Amer Ghalib’s history of Jew-baiting and praising America’s enemies may have played well in the Muslim-majority city of Hamtramck, Michigan, where he was elected mayor in 2021, but it sure didn’t help him at yesterday’s hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. During the hearing, senators made it clear they would not support his nomination as America’s next ambassador to Kuwait no matter how hard he tried to portray himself as having a credible record of public service back in Hamtramck.
“For the record, your long-standing public positions are directly contrary to President Trump’s, and I will not be supporting your nomination,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Clearly, Ghalib knew a challenge was in the offing. In his prepared testimony, the nominee sought to pre-empt accusations that he sympathized with anti-American and Islamist causes by portraying himself as a model immigrant and steadfast opponent of Iran.
Perhaps there’s another position where your skills could be put to use, but it should not be in the diplomatic corps.
He presented his life story as proof of American assimilation—arriving from Yemen as a teenager, working in a factory, studying medicine, and eventually becoming a mayor—and described his nomination as the culmination of the “American Dream.” This autobiographical narrative, coupled with a jibe at Iran’s “destabilizing activities” in the Middle East, was not enough to assuage the doubts raised in large part by the reporting of Middle East Forum researcher Benjamin Baird, who has doggedly reported on Ghalib’s outrageous public statements in Focus on Western Islamism for the past few years.
Shaheen Fires Opening Salvo, Lays Template for Other Senators
“I think we all appreciate that you have a very inspiring personal story,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) who opened the questioning into Ghalib’s career. “But I am [...] very concerned about some of the statements that you have made — and, frankly—what appear to be antisemitic views.”
“A local news outlet reported in 2023 that you claimed reports of sexual violence committed by Hamas on October 7 were ‘a campaign of lies and deception’ and that there wasn’t ‘any evidence to support that these crimes occurred.’ You reiterated that to my staff,” Shaheen said, adding that there was “overwhelming evidence—evidence that I have seen personally—that Hamas terrorists deliberately used sexual violence against women and children.”
Shaheen also expressed Ghalib’s appointment of an individual to the city planning commission who stated that the Holocaust was “God’s advanced punishment of the chosen people for the savagery they’re committing today against innocent Palestinian children and civilians.” She also condemned the nominee for liking a Tweet that compared Jews to monkeys and for calling Saddam Hussein who, as president of Iraq, invaded Kuwait in 1990, the country where Ghalib is slated to serve as ambassador.
In response to Shaheen’s concern about his failure to acknowledge the horror of the October 7 massacre, Ghalib stated that he had “had not personally seen some of the evidence” but that he condemned “all kinds of abuse.” To further defuse the allegation of anti-Jewish bigotry, he cited a resolution condemning Jew-hatred passed by Hamtramck City Council in February 2022 after an attack on a synagogue in Texas. “Local Jewish leaders thanked me publicly,” he said, unconvincingly.
Backtracked on Abraham Accords, Won’t Acknowledge Legitimacy of Jewish State
In addition to reiterating the points other senators had raised, Senator Cruz challenged Ghalib for supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement targeting Israel. He also challenged his previously expressed opposition to the Abraham Accords, an Emirati-led campaign to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.
“You said it was a threat to stability and a cause for mourning,” Cruz said. “Do you continue to oppose the Abraham Accords?” It took some badgering on Cruz’s part, but eventually, Ghalib grudgingly called the Abraham Accords a great opportunity “to accomplish regional stability and long-term peace” in the Middle East. In response to the BDS challenge, Ghalib said the resolution was written by Jewish Voice for Peace and he didn’t vote for the resolution personally. It didn’t seem to carry much water.
But while Ghalib grudgingly affirmed the Abraham Accords, he could not bring himself to affirm the right of the Jews to have a sovereign state of their own when challenged to do so by U.S. Senator Dave McCormick (R-PA). The best Ghalib could do was to declare, “I think everybody can coexist in the region, and that’s the answer — that everybody has the right to exist now.”
“That’s not the President’s position. Do you agree with the President?” McCormick stated.
“I trust the President’s policies, and I will support his policies,” Ghalib said, revealing that his tolerance for Israel’s existence is imposed on him by political necessity, not principled belief.
Lamely Defended against Antisemitism Charge
Senators asked Ghalib numerous times about his having “liked” a Facebook comment describing Jews as “monkeys. In response, Ghalib insisted that the post had been “mistranslated” and “taken out of context.” The mistranslation defense, offered numerous times during the hearing, didn’t get much traction. In truth, the Middle East Forum hired a professional linguist to carefully translate Ghalib’s posts, and the Michigan State University Translation Center subsequently confirmed their accuracy.
Still, Ghalib persevered, blaming the “Jews as monkeys” remark on “a mentally challenged individual” from his community. When pressed, he claimed that his own response — “You can say that in your country but not in this country” — proved he opposed the comment. Cruz wasn’t buying it, declaring that telling someone they can’t express such hatred in America is not the same as condemning the hatred itself.
Ghalib’s credibility took a further beating when, under questioning about his apparent support for antisemitic statements, he suggested that he couldn’t be an antisemite because he was a “semite” himself. As most close observers of the Middle East know, the “semites can’t be antisemites” argument is a defense often made by Arab antisemites.
Backtracked on Saddam Hussein
One dramatic moment came when Senator McCormick grilled would-be ambassador over his praise Saddam Hussein, who invaded Kuwait—the country where Ghalib is supposed to serve as ambassador—in 1990.
“I served in the 82nd Airborne that helped oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait,” said the senator. “You called Saddam a martyr. How do you justify that?”
“That post was from 2020 when Iran attacked our bases. I was a private citizen and angry,” Ghalib said. “It was wrong. I apologize to those offended, especially Kuwaitis.” With this response, Ghalib was hearkening back to his claim of being an ardent opponent of Iranian aggression in the Middle East. Again, it didn’t seem to convince anyone.
The Houthis An Issue Too
Another moment of drama came when Maine Senator Angus King, an Independent, confronted Amer Ghalib over a November 2023 Facebook post in which the Hamtramck mayor appeared to praise Yemen’s Houthi rebels for hijacking the cargo ship Galaxy Leader and kidnapping its crew. The post, King noted, described the ship as “painted completely with [the Israeli flag’s] blue and white colors.” When asked whether he still supported the Houthis’ actions—by a group the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization—Ghalib denied celebrating the attack, insisting the comment was “taken out of context.” Pressed further, he conceded, “I think there was a post,” prompting King to promise to circulate the evidence to the committee.
The Takeaway
Despite his efforts to contextualize his public statements, Ghalib’s confirmation prospects appear bleak. Toward the end of the hearing, Senator Cruz declared that, “Perhaps there’s another position where your skills could be put to use, but it should not be in the diplomatic corps.” In response, Ghalib expressed a willingness to “serve wherever the President believes I can be most helpful.” Clearly, Ghalib knows his nomination is in trouble and to be fair, even folks who root for America’s enemies need jobs.
Hopefully, Ghalib’s humiliating appearance before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations will serve as a cautionary tale for Arabs and Muslims in his home state of Michigan. Islamist politics may win applause in enclaves where grievance and identity take the place of civic duty, but it isolates those who embrace it from the moral and political mainstream of American life. The path to genuine influence in this country lies not in parroting sectarian resentments imported from the Middle East, but in internalizing the universal ideals that make the American experiment work—truth, equality, and loyalty to one nation. Amer Ghalib went to Washington claiming he had learned those lessons.
It didn’t look like the senators believed him.
