Back on Tuesday, December 17 of 2024, Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) pulled no punches when dealing with a woke witness before the Senate that he claimed was not answering his questions, shocking some of the more liberal members of the chamber with his remarks to the woman as she refused to answer his questions.
The issue at hand was Islamist terror, with Sen. Kennedy sparing with Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, described as being a nonpartisan civil rights advocacy organization that operates across America. Her testimony was delivered during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and focused largely on stemming hate crimes.
Sen. Kennedy wasn’t having her testimony or general perspective, and slammed her as a Hamas supporter in a comment that sparked gasps from some members of the hearing’s audience. For reference, Hamas is the terrorist group that launched the October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel. Making that comment, he said, quite abruptly and sharply, “You support Hamas, do you not?”
A bit taken aback by the question, Berry first said that the question was hateful enough to show the purpose of the hearing, then said she doesn’t support the terror group: “Senator, oddly enough, I’m going to say thank you for that question, because it demonstrates the purpose of our hearing today. Hamas is a foreign terrorist organization that I do not support.”
She went on to elaborate what she meant by saying the question itself, directed as it was to her, shows the about of bias and the level of “hate” directed at Muslims in America. She said, “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.”
Several pro-Berry members of the audience clapped as she hectored Kennedy for asking that question. Regardless, he pressed on and asked if she supports Hezbollah, another anti-Israel, militarized group in the region that serves both as an Islamist political organization and a private army of that political group.
Berry again attacked the question rather than just answering it. So, as she snapped that the very premise of the question was inappropriate and “disappointing,” Sen. Kennedy told her to just answer the question with a yes or no answer. She said, as he did so, “Again, I find this line of questioning extraordinarily disappointing, senator.”
But, finally, she did manage to answer the question and say that she does not support groups that espouse or encourage violence, which includes both Hamas and Hezbollah. Doing so, she told him, “The answer is I don’t support violence whether it’s Hezbollah, Hamas or any other entity that invokes it. So no, sir.”
Sen. Kennedy, annoyed at how loquacious she was being, said, “You can’t bring yourself to say no, can you?” He then asked her if she supports Iran, leading someone in the audience to start yelling at him. Instead of responding to the question, she snapped, “I think it’s exceptionally disappointing that you’re looking at an Arab American witness before you and saying, ‘You support Hamas.’” Kennedy, firing back, said, “You should hide your head in a bag.” Predictably, the audience didn’t like that either.
Watch the incident here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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