Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, blocked Senator Josh Hawley's resolution condemning "anti-Israel, pro-Hamas" rhetoric on college campuses.
Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, tried to pass the resolution on Thursday through unanimous consent, but Van Hollen objected, saying that by passing the resolution, the Senate is "smearing all of the students who engaged in these protests," which he called "wrong."
The college students' statements against Israel came after Hamas led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history on October 7. Israel subsequently launched its heaviest-ever airstrikes on Gaza. Over 4,000 were killed because of fighting on both sides as of Thursday, the Associated Press reported.
"There are student groups that may have legitimate concerns about...the loss of innocent civilian life in Gaza," Van Hollen said, adding that "your questioning based on certain remarks made by some students, you're questioning them all. I object."
The resolution called for the Senate to condemn the "outrageous terrorist attacks by Hamas on the people of Israel" and denounce the "rhetoric of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas student groups as antisemitic, repugnant, and morally contemptible for sympathizing with genocidal violence against the State of Israel and risking the physical safety of Jewish Americans in the United States," among other actions in support of Israel and Jewish Americans.
Hawley included some examples of the antisemitic rhetoric that has been displayed at both Ivy League and state institutions. Students at Harvard University wrote that they "hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all un-folding violence." Ohio State University praised ''our heroic resistance in Gaza who have shown the world yet again that the spirit of the Palestinian people cannot and will not be trampled, and that our resistance to Zionism and Western imperialism remains strong.''
College campuses saw students validating the violence in Israel. The University of North Carolina chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine claimed ''It is our moral obligation to be in solidarity with the dispossessed, no matter the pathway to liberation they choose to take. This includes violence." The New York University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine rejected ''peaceful discourse'' and rather claimed ''there is no peace in a colonized people living under occupation, subjugation, and apartheid."
After Van Hollen made his statement about the resolution and left to go to another meeting, Hawley said that his colleague's response was a "failure of moral nerve."
"It's hard to believe what you've just heard on this floor. Defense of the most vial, antisemitic rhetoric under the excuse that to call out specifically, the specific statements and denounce them one at a time and say this is wrong, that that is somehow a smear," Hawley said. "What that is, is a failure of moral nerve. What it is, is a failure of moral clarity. What it is, is frankly sympathizing with this rhetoric."
Newsweek reached out to the offices of Chris Van Hollen and Josh Hawley via phone for comment on Thursday.
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