Palestinian Activist Huwaida Arraf Wants Seat in Congress
Her past statements about Israel has alarmed Jewish groups in the Detroit area. She insists that she stands against antisemitism.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency ran a feature I wrote about Huwaida Arraf, a longtime anti-Israel activist.
Now running for Congress in Michigan: a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian Christian who is married to a Jew and spent time living on an Israeli kibbutz before rejecting coexistence efforts in favor of advocating for Palestinian resistance.
The onetime organizer of the International Solidarity Movement, a pro-Palestinian group that recognizes the right to “legitimate armed struggle” against the Israeli occupation, Huwaida Arraf has alarmed Detroit-area Jewish and pro-Israel groups with her plans to enter a crowded Democratic field ahead in the August 2022 primary in Michigan’s 10th Congressional District.
Rabbi Asher Lopatin, executive director of the Michigan-based Jewish Community Relations Council of the American Jewish Committee, called Arraf’s past statements about Israel “hateful, destructive and antisemitic.”
For her part, Arraf has condemned antisemitism in pro-Palestinian advocacy and says she encourages Jews to approach her with any questions and not to believe everything they read about her.
“Know that I will always stand for people’s rights,” she said. “And when we come together to defend the rights of all people — not really based on ethnicity or religion — we will find ourselves on the same side.”
Read the rest of my feature on Huwaida Arraf at JTA, the Jerusalem Post, or the Times of Israel.
Also, on my Substack Newsletter Emet-Truth: Shooting the Messenger on Huwaida Arraf.
Read more of my Jewish News and Commentary here.
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