Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I have been working on this bill for a long time. I introduced it in the 116th Congress and the 117th Congress, and both times it passed unanimously in the Foreign Affairs Committee. Now, finally, in the 118th Congress, we have it to the floor. I thank Mr. Mast from Florida for being the Republican lead on this bill and speaking for it here on the floor. Now, as I said, this bill passed unanimously three times through our committee, and I hope it passes unanimously by voice vote here on the floor.
Let us reflect on what has happened recently in Israel. Our Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, I think, summarized it well in his testimony yesterday: Young people chased down and gunned down at a dance party. Children executed in front of their parents. Parents executed in front of their children. Families in final embrace burned alive. People beheaded.
There was a family of four, a boy and a girl of 6 and 8 years old and their parents, around the breakfast table. The father's eye was gouged out in front of his children, the mother's breasts were cut off, the girl's foot was amputated, and the boy's finger was cut off before they were executed. Then the executioners sat down and had a meal.
We heard an intercepted telephone call where a terrorist called his mother and said gleefully: ``I have killed 10 Jews with my own hands. I'm using the dead Jewish woman's phone to call you now.''
How does such a horror occur? It occurs when generations are raised to hate, to kill, to behead, to murder, and it is a product of the schools that we have seen for decades on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
I point to a particular fifth grade textbook which glorifies a terrorist who in 1978 went forward and killed 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, many of them pictured here. This is who is glorified. This is who is held up to Palestinian children as the model for them to follow.
We should not be surprised that there is, therefore, significant support for the Hamas doctrine: ``From the river to the sea . . . '' All Jews must be killed; that is their position. That is what holds their organization together.
I know the scenes that come now from Gaza are horrific. People say: ``Let's stop the fighting. Let's have a cease-fire.'' Well, what would happen then? We don't have to wonder, because just today, Ghazi Hamad, a high-ranking official of Hamas, said exactly what would happen. He said: We will repeat October 7 one, two, three, four, five times, as many times as it takes, until Israel is annihilated.
That is what happens if we have a cease-fire, unless we have the kind of cease-fire that we should have, one in which Hamas releases all the hostages and disarms. Then we can have a cease-fire.
In the years to come, after the actions being taken in Gaza, we will again wonder: Is another generation being educated to repeat these crimes in future years?
How are these students educated? They are educated in schools run by UNRWA, the U.N. organization, and paid for in large part by the United States. While we have responsibilities around the world, the oil-rich Arab states contribute only a portion, a small portion of what UNRWA spends. America contributes half and more than half.
When we resumed funding for UNRWA in 2021, it was with the understanding that the schools would change, and we reached the 2021 framework for cooperation. So far, not so good. It appears as if the books continue.
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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, what this bill does is requires a formal report to tell us what, unfortunately, we know informally, and that is that education for terrorism has continued.
With this formal report on its way, UNRWA will understand that what is happening in its schools will be exposed and that the American Congress will not continue to fund them if they don't meet the responsibilities.
Now, it is said that they have to rely on Palestinian Authority textbooks. No, they simply have to change their policy.
I look forward to meeting the humanitarian and educational needs of the Palestinian people in a way that builds toward peace, not in a way that holds out to Palestinian fifth graders as an example someone who would kill 38 civilians, including 13 children.
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