{"id":137337,"date":"2026-05-30T07:26:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T07:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/137337\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T07:26:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T07:26:20","slug":"nj-candidate-and-israel-critic-condemns-antisemitism-pre-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/137337\/","title":{"rendered":"NJ candidate and Israel critic condemns antisemitism pre-election"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Adam Hamawy, a staunch Israel critic, condemned antisemitism<\/a> and accusations of dual loyalty days before he competes in the Democratic primary for a New Jersey congressional district on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a Muslim, I understand what it feels like to face bigotry, to feel unsafe in your community and to have your loyalty to this country questioned,\u201d Hamawy said in a statement he sent to JTA on Wednesday. \u201cIn this country, we have seen recent attacks at both synagogues and mosques<\/a>. I see our safety as intertwined.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamawy, a plastic surgeon who served as a trauma surgeon in Gaza<\/a>, is running in a crowded primary in Central New Jersey to succeed Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who is retiring. Hamawy has distinguished himself from his competitors with his harsh anti-Israel stance, and surged to the top of the latest poll, conducted by Hamawy\u2019s campaign, following a spending blitz on his behalf by pro-Palestinian super PAC American Priorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The political novice has also faced questions about his connections back in the early 1990s to Omar Abdel-Rahman, the \u201cBlind Sheikh\u201d convicted on terrorism charges in 1995, linked to the World Trade Center bombing two years earlier and other plotted attacks.<\/p>\n

A Hamawy spokesperson on Friday called the questions \u201cgross and bigoted,\u201d and said the attacks against him \u201care getting more desperate than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NurseNurse Monica Johnston, Dr. Ammar Ghanem, and Dr. Adam Hamawy speak during an interview with AFP after meetings at the White House and Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on June 14, 2024. (credit: DREW ANGERER\/AFP via Getty Images)Hamaway ‘deeply worried’ over rising antisemitism<\/p>\n

In his statement to JTA on Wednesday, Hamawy said that he finds antisemitism \u201cabhorrent\u201d and that he is \u201cdeeply worried about its continued rise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamawy\u2019s comments to JTA were his most extensive on antisemitism since he hit the campaign trail. Earlier in the race, amid an investigation into threatening letters that were sent to Jewish organizations in his deep-blue 12th district, Hamawy said he was \u201cdisgusted\u201d by the messages. NJ-12 covers the state capital of Trenton, a number of suburban areas, and the college town of Princeton.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are seeing an epidemic of hatred in this country against religious and ethnic minorities, and it must stop,\u201d he wrote on X earlier in May about the threats.<\/p>\n

If Hamawy wins the primary on Tuesday and the general election in November, he will be one of Congress<\/a>\u2019s sharpest Israel critics. He has called for an end to military aid to Israel, a complete arms embargo against the Jewish State, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asked about Jewish constituents who disagree with his stance on Israel, Hamawy told JTA, \u201cI hope we can still connect on shared values and goals, including peace, justice, safety, and dignity.\u201d He added that his door \u201cwill always be open.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamawy also said that his Jewish staff, volunteers, and supporters across the district \u201chave made invaluable contributions to our campaign and Jewish voters are an important part of our coalition.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he has drawn heat for his anti-Israel views. In an appearance last month on Hasan Piker\u2019s show, he told Piker,\u00a0a far-left streamer who\u2019s been accused of antisemitic rhetoric, that he doesn\u2019t support Israel\u2019s Iron Dome missile defense system because it is \u201cinsulating Israel\u201d from \u201chaving to deal with the consequences of war.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, Sue Altman, one of Hamawy\u2019s challengers in the primary, told Jewish Insider, \u201cWe absolutely cannot and should not ever be cheerleading and wishing for the deaths of Israeli children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Piker is set to rally alongside Hamawy in Trenton, New Jersey, on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Altman trails Hamawy, according to the race\u2019s latest polling data, which was commissioned by Hamawy\u2019s camp and collected in early May. According to 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%.<\/p>\n

The recent poll was conducted after American Priorities rallied behind him. The super PAC pledged to spend $10 million throughout this year\u2019s midterm elections in hopes of installing pro-Palestinian candidates in Congress. To date, American Priorities has spent about $1.5 million of the promised $2 million to promote Hamawy. (As a super PAC, American Priorities makes independent expenditures, meaning it does not coordinate with the campaigns it is backing.)<\/p>\n

Data collected from March 30 through April 4, before American Priorities\u2019 ad blitz, had Hamawy in fourth place behind State Rep. Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, Altman, and Cohen with just 5% of the vote.<\/p>\n

Hamawy has recently come under fire from some of his opponents for his association in the early 1990s with Abdel-Rahman, who was later convicted for terrorism following an investigation that grew out of his ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.<\/p>\n

Hamawy\u2019s yearslong association with Abdel-Rahman included a visit to his home and a 13-hour drive together in 1991 to an Islamic economy conference in Detroit, according to the transcript of the Sheikh\u2019s 1995 trial, for which Hamawy served as a witness for Abdel-Rahman. Hamawy told the New Jersey Monitor this week that he testified out of a sense of \u201ca civic duty,\u201d and said he was \u201ccalled as a witness, and I gave my testimony under oath, and then I walked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer told Jewish Insider that he has \u201cserious questions and deep concerns about [Hamawy\u2019s] associations with terrorist organizations and leaders who have attacked America,\u201d and that Hamawy \u201cneeds to answer these questions and explain himself to New Jersey voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Hamawy spokesperson told JTA that Abdel-Rahman had been \u201cone of very few religious figures in what was then a very small Muslim community in New Jersey,\u201d and that the candidate condemns Abdel-Rahman\u2019s \u201cviolent rhetoric and actions\u201d and had no contact with him after his arrest.<\/p>\n

Hamawy is a former combat trauma surgeon and is credited with saving the life of Illinois Rep. and veteran Tammy Duckworth during the Iraq War. He has spoken at length about his experiences in Gaza in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was not my first time in a combat zone,\u201d Hamawy said on Piker\u2019s show. \u201cI\u2019ve seen war. I was in Iraq, and I was in Bosnia, which was another genocide. That was 20, 30 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that what he saw in Gaza \u201cwas at another level altogether. You know, this was a genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamawy has received support from a slew of staunchly pro-Palestinian Democrats in Congress, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ro Khanna, Delia Ramirez, who introduced the Block the Bombs to Israel Act, and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Chris Rabb, who recently won a congressional Democratic primary in Philadelphia, backed Hamawy. Hamawy has also been endorsed by former Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who lost his New York seat in a 2024 election where AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, spent $14.5 million opposing him.<\/p>\n

Hamawy is also backed by anti-AIPAC groups PAL PAC and Track AIPAC, and other progressive organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Sanders\u2019 group Our Revolution. On Tuesday, the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace also endorsed Hamawy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0Adam Hamawy, a staunch Israel critic, condemned antisemitism and accusations of dual loyalty days before he competes in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[14607,496,37,1874,33588,4056],"class_list":["post-137337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-anti-israel","tag-gaza","tag-israel","tag-new-jersey","tag-pro-palestinian-groups","tag-us-politics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116662343031912322","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}