Israel

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, we all had the opportunity yesterday to be able to hear Binyamin Netanyahu speak to a joint session of Congress. It is the fourth time Binyamin Netanyahu has spoken in Congress.

This particular invitation was different, though. During a time of war, it is much more heightened than it has been for a long time. He came in a very serious tone to be able to tell America and Americans: Thank you for standing with us as Israel.

And the second thing we heard from him over and over again is: Don't forget why we are in this war.

He introduced hostages that have been released. He introduced families whose loved ones are still hostages. He introduced members of the IDF who lost limbs or fought against terrorism. And he reminded Americans that more than 1,200 people died on October 7 of last year, and 253 people were taken hostage at that time.

This war would be over right now if Hamas would release their hostages. This is not a war that Israel started. There is a barrier and a fence between Israel and Gaza. Gaza was there; Israel was there.

But thousands of terrorists from Hamas crossed through that barrier early on Saturday morning on October 7, on a Jewish holiday, and slaughtered children in their beds, killed moms and dads, and carried out the worst act of terrorism that Israel has ever seen. So Israel is responding.

Prime Minister Netanyahu committed again that they will continue to fight until they bring every single one of those hostages home, even as they continue the negotiations to try to stop the war.

Currently, Israel is literally surrounded by enemies coming at them. It is something we lose track of in the United States. Israel now faces Hamas actively attacking them through terrorist actions and continuing to threaten, as Hamas leaders, even in the past month, have said that if given the opportunity, they would come back and do an October 7 all over again. They never relented. And they continue to put civilians between them and harm to try to protect the lives of the militants by using civilians as shields.

But many Americans forget that Hezbollah from the north in Lebanon continues to launch rockets consistently into Israel every day. And 80,000 Israelis currently are internally displaced inside Israel, fleeing from their own homes; and they have been away from their homes now for 10 months because 10 or more rockets a day are coming into northern Israel as they continue to launch at them over and over.

While American media has ignored that, the people of Israel cannot, because they live under that threat every single day. From the West Bank, there continues to be attacks that are happening on a weekly basis. From Syria, there continues to be attacks from Iranian-backed militants there. The same with Iraq.

And just in the past 2 weeks, Yemen has landed one of their attack drones inside a neighborhood in Tel Aviv. Now, they have launched hundreds at Israel, but this was the first time they actually struck one of their targets. And Houthi leaders inside Yemen celebrated by saying: We have finally killed some Israelis.

Israel is literally surrounded every single day. All of those militant groups are all funded by the Iranian regime--all of them. We as Americans sometimes point at Iran and say: They are the problem. And we lose track of the simple fact it is not the Iranian people. The people of Iran live under the oppression of the Iranian regime that they would like to be free from as well.

But the entire region is destabilized by the actions and the terrorist activities of just that Iranian leadership and that regime. They are funding Hezbollah. They are funding Hamas. They are funding the militants in Syria and in Iraq. They are funding and providing all the trajectory for the Houthis and attacking ships in the Red Sea, as well as launching at Israel on a regular basis. It is Iran that is doing that.

And we as the United States should do whatever we can to apply the maximum amount of pressure on Iran and on that regime to be able to shut off the flow of money and shut off their ability to be able to sell oil worldwide so we can continue to be able to put pressure on them so they are not flowing money to terrorist organizations that are attacking Israel on a regular basis.

Now, I understand that what I have just stated is controversial to some people in the United States. As Binyamin Netanyahu was speaking yesterday, at Union Station, just four blocks from where I am standing right now, there were people that were waving Palestinian flags, climbing on the statue of Christopher Columbus with spray paint, painting on Christopher Columbus's statue--four blocks from here on Union Station--``Hamas is coming,'' while they burned American flags and burned Israeli flags. Four blocks from here.

I am keenly aware that not every American is supportive of what is happening in Israel. But we are the United States of America. Israel is our ally. She is a functioning democracy in the chaos of the Middle East, and we should continue to stand with Israel because she is facing terrorism, just as we have faced terrorism.

As Binyamin Netanyahu reminded all Americans yesterday, Iran really wants to destroy America. Just Israel is between Iran and America, so they go after Israel first.

