U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

56–738 WASHINGTON : 2024

RESPONDING TO ANTI-SEMITISM AND ANTI-ISRAEL 

BIAS IN THE UN, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY, 

AND NGO COMMUNITY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JUNE 22, 2023 

Serial No. 118–36 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs 

( 

Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov, 

or http://www.govinfo.gov 


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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

DARRELL ISAA, California 

ANN WAGNER, Missouri 

BRIAN MAST, Florida 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee 

MARK GREEN, Tennessee 

ANDY BARR, Kentucky 

RONNY JACKSON, Texas 

YOUNG KIM, California 

MARIA SALAZAR, Florida 

BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan 

AMATA RADEWAGEN, American Samoa 

FRENCH HILL, Arkansas 

WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio 

JIM BAIRD, Indiana 

MIKE WALTZ, Florida 

THOMAS KEAN, New Jersey 

MICHAEL LAWLER, New York 

CORY MILLS, Florida 

RICH MCCORMICK, Georgia 

NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas 

JOHN JAMES, Michigan 

KEITH SELF, Texas 

GREGORY MEEKS, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GERALD CONNOLLY, Virginia 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

AMI BERA, California 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

TED LIEU, California 

SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania 

DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota 

COLIN ALLRED, Texas 

ANDY KIM, New Jersey 

SARA JACOBS, California 

KATHY MANNING, North Carolina 

SHELIA CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK, Florida 

GREG STANTON, Arizona 

MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania 

JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida 

JONATHAN JACKSON, Illinois 

SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California 

JIM COSTA, California 

JASON CROW, Colorado 

BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

BRENDAN SHIELDS, Majority Staff Director 

SOPHIA A. LAFARGUE, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS

AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

MARIA SALAZAR, Florida 

AMATA RADEWAGEN, American Samoa 

FRENCH HILL, Arkansas 

RICH MCCORMICK, Georgia 

JOHN JAMES, Michigan 

SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania, 

Ranking Member 

AMI BERA, California 

SARA JACOBS, California 

KATHY MANNING, North Carolina 

MARY VIGIL, Subcommittee Staff Director 


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C O N T E N T S 

WITNESSES 

Page 

Mr. Natan Sharansky, Chair, Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism 

and Policy ............................................................................................................. 10 

Mr. Yona Schiffmiller, Director of Research, NGO Monitor ................................ 22 

Mr. Itamar Marcus, Founder and Director, Palestinian Media Watch ............... 35 

Mr. Eugene Kontorovich, Director of International Law Department, Kohelet 

Policy Forum ......................................................................................................... 58 

Mr. Hillel Neuer, Executive Director, United Nations Watch ............................. 70 

Dr. Sharon Nazarian, Director, Anti-Defamation League National Board of 

Directors ................................................................................................................ 81 

Mr. Yair Rosenberg, Staff Writer, The Atlantic .................................................... 94 

APPENDIX 

Hearing Notice ......................................................................................................... 121 

Hearing Minutes ...................................................................................................... 123 

Hearing Attendance ................................................................................................. 124 


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RESPONDING TO ANTI–SEMITISM AND 

ANTI-ISRAEL BIAS IN THE UN, PALESTINIAN 

AUTHORITY, AND NGO COMMUNITY 

THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2023 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN

RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:14 a.m., in Room 

2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Global Health, 

Global Human Rights, and International Organizations will come 

to order. And good morning. 

The rising tide of antisemitism worldwide is cause for serious 

alarm. With no sign of abating anywhere, Jewish men, women, and 

children continue to suffer bias, hate, cruelty, and violence, simply 

because they are Jewish. This pernicious manifestation of evil 

needs to be exposed, and it needs to be more effectively combated. 

The purveyors of antisemitism never take a holiday, nor should 

we. Silence is not an option. 

A few days ago, as I think everybody in this room knows, Robert 

Bowers was found guilty of dozens of federal hate crimes for murdering 11 people at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue in 2018, 

the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history. 

In April of 2022, Dan Marsh from my hometown of Manchester 

attacked a Jewish man waiting at a stop sign in Lakewood, New 

Jersey, stole his car, and ran over two other Jewish men and 

stabbed another. He awaits trial on numerous charges, including 

antisemitic hate crimes. 

Just two weeks ago, Ron Carr also of Manchester, my hometown, 

painted swastikas on 15 houses and burnt a house to the ground. 

The perpetrator has been arrested and charged with 36 criminal 

counts. 

Today’s hearing focuses on rampant antisemitism, anti-Israel 

bias, in the United Nations, the Palestinian Authority, and the 

NGO community. In the past, I have chaired 20 congressional hearings on combating anti-Semitism, but this year we are going to do 

a whole series—and into next year—that will cover every aspect of 

this horrible hate. 

One of our witnesses today, Dr. Sharon Nazarian of ADL, notes 

that antisemitic hate and prejudice is deeply entrenched globally, 


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including throughout Europe and the United States, and that the 

Middle East and Northern African countries have ‘‘by far the highest level of antisemitic attitudes.’’ 

Israel, as we all know, faces an ongoing existential threat, and 

it is due in large part to antisemitism. America and the free world 

must continually strengthen the bond of friendship and tangible 

support for Israel. 

Among the distinguished—our distinguished panel of experts 

today—and what a distinguished panel—we welcome the legendary 

human rights leader and former Soviet political prisoner Natan 

Sharansky. As part of the delegation led by NTSJ that included my 

good friend Mark Levin, we met with Natan Sharansky’s mother 

40 years ago—that is, in 1983—in Moscow, who asked us not only 

to press for her son’s release from the Gulag but to insist that he 

get desperately needed medicine. And in every meeting we had 

with Soviet officials, Natan Sharansky was what we began with. 

A few years later, Congressman Frank Wolf and I traveled to 

Perm Camp 35, the infamous concentration camp where Natan 

Sharansky bravely resisted every Soviet attempt to break his indomitable will. Pushing Gorbachev’s glass nose to the limits, we 

videotaped every conversation with political prisoners and shared 

that with Natan when we got back, as he had just recently been 

released, so we gave it to him, and he said, ‘‘They were my 

friends.’’ 

At a hearing that I chaired in June of 2004, and at the OSCE 

Berlin Conference, Natan Sharansky powerfully articulated his incisive 3D test for identifying antisemitism and said that it often 

tries to hide behind the veneer of a legitimate criticism of Israel. 

He said, and I quote, ‘‘Of course, if you want to be successful in 

the struggle against antisemitism, as against any other evil, there 

must be moral clarity on the issue, what we are talking about.’’ 

It is important to define the line between legitimate criticism of 

Israel and antisemitism. Israel is a strong democracy and the only 

democracy in the Middle East. And it is built on the criticism for 

both within and 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 antisemitism.’’ 

According to history, D test, criticism of Israel is nothing less 

than antisemitism when it passes over into demonization, the first 

D, of Jews in Israel. Being legitimized as the Jewish state, the second D, or applies a double standard, and that certainly happens all 

over the world, particularly at the U.N. And there is one standard 

for Israel and another standard for every other country. 

Another witness today, Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. 

Watch, has been a mighty force for the good of exposing and fighting an unconscionable human bias against Israel, including at, of 

all places, the U.N. Human Rights Council. He underscored that 

bias late last year again when he pointed out that the U.N. General Assembly condemned Israel for a total of 15 resolutions targeting the Jewish state in 2022 compared to 13 for the rest of the 

world. 

He said, and I quote, ‘‘The U.N.’s latest assault on Israel with 

a torrent of one-sided resolutions is surreal,’’ he said, ‘‘despite the 


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fact that Israel is the Middle East’s only democracy, and instead 

the U.N. is empowering the region’s despots.’’ 

Itamar Marcus, director of the Palestinian Media Watch, exposes 

the PLA’s unrelenting antisemitic attacks and notes that ‘‘The combination of political and religious antisemitism with hatred of 

Israel, all in the name of Allah, directly leads to the PA’s policy to 

see murdering the Israelis as heroic and Allah’s will.’’ 

And as a result, 100 percent of the murders of Israelis are honored, 100 percent of terrorists in jail for murdering Jews receive PA 

salaries, 100 percent of terrorists killed while murdering Jews are 

declared to be martyrs. 

Each of our witnesses are uniquely qualified, have been leaders 

for years in this struggle, and are making a significant difference 

in this human rights struggle. 

Finally, as the author of the original provisions of the Global 

Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004, originally the bill was just going 

to be a 1-year review, we added a special envoy and made it an office. It was opposed by some in the State Department, surprise, 

surprise, including Colin Powell who wrote a 4-page letter against 

it, which only got us even more worked up to get it passed. 

I also am the author of the Frank Wolf International Religious 

Freedom Act, which also provides a great push for all religious bias 

and prejudice and hate, and also, in 2021, wrote the Special Envoy 

to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Act, which upgraded and 

strengthened the special envoy to the rank of ambassador, reporting directly to the Secretary of State. And I, like I think every— 

I know everyone on this panel—interact regularly with Ambassador Lipstadt and her staff and are truly grateful for her leadership. 

I would like to now yield to my good friend and colleague, Congresswoman Wild. 

Ms. WILD. Thank you so much, and thank you to all of our witnesses, including our virtual witness, for being here on this incredibly important topic. 

And thank you to our chairman for convening this hearing. 

Less than a week ago, a man in Michigan with a history of neoNazi associations and antisemitic social media posts was charged 

with planning to attack a local synagogue to attack—to mark the 

fifth anniversary of the attack on two mosques in Christchurch, 

New Zealand. 

On the same day that he was arrested, the man responsible for 

the attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in my home state of Pennsylvania, the worst single antisemitic attack in our Nation’s history, was finally convicted. 

The threat connecting these incidents is clear in my view. It is 

the viciously antisemitic, racist, and xenophobic ideology of white 

supremacists, who have been emboldened by far too many extremist far right movements in governments around the world in recent 

years, including right here in the United States. 

This was the ideology on display as neo-Nazis stormed the 

streets of Charlottesville in 2017 chanting ‘‘Jews will not replace 

us.’’ I remember watching that on television and just the horror 

that I felt as I saw that. 


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This is the ideology that fuels dangerous conspiracy theories, like 

the claim that a cabal of Jews is organized mass influxes of immigrants and refugees into our societies. This is the ideology that 

leads Victor Orban in Hungary, arguably the most influential sitting leader in the global far right ecosystem today, to amplify that 

very same conspiracy theory and to devote the full force of his government to scapegoating a prominent Jewish public figure, George 

Soros, with blatantly antisemitic rhetoric. 

In the year 2023, the forces of antisemitism remain incredibly 

deadly and pervasive here in our country and around the world. 

And I have to add parenthetically that just yesterday I learned 

there was media in my home district, Pennsylvania 7, about 

antisemitic leaflets that were being dropped in neighborhoods from 

the sky. 

Horrifying in this day and age. Horrifying in my own community. 

And I received a number of very concerned texts and phone calls 

and emails from people in my district, and I was just stunned. But 

if you care to look it up, it is in the media in Allentown, Pennsylvania. 

So this is what I intend to devote the bulk of my time in this 

hearing to today. But of course there is a disturbing pattern of 

antisemitic rhetoric from Palestinian leaders that has also been 

present in Palestinian textbooks. And antisemitism is the driving 

ideology of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organizations. 

These antisemitic views must be confronted as well for the benefit of all, and there is no doubt that there is antisemitism and 

anti-Israel bias at the United Nations. This has been documented 

extensively over the years, including by the witnesses before us 

today. 

The disproportionate focus of the General Assembly and its subagencies on the Jewish state should be alarming to all. At the same 

time, we know that progress only comes when we are engaged and 

we have a seat at the table. Tough, robust, principled, diplomatic 

engagement on the international stage, not retreating and surrendering to isolationism is the only path forward. 

Here is what I also believe. As a steadfast supporter of the U.S.- 

Israel partnership, who precisely because of that strong support 

that I have, believes passionately in a two-state solution, I have 

and I will always support the policy of using the full force of the 

vote and voice of the United States to stand with our ally, Israel, 

while advancing peace, security, rights, and dignity for both 

Israelis and Palestinians. 

I am a proud Jewish American, and my Judaism anchors my belief in universal rights and dignity. That means two states for two 

people living peacefully and securely. That is the only way we can 

guarantee that Israel remains a democratic Jewish state indefinitely while providing equal freedom and justice for the Palestinian 

people. 

And I say this not just as a member of Congress, but as the 

mother of two young adults who have been raised in their Jewish 

faith, who have been to Israel on multiple occasions, and who I 

want to have the land of Israel there for in their future long after 

I might be gone. 


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In this hearing, and more broadly, I hope that we can focus on 

genuinely taking on antisemitism around the world wherever and 

whenever it occurs, and that starts with taking on the forces of 

white supremacism that seek to deny the fundamental humanity of 

the Jewish people. Let us work together to protect Jewish communities by advancing the landmark U.S. National Strategy to 

Counter Anti-Semitism that was recently released by the Biden Administration. 

Let us redouble our efforts to support the work of the Office of 

the Special Envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism around the 

globe. Let us stand together and in doing so demonstrate that our 

Nation stands strong against the murderous poison of antisemitism. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Wild. 

I would like to yield to Ms. Manning such time as she may consume. 

Ms. MANNING. Thank you so much, Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Wild, and thank you to all of our witnesses for joining 

us today. And hello to my friend, Natan, who I believe is joining 

us from Israel. 

And, Mr. Chairman, let me say how proud I am to serve with you 

as co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating AntiSemitism. 

The scourge of antisemitism has infected societies around the 

world for centuries. It is the hatred of Jews drawn from conspiracy 

theories, lies, and malign ideas that has led to the murder of Jews 

during the Crusades, the Inquisition, countless pogroms, the systematic annihilation of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust, violent 

attacks on Jews in our country walking down the streets of New 

York and Los Angeles and the murder of 11 Americans praying in 

a synagogue in Pittsburgh. 

It is something that I have been working to try to defeat my entire adult life. It is a history I carry on my shoulders every day. 

Anti-Semitism is a persistent, shape-shifting hatred that knows no 

bounds. Sadly, it is on the rise here in the United States and 

around the world. It is also undeniable that anti-Israel rhetoric can 

often fall outside the bounds of legitimate discussion of policy differences and lurch with ease into antisemitism. 

We must stand against antisemitism in all its forms. That is why 

it is so important that members of both parties call for and help 

secure the first ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Anti-Semitism. This whole-of-society strategy gives us a one-of-a-kind opportunity not just to counter antisemitism in this country but to lead 

countries around the world to do the same. 

I want to congratulate the Biden Administration for taking this 

issue seriously and for coming up with a strategy that is actionable 

with timelines and accountability, and it contains a variety of action steps for Congress to take. 

I look forward to working with my colleagues in Congress, with 

my good friend Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, and the Administration, to make sure a terrible past is not repeated under our watch. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Kathy. 


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We are going to again do a quick mic check with Natan 

Sharansky, but I will introduce him and all of our witnesses very 

briefly. And your full resumes will be included in the introduction, 

but these are the shortened versions. 

Natan Sharansky is chair of the Institute for the Study of Global 

Antisemitism and Policy. In the past, he has also served as chairman of the executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel, as minister 

or deputy prime minister in foreign government of Israel. Prior to 

that, he established a party in order to accelerate the integration 

of Russian Jews into Israel. And before that he was a political prisoner, as we all know, and an incredible refusenik and a man of 

great honor and courage. 

He is the author of four books and the recipient of America’s two 

highest awards, including the Congressional Medal of Freedom and 

the Presidential and the Congressional Medal of Honor. 

Our second witness, Yona Schiffmiller, is director of research at 

NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute. His research 

is focused on issues related to the provision of humanitarian assistance, including the diversion of aid by terrorist organizations in 

Gaza and the West Bank. He has also researched and written on 

the nexus between terror-linked NGOs and U.N. agencies, as well 

as relationships between these organizations and donor governments. Important work. 

