US Senator Lindsey Graham has sparked outrage after responding to protests outside his home in Seneca, South Carolina, with anti-Palestinian comments on social media.
“The Palestinians in Gaza are the most radicalized population on the planet, taught to hate Jews from birth. It will take years to fix this problem,” Graham said in a statement. mail on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“When I hear ‘from the river to the sea,’ it reminds me of ‘the Final Solution.’ Hamas terrorists are the SS on steroids,” he added, drawing a comparison with a Nazi paramilitary organisation, the Schutzstaffel (SS).
As part of the post, Graham shared a video of a small line of protesters (about 20 in total) holding a large Palestinian flag in the street outside her home and chanting: “Lindsey Graham, we are not done. The Intifada has just begun.”
Thursday's comments coincided with the Fourth of July holiday, when the United States 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 disturbances caused on July 4 by this pro-Palestinian group,” he wrote.
“Events like this make me more determined than ever to support Israel, deradicalize the Palestinian people and move towards a better, more stable world.”
The comments are the latest in a series of anti-Palestinian remarks by the Republican senator, who previously suggested Israel would be justified in using nuclear weapons in Gaza, where it has led a deadly military campaign since October.
“Listen, this is what I would say about fighting an enemy that 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 afford to lose,” he said in May on NBC’s Meet the Press. “You don’t seem to understand what Israel is up against.”
Those televised comments, in part, sparked the protest outside Graham's home on Thursday.
A group called the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) organised the demonstration to respond to his “aggressive stance” towards Israel. In a statement released to local media, it warned that Graham’s “bellicose rhetoric” has “exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in Gaza”.
“I am Palestinian and I have friends and family in Palestine,” Rose Hassouneh, a member of the PSL, told local news outlet ABC. “I am participating in this campaign to support their 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 launched its war on Oct. 7, following an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas that killed 1,139 people.
The military offensive and siege have stoked fears of genocide in the Palestinian enclave, with the United Nations and human rights groups warning of a high risk of famine.
Most Americans also disapprove of Israel's actions in Gaza: The Gallup polling agency found in March that 55 percent opposed the military offensive, with approval falling to 36 percent.
But the United States has continued to send arms and aid to Israel despite protests, particularly from Arab, Muslim and progressive groups in the country. The United States provides $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel each year and has pledged billions of dollars in additional funds and supplies during the war.
Graham is part of the bipartisan majority in Congress that supports robust U.S. assistance to Israel.
Both Democrats and Republicans have resisted calls to put conditions on such aid in order to push for humanitarian safeguards.
The administration of Democratic President Joe Biden has also remained steadfast in its “ironclad” support for Israel during the war, despite some criticism over the humanitarian cost of the war.
In early May, for example, Biden announced that he had suspended a single shipment of high-yield 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 ship other arms to Israel, and last month US and Israeli media reported that Biden is expected to release the suspended shipment soon amid criticism of his decision.
While I respect the right to peacefully protest, I apologize to my neighbors and their families for the disturbances caused on July 4 by this pro-Palestinian group.
I want to make it abundantly clear: I am with Israel totally and completely.
As I have always said,… image.twitter.com/d9gElmgwBq
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) July 4, 2024
Graham is not the only member of the US Congress who has faced protests for his anti-Palestinian comments.
In February, Republican Rep. Andy Ogles was filmed walking through the halls of Congress and 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 consequences,” he added.
Biden himself sparked outrage 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 are dying,” Biden said at a news conference.
Human rights advocates have said such comments contribute to anti-Palestinian, Islamophobic and anti-Arab hate. 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 Gaza war.
There have also been high-profile attacks on Palestinian Americans since the war began.
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 the pool at her apartment complex.
Still, critics have accused Washington of downplaying the hatred that Palestinian, Arab and Muslim groups have faced since the war began.
They also accuse politicians of misrepresenting the goals of pro-Palestinian protesters as anti-Semitic: rather, many of the protesters have called for a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment from companies linked to Israeli human rights abuses.
Last week, for example, the House of Representatives voted to advance a bill banning the U.S. State Department from referencing Gaza's Health Ministry statistics on Palestinian death tolls.
However, the statistics are widely considered reliable by international organizations and independent observers.
“Mr. President, six children are dying every hour in Gaza. But Palestinians are not just numbers. Behind those 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-US Representative Rashida Tlaib on the House floor.
“There is so much anti-Palestinian racism in this chamber that my colleagues do not even want to acknowledge that Palestinians exist, not when they are alive, not even when they are dead.”