There is something growing in America though. And it is a growing anti-Semitism that is occurring, something Senator Rosen and I have talked about for years. We talked about what is happening on college campuses. After October 7, the anti-Semitism on our university campuses nationwide has now exploded into full view. What has been trained into students by faculty that are anti-Israel is now bearing fruit in public demonstrations. It is funded by we don't know who yet, but definitely organized and funded and well-equipped.

Today, Senator Rosen and I held an anti-Semitism hearing with college students from six different college campuses. They came and told their story of what it is like to be a Jewish student on an American college campus. And I think this body needs to be able to hear their story, because not everyone was able to be in that hearing today.

Let me just share the stories, because for some people, they just set it aside and say: There are a few places and there are minor things that are happening, but it is no big deal. Let me share what Jewish students on six different college campuses are saying to us in the U.S. Senate today.

There is a student that is from Columbia University. I will leave the names out to be able to protect them. She gave us testimony today saying this:

In the fall semester alone, I endured harassment in the middle of the night and repeated vandalism of my property and resident-assistant bulletin boards, resulting in eventual removal due to constant damage.

I also experienced both traditional and cyber bullying. Within the first week of the October 7th attacks, people began to glare at me, or ignore me entirely, turning away from me even if I greeted them by name. By the end of school year, friends of mine who are now--

As she said-- former friends did not even want to be seen with me. But while my experience was harsh, others endured much graver conditions. I have friends who were spat on and physically attacked; I know people who did not leave their dorm rooms for days [at a time] because they were too afraid of what might happen to them. This is, of course, not even to mention the encampment nor the demonstrations at individual Columbia school graduations that--while I hate to admit it--really did spoil the entire ceremony . . . And throughout it all, these students have waved the Palestinian flag. But this has never been about Palestine; it has not even truly concerned [about] the war in the Gaza Strip. It has always been a protest against the existence of a Jewish State.

At Columbia, people chant that zionists are not welcome, calling on ``death to the Jewish State.'' One student leader said that ``zionists don't deserve to live.''

Another student from Rutgers University said:

We tracked [and] endured [and] experienced more than 200 incidents of bias/antisemitism since October 7. This represents the supermajority of all bias incidents on campus. This has created an environment where Jewish students feel unsafe, especially since the attack October 7th, with almost 300 days passing without a sense of security on campus or in their classrooms at Rutgers.

Throughout the last week of the semester and during finals in the spring, there was an encampment in solidarity with Hamas, a U.S.-recognized terror organization, on [Vorhees] Mall in the heart of the College Avenue campus that disrupted classes, student learning, and threatened the safety of Jewish students on campus.

That is at the second campus. The third campus, George Washington University, a student there said to us:

On the night of April 29, encampment participants staged a riot, ripping down the fences that were put up by the university around the yard. They stood on the pile of fences while chanting euphemisms for mass murder and desecrating a statue of George Washington.

Signs in the encampment bore the words ``final solution'' and swastikas. Another read, ``Israelis go back to Europe, [your real homes]. Protesters claimed to be fighting for peace yet [they] preached the opposite, chanting: We don't want no 2 states,'' ``Globalize the intifada,'' and ``Hamas are freedom fighters.'' One student said, ``when we say we don't want Zionists here, we really mean it.''

At Ohio State University:

On my campus, Jewish sorority girls were spat on while selling bracelets with the words ``I stand with Israel.'' Two assailants vandalized our Hillel building, our center for Jewish life while screaming anti-Israel and anti-Semitic obscenities. Two Jewish students were assaulted and spent the night in the hospital after being physically stopped on the street. A group of Jewish girls had pennies thrown at them. Early one morning, several men approached the Jewish Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, screaming--

I am not going to say it-- and throwing bottles at the house. Students for Justice in Palestine entered our main library and chanted antisemitic slogans for over an hour without facing any consequences.

Interestingly enough, in my home State, we had a student that was there that had transferred from another university to the University of Oklahoma. He had said he wanted to be able to find ``a legal education, free of fear of having to bite my tongue; forced to hide my identity and [my] thoughts'' all the time. He thought his best chance would be to attend a law school on a campus like the University of Oklahoma.

He said he came there and he openly discussed his faith to see what the climate would be like. He said:

The spirit of Dr. Ada remains strong.

