Speech #920065101

I have also joined many of my colleagues in letters to the President and the Secretary of State urging their utmost efforts to end this persecution. I feel we now need to go further and take this matter to the United Nations General Assembly. The text of my resolution is as follows: Whereas. the Russian Jews are forced to remain in a country that in practice. if not in law. compels them to abandon their very identity. and Whereas. in the name of abstract politicaleconomic theory. of cynical geopolitics. human beings are denied a freedom recognized as baslc by all civilized countries of the world. indeed by the Soviet Constitution. and Whereas. the Jews of Russia. who. through a history of persecution and oppression. were able. as a distinct and identifiable group. to contribute to the spiritual and cultural advancement of the human race. and Whereas. they (the Jews of Russia) are now systematically and efficiently being denied the means to sustain their identity as Jews inside Russia and the opportunity to maintain that identity by moving elsewhere. and Whereas. the right to emigrate. which is denied the Jews. is a right guaranteed by the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. to which the Soviet Union is a signatory. Now. therefore. be it Resolved by the House of Representatives. the Senate concurring. That: the President of the United States is authorized and requested. to issue a proclamation calling upon the Soviet Government to permit the free expression of ideas and the exercise of religion by its Jewish citizens in accordance with the Soviet Constitution and To utilize formal and internal contracts with Soviet officials in an effort to secure a lessening of the domestic burdens of the Russian Jews and To demand of the Soviet Government that it permit its Jewish citizens the right to emigrate from the Soviet Union to the countries of their choice as guaranteed by the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. and To instruct the United States delegation to the United Nations to move to censure the Soviet Union from the floor of the General Assembly for violation of the Declaration on Human Rights.