Is the place you call home. At sparklight its our home, too, and were facing our greatest challenge. Thats why sparklight is around the clock keeping you connected. We do our part so you can do yours. Spark light supports cspan along with other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. Senate is about to gavel in for the day. Majority leader Chuck Schumer in opening remarks plans to talk about path to peace and two state solution between the palestinians and israel. And confirmation to the u. S. Ambassador to haiti, amid ongoing violence in that country. Take you live now to the senate floor here on cspan2. The presiding officer nord. The reverend, dr. Barry black, the chaplain let us pray. Eterningal god, who sustains those who have been good toous, you have been good toous beyond our deserving. You have surrounded us with the beauties of the earth and the glories of the skies. Today, make us alert to your providential movements. If our minds are closed to your truth, open them e if our hearts are hardened, soften them e if our ears areea cries of the oppressed, unstop them. Lord, revive our s give them a desire to establish new thresholds of hope,peace, and freedom in our nation and world. Be near to our lawmakers all theirmay they rest in the green tours of your peace and thrive wisdom. We pray in your mighty name. Amen. The presiding officer please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to our flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. The presiding officer the clerk will read a communication to the senate. The clerk washington, d. C, march 14, 2024. To the senate under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable raphael g. Warnock a senator from the state of georgia, to perform the duties of the chair. Signed patty murray, president pro tempore. The presiding officer under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. Morning business is closed. Under the previous order, the senate will proceed to executive session 0 to consider the the clerk will report will the report. The clerk nomination, department of state, dennis b. Hankins of minnesota to be ambassador of the United States of america to the republic of haiti. Mr. Merkley mr. President. The presiding officer the senator from oregon. Mr. Merkley i ask that the quorum call be lifted. The presidinofre in the in a quorum call. Mr. Merkley i ask that floor rifles be granted to m■■y inter lou cuss rigby. ■i■■■ mr. Schumer mr. President. The presiding officer the majority leader. Mr. Schumer mr. President , i rise to speak today about what i believe can and should be the path forward to secure mutual peace and lasting prosperity for israelis and palestinians. I speak for myself, but i also speak for so many mainstream Jewish Americans, a silent majority whose nuanced views on the matter have never been represented in this countrys discussions with the war in gaza. My last name is schumer, which derives from the hebrew world shalmer, or guardian. Of course, my first responsibility is to america and to new york, but as the first jewish majority leader of the United States senate and the highestranking jewish elected official in america ever, i also feel very keenly my as a guardi the people of israel. Throughout jewish history, there have been many guardians and plenty who are far greater than the claim to be. Buthe position in which i find myself now, at a time of great difficulty for the state of israel, for the jewish people, and for nonjewh friends of israel e israel. So i feel an immense obligation to speak and to aak as a Member Community of Jewish Americans that i know very well. Theyre my family, my friends, many of them are my constituents, many ofs, and man concerned about the purr seoul of pursuit of justice, both in new york and around the globe. The call to, quote, repair the world, around the world to do what is right. We love israel in our bones. What israel has meant to myn liy of the holocaust, is impossible to measure. The flowering of the jewish people in the desert, from the ashes of the holocaust and the fulfillment of the dream of the jewish homeland after nearly 2,000 years of praying and waiting represents one of the most heartfelt causes of my life. And unlike some junker americans, i younger mens, i remember how hard it was dream. I remember clutching my transistor radio to my ear in James Madison high school in 1967 during the sixday war, wondering if israel would be pushed into the sea. If the events of the last few months have made anything clear, it is that israel is surrounded by vicious enemies and there are many people around the world who excuse and support their aims to expel and kill jews living in their hardwon land of refuge. I will never underestimate the grave threats israel faces and has faced for the entirety of its existence, nor will i ever underestimate the oppression that the jewish people have endured for millennia. It is precisely out of this longstanding connection to and concern for the state of israel and its pple that i speak today about what i view are the most pressing existential threats to ■7ralongterm peace and prosperity. After five months of suffering on both sides of this conflict, our thinking must turn urgently to how we can achieve lasting peace and endure and ensure process is prosperity and secu for both the jewish people and the Palestinian People in the middle east. I believe that to achieve that lasting peace, wch we so long for, israel must make some significant course corrections, which i will outline in this speech. But first, lets not forget how we arrived at this critical moment. Whatas was brutal beyond imagination. I have vat with the families i have sat with the families of those killed in the assault. I have seen the footage and heard the stories of innocents murdered and raped in heartless cruelty. And as long as i live, i will never forget these images, ts