He’s called Palestinian terrorists “freedom fighters,” bragged about telling the White House he won’t “apologize for Hamas firing rockets at Israel,” and defended the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in the Jewish state.
Meet Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News, an anti-Israel website in Dearborn, a city in Michigan with the largest Muslim population in the United States that the Wall Street Journal in February dubbed “America’s Jihad Capital.” And on Thursday, at least seven Biden administration officials headed to Dearborn to visit with Arab and Muslim American leaders as part of the White House’s efforts to win back pro-Palestinian activists angry with the U.S. government for supporting Israel. One attendee was, in fact, Siblani.
That Siblani was included in the meeting, which featured Jon Finer, the deputy national security adviser, and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power, underscores how the Biden administration has platformed Hamas sympathizers whose hypothetical boycott of President Joe Biden in the 2024 election could have major implications. Michigan has 200,000 Muslim and Arab residents, and Biden only beat former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee in 2024, by roughly 3 percentage points in the state when the two faced off in 2020.
“This is called political maneuvering,” Sam Markstein, national political director for the Republican Jewish Coalition, told the Washington Examiner. “The White House is seeing Biden’s poll numbers crater. Now, Biden has tried to appease his far-left, antisemitic base, which is becoming more and more mainstream.”
The Thursday meeting was intended for U.S. officials “to hear directly from community leaders on a range of issues that are important to them and their families, including the conflict in Israel and Gaza,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said last week. It also came one week after Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodriguez, met in Michigan to discuss Palestinian affairs with Muslim leaders, including Siblani, who reportedly told the aide that Biden is a “war criminal” and has called the president “Genocide Joe.”
Siblani, who has published the Arab American News since 1984, was born in Lebanon in 1955 and has held meetings with the late Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat, among other leaders, according to Siblani’s biography on the anti-Israel website. He has, as recently as 2014, supported freeing Rasmea Odeh, a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist member whom the U.S. government deported to Jordan in 2017 for her involvement in a deadly 1969 Jerusalem supermarket bombing.
Still, Siblani has long been allied with terrorists, according to a Washington Examiner review of his past statements and social media activity.
“Hamas is not a terrorist organization, and we have to say to them the terrorist is Benjamin Netanyahu and his government,” Siblani declared last October after the Hamas-led terrorist attack. He was speaking to a crowd of 1,200 people in Dearborn’s Ford Community and Performing Arts Center. The city is notably home to the Ford Motor Company and is the birthplace of Henry Ford.
The Thursday meeting attendee notably called on Arabs in May 2022 at a rally in Dearborn to use stones or guns, as well as “planes, drones, and rockets” to attack Israel, according to archived footage. “Squad” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) shared the stage with Siblani at the event.
In May 2021, Siblani told pro-Palestinian protesters in Dearborn, “I’m not going to apologize for Hamas firing rockets at Israel,” referring to comments he made to the White House at the time during a virtual meeting with Arab American leaders.
Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock said he is not surprised the U.S. government courted Siblani. “It’s a mistake,” the Republican lawmaker told the Washington Examiner. “The Biden administration is just as confused as Biden’s brain right now.”
In 2016, Siblani posted an image on Facebook of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with the phrase, “master of speech, master of equations, and master of resistance,” archived records show. He told the Washington Post in 2003, “Mr. Bush believes Hezbollah, Hamas, and other Palestinian factions are terrorists, but we believe they are freedom fighters,” referring to federal investigations that took place under President George W. Bush.
“If the FBI wants to come after those who support the resistance done by Hezbollah, then they better bring a fleet of buses,” Siblani asserted to the Chicago Tribune in 2006. “I, for one, would be willing to go to jail.”
What was discussed during the Thursday meeting is private, Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday.
The meeting was attended by Steven Benjamin, who directs the White House’s Office of Public Engagement, Office of Intergovernmental Affairs Director Tom Perez, White House liaison to American Muslim Communities Mazen Basrawi, and aides Dan Koh and Jamie Citron, CNN reported.
Abdullah Hammoud, the Democratic mayor of Dearborn, reportedly sought to convince Biden administration officials in the city on Thursday that the U.S. should resume aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The U.S. and other countries halted payments in January to the Palestinian aid office, which has long held ties to Hamas, after Israeli officials said a dozen UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack.
The White House and Arab American News did not reply to requests for comment.
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To Matthew Seely, ex-head of the Michigan Conservative Coalition and a small business owner in Detroit, Biden officials being willing to meet with Siblani shows how desperate Democrats are to win the state in 2024.
“They are concerned Michigan is in play,” Seely told the Washington Examiner.
