Dearborn, Michigan — A tall and somewhat rotund and bearded man who appears to be in his late 30s or early 40s stands before a group of five or six well-dressed and well-coiffed upper-class, middle-aged women in the lobby of the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in Dearborn, Michigan. It’s the first full day of ArabCon, the annual convention of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) that lasted from the evening of Thursday, September 25, 2025, to Sunday, September 28, 2025.
Wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase, “Rednecks Support Palestine,” the anti-Israel activist, who goes by the name Abdullah Hammad, gestures to a brightly colored pickup truck in the driveway. He tells his fawning admirers—who are clearly enamored with his T-shirt—that he has been pulled over numerous times by police officers who are incredulous and offended that his front license plate is emblazoned with the word “Hamas,” the name of an organization that murdered more than 40 U.S. citizens on October 7.
Hammad tells the ladies that whenever he gets pulled over, he reminds the police of his right to free speech under the First Amendment, and they let him go. With an almost mournful tone, he expresses hope that someday he’ll get to tell his story at ArabCon. The women before him offer their thanks and praise before dispersing.
ArabCon attendees were greeted by anti-Israel propaganda from activist Abdullah Hammad, who calls himself a “Redneck for Palestine.” He parked his GMC truck—bearing a “Hamas” license plate—outside the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in Dearborn, Michigan, where the event took place.
(Dexter Van Zile)
Hammad portrays himself as “supporting Palestine,” but the imagery on his GMC pickup truck parked outside the performing arts center’s front door is instead clearly intended to incite hostility toward Israel and legitimize violence against it. The rear door of the truck is emblazoned with a sticker that reads “DEATH, DEATH TO THE IDF” and another that reads “BOOM, BOOM, BOOM TEL AVIV.” Other stickers falsely accuse Israel of “GENOCIDE” and of “STARVING GAZA.”
It’s pretty unlikely that Hammad—an attention-seeking grifter who has reportedly declared that “October 7 was a set up”—is ever going to speak on the stage at ArabCon, but he nevertheless fits right in at the convention that seems more devoted to promoting and legitimizing violence against Israel and contempt for America than in promoting Arab agency, pride, self-worth, and accountability in the U.S. Aside from repeated declarations that the ADC’s constituency is “Truly Arab” and “Fully American,” hostility toward Israel is the main dish at ArabCon, garnished of course with heaping servings of self-pity and resentment toward the U.S. In sum, anyone looking for self-reflection on the part of Arab and Muslim leaders at this conference—during which the false allegation of “genocide” was leveled at Israel more than 140 times—would be disappointed. In sum, while the event did not explicitly promote Islamist ideology, its speakers portrayed U.S. efforts to defend against Islamist violence as an assault on Arab rights in the U.S. and the Middle East. On this score, the ADC’s convention revealed the organization to be a leftist arm of the Islamist movement in the U.S.
Invoking Rights for Arabs and Muslims; Ignoring Threats to Others
ADC’s distorted narrative was on full display during the session titled “Can Law Confront Power?” which took place on Friday, September 26, 2025, the first full day of the convention. Moderator Amer Zahr, a local comedian and U.S. lawyer with Israeli citizenship, who once called on people to “stop condemning” antisemitism and terrorism, opened the session by asking discussants if filing lawsuits on behalf of ADC’s aggrieved constituents is actually worth the effort or if it was based on “a romantic belief in the system of law and the legal system” in the United States.
Raise your hand if you’re a pro-terror radical.
The irony of Zahr—an adjunct professor at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law who, according to Canary Mission, has voiced support for the jihadist groups Hamas and Hezbollah—questioning the legitimacy of the U.S. court system was entirely lost on his fellow panelists, who, to their credit, insisted that the system does, in fact, protect the rights of aggrieved Arabs in America.
“I think that the courts get it right a lot of the time, especially the federal judiciary,” said Jenin Younes, ADC’s legal director. Edward Mitchell, the deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group founded by Hamas supporters in the 1990s, offered a similar assessment, stating that he is optimistic about the law in the U.S. and what can be done “with the law to protect our rights to advocate for all people, including the Palestinian people.”
Another irony. CAIR, Mitchell’s employer, exhibits a troubling indifference when the rights of non-Muslims are infringed upon. CAIR’s Texas chapter revealed this indifference when it advocated for hate crime charges to be dropped against a Muslim activist who was caught on video spray-painting Uncommon Church, a Christian house of worship in Euless, Texas, in 2024 with the phrase “Fuck Israel.” By promoting the statement issued by its Texas chapter, CAIR’s national office contradicted the group’s description of hate crimes as, among other things, acts of vandalism that “undermine the fabric of our diverse society.”
