WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Republican US Senator John Kennedy on Tuesday accused a leading Muslim civil rights advocate of supporting extremism during a Senate hearing on hate incidents in the US, drawing criticism from many rights groups.
“You support Hamas, do you not?” Kennedy asked Arab American Institute executive director Maya Berry, who replied by saying: “You asking the executive director of the Arab American Institute that question very much puts the focus on the issue of hate in our country.”
In a follow-up question, the senator asked, “You support Hezbollah, too, don’t you?” He later told her, “You should hide your head in a bag.”
Berry repeatedly said in her responses that she did not support those groups, and added that she found the line of questioning “extraordinarily disappointing.”
Hamas and Hezbollah are both designated as “foreign terrorist organizations” by the US government.
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Multiple rights advocates denounced Kennedy.
“It is absolutely reprehensible that a US senator would weaponize the racial identity of a witness and accuse her of supporting terrorism by using an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim trope in a hearing meant to tackle precisely that kind of bigotry,” Council on American Islamic Relations Government Affairs director Robert McCaw told Reuters.
Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, left, Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, center, and Kenneth Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP/Ben Curtis)
“This harassment is alarming,” Muslim American advocacy group Engage Action said.
The Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee, which organized Tuesday’s hearing, also condemned the senator and called Berry’s response to him “powerful.”
Rights advocates have warned about rising threats against American Muslims, Arabs and Jews since the eruption of Israel’s war in Gaza following Hamas’s October 7 assault on southern Israel.
US incidents in recent months include the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Muslim girl in Texas, the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Muslim boy in Illinois, the stabbing of a Muslim man in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York, threats of violence against Jews at Cornell University that led to a conviction and sentencing, and an unsuccessful plot to attack a New York City Jewish center.
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