“It’s really unbelievable in this day and age that a sitting U.S. Senator can threaten violence to protesters and not be sanctioned or censured or anything else by his colleagues,” said Hatem Abudayyeh, National Chair of the US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), to The Electronic Intifada.

“It’s been an incredible challenge, in the past six months especially, to experience what Palestinians have in the U.S. — that our lives are expendable, that our rights aren’t defended, that our very existence is threatened. But we can’t and won’t back down, and we will continue fighting to stop the genocide and make sure that racist, white supremacist apologists for [Zionism] like Tom Cotton will see a free Palestine in his lifetime.”

The American Civil Liberties Union did not respond to requests from The Electronic Intifada for First Amendment analysis on how much latitude Cotton has to encourage vigilante violence against protesters.