U.S. Rep. Jokes about Terrorism
Similar hypocrisy was displayed the following day when Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, a news and commentary show named after the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide, interviewed U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) about free speech in the United States. During the interview, Khanna responded to a headline accusing him of sharing the stage with pro-terror radicals at ArabCon by asking, “Where are the pro-terror radicals? Raise your hand if you’re a pro-terror radical.” Five or six people in the audience of about 100 raised their hands. (Later sessions of the conference were attended by 800-1,000 people.)
After the laughter and applause died down, Khanna ran interference for the protesters who disrupted life on college campuses throughout the United States in the months after the October 7 massacre, portraying them as merely “criticizing” U.S. foreign policy, when in fact many of these protesters physically assaulted college staffers, faculty, and students at campuses throughout the country. A Congressional report on these disruptions stated, “speech that provokes imminent lawlessness and would result in a breach of peace is unprotected.”
In a softball follow-up question, Uygur—who described Khanna as “one of the good guys in Congress”—suggested hostility toward Arabs, who are themselves Semites, isn’t regarded as antisemitism. He then asserted that in Congress, “Arabs don’t count. Muslims don’t count. We’re only focusing on Israel and its supporters.”
Khanna declared that the mood is shifting, with people recognizing that free speech is under assault with commentators such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens arguing that “Free speech is free speech.” During his response, Khanna alleged—without proof—that people on college campuses are being “silenced … because they disagree with what Charlie Kirk said,” failing to mention that Kirk himself was murdered last month by a leftist activist seeking to silence dissenting voices—an irony seemingly lost on Khanna.
Psychobabble for Palestine
Lara Sheehi, professor at the Doha Institute (left), and Karen Suyemoto, professor at UMass Boston (center), participate in a panel discussion moderated by Sawssan Ahmed, professor at California State University (right). Ahmed performed the obligatory land acknowledgment prior to the discussion.
(Dexter Van Zile)
Things got pretty surreal when three psychologists took the stage on the afternoon of Saturday, September 27, 2025, to discuss “The Psychological Warfare of Zionism.” Predictably enough, the moderator, Sawssan Ahmed, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at California State University, Fullerton, began the session with a bit of psychological warfare of her own by offering a “land acknowledgement” that legitimized hostility and contempt toward the descendants of white settlers in North America—just as chants of “From the River to the Sea” legitimize violence against Israelis and Jews on U.S. college campuses in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre.
After acknowledging that the Muslim-majority city of Dearborn and its environs were “built on the ancestral and contemporary land of indigenous people”—the tribal names of which she had a tough time pronouncing—Sawssan declared, “As we center Palestine in our conversation today and throughout this conference, we must acknowledge the settler colonial state that we live in and that we exist in today and right now.”
Of course, in the story told by the discussants on this panel, the Palestinians are the indigenous population who have suffered trauma at the hands of an imperialist Zionist aggressors who, by virtue of legitimizing their claim to the land, have engaged in psychological warfare against the Palestinians. This weaponized psychobabble did not acknowledge, however, that many Arabs and Muslims have histories of imperialism and colonialism and live on land previously taken from indigenous inhabitants in the Middle East and North Africa—just as they do in Dearborn.
Violence Legitimized as ‘Resistance’
🚨 ArabCon laughs at October 7 Attacks “condemnation” question, Professor Abdulhadi vows to never condemn armed resistance
— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) September 28, 2025
At ArabCon, Amer Zahr, adjunct professor at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, turned the October 7 attacks into a punchline. He asked, “Do you… pic.twitter.com/OK28bh2P3U
The mask really came off on Sunday, September 28, 2025, the last day of the conference, which is traditionally described as “Palestine Day.” In a clip captured by Stu Smith, an investigative researcher at the Manhattan Institute, the previously mentioned Amer Zahr asked panelists if they condemned the October 7 massacre. In light of the atmosphere of the conference and the statements made by the previous speakers, the answer offered by Rabab Abdulhadi was all too predictable.
“I condemn Israel and the United States and all oppressions and imperial war,” she said. “I never ever condemn Palestinian resistance and anyone[‘s] resistance around the world. Those who are here and who also are around the world, write it up.”
Anti-Zionism for Sale
Attendees of ArabCon intent on acting out this hostility legitimized by the conference could equip themselves by visiting the exhibition hall, where numerous vendors sold anti-Israel paraphernalia. One vendor sold ski-masks, t-shirts, and even chef’s aprons with anti-Zionist sloganeering. The ski masks, apparently designed to help protesters keep their identities a secret at violent rallies, were $10 apiece.
The vendor gave this reporter a fist-bump after he bought a ski-mask emblazoned with the phrase “Anti-Zionist,” promising not to testify in court against him in court should he be detained by the police. An affable guy, he worked hard on making the upsell.
“Are you sure you don’t want one of the aprons?” he asked pointing to a smock with the word “Anti-Zionist” hanging on the wall behind him.
“No, I’m good,” the reporter said.
