US Senator Lindsey Graham sparked anger after responding to protests outside his home in Seneca, South Carolina, with anti-Palestinian comments on social media.
“Palestinians in Gaza are the most radicalized population on the planet, who are taught to hate Jews from birth. It will take years to resolve this issue,” Graham said in a statement. publish on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“When I hear ‘from the river to the sea’, I remember ‘the Final Solution’. Hamas terrorists are the SS on steroids,” he added, drawing a comparison to a Nazi paramilitary organization, the Schutzstaffel (SS).
As part of the post, Graham shared a video of a small line of protesters — about 20 in total — who held a large Palestinian flag on the road in front of her home and chanted, “Lindsey Graham, we’re not done yet. The Intifada has just begun.”
Thursday’s comments came on the Fourth of July holiday, when the U.S. celebrates its Declaration of Independence, and Graham used his post to denounce the protest as disruptive.
“While I respect the right to peacefully protest, I apologize to my neighbors and their families for the Fourth of July disruption caused by this pro-Palestine group,” he wrote.
“Events like this make me more determined than ever to support Israel, deradicalize the Palestinian people, and march toward a better, more stable world.”
The comments are the latest in a series of anti-Palestinian comments from the Republican senator, who has previously suggested that Israel is justified in using nuclear weapons in Gaza, where it has led a deadly military campaign since October.
“Listen, here’s what I would say about fighting an enemy who wants to kill you and your family. Why did we drop two bombs – nuclear bombs – on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? To end a war we couldn’t lose,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press in May. “You don’t understand, apparently, what Israel is facing.”
Those televised comments, in part, sparked the protest outside Graham’s home on Thursday.
A group called the Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL) organized the demonstration to respond to its “aggressive stance” towards Israel. In a statement released to local media, he warned that “Graham’s bellicose rhetoric has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
“I’m Palestinian and I have friends and family in Palestine,” PSL member Rose Hassouneh told a local ABC News affiliate. “I participate in this campaign to support your struggle for liberation and because we must end all US support for the Israeli apartheid regime.”
More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel began the war on October 7, following an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas that killed 1,139 people.
The military offensive and siege raised fears of genocide in the Palestinian enclave, and the United Nations and human rights groups warned of a high risk of famine.
A majority of Americans also disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza: the Gallup polling agency found in March that 55 percent oppose the military offensive, and approval has fallen to 36 percent.
But the US continued to send weapons and aid to Israel despite protests, especially from Arab, Muslim and progressive groups in the country. The US contributes $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel every year and has committed billions of dollars in additional funds and supplies during the war.
Graham is among the bipartisan majority in Congress that supports robust U.S. assistance to Israel.
Both Democrats and Republicans have resisted calls to impose conditions on this aid in order to push for humanitarian safeguards.
The administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, also remained steadfast in its “steadfast” support for Israel during the war, despite some criticism of the humanitarian cost of the war.
In early May, for example, Biden announced that he had suspended a single shipment of heavy bombs to Israel, citing concerns about their use in Israel’s attack on Rafah, a city in southern Gaza.
But the US has continued to send other arms shipments to Israel, and last month US and Israeli media reported that Biden is expected to soon release the suspended shipment, amid criticism of his decision.
While I respect the right to peacefully protest, I apologize to my neighbors and their families for the disruption on the Fourth of July caused by this pro-Palestinian group.
I want to make it very clear: I am completely and completely with Israel.
As I have consistently said,… pic.twitter.com/d9gElmgwBq
-Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) July 4, 2024
Graham is not the only member of the US Congress to face protests over anti-Palestinian comments.
In February, Republican Rep. Andy Ogles was filmed walking through the halls of Congress, telling anti-war protesters, “I think we should kill them all.”
“Hamas and the Palestinians have been attacking Israel for 20 years and it is time to pay the bill,” he added.
Biden himself provoked anger when he questioned the rapidly rising Palestinian death toll in October.
“I have no idea that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people were killed,” Biden said at a news conference.
Supporters said such comments contribute to anti-Palestinian, Islamophobic and anti-Arab hatred. In April, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it had received 8,061 reports of anti-Muslim hate in 2023, half of which occurred after the start of the war in Gaza.
There have also been high-profile attacks against Palestinian-Americans since the start of the war.
In October, a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy named Wadea al-Fayoume was stabbed to death by his neighbor, who allegedly shouted, “You Muslims must die!” Al-Fayoume’s mother was also injured in the attack.
And in June, a woman in Euless, Texas, was charged with attempted murder for allegedly trying to drown a three-year-old Palestinian American girl in her apartment complex’s swimming pool.
Still, critics have accused Washington of downplaying the hatred that Palestinian, Arab and Muslim groups have faced since the start of the war.
They also accuse politicians of misrepresenting the goals of pro-Palestinian protesters as anti-Semitic: Instead, many of the protests have called for a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment from companies linked to Israeli human rights violations.
Last week, for example, the House of Representatives voted to pass a bill that prohibits the US State Department from referencing statistics on the Palestinian death toll from the Gaza Ministry of Health.
The statistics, however, are widely considered reliable by international organizations and independent observers.
“Six children, Mr President, six are killed in Gaza every hour. But Palestinians are not just numbers. Behind these numbers are real people – mothers, fathers, sons, daughters who have had their lives stolen and their families torn apart, and we should not try to hide that,” said Palestinian-American representative Rashida Tlaib on the floor of Congress. House of Representatives.
“There is so much anti-Palestinian racism in this chamber that my colleagues don’t even want to acknowledge that Palestinians exist, not when they are alive and now not even when they are dead.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