Our third witness is Itamar Marcus, who is the founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch. For over 20 years he has researched the Palestinian Authority world and has written hundreds of reports and articles on PA activity, statements, education, 

sports culture, and other frameworks the PA controls as it relates 

to the peace process. 

Mr. Marcus was appointed by the Israeli government in 1999 to 

represent Israel in negotiations with the PA, incitement in the 

‘‘Trilateral Anti-Incitement Committee’’ that was chaired by the 

United States. 

Our fourth witness, Eugene Kontorovich, is a professor at George 

Mason’s Scalia School of Law, and director of its Center for International Law in the Middle East. He is also the head of the International Law Department at the Kohelet Policy Forum, a Jerusalem-based think tank, and is recognized as one of the world’s preeminent experts on international law and the Israeli-Arab conflict. 

He has emerged as pretty much of a one-man legal lawfare brain 

trust for the Jewish state according to Haaretz. 

We will then hear from Hillel Neuer, who is the executive director of U.N. Watch, a human rights NGO in Geneva, Switzerland. 

Mr. Neuer taught international human rights at the Geneva School 

of Diplomacy and served as vice president of the NGO Special Committee on Human Rights in Geneva. 

I know that I frequently—and I told him this a moment ago— 

go to his website. When the human rights—U.N. Human Rights 

Commission matriculated to the Human Rights Council, there was 

no change. All this talk of reform, and Israel is still an overwhelming focus, you know, to, where is North Korea? Where is 

Iran? Where is China? And so many other despotic states. 

So he does an amazing job, and, again, thank you for that leadership. 


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Our sixth witness will be Dr. Sharon Nazarian, who is a member 

of the Anti-Defamation League’s National Board of Directors, and 

is president of the Y&S Nazarian Family Foundation, with a regional office in Israel named for the Ima Foundation. She is founder of the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies at 

the University of California, UCLA. 

And, again, thank you for all that ADL does in terms of chronicling with polls and empirical data this terrible cancer called antisemitism. 

And our seventh witness, Yair Rosenberg, is a staff writer at The 

Atlantic, where he covers the intersection of policies, culture, and 

religion, and writes a newsletter. He has reported on antisemitism 

for over a decade across multiple continents. 

Previously a senior writer at Tablet Magazine, he has also written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall 

Street Journal. Thank you as well for being here. 

I would like to now just do a mic check to make sure that Natan 

Sharansky can provide us with his comments. 

[Pause.] 

STATEMENTS OF NATAN SHARANSKY, CHAIR, INSTITUTE FOR 

THE STUDY OF GLOBAL ANTISEMITISM AND POLICY; YONA 

SCHIFFMILLER, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, NGO MONITOR; 

ITAMAR MARCUS, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, PALESTINIAN 

MEDIA WATCH; EUGENE KONTOROVICH, DIRECTOR OF 

INTERNATIONAL LAW DEPARTMENT, KOHELET POLICY 

FORUM; HILLEL NEUER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNITED NATIONS WATCH; SHARON NAZARIAN, DIRECTOR, ANTI–DEFAMATION LEAGUE NATIONAL BOARD OF DIRECTORS; AND 

YAIR ROSENBERG, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC 

STATEMENT OF NATAN SHARANSKY 

Mr. SHARANSKY. Dear Congressman Smith, we are comrades in 

arms for many years. And Congressman Smith, Congresswoman 

Wild, and all the other members, thank you for organizing it, and 

thank you for permitting and agreeing that I will speak in such a 

way through Zoom. 

But please, if the connection will be bad, don’t suffer and move 

to the other speakers. I will not be upset. 

So I am dealing with the problem of antisemitism practically for 

the 50—last 50 years as a human rights activism political prisoner 

of the Soviet Union, and then as a minister in Israel government 

dealing with antisemitism, and then as the head of Jewish agency. 

And let me show—share some of my experience. So recently, the 

White House released the first ever U.S. National Strategy to Combat Anti-Semitism, a very comprehensive plan, and we thank 

President Biden, Second Gentleman Emhoff, Special Envoy 

Lipstadt, and Ambassador Rice for compiling this comprehensive 

plan. 

And I have to say that Jewish organizations, Jewish world, reacted very positively. But there is one point, one paragraph, in this 

plan, which caused confusion or mixed reactions. And I’ll read it. 

There are several definitions of antisemitism which serve as valuable tools to raise awareness and increase understanding of antiVerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Nov 15, 2024 Jkt 056738 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A738.XXX A738

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semitism. The most prominent is the non-legally binding, working 

definition of antisemitism adopted in 2016 by the 31 member states 

of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, so called 

IHRA definition, which the United States has embraced. 

In addition, the Administration welcomes and appreciates the 

Nexus Document and notes other such efforts. 

So why should this be a problem? Because IHRA definition is the 

only one which really connects the old antisemitism attacking Jews 

and the new antisemitism attacking state of Israel. 

Well, what should be their connection? I had to answer this question for many, many years. After all, antisemitism, the oldest existing hatred directed against Jewish people. And Israel is a relatively 

young state, 75 years old. Why disagreement about the way it was 

created, the fact that it was created? 

The disagreement with the policy of this or that government, 

why it should be called antisemitism? And I have to say that the— 

that in the Soviet Union there was no such a question, because in 

the Soviet Union it was clear at the moment. Soviet Union starts 

new round of attacks on Israel. Everybody knew that Jews have a 

problem. 

The Jews who have no idea what the word Zionism means, but 

they should be concerned about their place of work, about their career. They should be concerned that they will be demanded immediately to condemn Zionism, because the Jewish religion would condemn any connection with Jewish nationalism. 

And when another round of attacks on Jews where there is nationalist or so-called cross-mobilized started almost immediately 

moving also. And I believe that it is because Soviet Union was a 

dictatorship, and dictatorship always needs scapegoat, enemy, and 

there was no better enemy scapegoat, internal and external, than 

Jews and the state of Israel. 

And that is why when I moved to the free world, I was really 

surprised when the year 2000 at the U.N. conference, which was 

the first United Nations global conference against racism, they 

came with one conclusion, that Israel is an apartheid state, the one 

which follows the example of South Africa. And suddenly all the 

democratic states in the Middle East is questioned about the legitimacy of its existence, such as the cartoons against Israeli leaders 

look exactly like the cartoons at the times of Nazis, also with propaganda. 

Suddenly, Israel is a tool that is treating Palestinians exactly as 

Nazis about treating the Jews, and we—part of the cultural intersect that Palestinian refugee camps, that is exactly the Auschwitz 

of today. And all this, it was insisted that it is all a legitimate criticism of Israel. That is when I proposed my three D’s: demonization, 

double standard, and delegitimization. They were saying these are 

the main tools against Jews for 1,000 years. 

Of course, being a double standard, in law or without law, Jewish demonization, the Jews are the claws of Satan, et cetera, and 

the famous denial of the legitimacy of Jewish religion, but replaced 

entirely, and the famous article by Jews about the nation. These 

were the tools. 

So I said when there is clear demonization, a double standard of 

Jewish state, or the delegitimization of Jewish state, it should be 


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treated as antisemitic. And then, if you accept this formally, understand why the treatment of Islam, the Human Rights Committee 

of United Nations, is antisemitic, why BDS movement, which has 

singled out Israel is antisemitism, while denial of the right of Jewish people to have their own state is antisemitism, and of course 

why demonization of Israel as some satanic force or neo-Nazi force 

is antisemitic. 

And, in fact, later in 2016, IRHA definition—that is the exact 

definition which does deal with the formulas, which gives examples 

when criticisms of Israel becomes antisemitic, that is exactly the 

demonization, double standard, delegitimization. 

So when I was traveling—in the last 20 years, I visited about 

100 American campuses. I could see very clearly how dis-confident, 

how badly feel Jewish students, especially Zionist students, because of this new antisemitism, and vice versa, the attacks on Jews 

almost immediately are accompanied by the attacks on Israel. 

So that is like very closely linked phenomenas, and we get it— 

that’s—when Americans, the antisemitism rise on both sides. You 

can’t make a deal with this phenomena without recognizing all of 

the—part of it. But we really have to have one definition in order 

to do this, and that is why IHRA definition is so important. And 

that is why I really call American station does such a wonderful 

job in building comprehensive plan to stick to this definition of 

antisemitism. 

We will not be able to win if people on the left will be attacking 

antisemitism of the right, and the people on the right will be attacking antisemitism on the left. There should be no left and right. 

Demonization of Jewish people and demonization of the state of 

Israel, the double standard of Jews, the double standard of Israel, 

delegitimization of Jews and state of Israel is one and the same 

phenomena. And please let’s stick by this definition. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sharansky follows;] 


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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Sharansky, thank you so very much again not 

only for appearing today—and I know you have a hard stop at 

11:50—but above all for your leadership for the last half-century. 

It has been extraordinary. Your bravery is, like I said at the beginning, the stuff of legends. 

I remember asking you once how—because I went to Perm Camp 

35 to visit, saw the SHIZO where—the solitary confinement, and 

was just—cells and you spent time there. And I remember asking 

you once how you got through that, and you did make mention of 

how you meditated on the psalms and how important that was to 

you. 

So, again, I want to thank you, and I know my good friend, Ms. 

Wild, would like to just say something as well. 

Ms. WILD. Yes. Thank you very much. Sorry for the delay in getting started, but we really appreciate your testimony. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very, very much. 

I would like to now ask Mr. Schiffmiller if you would present 

your remarks. 

STATEMENT OF YONA SCHIFFMILLER 

Mr. SCHIFFMILLER. Mr. Chairman, Madam Ranking Member, distinguished members of the subcommittee, I thank you for convening today’s hearing and for the opportunity to testify. 

Appearing today in my personal capacity, I am director of research for NGO Monitor, founded by Professor Gerald Steinberg in 

2002 following the antisemitic proceedings of the 2001 Durban 

Conference Against Racism described both in my written testimony 

and by Mr. Sharansky. 

NGO Monitor is a globally recognized research institute promoting democratic values and good governance. By publishing independent analyses of NGOs, their funders, and other stakeholders, 

we work to ensure that decisionmakers and civil society operate in 

accordance with the principles of accountability, transparency, and 

universal human rights. 

In a 2017 presentation, the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, who 

served for over 20 years as the chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, 

was a member of the British House of Lords and an internationally 

renowned scholar, noted that antisemites often couch their antiJewish rhetoric in the language of the highest ideals of the day. 

During the Middle Ages, it was religion; in the 20th century, 

science. And today it is human rights discourse, which is used to 

mask and legitimize antisemitic agenda. 

The pathological obsession with Israel that permeates institutions and organizations that claim the mantle of human rights has 

led to the manipulation, distortion, and perversion of these truly 

lofty ideals. In my written testimony, I summarize several NGOdriven campaigns, including BDS initiatives, attempts to blacklist 

and sanction the IDF, threatening Israel with ICC investigations, 

and explicit calls for dismantling the Jewish state. 

NGOs that oppose Jewish self-determination have learned that 

adopting the language of human rights and international law is the 

most effective strategy for achieving their goals. 

However, when responding to acts of terrorism and violent antisemitism, many of these organizations reveal their true beliefs. 


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Some actors ignore these phenomena altogether, while others, particularly officials at European government-funded Palestinian 

NGOs, justify violence. 

In my written testimony, I described Human Rights Watch, 

HRW, invokes human rights principles to accuse Israel of committing apartheid and to lobby for a host of BDS measures. However, 

when the rights of Jews are violated, HRW is absent. In 2021, the 

ADL recorded 2,717 antisemitic incidents in the United States, the 

highest total since the organization began tracking in 1979. 

HRW’s 2022 World Report covering 2021 does not mention antisemitism in the United States even once. 

Jews appear to be the exception to the supposed pursuit of universal human rights. Abhorrent as this indifference is, the celebration of and justification for violence expressed by officials at European-funded Palestinian NGOs is uniquely disturbing. 

Take for instance the cases of the Palestinian Center for Human 

Rights, PCHR, and Al-Haq, an organization whose terror ties, as 

well as its extremely anti-Zionist and international BDS campaigning, are described in greater detail in my written testimony. 

These two European government-backed NGOs are among the 

architects of many of the anti-Israel efforts detailed in my written 

testimony, successfully lobbying for the U.N. blacklist of companies 

operating beyond the 1949 armistice line, including American 

firms, as well as the launching of an ICC investigation into Israel, 

a worrying precedent for U.S. officials and military personnel. 

As I describe in my written testimony, Al-Haq in particular is 

one of the leading actors seeking to apply the apartheid label to 

Israel and defines the Jewish state as inherently illegitimate. 

Last month, as Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations 

launched over 1,200 rockets towards Israeli population centers— 

each one a war crime—PCHR published a statement in which it 

‘‘affirms the Palestinian people to resist the occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.’’ Under pressure from donors, this text was amended. 

Statements by PCHR’s board members and by officials at Al-Haq 

and other Palestinian NGOs reveal how pervasive those attitudes 

are. In a Facebook post published during the fighting, PCHR board 

member Nadia Abu Nahla referred to Israel as ‘‘the Nazi criminal 

occupation,’’ adding ‘‘May the resistance,’’ a euphemism for Palestinian terrorist organizations, ‘‘have victory.’’ 

Following a January 26 IDF operation in Jenin in which 10 Palestinians, mostly armed members of terrorist organizations, were 

killed in a gun battle, Abu Nahla wrote, ‘‘Oh he who guides the 

blood vengeances. May you guide our blood vengeance.’’ Are these 

the words of a human rights defender? 

On January 28, 2 days after the gun battle in Jenin, seven 

Israeli civilians were murdered by a Palestinian terrorist outside of 

a Jerusalem synagogue. In an interview given 2 days later, the 

deputy chair of PCHR’s board of directors said that Palestinians 

are not prevent ‘‘from taking revenge against the massacres that 

are occurring in Palestine,’’ adding ‘‘The flame of Palestinian resistance shall not end but continue as long as there is occupation, settlement, and Judaization.’’ 


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Al-Haq officials have also legitimized the text on Israeli civilians. 

Following the massacre outside the Jerusalem synagogue, Al-Haq 

legal researcher and advocacy officer Aseel Al Bajeh wrote, ‘‘Why 

are settlers allowed to be in occupied Jerusalem, a war crime that 

the world recognizes?’’ Adding separately ‘‘Forcing Palestinians to 

defend their right to resist is another complicity with Israel’s colonialism.’’ 

Just yesterday she wrote, ‘‘Shedding Palestinian blood and destroying entire families and futures is Zionism.’’ She accompanied 

the statement with pictures of Palestinians killed in clashes with 

the IDF this week, including two Hamas members who murdered 

four Israeli civilians just 2 days ago and three members of Islamic 

Jihad killed last night after they opened fire at an Israeli border 

crossing. 

There are other such statements from board members and officials from these and other European government-funded Palestinian NGOs. But to catalogue them all would require more time 

than we have here today. 

Allow me to conclude with a word on the European funding that 

I have been referencing. In recent years, Al-Haq has received 

grants from the European Union as well as from the governments 

of France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. PCHR 

has received funding from the European Union as well as from the 

governments of Switzerland and Norway and from U.N. agencies. 

The director of PCHR, Raji Sourani, a man who has been publicly celebrated by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a U.S. designated terrorist organization, was hosted this 

week by Dutch officials in The Netherlands. 

In addition to being funded by U.N. governments—excuse me, by 

European governments, both organizations are cited and relied 

upon by U.N. agencies and mechanisms and have interacted directly with the ICC. Simply put, this must end. Organizations like 

these, of which there are unfortunately many more, should be expelled from the policy-making community, not funded, sought after, 

and consulted with. 

