GOP senator tells Arab American witness at hate crimes hearing to 'hide your head in a bag'
GOP senator tells Arab American witness at hate crimes hearing to 'hide your head in a bag'
Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana also repeatedly suggested the witness, a leading Arab American activist, supports Hamas even as she repeatedly denied it.
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.
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A) Fuck this racist piece of shit.
B) Anyone who says they support Palestinians but not Hamas are intentionally being ignorant, since the vast majority of the Palestinians in Gaza support Hamas and their attack(s) on Israel based on decently reputable local polling (not sourced by Israel)
People need to take their head out of the sand and realize that this isn't just an Israeli invasion, it's a war that both sides want to keep fighting. It's just a stupid war since Palestine is significantly weaker and getting their ass handed to them. The only reason Hamas is even still able to keep fighting is they're being heavily funded with money and weapons from outside countries that want to weaken Israel. Gaza is dirt poor, they have no militarily exploitable resources or weapons production ability.
You are arguing in bad faith.
My support for Palestine means wanting Israel to stop killing Palestinian civilians. This does not indicate my support for Hamas.
You have multiple unbelievable claims that are not cited.
I am not arguing in bad faith. The fact that you think my claims are unbelievable is part of the problem, you're clearly uneducated on the situation along with the vast majority of Palestinians supporters. Here's the sources.
71% support for the Oct 7th attack as of March 2024 both in Gaza and the West bank https://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Poll 91 English press release 20 March 2024.pdf
PCPSR is the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, an entirely Palestinian organization.
Support for the attack has deteriorated since then, but they were very happy with it until the real consequences started.
Only 5 percent of Palestinians think Hamas’s massacre on October 7 constitutes a war crime. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/03/22/poll-hamas-remains-popular-among-palestinians/
As for the funding...
Last February, the State Department(US) said that Hamas raises funds in other Gulf countries and gets donations from Palestinians, other expatriates and its own charities. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-cash-to-crypto-global-finance-maze-israels-sights-2023-10-16/
The October 7th attack was seen as a retaliation for a wave of settler attacks all summer on multiple Palestinian towns and the invasion of Al Aqsa. It doesn’t necessarily mean support for Hamas. Same way Israelis may support bombing Gaza but not necessarily supporting Netanyahu.
They still support an act of mass violence against civilians, so it makes them hypocritical when they condemn the current mass violence against their own civilians.
No, and you’re making a helluva lot of assumptions.
Roughly 1/3 of the deaths on October 7 were of soldiers. Many of the rest were friendly fire. Israel claims that such a ratio of civilian deaths is “acceptable” in wartime. The Israeli government frequently claims that there are no civilians in Gaza, and many Palestinians say the same about Israelis. What’s galling is that Israelis have been pushing these excuses for violence for years and are outraged that they’re now being used against them.
If you can’t see the parallels then you’re hopeless. For the record, it’s unacceptable that either side is doing this.
Outraged that they're now being used against them? Israel spent literally tens of billions of dollars on a missile defence system to reduce the effect of rocket attacks. They've been pissed off at Palestinians and other terrorist groups for attacking them for a very long time, in fact literally since the day after they declared independence and got invaded by 5 of the neighboring countries.
Your logic in no way helps your argument. If it's actually a war that both sides want, then what the fuck are we doing complaining about civilian deaths on one side being lopsided? Should bigger countries always have to deal with smaller groups with kid gloves on? That's just stupid, wars aren't about being fair.
You can want them to stop fighting, but both of them want to be fighting right now. You aren't going to pull them apart like in a bar fight, there's no way to physically separate these two groups.
And there you go, going back to the mindless false narrative.
Israel went to war against neighboring countries because those countries were upset by the active ethnic cleansing that Israel was engaging in. Ever heard of Deir Yassin massacre and Ben Gurion’s orders to the military to evict all Arabs from the cities? And yet Israel still takes their frustrations over the war out on Palestinians who didn’t take part in it.