proulx and premeditated evil. Many of my family members were killed by nazis in the holocaust. October 7 and the shameless response to support that terrorist attack by some in america and around the globe have a wakened the deepest fears of the jewish people that hour annihilation remains a possibility. Today over captive in gaza. I am anguished by the plight of so many hostages still being hamas Tunnel Network of tunnels. I pray for them and for their families who have inspired me with their tenacious advocacy to ensure their loved ones are not forgotten. Many of them are americans. John than deckel chin and some of my constituents in new york, omer, keith siegel and itay chen, who we learned this week was brutally killed on october 7 was serving near the gaza border. Hamas still holds his body. His father gave me this pin, which i am wearing in remembrance of him. As well as those of americans Judy Weinstein and gad hagay. Each date their loved ones dont come home carries enough anguish and grief to last a lifetime. I am working in every way i can to support the Biden Administrations negotiations to free every one of the hostages. I urge everyone at the table to continue doing Everything Possible to get a a deal already. They should say yes. It is no time to waste. My heart als of so many civilian lives in gaza. Im anguished that the israeli war campaign has killed so many. I know that my fellow Jewish Americans feel the same anguish when they see the images of dead and starving children and destroyed homes. Gaza is experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe. Entire families wiped out, whole neighborhoods reduced to rubble, mass displacement, children suffering. We should not let the complexities of this conflict stop us from plain truth Palestinian Civilians do not deserve to suffer for the sins of hamas, and israel has a moral obligation to do better. The United States has an obligation to do better. I believe the United States mus provide robust humanitarian aid to gaza and pressure the israelis to let more of it get through to the people who need it. Jewish people throughout the centuries have empathized with those who are suffering and who were oppressed because we have known so much of that ourselves. As the torah teaches user, human life is precious. Every human life lost is a tragedy. As the crip tour scrip as the scripture says, quote, destroys an entire world. What horrifies so many jews is a sense that israel is falling short of upholding these distinctly yewish values is. Jewish values. We must be better than our enemies, lest we become them. Israel has a fundamental right to defend itself, but as i have said from thening of this war, how it exercises that right matters. Israel must prioritize the protection of civilian casualties when identifying military targets. I have repeatedly called upon the Israeli Government to do so. But it also must be said that israel is by no means the only one responsible for the i am evenss mens civil the immense sixian toll. To blame all israel is unfair, onesided and often deliberately manipulativend it ignores hamas role in this conflict. Hamas has knowingly invited an immensel during this war. Their goal on october 7 was to provoke a tough response from israel by killing as many jews as possible in as vicious a way as possible, brutalizing whole communities. Si heartlessly hidden behind their fellow palestinians by turning hospitals into command centers and refugee camps into sites. It is welldocumented that hamas soldiers use innocent gazans as human shields. The leaders of hamas, many them live lives of luxury in places far away from the poverty in and misfortunegaza, do not care one iota about the palestinians for whom they claim to nobly fight. It bothers deeply that most Media Outlets covering this war and many protesters opposing it have placed the blame for civilian casualties entirely on israel. All too often in the media and at protests it is never noted that hamas has gone to Great Lengths to make themselves inseparable from the civilian population of gaza by using palestinians as human shields. O many news news agent significance and agencies and newspapers give ham a pass by not disclosing the shameful practice central to their fighting strategy. This led to an inaccurate perception of the harsh realities of this war. Stories that justifiably mention the loss of innocent palestinian life should also note how hamas uses ci as human shields. It almost never happens. I believe believe that every protest that justifiably dedescribes the decries the loss of innocent men, women, and children should denounce hamas for■o their central role in the bloodshed. When protestors decry the loss of palestinian life, but never condemn this perfidy or loss of is israeli lives, it confounds and deeply troubles the vast majority of jewish and nonJewish Americans alike, who support the state of israel. Given that heal launched their attacks on october 7 to provoke israel, given that hamas sought the ensuing civilian toll in am gaza, given that hamas wanted both israelis and arabs to be at each others throats, tensions on both sides have dramatically intensified. Now, as a result of those inflamed tensions in both israeli andmmunities, people ons of this war are turning away from a twostate solution. Including israels Prime Minister, neath neath, who in Benjamin Netanyahu who said what many long suspected, by outright rejecting the idea of Palestinian Statehood and sovereignty, as the highest ranking jewish elected official in our government, and as a staunch israel, i rise today to say unequivocally this is a grave mistake for israel, for palestinians, for the region, and for the world. The only real and sustainable solution to this decadesold conflict is a negotiated twostate solution, a demilitarized palestinian state, living equal measures of peace, security, prosperity, dignity and mutual recognition. And pal long historic claims to this land. Contrary to the unfonded unfounded, absurd and offensive claims by some the jewish people are colonizers in their ancestral homeland, jewish people have lived in the homeland conti for more than three millennia. 