Civil rights groups condemn senator's questioning of Arab-American witness | US Congress

At a U.S. Congressional hearing on hate crimes, allegations of bigotry that should have been directed against hate crimes were leveled after a Republican senator told the Muslim head of a think tank to “hide her head in a sack” and accused her of supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.

John Kennedy, the Republican senator from Louisiana, was condemned by Democrats as well as Muslim, Jewish and civil rights groups for his comments at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing targeting Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute.

The session was disrupted once again when Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, was interrupted by an audience member protesting the number of Palestinians killed in Israel's attack on Gaza. “You talk about the damn Jews and the Israelis. Talk about the 40,000. Talk about all those people. Why is this about anti-Semitism?” the protester shouted before being thrown out of the chamber.

Cruz responded: “We now have a demonstration of anti-Semitism. We have a demonstration of hate.”

Republicans criticized the topic of Tuesday's hearing – set by Democratic committee chairman Dick Durbin – for confusing anti-Semitism with bigotry toward Muslims, Arabs and other groups.

“The goal was to have a hearing about why it's so hard to go to school as a Jew,” said Lindsey Graham, the committee's ranking Republican member and a senator from South Carolina. “If you're Jewish, you get trashed. You get spit on. It's just completely out of control. That's not the hearing we're getting, so we're going to work with what we have.”

A Republican-led House subcommittee has already held a series of explosive hearings focused on the rise of anti-Semitism on college campuses following Hamas' deadly attack on Israel last October that killed some 1,200 people and took 250 hostage, and sparked a devastating military retaliation that continues to this day.

The House hearings resulted in the resignation of two university presidents after they gave answers that were deemed insufficiently condemnatory to questions about their institutions' policies regarding calls for genocide against Jews.

Graham attempted to tread similar ground when he asked Berry if she believed the goal of Hamas, the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah or Iran was to destroy the only Jewish state. Berry replied that “those are complicated questions.”

This eventually led to a hostile exchange between Berry and Kennedy, who asked her: “You support Hamas, don't you?”

“Hamas is a foreign terrorist organization that I do not support,” Berry replied. “But the fact that you are asking the executive director of the Arab American Institute this question brings a lot of focus to the problem of hate in our country.”

When Kennedy then asked whether she supported Hezbollah or Iran, Berry replied: “I find this line of questioning extremely disappointing as well.”

Kennedy concluded his questioning by expressing his “disappointment” at Berry's unwillingness to openly declare his opposition to the three entities mentioned, declaring, “You should put your head in a sack.”

When asked by Durbin to respond to the outbreak, Berry said: “It is unfortunate that as I sit here, I have witnessed exactly what we are trying to deal with today. This was unfortunately a real disappointment, but also a clear indication of the danger our democratic institutions are now in. And I deeply regret that.”

The Judiciary Committee later supported Berry's response – with Durbin's approval – by posting it on X, with the accompanying comment: “A Republican Senator told an Arab-American civil rights leader, 'You should hide your head in a bag.' We will not continue to share this horrific clip. But we WILL continue to share the powerful response of the witness denouncing it.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) accused Kennedy and other Republicans of treating Berry with hostility.

“Maya Berry spoke before the committee about hate crimes. Both Ms. Berry and the issue should have been treated with the respect and seriousness they deserve,” said Robert McCaw, CAIR's director of government affairs. “Instead, Senator Kennedy and others chose to be an example of the bigotry Arabs, Palestinians and Muslims have faced in recent months and years.”

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, condemned what he called a “discriminatory and vitriolic attack” on Kennedy.

“Using a hearing on the disturbing rise in anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Semitic hate crimes to launch personal and discriminatory attacks on an expert witness they invited to testify is both outrageous and inappropriate,” he said.

Sheila Katz, executive director of the National Council of Jewish Women, called Berry's treatment “heartbreaking.”

“[T]”The only Muslim witness faced biased questions about her support for Hamas and Hezbollah despite her clear conviction,” she wrote on X. “This hearing is meant to combat hate, not perpetuate it. The Senate must improve.”