Your clinging to false ahistorical narratives in no way helps your argument. Like I said, you’re hopeless since you can’t seem to learn from history and instead look for excuses.
This fight wasn’t inevitable, the Israeli extremists made it happen; killing Rabin and rejecting multiple peace deals for the last 30 years. Netanyahu and Likud wanted this fight.
Israel went to war because they were invaded by 5 other countries who weren't happy with the lines the UN agreed upon.
This fight wasn't just inevitable, it's been an ongoing fight for thousands of years, Arabs have been attacking Jewish people for literally thousands of years in that region.
When the Ottoman empire collapsed because they supported the wrong side in the war, the victors got to decide what happened with it. You don't get to lose a war, then just go back to peaceful enjoyment of your land like nothing happened. Wars have consequences. Maybe Palestinians should have done something about that before allowing their country to join world war one.
Even Germany lost land to it's neighbors during the wars. I don't see anyone here complaining about that land being colonized.
Arabs have been attacking Jewish people for literally thousands of years in that region.
False and propaganda. The reality is that Arabs and Jews coexisted in Jerusalem for thousands of years, its only recently within the last century that there was any great animosity. The “Golden Age of Judaism” happened under Arab rule, as they were protected and flourished compared to being driven out of the rest of Europe during their dark ages. That’s where scholars like Maimonides came from.
I’m not going to waste time debunking every facet of your false narrative. If you genuinely want to learn about it ask any history professor; because you’re telling solely the Zionist narrative despite its historical inaccuracies.
Not false, not propaganda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1517_Safed_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1834_looting_of_Safed
Everyone should take FDD with a MASSIVE grain of salt. It's a far-right neoconservative think-tank.
Edit: polling looks legit. I'll review more closely.
Edit 2: Turns out, Hamas falsified its support in polling conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
Interesting, do you have any support numbers that is more recent? 6 months ago is a long time
I looked into this a bit more and two points:
-
- Everyone should take FDD with a MASSIVE grain of salt. It's a far-right neoconservative think-tank.
-
Does it really matter? They supported it for at least a few months after it happened. They were happy that Hamas killed a thousand Israeli civilians and took hostages.
That being said, I mentioned it has dropped because of the consequences they faced, the latest numbers came out yesterday or the day before. It's now down to 39% support for the attack.
They were happy that Hamas killed a thousand Israeli civilians and took hostages.
I don't care. They could've been dancing in the streets over it. It still doesn't justify genocide.
Yes it does.
It's why the US killed a half million middle eastern people after 9/11
It's why people are praising Ukraine for invading Russia back
It's why nobody cries about all the dead Nazi's
Retaliation is very frequently justified, even when the level of killing amounts to hundreds of thousands or even millions of people.
It's right there in every single history book you've ever read, over and over and over and over.
It's why the US killed a half million middle eastern people after 9/11
Which was wrong.
It's why people are praising Ukraine for invading Russia back
How is this different from what Hamas did on Oct. 7th?
It's why nobody cries about all the dead Nazi's
The Allies did not commit genocide on the Germans during WWII. The Germans were committing a genocide, and the Allies were stopping them.
Even the IDF disagrees with you, those numbers were faked by Hamas to make themselves look more popular than they were.
The IDF can't be trusted to tell you the sky is blue. Even if I support Israel's right to fight I'm well aware of how they operate from a propaganda standpoint.
They even say they don't think the Pollsters were working with Hamas, but that Hamas was somehow clandestinely changing the results anyways.
"Prominent Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki, who runs the polling firm, said it was “highly unlikely” that Hamas falsified the results of the polls conducted in Gaza."
All the IDF says is "we found confidential documents that show they changed the numbers," do you know how easy that would be to fake?
About as easy as it is to fake poll entries. The IDF also has a reason to want people to believe Hamas is very popular. It is a lot better of a look that all the civilians dying are super pro Hamas, than if Hamas only had a minority support.
The IDF wouldn't have said anything when they found the documents if they benefit from it not being known.
