New Jersey's incoming Democratic congressman refused to call Iran an adversary this week, arguing that the United States had "pushed them into a fight."
Adam Hamawy made the comments during a CNN appearance, where anchor Pamela Brown pointed out that Iran has chanted "death to America" for decades. Hamawy replied that Americans have been saying "Death to Iran" for decades as well, a phrase few in the country would recognize.
The exchange has fueled criticism that the Democratic Party nominated a candidate unwilling to name as an enemy a regime responsible for the deaths of Americans. Hamawy won his safely Democratic district's nomination with less than 29 percent of the vote in a fractured 10-candidate field, backed by roughly 1.8 million dollars from outside groups and donors. None of his nine primary rivals raised questions about his background, with campaign operatives privately citing fear of being labeled Islamophobic.
That background includes his appearance as a defense witness at the 1995 trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called Blind Sheikh, who was prosecuted over a broader terrorism conspiracy tied to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and wounded more than a thousand. Last week Hamawy described Rahman as a "leader of the community."
Washington Free Beacon reporter Jon Levine has accused Hamawy of direct personal involvement with Islamic terrorism, an unproven allegation that Hamawy has not been publicly confronted on by Democratic leaders. Levine says he published roughly half a dozen articles on the subject before the June primary and drew no interest from Hamawy's opponents.