Adam Hamawy, a staunch Israel critic, condemned antisemitism and accusations of twin loyalty days earlier than he competes within the Democratic main for a New Jersey congressional district on Tuesday.
“As a Muslim, I perceive what it feels prefer to face bigotry, to really feel unsafe in your group and to have your loyalty to this nation questioned,” Hamawy mentioned in a press release he despatched to JTA on Wednesday. “On this nation, we’ve got seen latest assaults at each synagogues and mosques. I see our security as intertwined.”
Hamawy, a plastic surgeon who served as a trauma surgeon in Gaza, is operating in a crowded main in Central New Jersey to succeed Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who’s retiring. Hamawy has distinguished himself from his rivals along with his harsh anti-Israel stance, and surged to the highest of the newest ballot, performed by Hamawy’s marketing campaign, following a spending blitz on his behalf by pro-Palestinian tremendous PAC American Priorities.
The political novice has additionally confronted questions on his connections again within the early Nineteen Nineties to Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” convicted on terrorism expenses in 1995 linked to the World Commerce Heart bombing two years earlier and different plotted assaults.
A Hamawy spokesperson on Friday referred to as the questions “gross and bigoted,” and mentioned the assaults in opposition to him “are getting extra determined than ever.”
In his assertion to JTA on Wednesday, Hamawy mentioned that he finds antisemitism “abhorrent” and that he’s “deeply anxious about its continued rise.”
Hamawy’s feedback to JTA had been his most intensive on antisemitism since he’s hit the marketing campaign path. Earlier within the race, amid an investigation into threatening letters that had been despatched to Jewish organizations in his deep-blue twelfth district, Hamawy mentioned he was “disgusted” by the messages. NJ-12 covers the state capital of Trenton, a variety of suburban areas and the school city of Princeton.
“We’re seeing an epidemic of hatred on this nation in opposition to non secular and ethnic minorities, and it should cease,” he wrote on X earlier in Could concerning the threats.
If Hamawy wins the first on Tuesday and the final election in November, he will likely be one in every of Congress’ sharpest Israel critics. He has referred to as for an finish to navy assist to Israel, an entire arms embargo in opposition to the Jewish State and the correct of return for Palestinian refugees.
Requested about Jewish constituents who disagree along with his stance on Israel, Hamawy instructed JTA, “I hope we will nonetheless join on shared values and targets, together with peace, justice, security and dignity.” He added that his door “will at all times be open.”
Hamawy additionally mentioned that his Jewish workers, volunteers and supporters throughout the district “have made invaluable contributions to our marketing campaign and Jewish voters are an necessary a part of our coalition.”
Nevertheless, he has drawn warmth for his anti-Israel views. In an look final month on Hasan Piker’s present, he instructed Piker — a far-left streamer who’s been accused of antisemitic rhetoric — that he doesn’t help Israel’s Iron Dome missile protection system as a result of it’s “insulating Israel” from “having to take care of the implications of warfare.”
In response, Sue Altman, one in every of Hamawy’s challengers within the main, instructed Jewish Insider, “We completely can’t and shouldn’t ever be cheerleading and wishing for the deaths of Israeli youngsters.”
Piker is ready to rally alongside Hamawy in Trenton, New Jersey, on Saturday.
Altman trails Hamawy, in response to the race’s newest polling information, which was commissioned by Hamawy’s camp and picked up in early Could. In keeping with the survey, Hamawy at 19% leads Altman, a former state director for Sen. Andy Kim, with 12% of the vote, and East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen, a vocal supporter of Israel, is in third with 11%.
The latest ballot was performed after American Priorities rallied behind him. The tremendous PAC pledged to spend $10 million all through this yr’s midterm elections in hopes of putting in pro-Palestinian candidates in Congress. Thus far, American Priorities has spent round $1.5 million of a promised $2 million selling Hamawy. (As a brilliant PAC, American Priorities makes impartial expenditures, that means it doesn’t coordinate with the campaigns it’s backing.)
Knowledge collected from March 30 by way of April 4, earlier than American Priorities’ advert blitz, had Hamawy in fourth place behind State Rep. Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, Altman and Cohen with simply 5% of the vote.
Hamawy has not too long ago come beneath hearth from a few of his opponents for his affiliation within the early Nineteen Nineties with Abdel-Rahman, who was later convicted for terrorism following an investigation that grew out of his ties to the 1993 World Commerce Heart bombing.
Hamawy’s yearslong affiliation with Abdel-Rahman included a go to to his dwelling and a 13-hour drive collectively in 1991 to an Islamic economic system convention in Detroit, in response to the transcript of the Sheikh’s 1995 trial, for which Hamawy served as a witness for Abdel-Rahman. Hamawy instructed the New Jersey Monitor this week that he testified out of a way of “a civic obligation,” and mentioned he was “referred to as as a witness, and I gave my testimony beneath oath, after which I walked out.”
New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer instructed Jewish Insider that he has “severe questions and deep considerations about [Hamawy’s] associations with terrorist organizations and leaders who’ve attacked America,” and that Hamawy “must reply these questions and clarify himself to New Jersey voters.”
A Hamawy spokesperson instructed JTA that Abdel-Rahman had been “one in every of only a few non secular figures in what was then a really small Muslim group in New Jersey,” and that the candidate condemns Abdel-Rahman’s “violent rhetoric and actions” and had no contact with him after his arrest.
Hamawy is a former fight trauma surgeon and is credited with saving the lifetime of Illinois Rep. and veteran Tammy Duckworth throughout the Iraq Battle. He has spoken at size about his experiences in Gaza in 2024 and 2025.
“This was not my first time in a fight zone,” Hamawy mentioned on Piker’s present. “I’ve seen warfare. I used to be in Iraq, I used to be in Bosnia, which was one other genocide. That was 20, 30 years in the past.”
He added that what he noticed in Gaza “was at one other stage altogether. You recognize, this was a genocide.”
Hamawy has acquired help from a slew of staunchly pro-Palestinian Democrats in Congress, together with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ro Khanna, Delia Ramirez – who launched the Block the Bombs to Israel Act – and Impartial Sen. Bernie Sanders.
On Tuesday, Chris Rabb, who not too long ago received a congressional Democratic main in Philadelphia, backed Hamawy. Hamawy has additionally been endorsed by former Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who misplaced his New York seat in a 2024 election the place AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, spent $14.5 million opposing him.
Hamawy can be backed by anti-AIPAC teams PAL PAC and Monitor AIPAC, and different progressive organizations together with the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Sanders’ group Our Revolution. On Tuesday, the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace additionally endorsed Hamawy.
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