{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=49F2E5A8-9C37-49F1-A20F-C3B58881A54C", "McConnell: \u2018Terror And Self-Defense Are Not The Same Thing\u2019", "2023-10-25", "2023", "2023-10", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding anti-Semitism and the war on Israel:\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s been eighteen days since the brutal terrorist attacks of October 7th.\n\n\u201cEighteen days since savages confronted the world with the depths of human depravity\u2026\n\n\u201cSince one of the oldest forms of hatred in human history reared its ugly head\u2026\n\n\u201cSince radical Islamic terrorists reminded us they pose a persistent threat to the civilized world.\n\n\u201cIn our shock, the West vowed solidarity. We pledged not to look away from the horrors Israel was grieving. We reaffirmed Israel\u2019s right to defend itself. And we promised to stand with our ally as it fought back against pure evil.\n\n\u201cBut in the last eighteen days, silence, amnesia, cowardice, and outright hate have begun to take their toll. All too quickly, the West\u2019s resolve has shown signs of weakness.\n\n\u201cFirst, we saw the most elite corners of higher education rush to blame Israel for the deaths of its own children. We saw college administrators tie themselves in grotesque moral knots to avoid acknowledging reality, even in the face of alumni revolts\n\n\u201cLast night, at George Washington University here in the nation\u2019s capital, student activists projected anti-Semitic messages on the side of a campus building named for a pair of Jewish benefactors.\n\n\u201cThey issued a call to, \u2018free Palestine from the river to the sea.\u2019\n\n\u201cFor anyone unfamiliar with Israel\u2019s geography, that is a call for the destruction of the Jewish state.\n\n\u201cBut just a few blocks away, the Biden Administration is in denial.\n\n\u201cAfter protesters in Times Square displayed the Nazi swastika and an Israeli student at Columbia University was beaten with a stick, the White House Press Secretary replied to a question about rising concerns of anti-Semitism that, quote, \u2018we have not seen any credible threats.\u2019 That\u2019s the White House Press Secretary.\n\n\u201cEven more absurd was how \u2013 in the very next breath, without even uttering the word \u2018Jew\u2019 \u2013 she pivoted abruptly to condemning Islamophobia.\n\n\u201cSeriously, Mr. President \u2013 after thousands of Jews have been tortured and murdered\u2026\n\n\u201cAfter hundreds have been taken hostage\u2026\n\n\u201cAfter the sight of Jewish bodies paraded through Gaza was met with rejoicing from Arab capitals to London\u2026\n\n\u201cAfter all of this, President Biden\u2019s press secretary reverted to disgraceful \u2018both-sides\u2019 talking points.\n\n\u201cOf course, as I\u2019ve discussed before, the media organizations who engage with her deserve their own share of shame.\n\n\u201cSome in the press are already indulging the same tired language designed to sap the free world\u2019s sense of moral clarity.\n\n\u201cHeadlines are already warning about the indiscernible \u2018cycle of violence\u2019 and amplifying morally bankrupt calls for a ceasefire.\n\n\u201cFor anyone who needs a reminder, a ceasefire is what Israel thought it had with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad earlier this summer.\n\n\u201cA ceasefire today is an amnesty for Hamas. A free pass for terrorists from the same savage tribe as ISIS and al Qaeda.\n\n\u201cSo, less than three weeks after the deadliest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, too many prominent corners of our society already need a reminder of the terrorist horrors that actually started the war.\n\n\u201cYesterday, I welcomed a group of important visitors to my office. Among them were family members of Israelis being held hostage by Hamas. Two had survived the attacks and witnessed the terror firsthand. I\u2019d like to share with our colleagues two of their stories.\n\n\u201cFirst was Netta, a 20-year-old student who lived in a kibbutz in southern Israel. Netta told me that he woke up on October 7th to the sound of sirens.\n\n\u201cHe talked about how he armed himself with a kitchen knife, barricaded himself in an interior room, and leaned against the door as terrorists ransacked his apartment.\n\n\u201cNetta told me about how he realized hours later, when his mother stopped replying to his texts, that his parents had been taken hostage by Hamas.\n\n\u201cI also heard from a young woman named Maya, who was at the musical festival that morning with her friends.\n\n\u201cMaya described to me yesterday the sounds of rockets interrupting the party at sunrise. She described how she cried the first time she saw a victim lying in the road as she fled, not knowing if he was alive or dead.\n\n\u201cShe recalled how she turned left on a road in search of safe haven, while many of her friends \u2013 two of whom would be murdered \u2013 turned right.\n\n\u201cShe told me how she called her father to say \u2018I love you, and I don\u2019t know if I will make it out\u2019, and how she waited hours in a kibbutz shelter assuming that her \u2018time was coming.\u2019\n\n\u201cShe remembers how news spread in message groups about which of her friends had made it out alive. And how friends witnessed bodies blown apart by grenades.\n\n\u201cMaya told me she is haunted by the images her friends shared of Hamas desecrating bodies and by \u2018how they enjoyed it.\u2019\n\n\u201cShe said she feels guilty for encouraging her friends to join her at the music festival that Saturday.\n\n\u201cMr. President, this is why Israel fights.\n\n\u201cThe attacks of October 7th confronted the world with the sort of horrors Jewish communities have no choice but to remember for generations. From European villages caught in pogroms\u2026 To the horrors of Nazi Germany\u2026 To Israeli kibbutzes burned and bloodied by Hamas terrorists.\n\n\u201cFor decades, the free world\u2019s refrain has been \u2018Never forget. Never again.\u2019\n\n\u201cGod help us if we do not mean what we say.\n\n\u201cThere is no room for false moral equivalency.\n\n\u201cLet me repeat that: there is no room for false moral equivalency.\n\n\u201cWe must not forget who is responsible and we must hold them accountable.\n\n\u201cTerror and self-defense are not the same thing. One side started the war, but another side will finish it.\n\n\u201cAnd the United States must give Israel the time, space, and support to bring innocent people home and bring murderous terrorists to justice.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:43:12Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=49F2E5A8-9C37-49F1-A20F-C3B58881A54C"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8562440052628517, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}