Senate and gubernatorial candidates Abdul El-Sayed and Garlin Gilchrist spoke at the soiree after swearing off AIPAC money
Democratic candidates in Michigan who reject American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) donations over the Israel-Hamas war spoke at a fundraiser this week for an Arab-American PAC whose leader praises Hamas and called for Israeli Jews to be sent “back to Poland.”
Lieutenant governor Garlin Gilchrist, running for Michigan governor, Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and Dearborn mayor Abdullah Hammoud headlined the event, hosted by the Arab American Political Action Committee (AAPAC) in Dearborn on Wednesday.
The PAC is led by Osama Siblani, a prominent Arab-American community leader who owns the Arab American News. Siblani cofounded the AAPAC in 1998 with a mission to elect Arab-American candidates and “lobby on behalf of the Arab American political causes which are of concern to the majority of the community as approved by the members of the organization.”
In recent years, those causes included the demonization of Israel and support for terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. Siblani has praised the terrorist groups as “freedom fighters.” At a rally last September alongside Hammoud, Siblani called late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah a “hero.” Siblani, whose speech was interrupted by chants of “death to Israel,” called for Israeli Jews to be sent “back to Poland.”
Siblani’s anti-Israel rhetoric has alarmed Jewish groups and some Democratic lawmakers, though others, like Gilchrist and El-Sayed, have cozied up to him over the years thanks to Siblani’s influence in Michigan’s sizable Arab and Muslim communities.
The Anti-Defamation League condemned the Biden administration last year after White House officials met with Siblani in Dearborn to discuss the Israel-Hamas war. Rep. Haley Stevens (D., Mich.), who is running against El-Sayed for Senate, condemned Siblani’s statements last year and said she would refuse to meet with him.
“I will not condone or associate with this kind of relationship,” said Stevens. “A grown man should not be saying, ‘All Jews should go back to Poland.'”
Gilchrist, El-Sayed, and Hammoud all spoke at the AAPAC event, which appeared to have a couple hundred attendees. Gilchrist was photographed seated at a table sponsored by the Arab American News. Also at the table was Hassan al-Qazwini, an imam in Dearborn Heights, Mich., who last year called supporters of a bill to oppose anti-Semitism “stooges of Israel” who should “be indicted and convicted of treason.”
Gilchrist and El-Sayed have embraced anti-Israel positions in their campaigns. They spoke last month at ArabCon alongside multiple speakers who defended Hamas. One speaker, Rabab Abdulhadi, refused to condemn Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, stating, “I never ever condemn Palestinian resistance and anyone’s resistance around the world.” Another speaker, Lara Sheehi, praised the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” a reference to Oct. 7, for its “disruption” of Israel’s “oppressive system” of “psychological warfare,” the Washington Free Beacon reported.
ArabCon, like the AAPAC event, was held in Dearborn, which has been dubbed “America’s jihadist capital.” On Friday, the FBI announced the arrest of several people in Dearborn allegedly plotting an ISIS-inspired jihadist attack in the city on Halloween.
Both Gilchrist and El-Sayed have accused Israel of waging “genocide” in Gaza in its war against Hamas. And both have vowed to reject donations from AIPAC.
While the AAPAC is far smaller than AIPAC, Siblani said prior to the AAPAC banquet he hopes to make it “more active and more effective in the political landscape of Michigan and the United States.”
“We want it to be better equipped to meet new challenges and support our community’s urgent needs by deepening political awareness, enhancing civic engagement, and building unity around common causes,” he said this month.
The fundraiser comes after a recent controversy in Dearborn in which city and county leaders named a street in honor of Siblani. That stoked outcry from some residents because of Siblani’s inflammatory statements over the years.
Hammoud berated a Dearborn resident at a city council meeting last month for objecting to the street name. After the resident, a Christian pastor, quoted some of Siblani’s statements, Hammoud said the pastor was “not welcome” in Dearborn, and accused him of racism and “Islamophobia.”
El-Sayed and Gilchrist have not weighed in on Hammoud’s remarks. Their campaigns did not respond to a request for comment.
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