Vice President Kamala Harris secretly met last week with the radical, antisemitic mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, in an effort to court Muslim- and Arab-American voters.
The meeting was reported by the Associated Press, buried within an article published on Saturday about the so-called “uncommitted” group of voters, particularly in Michigan, who are trying to push the Democratic Party into an openly anti-Israel position.
The AP reported (emphasis added):
Top Democrats have spent weeks meeting with “uncommitted” voters and their allies — including a previously unreported sit-down between Vice President Kamala Harris and the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan — in an effort to respond to criticism in key swing states like Michigan, which has a significant Arab American population.
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During a campaign trip to Michigan last week, Harris met with Abdullah Hammoud, the 34-year-old mayor of Dearborn, a Detroit suburb that has the largest number of Arab Americans of any city in the United States. The meeting was disclosed by a person who was not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The person familiar with the meeting did not provide specific details but said the focus was on Harris’ potential policy, if elected, on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Hammoud declined to comment.
Harris has actually indicated her openness to a possible arms embargo, telling anti-Israel activists that she would consider a discussion on the subject, before her campaign later issued a statement walking back that commitment.
But the news is Kamala Harris’s secret meeting with Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud.
Hammoud posted a statement on X (formerly Twitter) on October 7 in which he appeared to justify the mass murder of Israelis by Hamas (even while he claimed to oppose violence against innocent civilians).
Israel’s decades of illegal military occupation and imprisonment of Gaza make peace impossible and tragic violence inevitable. Israel has trapped millions of Palestinians in Gaza in what is recognized by the international community as the world’s largest open-air prison. Failure…
— Abdullah H. Hammoud (@AHammoudMI) October 8, 2023
He also gave a radical, antisemitic speech at an extremist anti-Israel rally last November. His remarks were reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) (emphasis removed):
On November 29, 2023, the New Generation for Palestine, founded by Michigan comedian Amer Zahr, held a rally marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in Dearborn, Michigan, which was streamed live on the organization’s Facebook page. Abdullah Hammoud, mayor of Dearborn, spoke at the event, he said that Dearborn is a “city of resistance.” He said that the question is not whether his community will vote for Biden or Trump in the 2024 presidential elections, but whether Biden listens to them, or to constituents who stuff his pockets with money.
Hammoud specifically said “This is the city of protests, the city of resilience, the city of resistance”; and added:
If American democracy depends on our current president being reelected, then why is being bedfellows with the terrorist [sic] Netanyahu, worth sacrificing American democracy? That is the question that should be asked. Not put on our shoulders which way we vote. The question is about what policy will you adopt, and which constituents will you listen to – those that stuff your pockets with money, or those that tell you about the scars that we bear on our backs?
#Dearborn, MI Mayor Abdullah Hammoud In A Pro-Palestinian Rally: This Is A City Of #Resistance; #Biden Must Decide Whether He Listens To Us Or To Those Who Stuff His Pockets With Money; Other Speakers: Biden Is A Cancer In Our Country – Audio here https://t.co/DWGsFCbWUd #MEMRI pic.twitter.com/xH2Jd03ROi
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) February 5, 2024
The term “resistance” is used by Iran-backed terrorist groups like Hamas to refer to themselves (as part of an “Axis of Resistance”). The image of donors “stuff[ing]” politicians’ pockets with money evokes classic antisemitic stereotypes, and the false claim that Jews buy congressional support for Israel.
Dearborn is a known hotbed of radicalism. A Wall Street Journal op-ed called it “America’s Jihad Capital.” In October, just days after the Hamas terror attack on Israel, local Muslim community leaders staged a pro-Hamas “free Palestine” rally at which the one speaker who mentioned the word “peace” was booed off the stage.
Harris has hired an anti-Israel “liaison” to the Jewish community, and a “liaison” to the Muslim and Arab communities who has a history of radical anti-Israel activism, including denying that extremist anti-Israel protests on college campuses are antisemitic.
In addition, as former President Donald Trump pointed out on Saturday, Harris declined to name Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who is Jewish, as her running mate partly because anti-Israel voices in her party objected to him, and reportedly did so partly because of his faith.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.