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.
Yes you can cherry pick examples of punctuated conflict incidents over thousands of years in any community but you’re still misrepresenting it; there was no state of war and the communities got along for thousands of years. They both saw themselves as the same community. Even your own links demonstrate this; you’re pointing to the equivalent of hate crimes and ignoring the fact that both Jews and Arabs were citizens and worked together. Like I said, go and ask historians because they would also tell you that you’re wrong.
Wiping out entire cities is equivalent to a hate crime?
You’re delusional.
Jews were literally second class citizens under ottoman rule. They had fewer rights by law.