Never heard of working both sides of a narrative? They absolutely do want most people to think Hamas has a majority support by Palestinians. If you don't believe me, look in the mirror, and think about your own argument here. However, it won't hurt that narrative to post this, as it is largely framed as a "can't trust anything coming out of Palestine" narrative. The fine details of which will be lost in the fire-hose of reasons that Palestinians super support them, so it's ok to kill them, rhetoric. Just look up how many articles out there cover this, verses how many ran with the false data.
However, I know you are completely entrenched in your ideology here, so I am gonna stop here, there will be no changing your mind.
People need to take their head out of the sand and realize that this isn't just an Israeli invasion, it's a war that both sides want to keep fighting. It's just a stupid war since Palestine is significantly weaker and getting their ass handed to them.
Uh... Sorry Palestinians don't want to be occupied and ethnically cleansed from their land?
Palestinians support attacking civilians in Israel. That makes it a war.
Yes, because Israel insists on colonizing Palestine. Zionism has always been a settler colonialist project.
How exactly do you "colonize" a region that your ancestors been on for 2000+ years?
Remember, the first massive waves of Jewish people moving to Israel literally came there from concentration camps, refugee camps, and other displaced locations because of what happened around the world wars.
Of course it was a settler project, around 6 million Jewish people were killed in the holocaust, you think they all wanted to move back in next to the neighbors that had ratted them out to the government? They got absolutely fucked, and the UN had given them their ancestral homeland back when it broke up the country that had been in that region and lost in the great war.
They're also heavily funded with money from Israel, who wants them to keep fighting. Per Netanyahu's own admission, Israel has been covertly supporting Hamas so that the PA can't gain enough power to actually make a viable Palestinian state.
PA doesn't operate in Gaza.
And? The point of Israel funding Hamas is that they would be able to continue attacking and thus let Israel continue disrupting the lives of Palestinians in both Gaza and West Bank, including expanding their illegal settlements. The entire point was to get excuses to keep destroying anything the PA tried to build as a government.
My support for Palestinians isn't automatic support for everything they support. I don't give a shit if the majority support Hamas in some way, even if I strongly disagree with that support.
But that disagreement doesn't mean I'm going to stand back and watch these people get wiped out in a coordinated act of genocide. I can disagree with a culture's values without being complacent as members of that culture are mass-murdered.
There are a fringe minority here who want to see the roles reversed and a genocide committed against the Israeli people, but those people are psychopaths, and they are outnumbered. Most of us just want to see a stop to mass civilian casualties, and you can't both-sides that issue right now because, even including the Oct. 7 attack a year ago, Palestinians are suffering orders of magnitude more than Israelis right now.
Also, You're a J.D. Vance Supporter...
First off, I'm not even American so I don't support Vance or any other American politician.
Secondly, you support the American government, which killed around half a million middle eastern civilians in retaliation for 9/11.
Thirdly, if Israel was trying to wipe out Palestinians they're doing an absolute shit job of it. They're barely killing them faster than the birth rate and it would take centuries to wipe them out at the current rate.
Finally, no you can't say you support Palestinians and ignore what they stand for. You either don't actually support Palestinians, or you support their war. Say you support not killing instead, and drop the Palestinian conditional.
"You support the American government"
What a brain dead thing to say. Yeah, we do, because we live here and have to pay taxes. We only have so many things we can do as normal citizens, only so many people we can vote for. Seeing you say all these bad faith statements constantly makes you look like a troll.
Also, you don't have to live in America to support JD Vance. Plenty of non Americans support Harris or Trump, wtf are you on about?
"it's not my fault my country killed a half million civilians, I can't do anything about it." -You
"I demand my government force another country to stop killing civilians immediately" -Also you
You seriously don't see the problem with the way you're thinking?
Why the fuck would I support American political candidates as a non-American? Just because plenty of people are stupid, doesn't mean I need to be as well. Plenty of people think that most Palestinian civilians are innocent, but it doesn't make it true.
