GOP Senator tells Arab American witness at hate crimes listening to to 'cover your head in a bag'

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., repeatedly instructed a number one Arab American activist is a Hamas supporter when she testified Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee on hate crimes, and advised her she ought to cover her “head in a bag.”

The activist, Maya Berry, stated repeatedly she didn’t help Hamas and was “upset” by the minutes-long trade in the direction of the tip of a listening to known as, “A Menace to Justice In every single place: Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America.”

“You’re the government director of the Arab American Institute, are you not?” Kennedy stated originally of the trade. She stated she was and agreed with Kennedy that she is a Democratic activist.

“You help Hamas, do you not?” Kennedy requested, referring to the militant group behind the Oct. 7 terror assaults on Israel. The query prompted gasps and stunned laughs from the viewers.

“Senator, oddly sufficient I’ll say thanks for that query as a result of it demonstrates the aim of our listening to right this moment in a really efficient means,” Berry responded. Kennedy then reduce her off and insisted he wanted a sure or no reply.

“Hamas is a overseas terrorist group that I don’t help, however you asking the manager director of the Arab American Institute that query very a lot places the give attention to the problem of hate in our nation,” Berry responded.

“I obtained your reply and I admire it. You help Hezbollah too, do not you?” Kennedy continued, referring to the Iran-backed militant group.

“I discover this line of questioning terribly disappointing,” she responded, earlier than Kennedy stated, “Is {that a} no?”

“I do not help violence, whether or not it is Hezbollah or Hamas or every other entity that invokes it, so no, sir,” she stated.

“You simply cannot deliver your self to say no, are you able to? Kennedy stated. “You simply cannot do it.”

He then requested her if she supported Iran and “their hatred of Jews,” and he or she once more stated no.

He then famous her earlier criticism of Congress for reducing funding to a United Nations agency often known as UNWRA doing aid work for Palestinian refugees amid allegations a dozen of its 30,000 employees have been concerned within the Oct. 7 assault. The employees have been fired.

Berry stated she stands by her feedback and helps UNRWA’s aid work.

“Let me ask another time, you help Hamas, do not you?” Kennedy pressed.

“I feel it is exceptionally disappointing you are taking a look at an Arab-American witness earlier than you and saying you help Hamas. I don’t help Hamas,” she stated.

“You recognize what’s disappointing to me? You may’t deliver your self to say do not help UNWRA, you do not help Hamas, you do not help Hezbollah and you do not help Iran. You need to cover your head in a bag,” he concluded, to gasps and yells from the viewers.

In her opening assertion, Berry stated hate crimes within the nation sometimes observe anti-immigrant rhetoric and famous that there was a surge of hate crimes towards Arab, Muslim and Jewish Individuals for the reason that Oct. 7 assault.

Requested by Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, D-Unwell., if she had something she needed to say after the Kennedy trade, Berry stated, “It is regrettable that I as I sit right here, have skilled the very difficulty that we’re trying to take care of right this moment.

“The introduction of overseas coverage will not be how we hold Arab Individuals or Jewish Individuals or Muslim Individuals or Black individuals or Asian Individuals, anyone secure. This has been regrettably an actual disappointment however very a lot a sign of the hazard to our democratic establishments that we’re in now,” Berry stated.

Judiciary Democrats chastised Kennedy’s remarks later Tuesday on social media.

“Political leaders should not stir up hatred and division,” Durbin said in a post on X. “Jewish, Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian Individuals *all* need to be secure.”

Kennedy’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.