Congressional hearings aren't known for generating Must-See TV, so the rare exceptions tend to be notable. Attorney Joseph Welch's takedown of the demagogic Senator from Wisconsin during the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings — "At long last, sir, have you no sense of decency?" — became iconic. Oliver North's attorney, Brendan Sullivan, torpedoed the Iran-Contra Committee's attempt to prevent him from coaching his client during the 1987 hearings with the memorable interjection, "Well, sir, I'm not a potted plant. I'm here as the lawyer."

Thanks to the Internet, the most viewed Congressional exchange was between New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik and a panel of three elite University presidents in December, 2023 when, in the face of an explosion of anti-Jewish mob scenes, rallies, screeds and proclamations on American campuses after Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, the Republican-led House Education and Workforce Committee called the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania to testify about the ugly scenes that had unfolded on their campuses.

It had been two months since 5,000 AK-47-wielding Hamas gunmen had burst into Israel from Gaza and butchered 1,200 Israelis, executing them gangland style, burning families alive, dismembering some, raping still others before murdering them. Over 3,000 Israelis were maimed or mutilated, and 250 were kidnapped and carted, bleeding and petrified, into Gaza tunnels. Although Hamas, doctrinally committed specifically to the genocide of Jews, invaded Israel for the purpose of committing genocide, in a remarkable display of public relations jujitsu, Israel's multitudinous enemies have successfully branded Israel, the victim of the genocidal invasion, the perpetrator of genocide.

While body fragments of pulverized Israelis were still being collected by medical personnel on Oct. 8, 34 Harvard student groups issued a statement blaming Israel. Faculty at America's elite academic institutions praised the slaughter as "energizing," "exhilarating" and "a stunning victory." Calls to "gas the Jews" and that "Hitler was right" and for the genocide of Jews rang out on American campuses. Checkpoints, barricades and human gauntlets preventing Jewish students from passing or entering certain areas proliferated. Swastikas were drawn on students' doors. Signs reading "We are Hamas!" were rolled out. A "Jewish Exclusion Zone" was established on one campus. Jewish students were pushed, shoved, surrounded, forced to take cover and required to disavow the state of Israel to enter certain areas and were otherwise harassed.

Jewish students were denounced, threatened, driven underground, fearful of openly identifying as Jewish. According to surveys, 42% of Jewish students report personally encountering anti-Semitism. One-third report hiding their Jewish identity. This is precisely what was intended.

As much as anyone else, it was Stefanik who was responsible for laying bare the arrogance, cowardice and complicity of university administrators when it came to the vicious anti-Semitism that — and let this sink in — the genocidal invasion of Israel unleashed. "Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university's code of conduct?" Stefanik asked the three presidents at the December 2003 House Committee hearing. The questions and the answers have now been viewed an estimated one billion times.

Instead of answering "Obviously" or even just "Yes," they answered, "It depends on the context."

On whether calling for the genocide of Jews was perfectly okay on their campuses, the three university presidents answered that it "depended" on "context."

Stefanik has recounted the hearings convened by her committee in her new book "Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America's Elite Universities." For reasons known only to them, their Maker and Democratic pollsters, Congressional Democrats have been AWOL on the issue, preferring to accuse Israel of genocide and thereby preserve their future in Democratic politics than to partner with Republicans in exposing the rot Republicans documented.

"The great value of the Congressional hearings," says Kenneth Marcus, Chairman of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the preeminent civil rights organization challenging universities' indulgence of anti-Semitism on campus, "is that they exposed the double standards that university presidents were applying depending on whether claims were brought by Jewish students or more highly favored groups." Marcus and his colleagues have been heroes in this fight, which should be a non-partisan one. People may or may not agree with Elise Stefanik's politics. But there's no doubt about it: she's been a hero, too.

Jeff Robbins' latest book, "Notes From the Brink: A Collection of Columns about Policy at Home and Abroad," is available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books and Google Play. Robbins, a former assistant United States attorney and United States delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, was chief counsel for the minority of the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. An attorney specializing in the First Amendment and a longtime columnist, he writes on politics, national security, human rights and the Middle East.

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