I will have to tell you that story another time. It is a great story on Dr. Ada.

He said:

I . . . have . . . been warmly received by everyone there, and am receiving the educational experience I wish [I could have received at Indiana University].

Then I have to tell you this story. A student from Oregon University--she came and said:

Flyers were handed out glorifying the Palestinian resistance and celebrating the ``Al Aqsa flood''--

That is the October 7 attack-- as an act of ``decolonization.'' Signs called for the abolition of the state of Israel, saying: ``from the river to the sea.''

One graffiti on campus asked, ``How many children did you eat today?''

When we brought these concerns directly to the University President, we were blamed for not properly reporting these incidents--even though it was entirely unclear where hate bias incidents of this nature were to be reported. It felt degrading. It felt like [it was] victim blaming.

She asked this question and made this statement. She was very kind. She said:

I want to thank Senators Rosen and Lankford for introducing the bipartisan Countering Antisemitism Act--which takes tangible action to address some of the issues I have talked about today.

She said this:

I hope you will work together to get this legislation to the finish line and to deliver for Jewish students who are nervously anticipating entering another challenging academic year this fall.

What was she asking for? She made it very specific. She wants this body to act, to speak out for Jewish students that in a few weeks are going to be headed back to their campus, wondering if their campus will be the same as it was when they left it, because when they left at graduation, there were pro-Hamas rallies at graduations and people shouting down Jewish students on campus, belittling them and attacking them. They are wondering: If I go back to school at all this fall, what will I face? That is not an unrealistic question.

So the students that spoke to us asked for some very specific things. One is that administrators on university campuses should actually enforce the code of conduct on their university campuses--what a radical idea. If you have a code of conduct, actually enforce it. Don't enforce it on some groups and not on others.

Some of these students said that on their campus, the protesters that were shutting down the library and shutting down graduation got meetings with the administration to negotiate what to do and Jewish students did not.

If you have a code of conduct on a university campus--and all of them do--don't allow hateful speech and actions to occur on your campus, to shut down the education. Don't tell--some of these students faced from the administration ``I would encourage you not to go to the library today'' when their tuition helped pay for that library the same as everyone else's. But to say to one group of protesters ``They have taken it over. They really have the occupation. I wouldn't go there. It is not safe for you''--why don't you do something crazy, administrators? Why don't you make your campus safe for everyone? That is one request they have.

The second request they had was--Congress passed the IHRA definition of ``anti-Semitism.'' The House has already passed it. The State Department right now uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance--the IHRA--definition for ``anti-Semitism'' and has used it for more than three decades. It is not controversial for our State Department, but we have never required the Department of Education to also have that same definition.

What is happening on university campuses right now is that all these statements are being made, as some of the students said today, that sound a lot like what Nazi Brownshirts said in Germany years ago to Jewish students, being said on American college campuses now, but university officials are saying: We don't have a good definition of ``anti-Semitism,'' so we can't really say that it is anti-Semitic hatred.

We all know it is.

This body should take the same definition that our State Department has used for decades and require the Department of Education to also use that same definition of ``anti-Semitism.'' That shouldn't be a radical jump for us. The House passed it. We should pass it. That was the second request they had.

The third request they had was to pass the act that Senator Rosen and I have already passed through committee to bring it to this body. It is noncontroversial, but this body of the Senate has not taken it up. I would ask the majority leader to bring up that legislation dealing with anti-Semitism before students return to campus this fall to give a clear message to those students that the United States stands for everyone having the opportunity to be able to speak out their point of view, live their faith, and live without fear--especially in an educational environment.

If students want to be pro-Hamas on a university campus, I think it is foolish, I think it is a terrible thing to do, but you have the right to do it. But you do not have the right to be able to silence and intimidate Jewish students on campus at the same time. You do not have the right to do that. They have the right to live their faith in safety and to be able to go to the school of their choice. It is the United States of America. Right now, we have pro-Hamas demonstrators trying to frighten Jewish students away from campuses of their choice. That needs to stop.

This body needs to take up the act that Senator Rosen and I have brought--that should not be a controversial issue--and to speak out on behalf of all those students that are just looking for someone to stand with them. So why don't we do that?

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