Governments, U.N. frameworks, and international legal bodies, 

as well as ESG firms and other corporate actors, should shun these 

groups and implement effective vetting measures that ensure that 

no like-minded actors are supported or their reporting relied upon 

in the future. There can be no Jewish exception to the cause of universal human rights, nor should those professing violence be permitted to masquerade as human rights practitioners. 

I thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to the subcommittee’s questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schiffmiller follows:] 


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Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very much for your very eloquent statement, and your written statement just has so much even more. So 

I deeply—we deeply appreciate it. 

Mr. Marcus. 

STATEMENT OF ITAMAR MARCUS 

Mr. MARCUS. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Wild, esteemed 

members of Congress, thank you very much for calling this hearing, and thank you very much for inviting me. 

I appear before you today as head of Palestinian Media Watch 

to shed light on a fundamental and lethal component of Palestinian 

Authority ideology, which is Palestinian Authority antisemitism. 

Palestinian Authority antisemitism is not a collection of isolated 

hate speech. By today, it is a fundamental part of Palestinian ideology, and it is a great motivator of Palestinian Authority terror. 

I will focus today on two aspects of Palestinian Authority antisemitism, which is the political antisemitism and the religious antisemitism. The Palestinian Authority political antisemitism has 

three stages. The first is presenting the Jews as inherently evil and 

endangering not just Palestinians but endangering all of humanity. 

Number two is that Jews are, therefore, hated and themselves 

are responsible for antisemitism. 

Finally, the Western countries are anxious to solve their problem 

of—the Jewish problem by getting rid of the Jews. They were the 

ones who initiated Zionism, and they were the ones who initiated 

the establishment of the state of Israel to solve their Jewish problem. Israel, therefore, is a colonial implant with no right to exist. 

Now, I want to show you—give you some examples of this in Palestinian Authority leadership as well as from their official media. 

Already in 2023, this following interview with a Palestinian researcher, Palestinian Authority broadcast three times already this 

year, and it goes as follows. 

He quotes, ‘‘Jews are arrogant by nature. They do not accept the 

other. The Jewish thinking is based on racism that caused them to 

be hated everywhere, and the Jewish thinking is based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Europeans hated them and wanted 

to get rid of them, so they had the idea of establishing a Jewish 

state.’’ 

And, like I say, PATV broadcast their entire horrific interview 

three times already this year. Elie Wiesel has said about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, if ever there was a piece of writing that 

could produce mass hatred, this is one, and yet the PA continues 

to present this as an authentic document of Jewish plant to subjugate humanity. 

Mahmoud Abbas, in a televised speech, said the following, that 

10 centuries of massacres of Jews, as well as the Holocaust itself, 

were caused by the Jewish ‘‘social role, usury, and banks.’’ Abbas 

was literally saying that the Holocaust the Jews brought on themselves because of the social role. 

Now, just now at the U.N. last month, Habbas spoke, and this 

is what he said. Britain and the United States decided to plant a 

foreign entity in our homeland for colonialist purposes. These countries wanted to get rid of the Jews and profit from them in Palestine. Two birds with one stone. 


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Abbas was revealing this fundamental of Palestinian ideology, 

which is that Israel is the result of settler colonialism and, therefore, has no right to exist. 

Now, what is clear from this is that Palestinian anti-Zionism is 

founded in Palestinian antisemitism. 

Now, this PA demonization of Jews has been accepted by Palestinians as fact. And according to a 2014 ADL poll, they found ‘‘87 

percent of Palestinians say it is probably true that people hate 

Jews because of the way Jews behave.’’ Eighty-seven percent of 

Palestinians were hated—Jews are hated because of the way they 

behave. 

Now, this denial of Israel’s legitimacy leads directly to the PA 

teaching that Israel will eventually inevitably be destroyed. And I 

will give you some examples from children’s education in the Palestinian Authority. This is a Fatah children’s magazine called Waed, 

and they have quotes in there like ‘‘There is no invader who invaded this land that did not leave it defeated. That is what will 

happen to the Zionist invaders.’’ 

The goal is to liberate Palestine that was stolen by the colonialist 

and aggressive Zionist movement. A key to the colonialism appears—and this as well—Algeria’s experience, which was the end 

of French colonial rule, talks about assures that the Jewish settlers 

in Palestine will disappear in the end. Jews will all leave Palestine. 

This is Fatah education. 

Now, I just read a poll this morning which is added in, which 

connects to this teaching that Israel will eventually be destroyed, 

will disappear. The poll was done by Khalil Shikaki, the most important Palestinian pollster, and the question was, will Israel celebrate its 100th anniversary? Sixty-six percent of Palestinians said 

no; 27 percent said yes. So two-thirds of Palestinians have accepted 

this ideology that Israel inevitably will be destroyed. 

And I will add that as long as Palestinians believe there is a 

chance to destroy Israel, that is a great motivator for terror. 

Now, Palestinian Authority antisemitism has also become an important source for global antisemitism. Last week when Fatima 

Mohammed spoke at CUNY University law school graduation, she 

said, ‘‘Israel is a project of settler colonialism.’’ She was literally repeating this fundamental part of Palestinian Authority ideology. 

Now, with the political antisemitism embedded in Palestinian 

ideology, then comes the religious ideology, the religious antisemitism, which puts Allah’s stamp of approval on this hatred. 

And I will quote some of the things from Mahmoud al-Habbash. 

He is the most important religious figure in the PA. He is 

Mahmoud Habbas’ personal adviser on Islam, and he is head of the 

Sharia courts. 

And this is what he said on TV. Jews are humanoids, creatures 

that Allah created in the form of humans, those who Allah has 

cursed and made them apes and pigs. 

He also taught that Jews throughout history have worked together with Satan disseminating evil. Israel, he said, because it is 

a Jewish state, is Satan’s project, and that is the reason the Palestinians are in conflict. Again, this is the most important religious 

figure in the PA, Habbas’ adviser. 


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This same adviser also taught the religious reason to kill 

Israelis. He started by quoting from the Quran where the Quran 

says kill them, and then he, in his own words, defined 10 categories of crimes for which to kill people. All are crimes that he 

routinely accuses Israel of doing—taking their land, taking their 

homeland, et cetera. 

So here he was saying the Quran is telling you to kill, and then 

he ends with a quote from the Quran, ‘‘Kill them wherever you find 

them.’’ Again, this is Habbas’ adviser on Islam. 

Last year during the Ramadan, PATV preacher prayed, ‘‘Allah, 

delight us with the extermination of the evil Jews.’’ And an important Palestinian religious figure who teaches, he is responsible for 

teaching preacher training, he said, ‘‘Allah willing, the end of the 

Jews and America that supports the Jews will be in Palestine.’’ 

This combination of political and religious antisemitism results 

in the PA’s justifying every single murder of every Israeli and honoring every murderer. 

Two months ago, an Israeli mother and her two daughters, Lucy, 

Maia, and Rina Dee, were murdered in a drive-by shooting. After 

Israel tracked down the killers, the murderers and killed them, 

Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh posted pictures of the murderers of the Dee family on his Facebook page with the text ‘‘Glory 

and eternity to our righteous Shahids,’’ our righteous martyrs, people who died for Allah. 

The automatic Palestinian Authority support for every murderer, 

no matter what Israeli is killed, including Israeli children, can only 

be understood when recognizing the centrality of Palestinian Authority antisemitism, which sees murdering of Jews and Israelis as 

justified as an ideal act for Allah. 

Now, a new Palestinian poll I mentioned, I found this morning 

something also shocking that I want to read to you related to the 

support for killing Israelis. Eighty-six percent of the Palestinian 

Authority of Palestinians—I am sorry, 86 percent say the Palestinian Authority does not have the right to arrest members of these 

armed groups to prevent them from carrying out attacks against 

Israel. 

The armed groups that are doing all the recent terror, 86 percent 

of Palestinians say the Palestinian Authority should not arrest 

them and disarm them. 

Palestinian Authority antisemitism I would say is the elephant 

in the room that the international community has ignored, looking 

for all sorts of other reasons to blame the conflict on. It is now embedded in Palestinian Authority world view and is being echoed in 

CUNY University and around the world. It is urgent that PA antisemitism be put front and center, and discussions about any future 

solution have to include a major focus on Palestinian Authority 

antisemitism. 

Only after this fundamental reason for Palestinian hate is eliminated can the Palestinian Authority be a potential peace partner 

and will be the chance for stopping the spread of Palestinian antisemitism around the world. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Marcus follows:] 


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Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Kontorovich. 

STATEMENT OF EUGENE KONTOROVICH 

Mr. KONTOROVICH. Thank you. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Wild, honorable members of the committee, I am honored to be 

invited here to discuss contemporary antisemitism. 

Opposing antisemitism is easy because everyone is on your side. 

Certainly, in polite society, you won’t find anyone embracing the 

label. Today the general anathema on antisemitism makes anti-Zionism a convenient and common substitute. At the same time, criticism of Israel, as one would of any other country, is entirely legitimate, thus defining ‘‘antisemitism’’ accurately is crucial. 

Those who seek to single out, delegitimize, and harm the world’s 

primary Jewish community claim that they are merely responding 

to the bad things the Jewish state actually does. They have reasons, you see. They have reasons. 

The notion of antisemitism, how does one answer this? The notion that antisemitism only applies to unreasoning, foaming at the 

mouth, purely emotional Jew hated, misunderstands what antisemitism is and has always been as I will show. 

These remarks are very timely, because the Biden Administration’s new National Strategy on Anti-Semitism harms efforts to respond to it by referring to two different and fundamentally contradictory definitions of it. 

The remainder of my testimony explains why the IHRA definition discussed by Mr. Sharansky is correct in identifying Israel as 

a major focus of antisemitism and addresses the claims made by 

the Nexus Document cited in the National Strategy, which argues 

that double standards against Israel should not be presumed to be 

antisemitic. 

The only widely accepted definition of antisemitism today is the 

working definition of the International Holocaust Memorial Association, IHRA. It crucially states that anti-Zionism or anti-Israel 

conduct can be manifestations of antisemitism. 

IHRA’s definition provides several examples, claiming the existence of Israel is illegitimate for ab initio, the widespread practice 

of applying double standards to the Jewish state or ‘‘requiring of 

it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.’’ 

This IHRA definition obviously struck a chord. It has been formally adopted by at least 39 countries, the EU, the EC, the OSC, 

most U.S. states, and the vast majority of ideologically diverse jurisdictions, universities, and entities around the world. 

The U.S. has also adopted the IHRA definition, and the National 

Strategy on Anti-Semitism reaffirms that while also ‘‘welcoming 

what is known as the Nexus Document,’’ an effort designed to undermine the Israel-focused aspect—the Israel antisemitism of 

IHRA’s definition. 

Nexus does not treat as presumptively antisemitic either the 

questioning of the basic legitimacy of Israel’s existence or the application of double standards, discriminatory standards to Israel. According to Nexus, such views may have legitimate grounds. We will 

discuss what those may be. 


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Unlike IHRA’s adoption by a wide range of countries, not a single 

country has adopted the Nexus definition. So Nexus last month 

leaped from discussions of like-minded academics straight into a 

White House policy document. While the IHRA definition remains 

the only one officially used by the Government, the National Strategy citation of Nexus harms efforts to respond to antisemitism by 

referring to these two different definitions. 

Israel bashing is ostensibly directed against the state of Israel, 

not the Jews. So how can it be antisemitic? In anti-discrimination 

law, American anti-discrimination law, it is well known that discrimination need not be 100 percent congruent with the targeted 

class. 

Proxies for race, sexual orientation, and so forth, can be discriminatory using proxies. Moreover, no one disputes that the political 

treatment of a country could potentially be a proxy for bigotry 

against the faith or ethnicity of that country. For example, when 

the prior Administration adopted immigration restrictions on five 

Muslim majority countries, many members of this House denounced it as a Muslim ban, even though it cited countries, not religions. 

Israel is by far the largest Jewish community in the world, and 

the home to the plurality—and soon the majority—of the world’s 

Jews. The vast majority of American Jews identify closely with 

Israel, making Zionism a convenient proxy for Jewishness. 

Unfortunately, some people who understand that proxy—a country could be a proxy for bigotry, who vigorously denounced, for example, President Trump’s immigration rules as a Muslim ban, now 

argue that it is okay to single out Israel and apply to it double 

standards. This is a double standard within a double standard. 

The claim that anti-Israel obsession is merely about Israeli policies needs to be evaluated in a historical context. For 2,000 years, 

the obsessive focus on the supposed wrongs of this one tiny group 

has resurfaced across an amazing array of cultures and epochs. 

From the Romans to the Crusades, from the Reformation to the Inquisition, from national to international socialism, the justifications 

change, the target remains the same. 

Finally, the Jewish people in our times reconstituted their nation 

and immediately found it the subject of unparalleled international 

defamation and libel. Jews have been hated sometimes as adherents of a faith, sometimes as members of a people. Now the extraordinary enmity is aimed at their state. The coin lands on the 

same side on every toss. It is an amazing coincidence. The segue 

from earlier modes of antisemitism to anti-Zionism is stunning. 

Now, effective antisemites have always sought to justify their 

bigotry by claiming that they simply object to the bad things that 

Jews do. Capitalism, communism, monarchy-ism, not accepted 

Christianity, even Hitler had elaborate policy reasons for his opposition to Jewry. In contemporary terms, he thought they harmed 

global human rights. 

The accusations leveled against Israel today resemble those 

made by antisemites throughout history. Instead of Jews being accused of killing Gentile children, Israel is accused of deliberately 

killing Palestinian children. Instead of Jews being accused of causVerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Nov 15, 2024 Jkt 056738 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A738.XXX A738

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ing a plague among Gentiles, Israel is accused of causing disease 

amongst Palestinians. 

The accusation of apartheid is a modern blood libel, an absurd 

big lie, and responding to it justifies it more than it deserves, but 

inciteful in ways that cannot be rectified by mere refutation. 

Just as the classic blood libel resonated with religious preoccupations of earlier ages, today’s claims resonate with the ethnic justice 

concerns of our own times. That is the power of apartheid. That in 

our times several members of Congress can level such accusations 

against the Jewish state is truly distressing. 

Now I want to say that the Nexus Document says there may be 

a valid reason for people to care more about Israel. They say maybe 

people care about Israel because Israel gets more U.S. foreign aid 

than other countries. 

Now, in my written testimony, I have a chart of how much aid 

different countries get from the United States. And as you will see, 

Israel does in fact get more, and there are—there is much more 

hostility to Israel. I have various measures of hostility to Israel, 

New York Times’ resolutions. 

As you see, after Israel it drops off very disproportionately. 

Egypt, King Jordan, massive recipients of U.S. aid. They don’t get 

half of the criticism of Israel, not in Congress, not in the United 

Nations, and not in the pages of The New York Times. 

So whatever this phenomenon is, it seems to only work for Israel, 

this aid-focused justification. 

And, finally, I will close by pointing out of course countries 

around the world have very harsh policies against Israel. I have a 

table in my testimony where I show U.K.’s votes against Israel. Are 

these other countries voting against Israel because of U.S. foreign 

aid? It doesn’t stand to reason. 

So this form of antisemitism is one of the dominant forms of our 

day and must be taken very seriously. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kontorovich follows:] 


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Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. Neuer. 

STATEMENT OF HILLEL NEUER 

Mr. NEUER. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Wild, members 

of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify at this 

important hearing. I have come here directly from the United Nations Human Rights Council session underway now in Geneva to 

report to you about the antisemitism and demonization of Israel 

that is taking place there and in many other parts of the United 

Nations. 

Now, the U.N. Charter guarantees ‘‘the equal treatment of nations large and small.’’ Yet if an alien from another planet would 

visit the United Nations and listen to its debates, read its resolutions, and walk through its halls, it could logically conclude that 

a principal purpose of the world body is to censure a tiny country 

called Israel. 

