Steve Israel: “Mr. Chairman, after 9/11, the President of the United States came to this Chamber, stood behind where I am standing now…”

“Mr. Chairman, after 9/11, the President of the United States came to this Chamber, stood behind where I am standing now, and said that there is a line in the sand. He said the line divides democracy and dictatorship, liberty and tyranny, education, indoctrination, schools that teach kids how to put things together and schools that teach kids how to blow things up, ballots versus bullets. This amendment, very simply, enforces that line in the sand. It is absolutely unfathomable to me, Mr. Chairman, that we would even contemplate rewarding a regime with U.S. tax dollars that blame Zionists for the May 1 attacks on a Saudi oil facility that killed two Americans, that blame the West for the attacks on our country on 9/11 and that went so far as to blame the Barbie doll for undermining values around the world, calling the Barbie doll a Zionist conspiracy. Mr. Chairman, now faced with a terrorist threat in Saudi Arabia, a terrorist threat that confronts all of us around the world, the Saudi regime's response to that threat is to boldly say we will offer a one-month pass, we will offer a one-month amnesty to those people who are plotting and planning our demise, a regime that continues to fund madrassahs around the world that teach the most virulent hatred without any sense of modernity. Mr. Chairman, it was the President who drew that line in the sand.”