3,000 years. For centuries, jews have made ali ah and gone to the land of israel to live and settle. For centuries at passover, jews in every corner of thelot year jerusalem. A jewish homeland in israel is no 20th century contrivance. Israel is our historic home. A oppressed for cent centuries. Now the palestinians too have generations, and in past centuries they have formed their own distinct culture, identity, quizine, literature, the idea that, quo quote, there is no such thing as palestinians is inaccurate, offensive, unh unhelpful. The only jest solution is one in the only just solution is one in which each people can flourish in their own state, side by side. For a twostate solution toterm include real and meaningful compromises by both too many is who say they want a twostate solution dont acknowledge how the amount and ex tempt of ex expanding settlements renders that a virtual impossibility. Too many palestinians who say they want a twostate solution dont acknowledge how their insistence on an unequivocal right of return is a fatal impediment to progress. Both ways of thinking are impeding the Peace Process, and there are others on the left who view a twostate solution with skepticism, as an ideal that wi never happen. A faroff goal that allows for the continuation of the status quo in gaza and the west bank where palestinians face unique obstacle israeli counterparts. As a result, they reject a twostate solution in favor of one state, where palestinians and israelis will supposedly live in democratic peace, side by side. I can understand the idealism that inspires so many young people in particular to support a onestate solution. Why cant we all live side by peace . D house b h i count at least two reasons why this wouldnt work and why it is unacceptable to most jewish people. First, this combined state could take an extreme turn politically, putting jewish israelis in peril. This state would be a majority palestinian. And in the past, some palestinians have voted to empower groups like hamas, which seeks to eradicate the jewish people. It is longstanding american policy to support dem■ocracy overseas. But in this hypothetical single state, direct could cost israeli jews their safety if extreme ichss take control of e contro achieve their true aim, the violent expulsion of jews from the holy land. Now, this is no abstract fear. Thousands of years of jewish history show when things go badly, the people of the country in which jews live, even in a democracy, all too often turn on them as convenient scapegoats. Theres no guarantee a single israelipalestinian state. To have palestinian voters be the protector of israeli jews would be a bridge too far to accept. Second, even more important, the jewish people have a right to their own state. It is so troubling to me that many people, especially on the left, seem to acknowledge and even celebrate this right to statehood for every group but the jews. If a National Homeland for all peoples of the world has been the driving goal of the Anticolonial Movement of the last century, then why are only jews seemingly penalized for this aspiration . Jews have a human rightate, jus people do, palestinians included. As i have re are also some israelis who oppose even a twostate solution with a demilitarized palestinian state, because they fear it might tolerate or be a harbor for further terrorism against the jewish state. I understand these fears, but the bitter reality is that a single state controlled by israel, which they advocate, guarantees certain war forever, and further isolation of the Jewish Community in the world to the extent its future would be jeopardized. They say the definition of let me elaborate. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. If israel status quo, and goes beyond that to tighten the control over the gaza and west bank, as some in the current Netanyahu Administration suggested, creating a de facto single state, what reasonable expectation can we have that hamas and their allies lay down their arms . It would mean constant war. On top of that, israel moving closer to a single state entirely under its control would further rupture its relationship with the rest of the world, including the United States. Support for israel has declined worldwide in the lastew months, and this trend will only get worse if the Israeli Government continues to follow its current path. I appreciate that so many israelis cannot contemplate the possibility of two states right now, because they remain so traumatized and angry by what hamas did on october 7. The brutality, the visn the sexual assault, the imprisonment and abuse of hundreds of hostages. Im, of course, simp thet ig to this sympathetic to this point of view. Im upset. Im angry too. Well never forget what happened on october 7. Even while we carry that anguish in our hearts, we have to thi ahead to the future, the medium, the longterm, how we can ensure Something Like october 7 never happens again. We cannot let trauma determine our actions or cloud our judgment. On may feel daunting, especially now, but i believe it is the only realistic and sustainable solution on the basis of security, on the basis of prosperity, on the basis of fundamental human rights and dignity. But in order to achieve a twostate solution, the reality is that things must change. Right now, there are four, fou major obstacles standing in the way of two states, and until they are removed from the equ equation, there will never be peace in israel, gaza and the west bank the four major obstacles are hamas and the palestinians who support and tolerate their evil ways, radical rig