US senator to Arab American advocate: ‘You should hide your head in a bag’

During US hate crimes hearing, prominent activist faces aggressive questions about Hamas and student protests for Gaza.

Washington, DC – A US senator has launched ad hominem attacks against a prominent Arab American community advocate during a congressional hearing into hate crimes in the United States, which have surged in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday aimed to address the rise of hate crimes in the country.

But several Republicans dedicated their time to bashing college students who have protested for Palestinian rights amid the Gaza war, and many took aim at the event’s sole Arab American witness – Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute.

“You support Hamas, do you not?” Louisiana Republican John Kennedy asked Berry.

She unambiguously said “no” as she tried to refocus the conversation on the domestic issue of hate crimes, rather than foreign policy.

“I’m going to say thank you for that question because it demonstrates the purpose of our hearing today,” Berry told the senator, suggesting that it effectively shows the rise in hate and dehumanisation she has been decrying.

But Kennedy would not drop his line of questioning. “You support Hezbollah too, don’t you?” he asked, referring to the Lebanese armed group.

Again, Berry responded by calling the question “disappointing”.

The senator went on to grill Berry over her opposition to a decision by the US Congress to cut funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which she had called “an incredible moral failure”.

When Berry defended her support for UNRWA, which provides vital services – including healthcare and education – to millions of Palestinian refugees across the Middle East, Kennedy asked her one more time whether she supports Hamas.

Although Berry had clearly said she does not support Hamas or Hezbollah, Kennedy said the witness could not bring herself to say that she did not back the groups.

“You should hide your head in a bag,” he told Berry.

‘Real disappointment’

Advocacy groups say the US has seen an uptick in hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims since the start of the war on Gaza last year.

In the Chicago area, a six-year-old Palestinian American boy was fatally stabbed by a neighbour in a hate-motivated attack in October.

Three college students wearing keffiyehs were shot in Vermont in November, leaving one of them paralysed from the chest down.

But Republicans on the Judiciary Committee seemed incensed that Tuesday’s hearing was about all hate crimes, not focused solely on the anti-Semitism that Israel’s advocates say Jewish students are suffering on college campuses due to Palestinian rights activism.

Demonstrations and encampments sprung up on dozens of US university campuses earlier this year, with students urging their colleges to divest from Israel amid the offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 41,250 Palestinians.

Israel’s supporters have accused the campus protests of endangering the safety of Jewish students – a charge that activists vehemently deny.

They have stressed that their goal is to end their universities’ complicity in what they describe as a genocide against Palestinians.

Several senators on Tuesday falsely accused the student protesters of being associated with Hamas, and they singled out Berry to answer for signs and chants at the demonstrations, as well as for Iran’s policies in the Middle East.

“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, Jewish Americans, or Muslim Americans, or Black people, or Asian Americans, anybody safe,” she said.

“This has been, regrettably, a real disappointment, but very much an indication of the danger to our democratic institutions that we’re in now.”