Chris Smith: “I thank my friend for yielding. I applaud Mr. Schneider and Mr. Zeldin for sponsoring this important resolution. I…”

“I thank my friend for yielding. I applaud Mr. Schneider and Mr. Zeldin for sponsoring this important resolution. I especially thank Chairman Eliot Engel for his very eloquent comments a moment ago. Not wishing to be redundant, I will just say this because I associate myself with their strong and persuasive remarks: The great former Soviet refusenik and religious prisoner Natan Sharansky, who testified at two of about a dozen hearings that I have chaired on combating anti- Semitism, proposed what he called a simple test to help us distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism. Sharansky called it the three Ds, demonization, double standard, and delegitimization. When the three Ds are advanced, we know that anti-Semitism is the issue. The BDS movement demonizes Israel and, by extension, Jews, who are always cast in the role of oppressors, who are always in the wrong. In so doing, it applies a double standard, whereby Israel is always wrong and the oppressed Palestinians are always in the right, regardless of whether groups such as Hamas are engaging in terroristic acts upon Israeli citizens. The objective of this is to delegitimize the State of Israel, to deny its very right to exist. Mr. Speaker, I applaud them on this bill, and I hope this vote is unanimous.”