At the General Assembly, as you indicated, Mr. Chairman, in 

2022, there was one resolution on Iran, one on North Korea, one 

on Syria, and 15 on Israel. At the World Health Organization, 

every year its annual assembly deviates from global public health 

for a special debate singling out Israel. 

There is no such focus on Syria where hospitals are repeatedly 

bombed by Syrian and Russian forces, nor on North Korea, one of 

the worst health systems in the world. On the contrary, the WHO 

recently elected North Korea to its executive board. 

At the U.N. Human Rights Council, most of the world’s worst 

abusers get a free pass. Worse, many abusers sit on the Council, 

including China, Cuba, Eritrea, Qatar, and Pakistan. None of these 

has ever been censured. And last month when it came time to appoint a chair of the U.N. Human Rights Council social forum, they 

decided to appoint the Islamic Republic of Iran. I want to commend 

all of the members of Congress who have written to complain about 

that. 

While dictators are honored, a democracy is scapegoated. The 

only country in the world with a standing agenda item at the 

Council is not China, which violates the basic human rights of 1.5 

billion people, a fifth of humanity, nor is it Iran, which beats, 

blinds, and poisons women and girls for the crime of protesting, it 

is Israel. 

From the Council’s creation in 2006 to today, the Council has 

adopted two resolutions on Sudan, three on Venezuela, 14 on Iran, 

16 on North Korea, 42 on Syria, and 103 on Israel. So more on 

Israel than on Iran, Syria, and North Korea combined. 

Now, in May 2021, after Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired thousands of rockets at Israeli civilian centers, the Council met in special session and created a Commission of Inquiry targeting Israel. 

It is the first such commission with no end date. It is mandated 

to report in perpetuity. Its scope includes not only the war of that 

year but all events leading up to it and since. They have the unprecedented mandate to examine ‘‘root causes of the conflict,’’ including alleged ‘‘systematic discrimination based on race.’’ 

As chair of the inquiry, the Council decided to appoint Navi 

Pillay, who has signed petitions lobbying governments to ‘‘sanction 


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apartheid Israel.’’ She is the objective chair. U.N. Watch documented her extreme bias in a legal request demanding that she 

recuse herself. This was completely ignored. 

Another commissioner is Miloon Kothari. I just heard him speak 

two days ago in Geneva. Last summer he gave an interview where 

he ranted about ‘‘the Jewish lobby,’’ and he questioned Israel’s 

right to be a member of the U.N. He was condemned by numerous 

countries and U.N. officials for antisemitism, yet he remains in his 

post. 

In this regard, I want to commend the U.S. Ambassador to the 

Human Rights Council for her superb work, Michele Taylor, in 

leading 27 member states this week to object to this Commission 

of Inquiry and to call for an end generally to anti-Israel bias at the 

Council. 

Now other Council officials need to be examined. Last year the 

Council appointed Francesca Albanese as its ‘‘special rapporteur on 

Palestine.’’ The mandate in fact is to investigate only ‘‘Israel’s violations.’’ U.N. experts are obliged to be objective. Before she was 

appointed, we informed the Council that Albanese has repeatedly 

equated Palestinian suffering with the Nazi Holocaust, accused 

Israel of war crimes, apartheid, and genocide. In a 2014 Facebook 

post, she wrote that America is ‘‘subjugated by the Jewish lobby.’’ 

The Council knew all of this and appointed her. One year into 

the post, she has repeatedly legitimized terrorism and addressed 

the Hamas Conference where she said, ‘‘You have a right to resist.’’ 

Mr. Chairman, because of our work exposing and fighting this 

kind of discrimination, we are now being targeted. U.N. Watch, the 

Swiss nonprofit association that I direct, was founded in Geneva 30 

years ago by former U.S. ambassador and civil rights leader Morris 

Abram. We have never received funding from any government and 

are supported solely by charitable donations. 

Our reports and speeches exposing anti-Israel prejudice, combating dictatorships at the Human Rights Council, are seen worldwide. 

In retaliation, the powerful chief of the Council’s secretariat, Mr. 

Eric Tistounet, is running a campaign of smear attacks, censorship, 

and harassment against me and our organization. He tampers with 

speakers’ lists to prevent us from taking the floor at the Human 

Rights Council. 

According to whistleblower testimony by his former colleague, 

Emma Reilly—she has appeared on BBC and reported in Le 

Monde—Mr. Tistounet justified his actions by falsely claiming that 

U.N. Watch was ‘‘an Israeli GONGO,’’ which means a fake government operated NGO. 

When discussing U.N. Watch with its colleagues, Ms. Reilly reports that this chief of the Human Rights Council secretariat would 

frequently use antisemitic tropes to the effect that we were controlling members states or controlling NGOs behind the scenes. 

In October, we filed a complaint with the Secretary General of 

the United Nations, which can be found at UNWatch.org/abuse. 

Based on leaked internal emails and whistleblower testimony, our 

complaint documents how Mr. Tistounet, in violation of U.N. rules, 

systematically orders his staff to manipulate speakers’ lists to prevent U.N. Watch from speaking at the Human Rights Council. 


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For example, at least year’s June session, 2022, we requested to 

speak for 36 interactive dialogues. Groups close to Mr. Tistounet 

received about 15 speaking slots. We received zero. 

Mr. Tistounet has concocted a fictitious rule, especially for us, demanding to see our speeches in advance, enabling him to draft reprimands, which he would then hand to the chair at the podium to 

read out against me without any basis. According to leaked internal documents, which he has never disputed, when Mr. Tistounet 

learned in 2007 that I was the victim of a false arrest due to mistaken identity, he sent out a celebratory email to his 50-member 

staff at the Human Rights Council. 

The chief of the Human Rights Council secretariat instructed his 

U.N. employees to secretly go to an internet cafe to anonymously 

defame me online to post the material next to videos of my speeches about the Council. 

Finally, according to leaked emails, Mr. Tistounet told his staff 

to think of ways to have me physically detained by U.N. security 

in order to block me from entering the Council chamber in Geneva. 

Now, we filed a detailed complaint about all of this with Secretary General Guterres in October. The United Nations Assistant 

Secretary General Martha Lopez replied that it would be considered ‘‘as per internal procedures.’’ Eight months later, nothing has 

happened. 

On the contrary, in the current June-July session of the Council, 

from which I have just come here, I have just received word from 

my colleagues in Geneva that the speakers’ lists were again manipulated by Mr. Tistounet. Groups that are close to him, like Amnesty International, received 19 speaking slots. We are being prevented from speaking more than once. 

Mr. Chairman, in summary, because of our work to expose antisemitism and other forms of prejudice and injustice at the Human 

Rights Council, its chief of staff is trying to censor and silence us. 

He doesn’t want the world to know. 

We appeal to the United States and other countries that care 

about human rights to demand that this bigoted and corrupt official be suspended, and that the Secretary General create an independent investigation as requested in our complaint. 

In conclusion, U.N. bodies routinely apply double standards to 

Israel, not expected of other democracies. Singling out the world’s 

only Jewish state for opprobrium in a way that is wholly disproportionate to its deficiencies. U.N. officials have claimed that the state 

of Israel is a racist endeavor, drawn comparisons of current Israeli 

policy to that of the Nazis, or accused Israel of ‘‘genocide.’’ 

Under the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, it is clear 

that the actions of numerous U.N. bodies and officials are 

antisemitic in effect, if not intent. 

I want to thank this committee for taking up this urgent matter, 

and especially you, Chairman Smith, for your leadership. 

I thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Neuer follows:] 


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Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very much, Mr. Neuer. If you could, we 

will put together a letter to Guterres and others laying all of this 

out. We will ask the Administration as well to double down on 

their efforts. You know, I am glad you pointed out the 27 nations. 

That was a good step in the right direction. 

But to ostracize you, to smear you personally and the organization, is outrageous. And even the seemingly mundane idea of manipulating the speakers’ lists, that becomes all important because 

you lose your right to speak, and that can’t happen. 

So everything you can give us to—about the complaint, and I 

guarantee—matter of fact, I would say with my colleagues here, we 

will make sure—I mean, I did meet with Secretary Guterres 2 

months ago for a lengthy—I did not bring up your complaint. I 

didn’t know about it. I am sorry. But I will take it to him in New 

York. 

Mr. NEUER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF SHARON NAZARIAN 

Dr. NAZARIAN. Good morning, Chairman Smith and Ranking 

Member Wild. Thank you for inviting me to testify at this important meeting. 

I also would like to thank the chairman and Congresswoman 

Manning for their continued leadership as co-chairs of the Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism. 

Thank you for the entire committee for your bipartisan commitment to fighting antisemitism and your support for a strong U.S.- 

Israel relationship. 

Since 1913, ADL’s mission has been to stop the defamation of the 

Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all. I am 

proud to support that mission as a member of the ADL’s national 

board of directors and previously as senior vice president for international affairs, where I led our efforts to fight global antisemitism 

and anti-Israel bias. 

We are currently witnessing an alarming increase in antisemitism and anti-Zionism at levels unseen for decades. ADL’s domestic and international surveys, as well as our annual audit of domestic antisemitic incidents, provide ample evidence that 

antisemitic attitudes and incidents are on the rise in the U.S. and 

have not diminished globally. 

Moreover, our research shows that antisemitism is increasingly 

a trans-national issue. Hate and prejudice knows no boundaries in 

our globalized world that connects people through travel, technology, and social media. 

ADL’s global 100 index of antisemitism, first fielded in 2014, 

found that 1 billion adults across 102 countries harbor significant 

antisemitic incidents. Sentiments, excuse me. A follow-up survey 

this year found that approximately 1 in 4 adults in European—in 

10 European countries with some of the largest populations—Jewish populations subscribe to dangerous antisemitic tropes, hateful 

charges such as Jews controlling the government or being more 

loyal to Israel than to their own countries. 

Too much power in business, too much control over the government, responsibility for world wars, these ideas do not live in a vacVerDate Sep 11 2014 01:36 Nov 15, 2024 Jkt 056738 PO 00000 Frm 00083 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A738.XXX A738

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uum. They affect real people. From Johannesburg to Paris to 

Santiago, time and time again I have heard from members of the 

Jewish community who have lived under a constant deluge of antiZionism and antisemitism. 

This hate knows no borders. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and 

harassment continue to spread online. ADL surveys consistently 

show how Jews are targeted online because of their identity. In 

2022, ADL’s online hate and harassment survey found that 37 percent of Jewish respondents were harassed online because of their 

religion. 

As an Iranian American who fled my country of birth because of 

antisemitic persecution, I know personally the consequences of inaction. The tyrannical Iranian regime did not just demonize Jews, 

it took away our homes and livelihood, and continues to threaten 

Israel, deny the Holocaust, and oppress women and religious minorities to this day. 

And while ADL has worked to be a leading voice fighting hate, 

we cannot do this work alone. The United States and the international community must adopt a whole-of-government and wholeof society approach to address a global threat of this magnitude. 

We enthusiastically welcome the release of the historic U.S. National Strategy to Counter Anti-Semitism and its embrace of the 

IHRA definition. We hope it will serve as a model for future efforts 

globally and for the international community to replicate it. 

Global leaders must recognize the gravity of the threat of growing antisemitism. Many countries and entities, including the EU, 

OAS, and OSCE, have taken concrete steps in the fight against 

antisemitism, including strategies and appointing envoys. 

We welcome the U.N.’s stated commitment to work on this issue, 

but the U.N. cannot deny its own history in fermenting antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Leaders must denounce all manifestations of antisemitism, including anti-Zionism, and plans are only as 

strong as its implementation. 

So global challenges require global solutions. We urge Congress 

and the members of this committee to take concrete steps to fight 

global antisemitism in the world and online, including ensuring 

that the Administration has all the resources it needs to implement 

the National Strategy to Counter Anti-Semitism, funding and 

growing the Office of the Special Envoy to monitor and combat 

antisemitism, supporting tech policy reform that addresses antisemitism online, and we all know education is key. 

So passing the Holocaust Education Anti-Semitism Lessons Act, 

the HEAL Act, and pushing for greater global education on the 

Holocaust and antisemitism. And, finally, urging your partners in 

the international community to do the same. 

So thank you for your time, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Nazarian follows:] 


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Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very much. 

Mr. Rosenberg. 

Mr. ROSENBERG. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Wild, members of the committee, I am very happy to be here. My voice, another story. I will do my best and I thank you for bearing with me. 

Thank you for inviting me today to testify on the subject of antisemitism I covered for over a decade as journalist. For the record, 

I am against it. That line might sound like a joke, but it wasn’t 

always the obvious position in this body. In 1934, Pennsylvania 

Representative Louis McFadden stood on the House floor and bemoaned alleged Jewish control of the American economy. ‘‘Is it not 

true,’’ he declared, ‘‘that in the United States today the Gentiles 

have the slips of paper, while the Jews have the gold?’’ We have 

come a long way since then. In the past, it was not uncommon for 

Jews to be called before parliaments and political leaders. However, the intent was not to protect them, but to persecute them. 

There are people, as you have heard on this panel, who come 

from countries like the former Soviet Union, Iran, that repressed 

their Jews in living memory. So I think I speak for everyone at this 

table when I say I am grateful to be here. I am grateful to you for 

being here. And I am grateful to live in an exceptional country 

where a conversation like this is not just possible, but desired. 

That said, I think there is a general sense backed up by data and 

events that you have heard that in the last decade antisemitism 

has gradually worsened rather than abated in America and around 

the world which raises the question, if more people than ever are 

aware of the perils of anti-Jewish bigotry, why does it persist? 

Well, I want to argue that a major reason for this is that the stories that we tell about antisemitism and where it comes from are 

too narrow and convenient. For some people, talking about antiJewish prejudice understandably means talking about neo-Nazis, 

white supremacists, and the far right. For others, as reflected in 

the framing of this hearing, it means talking about anti-Israel sentiment that too often lapses into antisemitism. 

I reported on both of these stories at length. These narratives 

dominate the discourse because they contain real truth, but also 

because they are easy for partisans to tell about their ideological 

opponents. But they aren’t the whole story and I would like to tell 

you a different one right now because until we challenge the comfortable conversation about antisemitism, I think we are unlikely 

to impact the problem. 

That story goes like this. For almost as long as there have been 

Jewish people, there has been anti-Jewish prejudice. This bigotry 

predates the United States of America and the modern state of 

Israel. It is older than capitalism and communism, Republicans 

and Democrats, progressives, and conservatives. And it precedes 

Christianity and Islam. Because of this while antisemitism is expressed by all of these communities, it can’t be caused by them. 

The source has to be something more fundamental. What would 

that be? 

Well, consider recent antisemitic incidents that on the surface 

seem to have little in common with each other. In 2018, as we have 

heard, a white supremacist massacred 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue. In 2019, assailants tied to the 


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Black Hebrew Israelite movement shot up a Kosher supermarket 

in Jersey City, killing three. And in 2022, an Islamic extremist 

held an entire congregation hostage in Colleyville, Texas for much 

of the Jewish Sabbath. 

To take another odd example, both the Supreme Leader of Iran’s 

Islamic theocracy and Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh shooter who 

hated Muslims posted memes on social media alleging Zionist control of American politics. During the 2016 Presidential race, which 

I covered, supporters at campaign events for both Donald Trump 

and Bernie Sanders were captured on camera claiming that Zionists run America’s finances. I have links to those incidents in my 

written testimony and it is instructive viewing. 

What unites all of these seemingly disparate antisemitic actors? 

It is not their identity or background, but rather their adherence 

to a conspiracy of Jewish control. The Pittsburgh white supremacist believed that Jews were responsible for flooding the country 

with the brown people that he hated as part of the so-called ‘‘Great 

Replacement of the white race.’’ 

