Sen. John Kennedy (R-La) made national news last Tuesday after he told Arab American witness Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute,
to "hide your head in a bag." I wish he would change his name.
Telling an Arab-American witness to "hide your head in a bag" following her testimony during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on hate crimes and accusing her of supporting terrorism is racist, offensive, and distasteful offensive. Congress needs to educate its members about Islamophobia and racism.
During the Senate hearing against anti-Arab hate crimes and antisemitism, Miss Berry was invited as an expert witness to testify. Rather than allowing her to address the issue on hand, GOP members of the Senate Judiciary Committee instead ganged up against Aya Berry, which reminds me of the movie, "The Lion King" when a clan of hungry hyenas encircled cub Simba and wanted to make a cub sandwich out of him.
On Sep 20, Jennifer Bendery wrote in Huffington Post "Man, The Senate Judiciary Committee Is Broken
Maya Berry came to testify as an expert on hate crimes. She ended up the target of blatant anti-Arab racism by Republican senators."
Here is the line of questioning of the GOP members of the committee as reported by Huffington Post:
Instead of asking Miss Berry about her new data on hate crimes against Arab Americans and Jewish Americans since Oct. 7, Senator Kennedy asked her the most bigoted and offensive question I ever heard. "You support Hamas, do you not? Do you support Hezbullah? Do you support Iran? What does UNRWA means?" After she unambiguously said, “No,” she did not support any terrorist entities. He told her, " You can put a bag over your head."
Sen. Lindsey Graham said, “If you think it’s complicated to figure out that Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran want to kill all the Jews, I should not listen to anything else you have to say!” he shouted over her as she repeatedly tried to speak.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) showed posters with photos that he brought with him from pro-Palestinian campus protests and asked Berry if each image counted as a hate crime. When Berry tried to steer the conversation away from free speech on campuses and back to actual hate crimes, Hawley began shouting over her, “What you’re trying to do here today is wrong,” according to the Huffington Post story.
Sen. Lindsey Graham once said “the Palestinians in Gaza are the most radicalized population on the planet who are taught to hate Jews from birth. It will take years to fix this problem.” Graham also compared anti-genocide protestors to Nazis. Whereas Sen. Hawley was the first senator to announce his intention to refuse to certify the results of Biden's victory following the 2020 presidential election and suggested once on Twitter that any new U.S. aid to Ukraine should instead be given to Israel instead.
These characters are totally in denial that Israel is subjecting Palestinians to one of the worst brutal occupation and repugnant oppression in the modern era. I wonder how much each get paid by the pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC. You can bet their questions were drafted by their AIPAC handler.
Remember when Netanyahu spoke to OUR Congress and received 58 standing ovations? That shows the power of the Zionist lobby and the numerous billionaires that buy off 99.9% of U.S. politicians. Politicians, Dems or Reps, do NOT serve the public and they serve the donors that give them millions of dollars for their election campaigns.
The only reason to come up with a ridiculous statement like that is to solicit campaign funding from pro-Israel groups. And I thought prostitution was illegal!
During the college campus, protests all over the country and with anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hysteria on the rise, a landlord in Illinois fatally stabbed a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy 26 times killing him and then stabbed the boy's mother 12 times in a motivated hate crime last October. Luckily, the mother survived. One month later, three colleges students in Vermon wearing keffiyehs were shot in Vermont, leaving one paralyzed from the chest down. The students were of Palestinian descent, two of whom are U.S. citizens and the other a legal resident.
On July 26, 2023, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) applauded the Senate’s passage of S. Con. Res. 14, a resolution to reaffirm the U.S.’ support for Israel.
The State of Israel is not a racist or apartheid state.
Congress rejects all forms of antisemitism and xenophobia.
The U.S. will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel.
While Aya Berry undoubtedly stated that she does not support Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran, but assume for the sake of the argument she did, what gives Sen. Kennedy the right to publicly support terrorist the apartheid state of Israel and put the interest of Israel first and Miss Berry could not defend the rights of Palestinians and Lebanese and to call for the US not to fund UNRWA that provide education, medical help, and aid to 6 million Palestinians inside and outside occupied Palestine? I should add here, contrary to Sen. Kennedy's claim, the nine Palestinians employed by UNRWA that Israel accused of taking part in the October 7 attacks were fired without being investigated by UNRWA. They were simply accused by the same entity that accused Hamas with zero evidence has raped hundreds of women and beheaded 40 babies. 11 months later, Israel has failed to produce any evidence.
Last November, US Congress censured Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the sole Palestinian American in Congress, because she criticizes the Israeli genocide in Gaza and defended the Palestinian right for freedom. Rep. Tlaib never at any point advocated the destruction of Israel. It was a flat-out lie. Nevertheless, this patriotic and courageous lawmaker was unfairly censured by US Congress. Meanwhile, Congress should take an immediate action to censure Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana for his racist and vile attacks against distinguished and patriotic Arab American leader who once proudly served as congressional aides and loved America.
It worth nothing here that Sen. John Kennedy, Sen. Graham, and Sen. Hawley are totally in denial that Israel is subjecting Palestinians to one of the worst brutal occupation and repugnant oppression in the modern era. I wonder how much each get paid by AIPAC. I bet all their questions in the hearing were drafted by their AIPAC handler.
It is preposterous for Sen. Kennedy and the rest of the GOP committee members to subject Maya Berry to the type of dehumanizing attacks at the Senate Hate Crimes' hearing. By implying that any Arab or Muslim-American who support and stand up for Lebanese or Palestinian human rights is guilty of supporting "terrorism" and antisemitism. Yet Jewish-Americans are free to enlist in the IOF, engage in war crimes against Palestinians and Lebanese, and then be praised as heroes. The same goes to American mercenaries who go to Ukraine to fight the Russian occupation army. That begs the question, "Is there good occupation and bad occupation?" Inquiring mind wants to know!
Sen. Kennedy's unprofessional conduct during the hearing stirred a national outrage and embarrassment to his home state, prompting the Louisiana Illuminator to condemn Sen. Kennedy in a column published on Sep. 19 that said in part, "Louisiana deserves better than a mean-spirited caricature in the U.S. Senate. At the very least, Kennedy needs to be sent a message that the level of rudeness he displayed on Tuesday toward Berry doesn’t sit well with the home crowd. More importantly, Louisiana needs to have a zero-tolerance policy for the people we elected to represent us: No racism, no bigotry, no misogyny, no dogmatism, no more refusal to budge from intransigent views. Until we do, brace yourselves for more embarrassment."
Mahmoud El-Yousseph is a Palestinian freelancer for the Islamicity.com and ColumbusFreePress.com. He can be reached at elyousseph6@yahoo.com