GOP senator uses hearing on 'hate crime crisis' as platform 'to launch a series of racist attacks'

US Senator John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) told Arab American Institute Executive Director Maya Berry during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about hate crimes on Wednesday, to "hide your head in a bag," according to The Washington Post.

The Republican lawmaker spent much of his time questioning whether Berry supports terrorist organizations.

In an op-ed published by MSNBC, writer Zeeshan Aleem asserts that while Berry "apprised lawmakers of the need for stronger enforcement of the law to tackle the country’s growing 'hate crime crisis," Kennedy used his time "to launch a series of racist attacks on" the nonprofit leader.

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"I didn’t expect a direct racist attack," Berry told The Washington Post following the hearing.

After questioning Berry on whether she backs the foreign terrorist organization Hamas, and supports Iran, Aleem writes:

Kennedy questioned why she criticized the U.S. decision to cut funding to the U.N. agency that aids Palestinian civilians as a moral failure (a correct position, but one that should be irrelevant to a hearing on hate crimes) and then used that to circle back to deeming her a terrorist sympathizer. 'You can’t bring yourself to say you don’t support UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency], you don’t support Hamas, you don’t support Hezbollah and you don’t support Iran,' Kennedy shouted. 'You should hide your head in a bag.'

Aleem noted that the Louisiana senator's words "elicited gasps and cries of disapproval from the crowd in the room."

The Post reports:

Perhaps anticipating questions like Kennedy’s, Berry encouraged senators, despite their concerns about the Oct. 7 attacks, to focus on 'the increase in hate crimes our country has experienced for nearly the last decade and the need for a whole-of-society approach that can effectively stem the tide of all hate targeting all communities.'

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"What a shameful display," Aleem wrote of Kennedy. "Berry was called in as an expert from a civil rights organization to talk about the domestic issue of hate crimes. But the Kennedy was only interested in smearing an Arab American witness as a supporter of foreign American adversaries."

Zeeshan Aleem's full op-ed is available at this link. The Washington Post's full report is here (subscription required).