One of the Black Hebrew Israelites sympathizers in Jersey City 

wrote on social media about how Jews control the Government and 

the British Islamic extremist who targeted the Texas synagogue 

did so, bizarrely, because he thought American rabbis held sway 

over the U.S. authorities and could free someone from prison. 

This is not, as you might have noticed, how we usually think 

about antisemitism. Most people parse it understandably as a personal prejudice like many others in which a bigot simply despises 

a group because they are different, too Black, too Brown, too Muslim, too Jewish. Anti-Semitism is a personal prejudice, but it is also 

something else. It is a conspiracy theory about how the world 

works that blames sinister string-pulling Jews for social and political problems and this is the kind of antisemitism that as we have 

seen is more likely to get people killed, because many well-meaning 

individuals don’t understand how it works though and to miss 

much of it. 

That is a problem because while the antisemitic conspiracy theory is pre-political, it is regularly expressed politically in ways designed to evade our defenses. Today, fewer people would fall for 

Congressman McFadden’s bald claim that ‘‘the Jews control our 

politics and economy.’’ But substitute George Soros or the Rothschilds or the Zionists or Israel and suddenly the antisemitic argument regains its appeals and respectable people and institutions, 

as we have heard, start nodding their heads and suggesting maybe 

we should debate the subject. Because people have been—long been 

conditioned to conceive of Jews in an underhanded fashion, it 

doesn’t take much to update the ancient conspiracy theory to persuade contemporary audiences. And thanks to centuries of material 

blaming the world’s problems on its Jews, conspiracy theorists 

seeking to scapegoat someone for their sorrows inevitably discover 

that the invisible hand of their oppressor belongs to an invisible 

Jew. 

Now to be clear, actors like Soros or state of Israel possess real 

power and influence and certainly warrant critique for how they 

exercise it. I have written both of those critiques. The problem is 

rather that such criticism is too often replaced with conspiracy in 


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which the Jewish target is transformed into an avatar of absolute 

evil who stands behind the world’s ills. This way of thinking 

threatens democracy because as long as prejudiced people pin their 

societies’ problems on Jewish culprits they will be unable to organize collectively to rationally solve them. The conspiracy theory 

threatens both Israelis and Palestinians because when the conversation over their conflict is captured by antisemites, legitimate 

criticism cannot be heard and both parties inevitably lose. And of 

course, it threatens Jewish people everywhere which should be 

enough reason for us all to oppose it. 

Thank you for your time and I look forward to answering any 

questions you might have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rosenberg follows:] 


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Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much as well, Mr. Rosenberg, for 

your reporting, your writing, and for being here today. 

I have a number of questions but I’ll just do a few and then yield 

to my colleagues and, hopefully, we will have time not be interrupted by votes for a second round. 

You know, you get insights, you know, on trips to Israel. I will 

never forget, I made one trip, always bringing up antisemitism, but 

I met with a group of Palestinian students. It was at the Catholic 

University of America in Bethlehem and three fourths of all the 

students happened to be Muslims. And it was about a two hour 

town meeting. It was all their top leadership student-wise, you 

know student council presidents and everybody. And we got very 

quickly to 9/11. 

Now in my district we lost a number of people to 9/11, you know, 

they were in the Twin Towers, obviously, and these students all asserted with absolute certainty that no Jews died in 9/11 and that 

the Jews were responsible for it. Well, I know and I told them this 

and I argued with them very, very aggressively that I knew many 

of the families who died. I worked on a lot of things relevant to 

compensation and everything else with the Special Master and all 

that and there were so many of the families and so many of them 

were Jewish, Jewish widows, Jewish families, and they all know 

who did it and were killed in the process. I mean, at least our Government did a very good job with the 9/11 Commission, so effectively run by Tom Kaine and Lee Hamilton. You know, ferreted out 

the information in a very, very comprehensive way. 

And they persisted and it just underscored to me, and I am sure 

maybe to you, that hate speech and antisemitism always employs 

lies and hyperbole and scapegoats and just causes—smears people, 

as you are being smeared, Mr. Neuer, in order to get their way. 

They don’t care about the truth. 

So I walk away with that as another one of those instances and 

then when you go through and, again, all your statements were 

outstanding, and as I delve into what was actually written and 

what you ladies and gentlemen wrote, the quotations from the 

leaders of the Palestinian Authority and the like are just—I mean, 

one from Palestinian Media Watch, Mr. Marcus, where you say the 

PA director of preacher training taught on PA TV, ‘‘Allah willing, 

the end of the Jews in America that support the Jews will be in 

Palestine.’’ 

They are talking about total annihilation, total destruction, and 

also so many of the quotes that all of you have mentioned that are 

just—let me just say to Mr. Schiffmiller, and maybe you want to 

comment on it further, I have been disgusted with Amnesty International Human Rights Watch. It used to be that Amnesty International were about political prisoners and they had a very stellar 

reputation for taking the sides in an objective way, naming the 

country, for political prisoners. They have reneged on all of that. 

I was here when they had the apartheid fights, again, in South 

Africa, and I supported those sanctions. Apartheid is an abomination and thankfully it is in trash heap of history. But to sit there 

and take that type of language and smear Israel with it is appalling. And Human Rights Watch is doing the exact same thing and 

I just find it appalling. 


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I have had them, representatives of those groups, come and testify on other issues, but, you know, it just occurred to me, I am 

going to boycott them. Any hearing I have in human rights, Amnesty is not invited, nor is Human Rights Watch, because of their 

smear, their horrible smear. And you might want to speak a little 

bit further to that if you would like to. 

I ask all of you, how is the Taylor Force Act being implemented? 

Are you satisfied with what the U.S. Government is doing? 

Mr. Neuer, you mentioned about the good work that was done 

with the 27 nations that have objected, but generally speaking, 

how up the chain of command has it gotten to, does it get to? President Biden’s desk, so that he talks the war evaders? Certainly to 

our Secretary of State, because I believe many countries take their 

cue on how high up that chain the protests go. And it is not where 

we ought to be and we will be as a—and we know our ambassadorat-large is doing a very good job and she has direct access, I wrote 

the law, to the Secretary of State. 

But my hope is that there will be—especially as a result of your 

amazing testimonies, and this great group of people who all work 

every day on combating antisemitism, we are at a pivot point. It 

is getting worse. And maybe if you could speak to that as well. And 

I have so many other questions, but I don’t want to take away from 

my other colleagues. 

But I just hope—you know, we do far more than we have done, 

maybe some resolutions would be—we have done them in the past 

and we will do them again. 

Brad, you have done resolutions. We have all done them. And I 

think we need to circle and think with an action plan on for things 

we ought to be doing. 

So Mr. Schiffmiller. 

Mr. SCHIFFMILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To your question 

about amnesty or to your point about Amnesty, I mention in my 

written testimony that the Mayor of Frankfurt has accused Amnesty of promoting ethnic cleansing for a lot of the rhetoric that it 

has been promoting. And, particularly, you mentioned the apartheid claims that are made by Amnesty. One of the things that set 

Amnesty apart from a lot of the other organizations that are pushing this sort of rhetoric is they have made a concerted effort to try 

to detach Jewish history from the land of Israel because that is not 

politically convenient for them. And so they have made a concerted 

effort to try to say Jewish presences in the old city of Jerusalem, 

Jewish historical sites in other parts of the country are places that 

should not be visited, should not be accessible to people and they 

have really made a major assault on Jewish cultural rights and 

Christian cultural rights in order to achieve a specific political outcome. 

Mr. MARCUS. Thank you. I would like to talk about Taylor Force 

Act and it is very significant. It has always been discussed here in 

Congress. The Palestinian Authority was already condemning it 

and when it passed, the Palestinian Authority has probably said 

hundreds of times that they will never, ever stop paying a salary 

to terrorists. And this is significant, and this was mentioned, the 

Palestinian Authority claims that they have an international right 


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to what they call resistance and they claim that that resistance includes the right to kill any Israeli. 

And I am going to tell you where the blame for that is. I actually 

put this as an appendix in my written document, but I want to just 

specify it here. There are two U.N. Resolutions, 3236 and 3246, 

from 1974 and 1975, and these resolutions say that the Palestinians have a right to use all means to get their rights. 

Now, in one of them, in U.N. 3246, it also talks about liberation 

from colonial and foreign domination and the ability to use all 

means, including armed struggle. And they also talk about specifically Palestine there. 

So what is going on here? The U.N. with this decision completely 

adopted the Palestinian Authority narrative that Israel is a colonial country with no right to exist and, therefore, Palestinians have 

the right to use armed conflict against Israel. They, therefore, say 

that they have a right to kill Israelis. They say Taylor Force Act 

is wrong because their prisoners are prisoners of war with U.N.- 

guaranteed rights to kill Israelis. 

One of the things that—one of the recommendations that I put 

in the written testimony is that the United States should initiate 

the same way with Zionism is racism which was passed at that 

same time, was canceled. These two resolutions, 3236 and 3246, 

should—must be canceled because they tell the Palestinians that 

they have an international right to use all means and they translate this into murdering civilians. 

We are actually preparing a full report on the endless number 

of times they have cited these resolutions to justify killing and to 

condemn Taylor Force. That is the first thing in terms of an action 

that I think the United States can do is to move ahead on that. 

The second things is the Palestinian Authority, the Taylor Force 

Act says the United States—the Palestinian Authority can’t get 

any American money and the Palestinians claims ignored it. And 

they have managed to finance. When I say managed, for over two 

years now, they have only been paying 70 percent or 80 percent of 

the salaries of their civil servants and they are not quite managing, 

but they don’t care if people suffer. They continue to pay salaries 

to terrorists. 

What I think could be done and I also list this as one of the recommendations, if the punishment for the Taylor Force Act, for a 

violation of Taylor Force would have personal impact on individuals. And I am talking about designating the people in the Palestinian Authority who are involved in the pay of the salaries to terrorists and awarding to the families of the martyrs to designate 

them to be aliens that are ineligible to travel to the United States. 

I think the designating of individuals who are involved in this will 

take it from a general, okay, we’re losing some money, will have 

a personal impact and weaken the list of every single Palestinian 

leader and the administrator who is involved in paying—— 

[Crosstalk.] 

Mr. SMITH. Because the Magnitsky Act would be a tool that we 

could use to—— 

Mr. MARCUS. We will prepare that document for you. Okay. 

Thank you. 


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Mr. KONTOROVICH. Chairman, first of all, I want to relate to 

what you said about Amnesty and Human Rights Watch and their 

apartheid blood libel and very strongly applaud the stance you 

have taken about engaging with them because it is exactly when 

otherwise mainstream institutions start to spread, when otherwise 

polite institutions start to spread these kinds of lies, that is what 

gives them respectability. 

And, indeed, apartheid is part of a broader effort to use international law language and international law concepts in a sui generis way and create unique applications of international law, 

sometimes even unique international rules that apply just to say 

Israel apartheid is an extreme example, but its name is an Afrikaner word that was meant specifically to describe South Africa. 

They could have just said racism, bad discrimination, but they 

wanted to go all the way with apartheid because this is fundamental in delegitimization of Israel. 

For example, in international law, a country’s borders, there is 

a universal rule of international law that says when you have a 

new country, its borders are the borders of the last top level administrative unit in the territory. This sets the borders around the 

world. It sets the borders in the Middle East, except for Israel. 

In international law, there is a rule that says and I am quoting 

International Committee of the Red Cross, ‘‘occupation ceases when 

the occupying forces are driven out or evacuate the territory.’’ They 

dropped a footnote, ‘‘except for Israel-Gaza.’’ 

In international law, a country’s capital is where a country 

chooses to place it except for Israel. Indeed, classic antisemitism 

sought to restrict where Jews can live leading to the invention of 

the ghetto. That was invented for Jews. 

Today, international law is distorted to plan the entire areas of 

Holy Land off limits to Jews and as my research shows, Israel is 

the only country that has been accused of war crimes for letting 

their people live in certain places, despite many territorial disputes 

around the world and addressing this legal ghetto in international 

law is a fundamental step we need to take. 

As for Taylor Force, I want to point out two points. First of all, 

Taylor Force requires that the Government publicize the Palestinian Authority’s pay for slay efforts, that it make known in the 

United States to people what the Palestinian Authority is doing. 

That has not been aggressively implemented. 

And secondly, there is a way in which money is getting from the 

United States to the Palestinian Authority and directly and is very 

disturbing the World Bank. The World Bank obviously in the 

United States is a significant supporter, picks the president. The 

World Bank not only funds the Palestinian Government generously, it specifically whitewashes its pay for slay program. It is 

supposed to make reports on every country what their finances are 

like. 

Are they engaged in fiscally-prudent policies? And they have a 

normal report about the Palestinian Authority. It reads like any 

other report that they would write. They write about their pension 

system. They write about government corruption, mismanagement, 

except seven percent of the budget is just missing. So to ignore that 


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and white wash that in their reports is something shocking and it 

is not because they don’t know about it. 

Mr. NEUER. Mr. Chairman, thank you again for your commitment to intervene in the matter that we raised of the Human 

Rights Council harassment and censorship of our organization for 

speaking out against antisemitism and anti-Israeli prejudice. 

I will note that the same individual involved here, Mr. Eric 

Tistounet, the Chief of the Human Rights Council Secretariat, has 

also been accused of handing over the names of Chinese dissidents 

to Beijing in advance of their speaking at the Council so that these 

exiled dissidents could have their families—so that China could 

pressure their families back home to prevent them from speaking. 

This was documented in a BBC documentary called The Whistleblowers and Emma Reilly has testified about this. 

Mr. Chair, you asked about how high up the chain it goes in 

terms of the United States Government speaking out on these 

issues, whether it reaches the table of the President and of course, 

the higher it goes, the more it will make an impression either on 

the United Nations or on other states. I don’t know the answer to 

that question. 

I don’t know how high it goes, but I absolutely agree that the 

United States must show that these issues are a priority and that 

means it would have to come from the highest level, whether it is 

the Secretary of State or whether it is the President. In that regard, I will note something that is mentioned in my written testimony. The United States last year decided to give $344 million to 

UNRWA. Now that organization could have a humanitarian role to 

play, but in our report in March, together with a group IMPACT 

SC, we identified 133 UNRWA teachers and staff who were found 

to promote and violence, antisemitic hate and violence, on social 

media. An additional 82 teachers affiliated with 30 UNRWA 

schools were involved in distributing hateful content, antisemitic 

content to students. 

An example is a teacher in Lebanon for UNRWA, Elham 

Mansour, who wrote on Facebook, ‘‘By Allah, anyone who can kill 

and slaughter any Zionist and Israeli criminal and doesn’t do so, 

doesn’t deserve to live. Kill them and pursue them everywhere. 

They are the greatest enemy. All Israel deserves is death.’’ This is 

a teacher of Palestinian children. We are paying for it. I am a Canadian citizen. I live in Switzerland. All of our Western countries 

are paying for it. The United States is giving $344 million. 

Now, the U.S. made certain demands, but are they made at the 

highest levels? Are they made at serious levels? I am not sure because when we report these things, the immediate reaction of 

UNRWA is not to call us and say, who are these teachers, can you 

help us root out the hate? But it is to smear us. Again, the same 

approach. And so I do hope that the United States will speak out 

on these issues at the highest level. 

Finally, I just want to pick up on something that you, Mr. Chairman, indicated about how the group’s Amnesty and Human Rights 

Watch have betrayed their founding mission and have resorted to 

the worst kinds of anti-Zionism, accusing Israel of being an apartheid state. You know, one of the individuals I mentioned, 

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estine, she was condemned by the Special Envoy, the United States 

Special Envoy on Anti-Semitism, Deborah Lipstadt and by the U.S. 

Ambassador of the Human Rights Council for her comments such 

as America is subjugated by the Jewish lobby and other rabid 

forms of anti-Israel hate and supporting terrorism. 

