Partisan Divisions Exposed while Grappling with Hate Crimes

Our politics and system of governance is in crisis, clearly evidenced this past week before and during the US Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on hate crimes in America.

The hearing, “A Threat to Justice Everywhere: Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America”, was designed to examine the dramatic increase in hate crimes and suggest a whole-of-government approach to deal with this problem. The expert witnesses were: Kenneth Stern, director of the Bard Centre for the Study of Hate; Maya Berry, co-chair of the Hate Crimes Task Force at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCHR) and executive director of the Arab American Institute; and Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, Director of the National Jewish Advocacy Centre. Stern and Berry were invited by the Majority (Democrats), and Goldfeder by the Republicans.

Even before the hearing, the divisions plaguing American society were evident. Republicans objected to the focus on hate crimes affecting all vulnerable communities in the US, rather than replicating the GOP-led House hearings that ostensibly focused on antisemitism. A few conservative American Jewish organisations also opposed this broader approach.

Republicans criticised Stern, former official at the American Jewish Committee and lead author of the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, who has since criticised the use of the IHRA definition to restrict free speech and conflating legitimate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Berry is a leading researcher on federal and state hate-crime data and the force behind the “Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act” designed to improve federal hate-crime reporting. Though highly regarded for her advocacy for all affected communities through her work with LCCHR, she was seemingly targeted by Republicans for one simple reason: She is an Arab American who has been critical of Israeli policies and of efforts, domestically, to punish those policies’ critics.

It was clear from the outset that all would not go well.  Democrats expressed concern with the rise in hate crimes affecting multiple groups, while Republicans derided the entire effort as deliberately sidestepping the “real problem”, antisemitism. Berry meticulously detailed hate crime statistics against Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Arabs, Jews, Muslims and those with disabilities, outlined problems with underreporting and reconciling state and federal data, and made specific recommendations for improving reporting and enforcement of existing hate-crime legislation.

Stern insisted that universities are obligated to protect all students and faculty against being “bullied, harassed, intimidated, threatened or discriminated against”, cautioned Congress against codifying a broad definition of antisemitism. He argued that instead of policing speech, prioritising one view over another, universities should protect speech and promote civil discourse, challenging students to understand diverse points of view and those who hold them. Though a more difficult path, in the end, the university’s role is to educate not police or punish.

Goldfeder agreed with Republicans that the hearing should have only focused on antisemitism, arguing that it’s the most important challenge facing America and that all other forms of hate emanate from it.

Republicans rejected the hearing’s broad focus, delivering inflammatory remarks against US students protesting the genocide unfolding in Gaza, charging that they are funded or encouraged by Hamas, Hizbollah and Iran. Goldfeder agreed, saying the students were either directly serving these entities or were their “useful idiots”.

Others harassed Berry, demanding she denounce Hamas and agree that “intifada” or “from the river to the sea…” were calls for genocide against Jews. Berry calmly rejected this baiting; saying that she of course did not support Hamas, a “foreign terrorist organisation”, and rejected all forms of violence. One Senator continued to badger her; she responded that she was only being asked these questions because she’s an Arab-American woman. She went on: “It’s regrettable that as I sit here today, I have experienced the very issue that we’re attempting to deal with today. This has been regrettably a real disappointment, but very much an indication of the danger to our democratic institutions.”

The audience of largely Arab and Jewish Americans, instead of learning about the rise of hate and the crimes resulting from it, left with heightened passions. It was, as Berry noted, disappointing and an indication of how broken we have become. One side wanted to understand the problem of hate and how to arrest its growth, while the other was intent on pouring gasoline on the fire and watching it burn, for political gain.

The writer is president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute