Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., repeatedly suggested a leading Arab American activist is a Hamas supporter when she testified Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on hate crimes, and he told her she should hide her “head in a bag.”
The activist, Maya Berry, said repeatedly that she did not support Hamas and was “disappointed” by the minuteslong exchange toward the end of a hearing called “A Threat to Justice Everywhere: Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America.”
“You are the executive director of the Arab American Institute, are you not?” Kennedy said at the beginning of the exchange. She said she was and agreed with Kennedy that she is a Democratic activist.
“You support Hamas, do you not?” Kennedy asked, referring to the militant group behind the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel. The question prompted gasps and surprised laughs from the audience.
“Senator, oddly enough, I’m going to say thank you for that question, because it demonstrates the purpose of our hearing today in a very effective way,” Berry responded. Kennedy then cut her off and insisted he needed a yes-or-no answer.
“Hamas is a foreign terrorist organization that I do not support, but 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,” Berry responded.
“I got your answer and I appreciate it. You support Hezbollah, too, don’t you?” Kennedy continued, referring to the Iran-backed militant group.
“I find this line of questioning extraordinarily disappointing,” she responded, before Kennedy said, “Is that a no?”
“I don’t support violence, whether it’s Hezbollah or Hamas or any other entity that invokes it, so no, sir,” she said.
“You just can’t bring yourself to say no, can you? Kennedy said. “You just can’t do it.”
He then asked her whether she supported Iran and “their hatred of Jews,” and she again said no.
He then noted her previous criticism of Congress for cutting funding to a United Nations agency known as UNWRA that is doing relief work for Palestinian refugees amid allegations a dozen of its 30,000 workers were involved in the Oct. 7 attack. The workers were fired.
Berry said she stands by her comments and supports UNRWA’s relief work.
“Let me ask one more time, you support Hamas, don’t you?” Kennedy pressed.
“I think it’s exceptionally disappointing you’re looking at an Arab American witness before you and saying you support Hamas. I do not support Hamas,” she said.
“You know what’s disappointing to me? You can’t bring yourself to say don’t support UNWRA, you don’t support Hamas, you don’t support Hezbollah and you don’t support Iran. You should hide your head in a bag,” he concluded, to gasps and yells from the audience.
In her opening statement, Berry said hate crimes in the country typically follow anti-immigrant rhetoric and noted that there was a surge of hate crimes against Arab, Muslim and Jewish Americans since the Oct. 7 attack.
Asked by Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., whether she had anything she wanted to say after the Kennedy exchange, Berry said, “It’s regrettable that I, as I sit here, have experienced the very issue that we’re attempting to deal with today.
“The introduction of foreign policy is not how we keep Arab Americans or Jewish Americans or Muslim Americans or Black people or Asian Americans, anybody safe. This has been regrettably a real disappointment but very much an indication of the danger to our democratic institutions that we’re in now,” Berry said.
Judiciary Democrats chastised Kennedy for his remarks later Tuesday on social media.
“Political leaders must not fan the flames of hatred and division,” Durbin said on X. “Jewish, Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian Americans *all* deserve to be safe.”
