National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2027

Floor Speech

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Ms. TENNEY.

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Ms. TENNEY. Madam Chair, the Temple Mount, or Har HaBayit, as it is called, is the holiest site in the world to the Jewish people. During the periods of the First and Second Temples, Jews from across the land of Israel would travel to the Temple during the three annual pilgrimages. These pilgrims included figures like King Solomon, King Herod, and Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord and Savior.

However, whereas Christians and Muslims enjoy broad access and religious prayer rights at their holiest sites, Jews are severely discriminated against upon the Temple Mount.

Muslims can currently enter the Temple Mount at 11 different gates, but Jews can only enter from 1 gate. Muslims can visit the Temple Mount any day of the week, but Jews cannot ascend the Temple Mount on Friday or Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Muslims have broad access to the Temple Mount and can pray openly upon the Temple Mount. Jews are severely restricted in their visits and do not enjoy the freedom to worship or the ability to wear their tallit and tefillin upon the Temple Mount.

And for the Jews that ascend in spite of all these restrictions, they still face harassment from Muslims upon the Temple Mount.

In fact, Muslim leaders have actively desecrated the site, including the planting and cultivating of trees at the inner courts of the Temple, expressly prohibited by Jewish law. Muslim children play soccer, practice boxing, and have picnics upon the Temple Mount, desecrating its holiness, while Jews cannot even freely worship upon the Temple Mount.

You don't have to take my word for it, Madam Chair. There is photo and video evidence of all this freely available. Individuals like Dr. Melissa Jane Kronfeld have spent extensive time documenting all of this. I thank her for her efforts to draw attention to this critical issue.

Further, when one of my staffers ascended the Temple Mount last year, he was harassed by Muslim onlookers, restricted from visiting most of the site, and was only allowed to be upon the Temple Mount for a very short duration of time.

Madam Chair, it is unconscionable that Jews do not enjoy the same access rights to visit and pray at their holiest site that other religions do. This is a basic tenet and principle of religious freedom, and the U.S. must do more on this issue.

That is why my amendment would emphasize the need for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to work to ensure religious freedom and equal access for all with respect to the Temple Mount.

I urge all my colleagues to vote for this commonsense amendment and to support religious freedom for all and support the rights of the Jewish people to freely worship at their very holiest site, the Temple Mount.

Ms. LOIS FRANKEL of Florida. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

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Ms. TENNEY. Madam Chair, I respect the opinion of my colleague across the aisle, but it was also said that moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was going to be too inflammatory and too dangerous. Many Presidents said they would do it. President Donald Trump did it, and it hasn't proven to be overly inflammatory. In fact, it proved to be the right place and the right thing to do.

I think this is common sense. Why should Jewish people not be able to worship at their holiest site in equal measure that all other religions get to worship at their holiest sites? I think this is a commonsense amendment. I don't think it would be inflammatory. I think it makes sense. It restores dignity, and it also restores fairness to the international religious freedom tenets that we all stand for, foundational type of religious freedoms that we actually revere in this country under our First Amendment.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this commonsense amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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