You know, not long ago, about a year or two ago, she gave an 

interview in Italian and she said, she looked up to the heavens and 

she said in Italian, there are two groups that have issued reports 

on apartheid and picking up on what Eugene just mentioned, how 

these groups legitimize hate. And she said we need to thank these 

two groups, Amnesty and Human Rights Watch because they liberated the word, they liberated the word. And she is right. Because 

these established groups made these reports, someone like 

Francesca Albanese who praises the antisemite Roger Waters who 

praises Hamas and empowers them, she is empowered by these 

groups. So I think it is important to note this. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. For the record and I appreciate you bringing up 

UNRWA, we are planning a hearing on UNRWA. I have had one, 

too, before and we actually went through the textbooks during the 

course of that hearing and the antisemitic hatred was replete. They 

claimed they cleaned it all up. I don’t believe that for a moment, 

so we will be doing that hearing. 

And the second thing is, especially as the major donor for 

UNRWA, second is that we are going to be looking at UNESCO as 

well which the Biden administration says he wants to rejoin and 

they are claiming all kinds of arrearages that they claim we owe. 

And we left there because of the antisemitic work that they were 

doing, but also they recognized Palestine as a member state which 

they had no right to do. 

I would like to now yield to Ms. Wild. 

Ms. WILD. I am going to pass to Mr. Phillips in the interest of 

his schedule. I am going to be here for the duration, so go ahead, 

Mr. Phillips. 

Mr. PHILLIPS. Thank you, Ranking Member Wild and Mr. Chairman, to our witnesses, greetings, and to all of you here and watching and care about this terrible disease. It is an ancient disease. 

It is not unique to any time or place. It predates the United Nations. It predates any NGO about which we are speaking. And it 

certainly predates the Israeli-Palestine issue. 

I am an American because of antisemitism. My great-greatgrandparents fled Russia because of Tsar Nicholas II and that was 

130 years ago and five generations later, I am now a member of 

the United States Congress and I have to bear witness along with 

some of my colleagues here today of January 6th, the insurrection 

in the Capitol which was terrible. What was equally terrible was 

to see a man in the hallway that day wearing a shirt, here at the 

behest of the former President Donald Trump, that said Six Million 

Wasn’t Enough. Six Million Wasn’t Enough. I had to bear witness 

to that in 2021 in this country. 

And my point is that this is not unique to the organizations 

about which we are speaking. It is not unique to any part of the 

world. It is just as big of a problem in the United States of America 

as it is anywhere else. So I want to start with that. 


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Dr. Nazarian, can you talk about the links between nationalism 

and white nationalism in the United States and antisemitic movements around the world? 

Dr. NAZARIAN. Thank you, Mr. Phillips. I think your comments 

are exactly right and we are all disheartened to watch that display 

on January 6th in our nation’s Capitol. 

As I mentioned before, as an Iranian-American who left Iran because of religious Jewish persecution, coming here and seeing our 

democracy under attack on that day was really something I think 

my father never thought that bringing us to this country we would 

face such a scene. 

The connection between white supremacy and antisemitism and 

its global connotation is powerful. We have seen at ADL through 

our research that the ideology between white supremacy which is 

the idea of white replacement, white genocide, the Great Replacement theory, has now been interconnected and spread globally in 

France, in Germany, whether it is QAnon or other manifestations 

of this ideology which has antisemitism at its rooms, but also racial 

hatred of all forms. And what connects all of this is the mechanism 

used to divide society. So it is targeting Jews. It is targeting other 

groups. It is using the idea of others coming in, replacing us, and 

that you see in Hungary. You see in Poland. And so the manifestation of this transnational ideology is a real threat. 

As we think about—we testified before a congressional committee 

in 2018. I did personally, looking at the transnational nature of 

white supremacy, and so we have to understand what is happening 

in our country, first and foremost. We have to—our law enforcement at ADL, number one, provider of training for law enforcement 

on these very issues. Our Center on Extremism tracks white supremacist groups and their ideology, their manifestos that they put 

out. And then we track and we see the same wording, the same 

language, you know, tracks between U.S., in Europe, in Australia, 

in New Zealand with Christchurch, so this transnational nature of 

white supremacy is a threat that we all have to be very concerned 

about and paying attention to. So I thank you for raising that. 

Mr. PHILLIPS. And in your estimation, is there anything that 

those of us who are trying to combat antisemitism might be doing 

that actually might be promoting more of it? 

Dr. NAZARIAN. So look, I think the national plan that was just 

unveiled by the Biden administration is a true road map for what 

we need to be doing as a whole of society. Without it, and we 

looked at the European countries. Each one by one came up with 

their own national strategy. The European Union came up with it 

and we looked and learned from them and incorporated some of 

their learning. 

It has to be a whole of society and a whole of government approach and that is why we are so thrilled about this plan because 

it is over two dozen agencies that are involved, all sectors of U.S. 

society from the corporate sector to every agency to civil society. 

We all have to be responsible. So I think what is happening in the 

world is divisiveness and political leaders using this ideology in 

order to get what they need. But have to fight against that. 

Mr. PHILLIPS. Thank you. Well, my time is running out. I just 

want to end with a few points that we need to fight antisemitism, 


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not just around the world, but in this country as well. I as a Jewish 

American, member of the United States Congress, I need space and 

place to criticize any country, at any time, for any reason if I see 

it just and I think we have to maintain space and place to criticize 

Israel sometimes, too. Sometimes it is antisemitic. I think we can 

all agree. We cannot limit that space though to a point where it 

becomes anti-democratic. 

And then lastly, there is messaging about maybe leaving the 

U.N., defunding, parting from it, and I would just make the case 

that that is analogous to leaving the U.S. Congress because you 

don’t like what is going on it. My God, we would all be gone here 

very quickly. It is better to be at the table, in the room, in the 

arena. I just want to part with that and say thank you to those 

trying to fight this terrible disease. We must do it together. And 

we must recognize that it is in the heart of our own country right 

now as well. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Wild. 

Ms. WILD. Thank you very much and I associate myself with the 

remarks of my colleague, Mr. Phillips. 

This is going to be kind of a general question for all of you and 

then I am going to pass to my colleagues, but I have many more 

questions, depending on how long we go. 

I am a big believer that the hallmark of a democracy is that citizens should be free to criticize their own government without serious repercussion and I am someone who has actually done so with 

administrations of both parties here in the United States. And I 

also believe that this liberty should extend to our democratic allies. 

They should be able to comment on and criticize our Government, 

constructively, as we should be able to with them. Our European 

allies come to mind. There is frequent interchange of—with countries that we clearly enjoy an allied relationship, very supportive 

relationship, but we don’t always see eye to eye. 

Often though when we express concern about the actions of the 

Israeli Government, we are labeled and especially and ironically by 

some of our colleagues across the aisle, our Republican members, 

and others in the fervent pro-Israel community sometimes, as 

antisemites. I find this label, especially when it is thrown about by 

members of Congress who have very little understanding of Judaism or Israel, including some who are QAnon followers, to be a very 

offensive statement as you can imagine. 

So to all of you in the interest of time, I am going to ask you 

perhaps to be satisfied if one of your colleagues says something 

that is similar to what you would say to defer, but to all of you, 

I want to know what you believe is the point where healthy criticism of Israel and I am talking about Israel, not Jews, becomes 

antisemitism, especially specifically when spoken by an elected representative in the United States Government? 

Who wants to go first? 

Mr. ROSENBERG. I will take about 30 seconds. 

Ms. WILD. Sure. 

Mr. ROSENBERG. I am sure we can do it. So I am not going to 

be able to solve it in 30 seconds. The unsatisfactory answer is that 

as a reporter I found that when you are trying to figure out is 

something antisemitic or not, you have to look at the context, you 


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have to look at the person and their history, and you have to make 

considered judgments. 

I think some of the conversation we heard here about specific 

definitions of antisemitism is the sort of thing that intellectuals 

love to do which is if you just get the language exactly right and 

have the right words on the page, that somehow that obviates the 

need for judgment, but that is not actually true. 

In the specific case, I think I spoke a little bit, too, how I—you 

know, adjudicated many cases that come across my desk when I 

get asked these questions, as a reporter or my editor asks me to 

write about it, which is we have a long history of antisemitic ideas 

and tropes. We have this idea of a Jewish conspiracy that controls 

the world and is responsible for all sorts of social and political ills. 

If someone is simply doing a find and replace, inserting Israel 

where the Jews used to be, so now it is Israel controls the Government. Israel controls the media. 

As Pakistan’s Foreign Minister ironically said on CNN in 2021, 

and Israel did not turn off CNN, it was unclear why, but these 

things happen, people believe them. If someone is doing that, I 

don’t think it takes a great genius to figure out, right? And you 

don’t need to be fooled. There is someone trying to update something that is an ancient way of talking about Jews. 

Anti-Semitism likes to dress itself up, respectively. The word 

antisemitism that is where it comes from. Jews didn’t make up this 

word. A non-Jew named Wilhelm Marr, a German nationalist, popularized the term because he founded a group called the League of 

Antisemites, which sounds like he handed over the Marvel Universe to Mel Gibson. But it was a real thing. 

Ms. WILD. I’d be interested in hearing from Mr. Kontorovich or 

Mr. Neuer on this. 

Mr. KONTOROVICH. Thank you. So, I think there’s a couple of 

things to look at. One, and I agree, I would associate myself with 

Mr. Rosenberg’s comment, that context matter. And, particularly, 

quantity and volume matters. Right? So, the Representatives in the 

U.S. Congress have the whole world to work with. 

And one of the striking things for example about the United Nations, where Israel, well, between 1967 and 2016, whenever they 

last counted, was accused of violating the Geneva Conventions 500 

times, compared to all the other countries in the world two times. 

It’s the volume. 

And, you know, what’s an appropriate volume? You can get, you 

can understand that by the context of how other countries are 

talked about. 

And, secondly and related, so, intensity and frequency. Second 

related to this is double standards. And that’s why IHRA is so crucial in identifying double standards. 

We normally consider using double standards to be a form of discrimination. If there is some ethnic group that is having a law or 

a rule applied to it and it’s not being applied to another ethnic 

group, we say, that’s a problem. 

We say that’s discriminatory. All the more so if the rule doesn’t 

even exist. If it’s only being—if it’s sort of invented in the context 

of Israel as many of these international rules are. 


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So, that is why the use of double standards. And the very quick 

check, are the things you’re saying or doing about Israel, does it 

apply with how you deal with other situations in the world? 

I can—I cite in my testimony some examples of prominent critics 

of Israel, including some people in this House, who say look, we’re 

just against settlers, we’re just against occupation, who’ve actively 

fundraised for pro-settler or pro-occupation movements in other 

parts of the world. 

Nagorno-Karabakh, which I understand was another hearing Mr. 

Smith had yesterday, and others. So, you know, there’s occupied 

territories around the world, that gives you a very good check. 

So, consistency is a good way of doing it. And I’d add one more 

highlight. Certain things, you know, while volume and frequency is 

important, certain things are such blood rivals, are resonant of 

such a divisive misery trope. 

Apartheid, which is a word that’s also been used in this building, 

again, because it is so fundament—if you say Israel has discriminatory policies, if you say Israel like America, you know, has problems with minority rights, like many western democracies struggle 

with, that’s one thing. 

But, when you go to apartheid, because what’s the remedy to 

apartheid? Ending the regime. So, that’s essentially a call to end 

the state of Israel as we know it. 

Ms. WILD. Thank you. That was very helpful. I’m going to ask— 

I’m going to pass at this point. Mr. Smith, do you want to call your 

next witness? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Ms. WILD. I’m sorry, your next questioner. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. McCormick, do you have any questions? 

Mr. MCCORMICK. Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, thank you 

all for being here today. This is quite an honor. 

It’s interesting that some people would think that some of this 

stuff is contrived when it talks about the discrimination. But, I’ve 

literally had people call me up, very educated people, and talk to 

me about this idea that somehow or another, the Jews are responsible for the Corona virus. 

I’m not joking. I’m talking about highly educated people talking 

a whole conspiracy theory. And the way they come up with this 

and the things they read are just, it baffles me. 

But, to add onto that, there is not just a conspiracy, but an open 

ended, easy to observe relationship between China and the U.N. 

right now. And seeing what the U.N. does right now, how many 

times, I’ll ask the Director, Mr. Director, how many times has the 

U.N. General Assembly passed resolutions condemning Israel? Approximately? 

Mr. NEUER. In the year 2022 there were 15 resolutions on Israel. 

And there was one on Iran, one on Syria, one on North Korea, and 

15 on Israel. 

There have been hundreds over the years. 

Mr. MCCORMICK. Hundreds? 

Mr. NEUER. Yeah. 

Mr. MCCORMICK. Hundreds, yeah. And every year probably at 

least double digits, right? 

Mr. NEUER. Yes, sir. 


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Mr. MCCORMICK. Okay. And how many against the Palestinian 

Authority? 

Mr. NEUER. The Palestinian Authority is never condemned by 

the United Nations. 

Mr. MCCORMICK. Never? 

Mr. NEUER. No. 

Mr. MCCORMICK. This is the United Nations. I believe that they 

have some sort of headquarters in this area, or at least in this 

country, which is—drives me crazy. But, to watch the United Nations now conspiring with China and Palestine. 

And watching this new idea that somehow or another they’re 

going to come up with a solution that hasn’t been thought about 

in this peace process that’s going to carve out something for Palestine against everything that we’ve ever fought for in the last, 

since Israel has been established in the modern era. It baffles me. 

But, I just want to point out that we don’t have to look at conspiracy theories. We can literally see it right in front of our eyes. 

We can see the United Nations being antisemitic, and quite 

frankly, anti-American, because this is a relationship that we’ve 

had since the original founding of the new Israel, if you will. 

I think we can all agree that the United Nations has done nothing, nothing to be evenhanded. And it has been nothing but heavyhanded against Israel. 

Could we agree on that? Anybody want to disagree with that? So, 

I will take that as an affirmative, I think. Silence is considered affirmative. 

So, where do we go from here? In my opinion, I would just like 

to state that the United Nations is becoming troublesome. And yet, 

we fund it in a very large way, the United States does, with no accountability for what they do against Israel as a country, or against 

our interest as it relates to Israel. 

So, I’d just like to state for the record that I have a big problem 

with the United Nations and its funding. I’m just going to say it 

for the record, because of its antisemitic and anti-American behavior. 

With that, if anybody wants to make a comment in that regard. 

And be bold. Make your statements. This is the place. You’re on 

TV. 

Make your statement, make your case to the American people 

and to everybody around the world why we see this discrimination 

and how it’s affecting the world order and inhibiting the peace 

process. 

I open it to the floor. 

Mr. NEUER. Well, thank you, Congressman. Certainly, we see 

grave distortions of the U.N.’s founding principles. Our organization U.N. Watch supports the U.N. Charter, which speaks of freedom, international peace, and security. Was founded by the great 

liberal internationalism in the post-World War II era, led by the 

United States. 

But, sadly dictatorships in too many U.N. bodies, not all, but in 

too many U.N. bodies, they dominate. You mentioned China. China 

is a regular member of the Human Rights Council. 

The United States, to its credit, tried to introduce a resolution 

about one million Muslim Uyghurs who are put into camps. The 


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Human Rights Council shot it down. Would not even hold a debate 

on that subject. China holds sway. 

I mentioned moments ago to the Chairman that one of the leaders of the Human Rights Council Secretariat hands names of dissidents over to China, which allows them to pressure their family 

members back home so that they won’t testify. 

China played a very nefarious role at the World Health Organization where two of the Goodwill Ambassadors, one of them is the 

wife of the Chinese dictator, is a WHO Goodwill Ambassador. Another one is a Chinese broadcaster who used his role as a WHO 

Goodwill Ambassador to promote propaganda on behalf of the Chinese regime during the period of the Corona virus. 

