At a U.S. Senate Judiciary hearing on hate crimes, U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-MO, sparred with the executive director of Arab American Institute, Maya Berry, over antisemitism occurring on college campuses.
Hawley asked her to clarify a comment she made about Palestinian protestors on college campuses representing a “national, organic human rights movement.” He also asked her to comment on signs held by protestors, including a “long live the Intifada” sign.
“Is this an example of … national organic human rights movement?” he asked.
Berry replied, “I’m not sure that using the term, intifada, which literally just means ‘to shake off, or get rid of’ is effective as most Americans don’t actually associate it with the human rights issue.”
“Wait a minute, you don’t think it’s effective, but you would agree that this is calling for the destruction of the of the state of Israel?” Hawley asked.
“No, it’s not,” she replied.
“This isn’t calling for the killing of Jews?” he asked.
“I don’t know that person and I don’t know that sign,” she replied.
“You don’t know what this means?” Hawley asked.
“I don’t,” Berry replied.
Intifada, an Arabic term, has been described as “rebellion, uprising or resistance movement,” primarily associated with Arab-Israeli West Bank and Gaza conflicts. Both the First Intifada (1987-1993) and the Second Intifada (2000-2005) involved violence. The second involved 138 suicide bombings carried out against Israeli civilians by members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Fatah, and others.
Hawley asked another witness, Rabbi Dr. Mark Goldfeder, if he knew what it meant.
“The destruction of state of Israel and probably the killing of Jews everywhere,” Goldfeder said.
“I do not agree,” Berry replied, as people in the room behind her called him a liar. This is after they shouted obscenities at Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, earlier in the hearing.
“You don’t think that’s hate speech right here, long live the Intifada?” Hawley continued.
“It can mean different things,” replied Berry, who also co-chairs the Hate Crimes Task Force at the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights in Washington, D.C.
“These are violent protests on campuses that targeted Jewish students, attacked them personally, prevented them from going to class, put them in fear of their safety after the October 7th attacks on the state of Israel that murdered more Jews than any at any time since the Holocaust, and you’re saying you think that this is an ambiguous message?”
She replied that “any student targeted on campus” is wrong. The intifada “can be hate speech, but I don’t think it’s automatically hate speech. There’s a nuance I’m trying to introduce into this conversation … because ‘long live Intifada’ also means uprising for Palestinians. It’s ambiguous, so it’s hard to say.”
Members in the audience continued to jeer and shout, prompting committee chair Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL, to intervene. In response, Hawley pointed to them, saying, “Oh yeah … we know what you think. I think you’ve made it clear, those who were cheering earlier when Sen. Cruz was asking about the attempts to destroy and kill Jews.”
“Let’s just be clear about what’s going on here,” he said. “What’s happening at this hearing is we can’t talk about anti-Semitism without also talking about something else. The message that’s being sent today … is anti-Semitism isn’t enough, the attempts to kill Jews on campuses, that’s not a conversation worthy of discussion, you’ve got to add something else to it. If you want to kill Jews, oh well, we can’t talk about that unless we also talk about 15 other things. Now we have a witness who will not condemn the attempts on these campuses that are blatantly anti-Semitic tropes, Nazi tropes, to try and kill Jews.”
He asked her to comment on other signs, including, “glory to our martyrs” and “free Palestine, ‘from the river to the sea.’” She said, “that’s not hate speech.”
She said she condemns violence and had “no interest in engaging in this back and forth about individual statements of students.”
“I do have an interest in it,” Hawley replied. The US Senate “unanimously condemned this rhetoric. Unless we take a stand now on this rhetoric out of the mouths of these students that you have called, ‘national organic human rights movement protesters,’” the Senate will send a message “that trying to kill Jews on campus … is just another viewpoint.”
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” is widely understood as a call for the annihilation of Israel, referring to the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, which border Israel to the east and west. It appears to be consistent with Hamas’ 1988 Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement preamble, which states, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.’” Hamas, a designated terrorist organization by the Department of State, holds a majority in the Palestinian government.
Earlier this year, Jewish groups sued Palestinian groups reportedly involved with organizing campus riots alleging they provided “continuous, systematic, and substantial assistance to Hamas and its affiliates’ acts of international terrorism.”
Islamic groups also sued Texas Gov. Greg Abbott alleging a directive he issued to higher education institutions to combat antisemitism violated the First Amendment. They also argue the chant, “from the river to the sea,” is protected speech.
The hearing was held after numerous surveys show increased violence against Jews in America and the majority of Jewish students say they don’t feel safe on US college campuses.
