Kevin Kiley: “I say briefly that I very much do applaud the gentleman from New York, who I think has shown tremendous leadership in…”

“I say briefly that I very much do applaud the gentleman from New York, who I think has shown tremendous leadership in many ways in standing up for Israel and fighting against anti-Semitism in this country. I think one of the valuable things that we have seen over the last several weeks is that we have had bipartisan support on both counts. I actually sponsored a separate resolution dealing specifically with the problem of anti-Semitism on college campuses, and that got overwhelming bipartisan support on this floor. I think it had only about 21 ``no'' votes. That has been very encouraging. With respect to the three charges that were mentioned, number one, there is legislation in the House right now to codify the President's executive order, on which I think it is important that we move forward. Number two, far from saying we shouldn't have an Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education, Representative Burgess Owens and I wrote a letter to the head of the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education telling them they need to be doing more, they need to be more proactive in looking into anti-Semitic incidents at our universities, and we would certainly welcome their support on that letter. Number three, as far as the protection for synagogues and other facilities, I would be very interested in partnering with you on any such efforts. Mr.…”