{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=F5AA3F8C-4B95-4AC3-B09B-FEA448B211BA", "McConnell to Corporate Media, Academia: No Time For False Moral Equivalence", "2023-10-18", "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 support for Israel:\n\n\u201cThe barbaric terrorist attacks of October 7th have elicited two distinct sorts of reactions in the West.\n\n\u201cMost reasonable people have responded to the slaughter of innocent Israelis with utter horror, fervent prayer, and strong support for Israel\u2019s right to defend itself.\n\n\u201cThe overwhelming majority of Americans think the United States should publicly support our closest ally in the Middle East. They recognize this moment as a time for choosing, and they see the choice between a democracy\u2019s right to self-defense and a terrorist group\u2019s obsession with destroying it as an easy choice.\n\n\u201cThe United States must have Israel\u2019s back as it roots out the terrorists who threaten it. For as long as it takes. I\u2019m proud to stand with this overwhelming majority.\n\n\u201cBut alas, in recent days, we\u2019ve also seen just how the default position in some highly influential corners of our society \u2013 from national newsrooms to elite college campuses \u2013 how quickly they\u2019ve been to blindly amplify terrorists\u2019 version of events.\n\n\u201cThis was especially true of the reporting of a deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital yesterday. Hamas immediately blamed Israel for the blast, and major news organizations took their word for it, running headlines about an \u2018Israeli strike\u2019.\n\n\u201cIn the hours since this tragedy, credible evidence has emerged suggesting that the same terrorists who use innocent civilians as human shields were themselves responsible.\n\n\u201cWell, the media can revise its headlines. But the shameful, anti-Semitic fringe of our society has already heard what it wants to hear.\n\n\u201cUnsurprisingly, the woke incubators of the Ivy League have been at the epicenter of this anti-Israel outbreak. One coalition of 30 student groups at Harvard declared that they, \u2018hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible\u2019 for Hamas\u2019 terrorism.\n\n\u201cNow, student radicals taking extremist stands is par for the course. The more important question was how university administrators \u2013 the supposed grown-ups on campus \u2013 would respond.\n\n\u201cAnd the answer, Mr. President, is not good.\n\n\u201cAs former Harvard President Larry Summers rightly noted, his institution\u2019s initial silence ceded the field to campus extremists in defining Harvard\u2019s response.\n\n\u201cAnd when Harvard\u2019s leaders did respond, they failed the most basic test \u2013 distinguishing the victim from the aggressor.\n\n\u201cThe university\u2019s response professed heartbreak at \u2018the war in Israel and Gaza now under way,\u2019 as if there were even a shred of moral equivalence between terrorism and self-defense.\n\n\u201cThe presidents of Columbia and Dartmouth expressed regret at, \u2018the ensuing violence,\u2019 and, \u2018the escalating violence,\u2019 respectively.\n\n\u201cNot to be outdone, Notre Dame didn\u2019t even assign perfunctory blame to the terrorists.\n\n\u201cInstead, they bemoaned, \u2018the outbreak of war in the Holy Land\u2019 and calling \u2018for an end to the cycle of violence.\u2019\n\n\u201cI\u2019m reminded of a retort the late, great Bill Buckley deployed in a debate when his opponent tried to have \u2018both-sides\u2019 of the Cold War.\n\n\u201cHe said, \u2018that is like saying that the man who pushes a little old lady into the path of a bus is morally equivalent to the man who pushes her out of its path, because they both push little old ladies around.\u2019\n\n\u201cIf you want to know where this leads, take the American Bar Association, the organization that accredits our nation\u2019s law schools. At first, the ABA\u2019s president called \u2018on both sides to show restraint\u2019 and urged Israel and Hamas to, \u2018settle their disputes in a peaceful and legal fashion.\u2019\n\n\u201cBut yesterday, the ABA denounced Israel\u2019s self-defense efforts as, \u2018collective punishment, forced displacement, [and] ethnic cleansing.\u2019\n\n\u201cMr. President, terrorism and self-defense are not morally equivalent. And you\u2019d think the leaders of America\u2019s higher education would understand it.\n\n\u201cSome leaders in higher education have argued in recent days that schools should not wade into political disputes.\n\n\u201cStanford\u2019s President said doing so means picking winners and losers on campus. And Northwestern\u2019s president observed of his students and faculty that, \u2018for me to speak for them displaces their own freedom to speak.\u2019\n\n\u201cThis may actually be a wise policy. But it\u2019s certainly not one elite academia has been known to practice.\n\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t take long to find the impassioned stances universities took following the murder of George Floyd or the ending of DACA. So why the new policy?\n\n\u201cLet\u2019s be clear \u2013 some university leaders have displayed admirable conviction. Our former colleague, Ben Sasse, at the University of Florida described support for the terrorists who murdered Israeli children as \u2018sickening\u2019 and \u2018dehumanizing.\u2019\n\n\u201cEmory\u2019s President said the attacks \u2018must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.\u2019 Princeton\u2019s President called it \u2018among the most atrocious of terrorist acts\u2019 and, importantly, placed the blame for the coming war entirely where it belonged, on Hamas\u2019s shoulders.\n\n\u201cSo Mr. President, I request unanimous consent to submit all of these statements \u2013 the good, the bad, and the ugly \u2013 for the Record.\n\n\u201cAnd I can only hope that the leaders of America\u2019s universities recognize what time it is in America. This is a time for moral clarity, not a time for anti-Semitic hate dressed in faculty-lounge jargon.\n\n\u201cLeaders cannot afford to be silent. Terrorism is evil. Anti-Semitism is despicable. And Israel has a right to exist.\n\n\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t take a PhD to understand that, but it also shouldn\u2019t be so hard for a PhD to acknowledge it.\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=F5AA3F8C-4B95-4AC3-B09B-FEA448B211BA"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.5712469574064016, "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"}