Civil rights groups condemn senator’s questioning of Arab American witness

A congressional hearing on hate crimes drew charges of the bigotry it was meant to address after a Republican senator told the female Muslim head of a thinktank to “hide your head in a bag” and accused her of supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.

John Kennedy, the GOP senator for Louisiana, drew condemnation from Democrats as well as Muslim, Jewish and civil liberties groups for the remark, aimed at Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, at a hearing staged by the Senate judiciary committee.

The proceedings witnessed further disruption when Ted Cruz, the Republican senator for Texas, was interrupted by a spectator protesting the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza. “You talk about the fucking Jews and the Israelis. Talk about the 40,000. Talk about all these people. Why is it about antisemitism?” the protester shouted, before being ejected from the chamber.

Cruz responded: “We now have a demonstration of antisemitism. We have a demonstration of the hate.”

Republicans criticised the theme of Tuesday’s hearing – set by the committee’s Democratic chair, Dick Durbin – for conflating antisemitism with bigotry against Muslims, Arabs and other groups.

“The goal was to have a hearing about why it’s so hard to go to school if you’re Jewish,” said Lindsey Graham, the Republican ranking member of the committee and the senator for South Carolina. “If you’re Jewish, you’re being knocked down. You’re being spat on. It is just completely out of control. This is not the hearing we’re getting, so we’ll work with what we’ve got.”

A Republican-led subcommittee in the House of Representatives has already staged a series of highly charged hearings focused on the rise of antisemitism on university campuses following Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel last October, which saw around 1,200 people killed and 250 taken hostage, and which triggered a devastating ongoing Israeli military retaliation.

The House hearings prompted the resignations of two university heads after they gave responses to questions about their institutions’ policies on calls for genocide against Jews that were deemed insufficiently condemnatory.

Graham tried to enter similar territory when he asked Berry whether she believed that it was goal of Hamas, the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah or Iran to destroy the only Jewish state. Berry answered that “these are complicated questions”.

That eventually led to Berry’s hostile exchange with Kennedy, who asked her: “You support Hamas, do you not?”

“Hamas is a foreign terrorist organization that I do not support,” Berry replied. “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.”

When Kennedy followed up by asking whether she supported Hezbollah or Iran, Berry answered: “Again, I find this line of questioning extraordinarily disappointing.”

Finishing his interrogation by expressing “disappointment” at Berry’s unwillingness to declare outright opposition to the three named entities, Kennedy declared: “You should hide your head in a bag.”

Invited by Durbin to respond to the outburst, Berry said: “It’s regrettable that I, as I sit here, have experienced the very issue that we’re attempting to deal with today. This has been, regrettably, a real disappointment, but very much an indication of the danger to our democratic institutions that we’re in now. And I deeply regret that.”

The judiciary committee – with Durbin’s approval – later endorsed Berry’s response by posting it on X, with accompanying commentary reading: “A Senate Republican told an Arab American civil rights leader that ‘you should hide your head in a bag.’ We will not amplify that horrible clip. But we WILL amplify the witness’s powerful response calling it out.”

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

“Maya Berry went before the committee to discuss hate crimes. Both Ms. Berry and the topic should have been treated with the respect and seriousness they deserve,” said Robert McCaw, Cair’s government affairs director. “Instead, Sen 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 Berry.

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

Sheila Katz, chief executive officer of the National Council of Jewish Women, called Berry’s treatment “heartbreaking”.

“[T]he only Muslim witness faced biased questions about supporting Hamas & Hezbollah despite her clear condemnations,” she wrote on X. “This hearing should combat hate, not perpetuate it. The Senate must do better.”