An Arab-American activist invited by Senate Democrats to testify at an anti-Semitism hearing on Tuesday defended calls for "intifada" and praise for Hamas "martyrs" on college campuses, telling lawmakers these chants are "not hate speech."
Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, said such calls were ambiguous and could "mean different [things]."
"I don't think it's automatically hate speech," she said. "The problem is that there's nuance, I'm trying to introduce to this conversation."
Berry was one of two witnesses invited by the Democratic leadership on the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify at the hearing on "Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America." She described the anti-Israel protests as a "national organic student movement" that has "come together to support Palestinian human rights."
The hearing comes as Republicans on the committee have spent months calling for an inquiry into the nationwide surge in anti-Semitism. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) expanded the hearing to cover the more general topic of "hate crimes in America."
During the hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) showed photos of pro-Hamas activists waving signs that read "Long Live the Intifada," and asked Berry whether she would condemn this as a call to violence against Jews.
"I don't know that person, and I don't know that sign," said Berry. "Long live the Intifada can mean different [things] ... Intifada also means ‘uprising’ for Palestinians."
The First and Second Intifadas were violent Palestinian uprisings that targeted Jewish civilians in terror attacks, killing over 1,000 Israelis in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Berry also declined to condemn a slogan, projected on the side of a George Washington University building after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, that read "Glory to Our Martyrs." She said banners reading "Free Palestine from the River to the Sea"—a reference to the destruction of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian state—were "not hate speech."
Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, the director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, who was called by Senate Republicans as a witness, said he did not think the messages were nuanced.
"It's a call for the destruction of the State of Israel and probably the killing of Jews everywhere," he said, prompting boos from anti-Israel activists in the audience.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) criticized Durbin for delaying the date of the hearing, saying Republicans have been requesting the inquiry since early this year.
"Every Republican member of this committee asked the chairman to hold a hearing on anti-Semitism in February, and yet we don't get a hearing on anti-Semitism," said Cruz. "We get a hearing generically on hate, because [of] this administration, and this is the kind of anger and hate that is encouraged."
Hawley also objected that the hearing wasn’t focused solely on anti-Semitism.
"The message that's being sent today at this hearing today is anti-Semitism isn't enough, the attempts to kill Jews on campuses, that's not a conversation worthy of discussion," said Hawley. "If you want to kill Jews, oh, well, we can't talk about that unless we also talk about 15 other things."