Dearborn mayor Abdullah Hammoud said residents – including himself – were “not in the mood” at this year’s city Christmas tree lighting, adding “Not when bombs are dropping in Gaza.” The Muslim mayor claimed growing concerns about Islamophobia were also to blame for the unusually somber event.
“In this community, right now there is a lot of grief, anger and fear,” Mayor Hammoud said in an interview with the New York Times. “You can’t help but be anxious when the whole city tells you that they stay up every night following the news, trying to understand how much more death and destruction is happening.”
He added, “This is personal for me. And it is personal for a great majority of my city.”
While Hammoud has tried to cast himself and city residents in a more sympathetic light following Hamas’s barbaric October 7th terrorist attack against Israel, he and some Dearborn residents have a long track record of promoting antisemitism and violence against Jews.
Hammoud, known for his staunch anti-Israel positions, excused the Hamas terror attack on the Jewish state “inevitable.” In a 2021 social media post, the Dearborn mayor used – in a positive manner – the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” which many interpret as a call for the Palestinian conquest and eradication of Israel.
The National Pulse previously reported Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), whose district includes Dearborn, was a member of a secret Facebook group in which members praised Hamas and acts of terrorism against Jews – some embers also engaged in conspiracies denying the Holocaust.
While Hammoud laments a perceived rise in Islamophobia, in reality it is anti-Semitism that is on the steep rise – especially among Michigan’s Muslim community. According to government data, nearly half of the religion-oriented hate crimes in 2022 were directed at Jews in America.
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