So, there is a concern that dictatorships like China, Iran in the 

past month had a trifecta of U.N. wins. I mentioned here that the 

Islamic Republic of Iran was appointed Chair of the Human Rights 

Council Social Forum. We’ve circulated a text, we would like a 

country to adopt it, to overturn that absurd decision. 

Iran was elected a Vice President of the U.N. General Assembly 

a few weeks ago. Was elected Rapporteur of the United Nations 

General Assembly Committee on Disarmament and International 

Security, which is absurd given that it is the perpetrator menace 

of the very problems that committee is meant to address. 

Mr. MCCORMICK. So, I know I am out of time. So, I’m going to 

have to cut you short. But, I do want it for the record, to support 

what you’re saying. 

And actually the absurdity continues if you look at the last ten 

people who have been put in charge of Human Rights in the United 

Nations is laughable. And so, I just want to say, I’m not really sure 

I’m in favor of the United Nations anymore because of that. 

They are corrupt and they are governed by dictators and 

theocracies and other unfair people who administer this quote/unquote justice. Thank you. 

Mr. MARCUS. Thank you. I want to add to what was said about 

the U.S., about the United Nations condemnation of Israel. 

Go on and take it to the next level. The United Nations condemnations of Israel, and I would say also, the European Union 

and many of the European countries constant condemnation of 

Israel isn’t just making Israel feel bad. 

For the Palestinian Authority it’s seen as a motivator that they 

don’t have to come to the peace talks. It’s a motivator that what 

they’re doing is right. 

It’s a motivator that they’re quote/unquote, resistance is accepted 

by the international community. It goes way beyond just giving 

Israel bad press. 

It actually becomes a motivator of the Palestinian Authority to 

become more intransigent. The Palestinian Authority hasn’t come 

to the negotiating table in so many years, in so many years because 

they feel that they can get by international pressure on Israel what 

they can’t get from negotiations. 

So, the United States, your opinions in the United Nations have 

to be careful, because they are absolutely creating a wall in the 

way of negotiations by their over-condemnation of Israel and overaccepting of the Palestinian side in many of the issues that are 

really supposed to be for negotiations. 


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Mr. SMITH. Excellent point. Ms. Manning. 

Ms. MANNING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going to ask, Mr. 

Rosenberg, I would like to start with you. You’ve written and spoken about the fact that antisemitism is malleable. 

How it appeals to different types of extremists on both sides. And 

how viewing it with partisan blinders, only calling it out when it’s 

politically convenient, actually harms the fight against antisemitism. 

So, what can be done, in your opinion, to educate and help people 

better understand the unique shape-shifting nature of antisemitism, the danger of buying into conspiracy theories, and get 

them to join forces to help defeat it? 

Mr. ROSENBERG. I really appreciate the question. I do recognize 

that trying to sell a nonpartisan approach to any issue in the U.S. 

Congress is kind of like trying to sell a Red Sox hat at Yankee Stadium. But, I’m going to do my best. 

As you’ve heard from my remarks, and I think you even heard 

up here from the Representatives, you heard Representative Smith 

talk about leading with people in the Middle East who believe that 

the Jews were behind 911. And then, you had Representative 

McCormick talk about people from his district saying the Jews are 

behind the Corona virus. 

I would wager to guess that the people you met with, Representative Smith, were not particularly sympathetic to Republican policies. And the people however writing to Representative McCormick 

were probably sympathetic and even thought he’d listen. 

Like were more sympathetic to Republican policies. But, rather 

united them with this conspiracy theory, this way of thinking about 

Jews and about the world. This seeking simple solutions and scapegoats for our collective problems. 

And if we focus on these sort of more fundamental underlying 

issues rather than trying to pinpoint the exact identity of who said 

it, and whether or not they’re on my team, so should I apologize 

or look another way, maybe we just talk about in terms of principals instead of partisanship, and ideas instead of individuals. 

And if we can orient ourselves to think that way, and certainly 

that’s how I try to write about it, I think that we can then start 

talking about this in a healthier way. 

And I think that a lot of that boils down to trying to like almost 

erase. When you see an antisemitic, a statement that’s allegedly 

antisemitic, or someone says about Jews, block out who said it. 

Don’t actually look at who they are or what their affiliations are 

and judge that in a vacuum. Teach people the history of antisemitism. Right? We had a big conversation here about Israel. The 

Israel conversation is like 12 steps up. Like Israel is a relatively 

recent invention and it’s a complicated story. 

There’s a lot of antisemitism that we can actually agree on that 

we’ve documented in history. You teach a lot of that to people, and 

you teach them those principals, people are smarter than you 

think, and they can apply those pretty well to the Israel conversation and figure out when someone is speaking to them in an 

antisemitic fashion or simply being very critical of Israel. 


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But I find we often skip steps and we jump to the most controversial and political and partisan topics. And everyone goes into 

their corners. 

But if we start it, you know, at the ground level. If curriculums 

started with those sorts of things and only after once people have 

those tools, said, okay, now let’s talk about some of these complicated statements about Israel. I think you’d be surprised at how 

many people could actually figure out this issue themselves. 

Ms. MANNING. Thank you for that. Dr. Nazarian, as you know, 

as you’ve discussed, we have witnessed an uptick in U.S.-based extremists reaching out to their counterparts abroad and vice versa. 

And countries around the world are struggling to counter misinformation online, especially on social media, which we know fuels 

extremism and antisemitism. So, what can we do to counter the 

rapid spread of online extremist propaganda and the growing 

spread of transnational violent extremism and white supremacy? 

And I want to add to that, is there also an obligation on all of 

us to educate consumers to be better at, people to be consumers of 

information? 

Dr. NAZARIAN. Thank you, Representative Manning for asking 

that very important question. Everything that happens in real life 

and we’ve been discussing are critically important. 

What happens online is a megaphone of everything that’s been 

discussed. Right? So, we have to acknowledge that that, the power 

of social media and the platforms are just amplifying everything 

that we’ve been discussing here. 

What can we do? ADL has been at the forefront of holding social 

media companies responsible for enacting their own terms of service. 

Now, we know that we as trusted flaggers, when we flag 

antisemitic rhetoric, white supremacist narratives, all of that online, they tend to react and say, okay, we’ll take that down for you. 

What they are not doing, is first of all, doing the same thing with 

individuals who are flagging. They are not enacting their own 

terms of service. And number two, they are not doing it proactively. 

They have the software. They have the mechanism to know what 

language and what narratives are being propagated online that 

should be taken down. 

So, having legislation, we are looking to all of you as our members of Congress, that provides transparency and holds the platforms responsible for instituting their own terms of service. 

And we at ADL have already started to push these plans in California and in Nevada to really look at legislating and forcing social 

media companies to enforce their own terms of service and have 

transparency about the data and about what kind of stuff they’re 

taking down and what they’re not. 

Ms. MANNING. We look forward to getting that information from 

you. And, out of respect to my colleagues who have been waiting 

patiently, I am going to yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. Mr. Issa. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for holding this 

important hearing. And thank you for allowing me to participate. 

You know, there really are two discussions here. And I want to 

touch briefly on both of them. You know, on a personal note, I grew 


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up as an Arab American with a nice Arab name in an almost all 

Jewish neighborhood. 

Our Boy Scout troop was at the temple. And it was Orthodox, so 

Saturdays were different for me then they were for some other Boy 

Scouts. And I ended up working for a rabbi delivering poultry. I 

never understood that, in fact, antisemitism could be accused of 

being, oh, well, it’s the same. They do the same. 

But I came to Congress, and I began working with many of my 

namesakes throughout the region. Some progress has been made, 

and I give credit to it. But I began hearing the, oh, well, here’s 

what’s happening in Israel. Here’s what they do. I hadn’t seen it 

in society. So, I began looking. 

And I’ve been to Israel and to the West Bank and to Gaza more 

times than my first Chairman, I think. I think Henry Hyde was 

still asking if I had a girlfriend there. 

And, as I went there—no. I began to see—[Laughter.] 

Still looking. But I began to see something, which was amazing. 

Which is, we have two systems, not just on each side of Jerusalem, 

East and West Bank, so to speak, but we have two systems of government. 

One that is in Israel, where there is bias. There are mistakes. 

People do out of greed and other reasons, slight Palestinians and 

Arab-Israelis, and for that matter, each other. But a system of law 

allows, all the way to the Supreme Court, adjudication. And it 

often reverses the wrongs, just as in the United States it would. 

You go to the West Bank, you don’t find that. You go to Gaza, 

you don’t find that. And, quite frankly, you go to almost all of the 

Arab world, you don’t find that. 

I happen to be of Lebanese descent, so, I’m always proud that we 

almost have a democracy in Lebanon. And it almost works. But 

when you look at the entire Arab world, it’s almost always one 

man, one vote, one time. The majority rules and there is no debate 

after that as to fairness. Fairness is whatever the majority provides. 

That’s not true in Israel. Partially because you never really have 

a true majority. But, also because the system is built on a culture 

that I think we should all celebrate and respect. 

And to that extent I just came back from Paris. And it still slays 

me that founding members of the United Nations of Western Europe continue to part of antisemitism. The United States continues 

to not do enough. 

I chair the Judiciary’s Intellectual Property Committee, and your 

point is exactly right. The tools exist to find at least the repeat offenders and bring them down. 

And I will say that that’s one of my goals, is not to make up new 

rules. Not to force some sort of European style hate speech, because that sometimes promotes antisemitism as much. But, because we in fact can find the habitual repeat offenders who represent most of the cumulative hate that then breeds on it. 

Mr. Marcus, you particularly look at the Palestinian area. And 

one thing I want to make sure we get out here today, and I know 

this is about antisemitism, not just about the Arab Israeli conflict, 

but the teachings that are still going on in Palestinian schools. 


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If you would comment on what we’re dealing with there. And, on 

whether you see any improvement in the kind of move, hopefully, 

away from blatant antisemitism in the countries that have signed 

the Abraham Accords. 

Where do you see that progress? Because I’d like to have at least 

one minute of hope that my next trip overseas will be to people 

who are trying to be part of the solution. 

Mr. MARCUS. Okay. Well, the good news is—thank you very 

much for the question. The good news is that the, many of the 

countries who have signed onto the Abraham Accords reports of it 

that on their schoolbooks and they’re significantly better. They’re 

significantly better. 

There’s a, I think also, and you can actually go over it, and I 

think it imposes measuring antisemitism and then other, I think 

the Gulf States come out much better than the Palestinian Authority does. 

So, we have a fundamental problem with the Palestinian Authority, which is different than the rest of the Arab world. And, for that 

reason, the schoolbooks are not better. 

The education of the children, there is an absolute message that 

Israel has no right to exist. Earlier today I quoted some quotes 

from a Fatah educational magazine called Waed, absolutely Israel 

has no right to exist. Israel eventually will not exist. 

What happened to the French and—— 

Mr. ISSA. This is the ruling party. 

Mr. MARCUS. Yes. This is the ruling one. What happened to the 

French in Algeria will happen to all the Jews, will eventually leave 

Palestine. 

This is—these are fundamentals of Palestinian Authority education and not just the Hamas. This is the PA. And that’s where 

the massive work has to be done. 

It’s changing the messaging to the people, because the—as I also 

pointed out earlier, the people are accepting the messages. We see 

in polls that the people adopt the messages of the Palestinian Authority. 

One poll earlier I mentioned, is that 87 percent of Palestinians 

who were polled felt that Israelis were hated and brought the hatred on themselves. They were hated because of their own behavior. 

Now, that is a fundamental Palestinian Authority message to its 

people. So, we see the input has terrible output. And this is why 

we’ve been for years screaming about the input. 

And, today, tragically we’re seeing the results of this, where the 

Palestinian populations today are more and more extreme. In the 

poll that I mentioned this morning, Hamas is ahead of Fatah. Both, 

if our elections were held today, Hamas would get, I think it was 

7 or 8 percentage points more than Fatah. 

Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas, would get more than 

Mahmoud Abbas. And, unfortunately, the only one who would do 

better is Marwan Barghouti, who is a Fatah man who is sitting in 

jail right now with five life sentences for murdering five people. 

So, a killer has become, has been put on the pedestal by the Palestinian Authority. And the people have accepted it. And that’s 


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why over the years, like I’ve spoken in many places, and sometimes 

they say, oh, that’s just incitement. 

Oh, no, it’s not just incitement. You’re teaching a whole population how to see Israel, how to see Jews. And today, we have the 

tragic results of a population that really does not believe in peace 

with Israel. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. And thank 

you for this hearing. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Jacobs. 

Ms. JACOBS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for 

being here. You know, I’m the youngest Jewish member of Congress. And I care a lot about antisemitism and the future of Israel, 

my family who served in the IDF, who still live in Israel. 

And I’ve had many conversations with my colleagues here from 

all ranges of the political spectrum who are deeply concerned about 

what we’re seeing in Israel. Around policies that undermine Israel’s 

judicial system and create conditions that aren’t conducive to a two 

state solution. 

A lot of the rhetoric we’re hearing out of the current Israeli government that I would argue is as inflammatory as what you are citing coming from the PA about, you know, the Palestinian state not 

having a right to exist. 

And I especially hear from young American Jews who are having 

a really hard time right now, because they see an Israeli government that does not live up to their values that they were taught 

as Jews. That they don’t feel is representing them. 

And yet they are then told that any criticism they try and have 

of that is antisemitism. And I actually think it’s really, really dangerous, both for the actual fight on antisemitism and for the future 

of Israel. 

That we are conflating legitimate criticism of deeply problematic 

policies with antisemitism. And I think we need to reject the false 

notion that we have to choose between standing up for Israel’s democracy and working to eradicate antisemitism around the globe. 

My cousins who are sending me selfies from the protest in Tel 

Aviv, I don’t think anyone thinks they’re antisemitic. And yet, 

sometimes when we try and express the same things, we are called 

that here in the United States. 

So, I guess Dr. Nazarian, I just wanted to ask you like, can you 

talk a bit about what you think explains the rise of antisemitism 

in the U.S. over the last five years? 

And whether or not it’s really some people on the left who have 

some concerns about policies or, you know, as we’ve heard, folks on 

the right wearing shirts that say six million weren’t enough when 

they tried to attack us here in the Capitol. 

And also, as you think about this balance, how would you advise 

those of us who want to make sure we are elevating these legitimate criticisms, how do we separate anti-Jewish rhetoric from criticism of the state of Israel and its policies? 

Dr. NAZARIAN. Thank you, Representative Jacobs. And I think we 

touched on this question a little bit. But, I’ll start just by saying, 

as far as ADL is concerned, when it comes to differentiating between valid criticism of Israel and antisemitic motions, we have 

three very clear lines. 


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Number one, if all Jews are held responsible for Israeli policy, 

that’s antisemitic. Number two, if the right to self-determination of 

the Jewish people is prevented, that is antisemitic. 

And finally, if you use antisemitic tropes, characterizations, and 

place that onto the Jewish state, that is antisemitic. Now, robust 

criticism of Israeli policy is just as valid as robust criticisms of 

American policy or any other democracy in hopefully any other 

country. 

So, that is very clear. And I think making sure that we’re not 

crossing that line, and not diminishing the value of the term 

antisemitic, is very important. 

What we’re seeing in the state, in the city of Tel Aviv, and I’m 

heading there tonight, my family is there right now. I am here 

today because of the importance of this hearing. 

And I—my family right now is being honored. My mother is 

being honored with an honorary Doctorate. So, I knew that I 

couldn’t—— 

Ms. JACOBS. Congratulations. 

Dr. NAZARIAN. Thank you. But, this is such an important hearing 

for me to participate in. And so, thank you for including me. 

That is a testament to the robustness of Israel’s democracy. The 

fact that you have had nonviolent protests of upwards of 100s of 

thousands for 28 weeks in a row, shows the robustness of Israel’s 

democracy. 

