Chris Smith

I would remind my colleagues again over these many, many decades of trying to end U.S. taxpayer funding for UNRWA and to give it to other agencies that are not trying to create young people who quickly become terrorists.

I believe this amendment would strengthen accountability and oversight of UNRWA and make crystal clear that we will not tolerate taxpayer dollars going to Hamas.

Again, UNRWA must be replaced. And that's hard and complex work.

This approach is the responsible, serious way to go about addressing this problem.

I just want to make very clear to my colleagues that this will, again, gut the underlying bill.

I mean, I have seen the textbooks. I have had briefings on the textbooks.

UNRWA must be replaced. We know that at least a dozen members of UNRWA were involved in the horrific attacks of October 7th.

I just want to remind my colleagues that special envoys and special representatives have made a huge difference all over the globe.

This amendment makes very clear that nothing in the underlying bill may be construed to preclude the provision of humanitarian assistance to any agency or entity other than UNRWA.

Teach them to want to co-exist, to respect other people, including Jewish men, women, and children.

But UNRWA has proven itself to be not just a malign actor but to cause unbelievable child abuse to these Palestinian children who are taught to hate.

the bill under consideration today puts politics first and does not do the hard work of addressing the extremely complicated nature of the problem at hand.

We need a special envoy to really take this issue and focus on it, bring all the disparate elements together.

When my good friend, Mr. Meeks, talks about education, that is one of the worst parts of what UNRWA does each and every day to young people.

I am not for it, the death penalty. I am not for the death penalty in this country.

Ending these overnight, ending these immediately would cause a humanitarian catastrophe far greater than what we've already seen.

I encourage everyone to support this amendment because it makes sense and it saves lives.

We need to find a replacement, we need to find it fast.

In reality, anti-Semitism and terrorist complicity of UNRWA has been established beyond a doubt for decades.

this is nothing more than kicking the can.

This was a book put out by U.N. Watch, Hillel Neuer. It is filled to overflowing with hatred, hatred, let me say again, hatred for Jews.

It would prevent further funding to UNRWA, but the amendment says that the prohibition on funding would not apply until the Secretary decides it should.

Time and again, we have warned that today's Palestinian textbooks are producing the terrorists of tomorrow.

Genocide Watch has called Nigeria, quote, 'a killing field of defenseless Christians.'

I do not think my patriotism is going to be in question here, but I do think your ability as officials to actually get things done is in question.