“it’s not my fault my country killed a half million civilians, I can’t do anything about it.” -You
And what exactly can I do to stop it aside from vote? You act like you have all the answers so please tell me what the average low income American can do to stop a war half way across the world. I'll wait for the how to guide.
“I demand my government force another country to stop killing civilians immediately” -Also you
Never said I demand anything, I said I vote. You seem to make it a habit of putting words in peoples mouths to fit your agenda. You own a farm? Because you're building straw men like crazy lol.
Why the fuck would I support American political candidates as a non-American? Just because plenty of people are stupid, doesn’t mean I need to be as well. Plenty of people think that most Palestinian civilians are innocent, but it doesn’t make it true.
I dunno, it is a very odd thing for you to do. It's also very odd to tell citizens of another country how to behave and interact with their government. What country praytell are you living in? Are you personally making an effort to stop every bad thing their doing or do you just embrace your hypocrisy full force? Oh no, I bet you're a "wait till people start dying to care" kinda guy.
You vote... great. You realize there's more options than just voting right?
Am I personally making an effort to stop every bad thing my Canadian government is doing? I'm not sure, I don't see any bad things they're doing at the moment (including supporting Israel) despite the government being made up of people that I didn't even vote for.
I don't see a lot of things that they do as bad, I understand in that most of the things people get mad at them for aren't really their fault (inflation), are necessary even though they upset a lot of people (immigration), are simply due to the limits of finite resources (healthcare), or are limits based on how our electoral system works and who's voting (house inflation).
Do I encourage them to do better? Yes. I vote (lol) but I also regularly communicate with my provincial and federal representatives, and I participate in various activities to influence and affect the policies they implement.
You don't see anything Canada is doing wrong? Oh I didn't know that was an option, yeah the US is doing fine too then haha.
Wrong? No, not really. As I said, all of the "wrong" things I'm aware of aren't in their control at all, and blaming the federal government for them is just stupid.
If you say so. I suppose it's easier to complain about other countries than to look within. I mean the housing crisis, the health care system stain, issues with indigenous rights, outdated public transportation, BC and its whole opioid epidemic. But I guess those aren't problems the government could do anything about at all...
The housing crisis is an issue of democracy, not the federal government. Fixing it would get them voted out in a heartbeat, because the only fix is to drop existing house prices by around 80-90% and 65% of the population lives in a house they or their family own. Homeowners are also far more likely to vote.
The health care system strain is an issue of resources, there's an unlimited possibility to spend money here to do more. The government has to balance available money with an acceptable level of care. Again if you asked voters for an extra $1000 each a year to boost healthcare, you'd likely get voted out.
Indigenous rights, same problem. You can't give the land back entirely, the citizens wouldn't allow it. What will citizens allow, and indigenous people accept that will resolve the situation? Probably nothing. So they balance what they can, and neither party is exactly happy.
Public transportation is a provincial, or even a municipal issue, not a federal one. It's also not a popular issue with voters, because again the demographics of voters is heavily tilted towards car owners.
We've tried things for the opioid epidemic, other places have tried things for the opioid epidemic, nobody in the world has found a solution yet. Even countries with harsh drug laws like Japan are seeing massive drug use deaths, almost 100k people a year right now. So how is it OUR government that's failing?
The system of government we have follows what people want, and people don't always want what they say when there's a cost associated with it. It's all well and good to say "I want this fixed" but if you put the real price tag on it, people are rarely willing to pay that cost. It costs more than the annual family income to jail someone for a year for example. Lots of people are tough on crime, until they realize it takes all the taxes for their entire block to pay for one inmate.
"I demand my government force another country to stop killing civilians immediately" -Also you
I can demand that my government quit funding it with my tax dollars.
You could demand your government quit funding what they're doing themselves kills people too... but I don't see you doing that.
Did you demand they stop funding attacks after the half million middle eastern civilians were killed by allied forces during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?
