, and we should not be trying to hide it. These are innocent children and babies who have been bombed in their tents, burned alive, dismembered, and deliberately starved to death.
Where is our shared humanity in this Chamber?
There is so much anti-Palestinian racism in this Chamber that my colleagues don't even want to acknowledge that Palestinians exist at all, not when they are alive and now not even when they are dead. It is absolutely disgusting. This is genocide denial.
Mr. Chair, I know the majority of this Chamber doesn't believe Palestinians should live or exist, but I won't remain silent as the only Palestinian American serving in Congress, while folks attempt to even erase those who were killed with our own weapons.
If I may later, at the appropriate time, I will submit for inclusion into the Congressional Record the list of Palestinians killed in Gaza. Mr. Chair, it is important to note this for everyone here. The list is so long that I can't even submit it because of the text limit. That is how many have been killed in Gaza, and now we are going to try to hide it.
I include in the Record a link to the list of those killed in Gaza.
Mr. Chair, I rise asking all of us, please, don't erase them. They have a right to be acknowledged as being killed. They are dead.
What more do you want from the people in Palestine?
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