In the midst of Donald Trump spewing lies demonizing Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio causing a spike in hate and bomb threats in the small midwestern town — Republican Senator John Kennedy opened up a new front in the GOP’s war on non-white people. This latest assault came Tuesday in the form of baseless and vile accusations of terrorism by Kennedy against a leader in the Arab and Muslim American community. Ironically, Kennedy’s assault occurred during a Senate hearing to combat this very type of bigotry.
Even before Tuesday’s exchange in the Senate hearing titled, "A Threat to Justice Everywhere: Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America," Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, had already pushed back against people like GOP Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who objected to addressing hate crimes against Arab and Muslims—demanding instead the sole focus be on anti-Semitism. Apparently the fact that Muslims and Arabs in 2023 experienced a record number of hate crimes—including the murder of six-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume in Oct. 2023 by a man yelling anti-Palestinian comments-didn’t merit concern by Graham. Durbin rightfully remarked, “What we are trying to do is identify a problem in America that extends beyond the Jewish population, to the Arab population, to the Palestinian population,” adding, “All of those hate crimes are unacceptable." Republicans, for their part, did not acknowledge the killing of Al-Fayoume, whose mother was in attendance for the hearing.
Then came Kennedy — whose unabashed bigotry drew audible gasps from the audience. The Republican began his questioning of Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute and a longtime friend, by accusing her of supporting Hamas.
“You support Hamas, do you not?”
Berry — being the professional she is and having far less of a temper than me — calmly responded, “Senator, oddly enough, I’m going to say thank you for that question because it demonstrates the purpose of our hearing today.” At that point, the Louisiana Republican interrupted, “Let’s start first with a yes or no.”
Berry answered, “Hamas is a foreign terrorist organization that I do not support.” She then added, “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.”
Kennedy continued to badger Berry, accusing her of supporting the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, saying, “You support Hezbollah, too, don’t you?” Berry responded, “Do I support Hezbollah?” The answer is I don’t support violence, whether it’s Hezbollah, Hamas, or any other entity that invokes it. So no, Sir.”
Despite her saying no, Kennedy simply lied by declaring, “You can’t bring yourself to say no, can you?” After she repeated her “No,” he then asked, “Do you support or oppose Iran and their hatred of Jews?”
After more back and forth along those lines with Kennedy again accusing her of supporting Hamas and making unconfirmed allegations against the Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, he told Berry, “You should hide your head in a bag.”
Kennedy’s comments were despicable and hypocritical but not unexpected. The hypocrisy comes in Kennedy virtue signaling that he’s concerned with terrorism when Kennedy himself is a vocal supporter of Trump who incited the Jan 6 act of “domestic terrorism”—as the FBI has designated that attack. And Kennedy both peddled election lies that fueled that terrorist attack and was one of only eight senators to vote to overturn the 2020 election after the mob was driven from the Capitol. Kennedy apparently has no issues with terrorism when it’s in pursuit of GOP power.
The American Civil Liberties Union condemned Kennedy’s “discriminatory and vitriolic attack” in a statement. “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. This kind of racist rhetoric should be widely condemned. It has no place in Congress, or in politics.”
The lack of surprise to Kennedy’s remarks comes from the fact that the GOP under Trump has become in essence an anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate group. While anti-Muslim bigotry simmered in the GOP for years after 9/11, Trump weaponized it in ways never before seen during his 2016 campaign—much like he’s currently doing versus the Black immigrants in Ohio.
Trump fabricated stories that “thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey cheered on 9/11 as the Twin Towers collapsed. He claimed Muslims in our nation were protecting terrorists, that Muslims were leaving mosques with “hatred and death in their eyes” and that “Islam hates us.” All of this built to a hate-filled crescendo when Trump in December 2015 called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
It was not surprising that Trump’s non-stop demonization of Muslims during that campaign resulted in a dangerous spike in hate crimes versus Muslims and Arabs in 2015 and 2016 that jaw-droppingly eclipsed the number of hate crimes endured in the year after 9/11. Women wearing hijabs were punched, Muslim American students saw a spike in bullying and mosques were defaced by bigots using the word, “Trump.”
Kennedy’s smear of Berry was consistent with the years of hatred spewed by the GOP towards Arabs and Muslims. And if Trump sees a benefit to trafficking in bigotry against these two communities in the final six weeks of the campaign, we all know he will do just that.
At the end of Kennedy's questioning, Durbin asked Berry if she wanted to add anything else. Berry’s response summed up this incident well, “It’s regrettable that I, as I sit here, have experienced the very issue that we’re attempting to deal with today.” Berry then added powerfully that the way this hearing was conducted by people like Kennedy and other Republicans is not “how we keep Arab Americans or Jewish Americans or Muslim Americans or Black people or Asian Americans, anybody safe.”
https://twitter.com/JudiciaryDems/status/1836108743349604403
She’s right. But the GOP is not interested in keeping minority groups safe. They simply view us as red meat to target when it comes time to animate their base. And Kennedy’s comments Tuesday—along with Trump’s demonization of Black immigrants—are simply the latest examples of the hate that fuels today’s GOP.