Do you demand they stop funding Ukraine because it's now invading Russia? The government is even thinking of now approving even more use of US military aid and technologies to hit further into Russia.
This is peak whataboutism.
Did you demand they stop funding attacks after the half million middle eastern civilians were killed by allied forces during the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?
Yes, I did, actually. In fact, I did that before a half million were killed. I was always against both wars. What's your point?
Do you demand they stop funding Ukraine because it's now invading Russia?
No, because Russia is the aggressor here. Ukraine is a sovereign nation. Just like Palestine would be if not for Israel.
Wait, you think Israel is the aggressor?
You're aware that the UN voted to create Israel from the rubble of the Ottoman empire, and 5 neighboring countries disagreed and violently invaded them literally the day after they declared independence right?
Some of those same countries (and others now) are still supporting the Palestinians with money and weapons to continue to attack Israel.
You absolutely supported JD Vance. Dude linked it for us all to see. While you're trying to hang this strawman of an anchor around a stranger's neck maybe stop and check the UN definition of Genocide.
Furthermore you specifically supported his idea that we should give some people more voting power than others. We tried that. It didn't work. We're not going back.
"supported JD Vance"
"I understood how a single statement he made might make sense"
These two things are the same to you?
Even Hitler had a few good policies, and I sure as hell don't support him.
Even Hitler had a few good policies? In reference to a proposal for some people having more voting power in a democracy?
Lmao. My dude you are off the reservation. Please stop and think about this.
I'm happy to argue the merits here, the same as I did in the Vance thread. I haven't changed my mind on it.
Currently your country (and mine) have disenfranchised a massive group of citizens, anyone under 18.
You seem to think this is right. Why is it okay to disenfranchise any citizen in a democracy?
Hitler disenfranchised an entire group of people, and that was clearly a bad policy.
Trump likes McDonalds, I like McDonalds, that doesn't make me a Trump supporter either. So why do you think that I'm a Vance supporter for agreeing with him on one thing?
They're children. That's why. We could talk about lowering the voting age to something like 16 but trying to stan all the kids for voting is ridiculous. Using them as a precedent to empower their parents with extra votes is extra ridiculous. And this isn't a McDonalds, it's the most fundamental right in any democracy.
You're right, it's the most fundamental right in democracy, so why are we denying it to them?
"They're children" isn't actually a reason. By not giving them a vote, you're essentially telling them that their needs don't matter.
That doesn't make sense. There's no logical connection there. Their needs obviously matter because their parents take care of them.
Also, JD isn't saying to give a 4 year old a vote. He wants to give that kid's parents an extra vote. There's no logical connection to those parents using the vote for their child.
And if you're modifying it to say the children should vote then I'm not sure you understand the actual idea of voting. Voters should be making informed choices and a 4 year old has trouble figuring what cereal they want, and is suspicious of this thing adults call math. Asking them to vote is ridiculous.
If their parents take care of them, and their needs matter, then why don't the parents get the vote for them?
We give parents the proxy for children's rights all the time, why is voting different?
As was in the original argument, why does Jane with 3 kids (4 people) and Barb childless (1 person) have the same input on how the government is funding schools, or how healthcare is being distributed, or even on things like environmental regulation. All three of those things will directly impact the children now and in the future.
It only took almost a year, but reputable articles saying the willingness of Palestinians to be martyrs is wavering are finally starting to come out. There needs to be more of this because the perception of many is that the 'civilians' are actually terrorist sympathizers, or children being jeopardized by terrorist sympathizers.
They lost support when they saw the consequences of their choices. That still makes them terrorist sympathizers, they had to support it initially in order to abandon support.
It reminds me a lot of the Genocide in Bosnia during the Clinton administration (yes, I'm that old).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_genocide
Clinton offered assistance and was essentially told by the Muslim minority "We don't want your help, and if you send troops, we'll kill them too..."
Ok, well then, good luck!
(one genocide later):
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-03-26-mn-15370-story.html