And raising very real issues about some of the judicial decisions 

that are being now floated, and we’ll see where they go. And also 

about what the people of Israel want as a character for the Jewish 

and democratic character of the state of Israel. 

Now, we at ADL are concerned about the current government 

makeup, this coalition. Some of the ministers in there, some of the 

values they’ve espoused, and some of the narratives they’ve used. 

And we have called it out, as is our responsibility to do so. 

So, I believe that what causes antisemitism, we have to be very 

clear about. There’s not one cause, there are multiple, as it is in 

the U.S. And we see also the same thing globally. 

There are those who, you know, use white supremacist ideology, 

there’s those who use anti-Zionist ideology. And they’re used to use 

Islamic extremism. So, all of this, and Europe is perfectly like the 

perfect place where this is all working in the same place. 

But, here in the U.S., we know that Europe is a harbinger of 

what’s coming. And we have to be careful. Thank you. 

Ms. JACOBS. Well, thank you. And I just want to point out, you 

know, just a few weeks ago we voted here in H.R. 5, the so-called 

Parent’s Bill of Rights. And Republican leadership actually rejected 

my amendment that would have included language stating that the 

actions carried out during the Holocaust and the sentiments of 

antisemitism are immoral. 

And I think it’s important that we recognize the strong relationship between antisemitism, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, 

homophobia, and transphobia. And, you know, I used to work at 

the U.N. I think the U.N. does really important work around the 

world. 

I think that oftentimes we talk about the U.N. focusing so much 

Israel, and at the same time, we here as American Jews, we do feel 


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like there’s a special connection to Israel. We do want the U.S. to 

have a special relationship with Israel. 

And a special relationship goes both ways. A special relationship 

both means we are very supportive of Israel and we should have 

a right to criticize what they are doing. The special relationship 

has to go both ways. 

And so, I’m really disheartened to hear of all of this rhetoric undermining the very important work the U.N. does around the 

world. And I think that it’s dangerous for our national security and 

for our ability to build alliances around the world, which is the 

most important thing that keeps the U.S. safe. 

So, I know my time is up. I’ll let my colleagues speak. But,—— 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Schneider, thank you. 

Ms. JACOBS. Yeah, this entire hearing has been pretty disheartening as an American Jew. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. I’m almost speechless. But, I’ll proceed. Wow. 

So, it’s a great time to be a Jew in America and the world. We can’t 

lose sight of that. 

But, as we’ve talked about here, antisemitism fearfully, disgracefully is on the rise in the United States and around the world. It 

is crucial we stand up to it. 

And one thing as we have heard today very clearly, that antisemitism has been rampant at the U.N. for a very, very long time. 

And I’ll come back to it, because I think Israel has made progress 

at the U.N. 

But, the focus on Israel in so many ways at the U.N. that has 

been highlighted in these, in this testimony, is critical. And I think 

it’s also crucial to note that antisemitism, Mr. Marcus, as you have 

said, is core to the message Palestinians are sharing with their 

people, and critical as a tool the PA is using to delegitimize Israel. 

And so, I think that’s all crucial. Mr. Marcus, maybe going back 

to things we all learned in elementary school, but maybe is important to note here. 

What is the timing of the origination of modern Zionism? I know 

it’s not his question, but. 

Mr. MARCUS. Well, where is the beginning of modern Zionism, 

are you talking about Herzl? 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Yeah. 

Mr. MARCUS. Yeah. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. It goes back to the late 19th Century. And, as 

my colleague Mr. Phillips said, his family came here because of 

antisemitism. 

I have a picture of my maternal grandmother and her family who 

fled Kiev in 1912 because of the pogroms. What was the source of 

pogroms? It was antisemitism. Which many of us have faced that 

throughout our lives. 

A question about apartheid that has been brought up. This is for 

anyone. The name Khaled Kabub mean anything to anybody? It’s 

a Supreme Court Justice in Israel. A Muslim Supreme Court Justice. 

Another random question, anyone watch the U20 World Cup? 

The team that came in third, worth clapping for, Israeli team. First 

time they qualified. Only Jews on that team? No. Of course not. In 

fact, one of the goal scorers in that third place game was a Muslim. 


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Apartheid is separation; in a country that has Muslims on their 

Supreme Court, that celebrates the victory of their soccer team, 

football team, as I guess they would call it to the regular, would 

be separated. Not the case. But that is what we face in so many 

places around the world. 

I don’t know if this is for Mr. Neuer or someone else. We’ve been 

trying to get Israel—or not Israel—Europe to take action. And, by 

the way, I think our definition is the right definition. I wish the 

White House had stuck to it. But why is it so difficult to get European governments and other organizations to see what, from the 

testimony here, appears to be so obvious? Mr. Neuer? 

Mr. NEUER. Thank you, Congressman. First of all, I thank you 

for your remarks concerning the absurd smear that Israel is somehow an apartheid state. 

It’s not only false and defamatory for Israel and Israelis but does 

a disservice to the true cause of apartheid. Anyone like me who has 

been to South Africa and seen what happened there will understand how that undermines the struggle against apartheid in that 

country. 

As to why Europe and other governments don’t see things, I 

mean, we, you know, Abba Eban, Israel’s legendary statesman and 

Ambassador to the United Nations once quipped that if Algeria 

were to introduce a resolution at the United Nations declaring that 

the earth was flat and that Israel was responsible, it would pass 

by 154 to 12, with 25 abstentions. 

And that quote was made years ago, but it remains true today. 

And a number of these countries who support these resolutions are 

European democracies. 

I mentioned each year there are 15 resolutions singling out Israel 

at the General Assembly, about 10 of those 15 are supported by EU 

democracies. And why do so many countries support the resolutions 

against Israel? 

I mean, we see several factors. One is vote trading. The United 

Nations works by vote trading. You vote for me, I vote for you. 

There’s sometimes you can actually even see letters that are 

leaked about countries. China one—sorry, Saudi Arabia and Russia 

promise to vote each other onto the Human Rights Council, even 

though they’re rivals in the region. 

So, there are, you know, vote trading plays a very important role. 

Israel can offer you one vote. The Islamic states can offer you 56 

votes. So, it’s 56 to one, it’s a no brainer. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Repeat those numbers? 

Mr. NEUER. Yeah. There are 56 Islamic states at the United Nations. There is one Jewish state. So, they come—they sponsor these 

resolutions against Israel. 

And, in exchange, you can get support from 56 votes at the 

United Nations for whatever your cause may be. For yourself or for 

your country. That’s quite significant. 

There is the historic influence of oil and gas. African countries 

were told years ago, you will not get oil if you vote for Israel, if 

you have relations with Israel. That continues to play a role in the 

world. 


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Sovereign wealth funds, you may or may not get billions from the 

Qatari sovereign wealth fund if you vote for a resolution that they 

support. 

And I would finally mention fear of terrorism. If your country 

will be one of the ten that will stand with Israel, such as the 

United States or typically Canada, sometimes Australia. If you’ll be 

one of the handful of countries that stand with Israel, you may face 

terrorism in your country. 

So, all of those are rational factors that we may not like but can 

understand, we are politic. But, I would have to add that as the 

historian Jacob Talmon commented, that Israel today has become 

the Jew among the nations. 

And if in history, because as Mr. Rosenberg mentioned, we’re 

dealing with concepts that date back thousands of years that are 

in public, in our consciousness. We may not even be aware of it, 

subconscious. 

You know, in Europe where I live, when there was the black 

plague, Jews were accused of poisoning the wells. And today, if 

there’s human rights abuse, if there’s racism, if there’s health violations, it’s the Jewish state that is blamed. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. And I’m over my time. I have one yes or no 

question. And we can talk about it in writing. But, UNRWA, you 

mentioned UNRWA. 

And my broad question is, UNRWA has all kinds of problems. 

We talked about their education issues. And I’m of one mind that 

UNRWA has outlived its usefulness and it’s the only organization 

that’s been around for 70 years. 

The things that UNRWA does that are necessary, services provided, are there, and it’s a yes/no, are there other entities that are 

perhaps better positioned to do that today? 

Mr. NEUER. Yes. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Yes, so. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Sherman. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you for holding 

this hearing. Thank you for allowing us who aren’t members of the 

subcommittee to participate, and for your decades of incredible 

dedication on human rights. 

I see at least three streams of antisemitism. One is an extreme 

left that hates at least Israel, because it’s pro-American. And also 

sees the opportunity for an alliance with, I think you said 56 countries. 

There’s also Islamic extremists. And finally, there’s the far right 

that gave us Hitler and many before and many after him. 

There’s an argument here, Zionism versus antisemitism. One 

could have said in the 1880s, you could be an anti-Zionist. And say 

look, there’s already people living there. We shouldn’t move there. 

You could also be an anti-Californian in this country, in the 

1840s or ’30s and say hey, that’s part of Mexico. It shouldn’t be 

part of America. 

You can say that the Slavs should not have moved to eastern Europe, the Turks should not have moved to Anatolia, and the Arabs 

they should not have moved to North Africa. 

But, the fact is that every other country is accepted as a right 

to live where they are not, notwithstanding that with the exception 


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of perhaps the Neanderthals, just about everybody has moved to 

where they are. And, of course, there are no Neanderthals. 

So, to say that, you just put it in context. You could say down 

with Israel and say, you’re not an antisemite. But if I sat here and 

said down with Albania, most of you would think I was an antiAlbanian. You can’t hate the only Albanian state in the world and 

say that there should be not an Albanian state and not be regarded 

as anti-Albanian. 

And to say that Slovakia is a racist state because it chose to be 

independent of Czechoslovakia and to have a border separating 

themselves from Poland and Hungary, to say that there’s a Slovak 

state, that must mean that the Slovaks are racist, is absurd. 

As to BDS, it’s entirely appropriate to boycott countries you disagree with, if your disagreement is reasonable. I and BDS, and 

you’ve urged us to boycott and divest from Iran not because I think 

all Persians and other Iranians should be wiped off, you know, 

shouldn’t have a state. But, I’d like them to stop their nuclear program, et cetera. 

I’ve got friends who won’t buy a Toyota because they think the 

Japanese shouldn’t hunt whales. They are not anti-Japanese racists. They’d be happy, they’re not asking Japan to evacuate the 

Japanese islands. They’re not calling for the death of all Japanese. 

They just want it. 

And if the BDF movement was one that said, we don’t want to 

invest in Israel until Israel does this or that, and stops hunting 

whales. Okay. You disagree with Israel, you have a right to boycott. I’ve got other friends who won’t. 

I want to thank the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania for commenting. And then so many of you commenting on the UNRWA 

textbooks and curriculum. 

I want to bring to my colleagues’ attention the Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act, which would get us an official 

State Department report on these UNRWA curriculum materials. 

Mr. Sharansky, it’s an honor for you to be with us. And I wonder 

if you can comment on how the Soviet Union, back when it existed, 

used anti-Zionism as a tool to be antisemitic? 

Apparently the—— 

Mr. KONTOROVICH. Could I field that question? So, also being 

from the Soviet Union, I’m also from Kiev, like Mr. Schneider’s 

family. And, indeed, the auspicious year of my birth, 1975, was the 

year that the United Nations passed the Zionism is Racism Resolution. A resolution which has been so discredited that I believe seating amongst United Nations’ resolutions the U.N. subsequently 

voted to override or reverse it. 

Now, that resolution was passed as a Soviet foreign policy initiative. They had a vote. They had a permanent majority of their allies and nonaligned states. And that was a fundamental product of 

Soviet ideology after the Yom Kippur War, to get this idea out 

there. 

Now, interestingly, it doesn’t just say that Zionism is racism. It 

just came to be known as that. It also says that Zionism is also lots 

of other things that are bad, like colonialism and imperialism and 

likens it to the apartheid policies of South Africa. 


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So, this notion that like now some human rights groups who 

said, oh, finally Israel has crossed the line. We’ve seen they’ve done 

something. They’ve done something bad. They’ve done something 

too much. Now we’re going to call them apartheid. This is the same 

Soviet rhetoric from 1975 that was discredited, reversed, and yet, 

like a monster in a horror movie, reconstitutes itself and makes its 

way through even in these halls. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. I’m going to thank our extraordinarily distinguished 

panel. You’ve given us much to think about and work on. The action items are running page after page based on. And please convey 

to us, all of us, next steps in addition to what you’ve said today, 

because we want to get it right. 

I do want to say we’re going to have a number of other hearings, 

like I mentioned earlier before. We’ll have one on UNRWA. We’ll 

have investor at large Deborah Lipstadt come and testify. 

And other issues. I mean, we know that the hostility towards 

students is in the United States, in my own state of New Jersey, 

who happen to be Jewish, and it’s all over the world. So, we may 

even focus one hearing just on that. But we will do a whole series. 

I find it appalling that the Palestinian Authority encourages children to kill themselves and to kill other people. There’s nothing heroic, there’s nothing noble about that kind of child abuse. And 

that’s what the PA does. It’s child abuse. 

I watched a video years ago, you know, I—well, all of us in high 

school, we used to be in pep rallies, we were in sports. Everybody 

would rally for the team, for the game that was going to happen 

that day or that weekend. 

And I watched a pep rally pushing the killing of Jews with people who would strap on bombs who happened to be children. They 

were lifting that up as if that was something to emulate, to push. 

And so, the PA has much to answer for on a whole lot of issues. 

But, abusing their own children is about as appalling as it gets. 

So, I do hope we can bring some additional focus to that. I remember watching that video. And I will never forget it, that they 

would do that to their own children. The children that they claim 

to care about. 

So, thank you. If anyone would like to say any parting statement. If not, that’s fine, too. It’s all up to you. Yes? 

Mr. SCHIFFMILLER. Just to follow up on your last point, Mr. 

Chairman, about the abuse of children. One of the issues that 

we’ve been tracking very closely, and we expect we will learn more 

about in the coming, perhaps even hour or days, is a U.N. mechanism called the Children in Armed Conflict, which is designed to 

track abuse of children in armed conflicts around the world. 

And one of the areas that we see serial under-reporting in, is this 

very issue of inciting to violence, recruitment, and use of Palestinian children by terrorist organizations. And that because a lot 

of the data that goes into these reporting mechanisms are generated by NGOs, some of whom are themselves linked to U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, that leads to this under-reporting, 

and that leads to a warped perception of Israeli security policies 

that relate to that level of incitement and recruitment. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 


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Ms. WILD. I just would like to make a very brief closing remark. 

It’s often said that if you put five or six or seven Jews in a room, 

you’ll get that many opinions, differing opinions. And, obviously, 

we’ve seen some of that. I think all of you had excellent written 

testimony. And I plan to keep it. And I plan to keep this binder 

as sort of a resource to use going forward. 

I get along very, very well with the Chair of this committee. And 

I think the world of him. And am grateful for him convening this 

hearing. I am going to take issue only with the last remarks of the 

Chairman, because I think it is incredibly important that we not 

broadly label all members of any nation or ethnicity with the bad 

acts of some. 

As a recovering lawyer, I will tell you that lawyers are regularly 

labeled by the worst among them. But that’s a kind of a light 

version of this. I think that it’s just really important that we not 

use the worst examples to connote that all people who are of that 

origin. 

Mr. SMITH. Well, just to be clear—— 

Ms. WILD. And that’s all I—I just wanted to say. 

Mr. SMITH. Go ahead. I don’t say that about the Palestinians en 

masse. I say that about the Palestinian Authority. And—because 

these are their official policies. And, you know, again, as we all 

know from the Taylor Force Act, and we all know from, as you 

pointed out, 100 percent of those who are in prison for terrorist 

acts are getting paid for it. And they have a job waiting for them 

in the PA when they get out. 

But, thank you. I appreciate again, your testimony. 

Ms. WILD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. And thank you to my Ranking Member. 

[Whereupon, at 1:49 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 


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