Well, this is bad. On Sunday ICE detained British Muslim journalist and Middle East analyst Sami Hamdi at the San Francisco airport, in the middle of his national speaking tour. Party of free speech! Hamdi had the proper visa, but the Department of Homeland Security surprise-revoked it and then ICE arrested him.
There’s no evidence that Hamdi or the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) supports terrorism, and neither Hamdi nor CAIR has been charged with any crimes. Additionally the idea that a British journalist on a speaking tour is “undermining national security” by having opinions that differ from the regime is specious and absurd.
But DHS spox Tricia McLaughlin retweeted some feverish accusations from anti-Muslim activist Amy Mekelberg:
Sami Hamdi is not a journalist passing through America — he is a deployed actor from an overseas cadre system that grooms Western Muslims for on-shore mobilization:
• Documented Appearances in Brotherhood-tied training programs abroad with banned extremist figures.
(Turkey, Malaysia, Next up, Doha)
• Recorded talks in U.S. venues that recruit, condition, and operationalize activists inside American institutions.
• Instructs audiences to punish U.S. officials, weaponize elections, and destabilize support for an American ally. Also instructs how to target critics who oppose their narrative.
(Shaun Maguire and Elise Stefanik were targets)
• Uses U.S. soil to expand a foreign political network hostile to American interests
After already becoming part of that overseas mobilization pipeline, Hamdi then publicly praised Hamas hostage-taking as “mercy” and called the attackers “victorious” — conduct that qualifies as espousing terrorist activity under INA §212(a)(3)(B), yet he was still allowed into the United States.
Uh huh, gonna need to see some evidence for literally all that.
Hamdi was snatched by ICE right after he’d spoken at a gala for CAIR — the country’s largest Muslim civil rights organization, which has long disputed and rejected accusations of terrorist ties — in Sacramento, and was on his way to be the keynote speaker at a CAIR event in Florida. And no one has been able to reach him since. Laura Loomer is attempting to take credit for the arrest, though, of course.
Here’s one of his last messages.
And then he found himself in that very situation.
Clearly the regime is quite threatened by Hamdi’s point of view. Why might that be? Well, here’s our best summaries of some of his more piquant observations, with some added context, see if you can see why some people might feel real threatened by it:
First, he’s opined that Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu has already lost and has gotten itself in a much worse position than before the October 7, 2023, attacks. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. They’ve done so much damage to Israel’s image on the world stage that even if it still somehow manages a military victory, Netanyahu’s credibility and reputation have been destroyed.
Support for a Palestinian state around the world is higher than ever, including 59 percent of Americans. And last month the UK, Canada, Australia, Portugal, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, Andorra and San Marino announced support for recognition of a Palestinian state. There has been a generational shift away from supporting Israel, too, even among Republicans. A Pew poll in March found that in the last three years, the percent of Republicans under 50 years old who have negative views of Israel jumped from 35 to 50 percent, and 71 percent of Democrats under 50 have an unfavorable view of Israel.
And Trump and Netanyahu are never going to have peace in Israel without buy-in from the mosaic of groups that oppose Netanyahu. As Hamdi put it, the conflict will forever be a game of whack-a-mole for Israel “of we’re getting kicked here, by people in Adidas tracksuits and slippers coming up and firing.” Trump and Netanyahu will never have buy-in or peace by trying to erase all Palestinian territory from the map.
Even hard-right politicians inside Israel who supported the initial incursion after October 7 disagree with the way Netanyahu has carried out the war, and 74 percent of Israelis, including 60 percent of people who voted for Netanyahu’s coalition, want the war to end. And it did not help that it came out that Netanyahu obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the October 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, and did nothing about it. Some security prime minister!
And then there are the wants of Trump’s other deep-pocketed friends/frenemies in the Middle East. They want stability and do not want every Palestinian killed or driven into their own territory, and they fear Israel’s expansionist ambitions, but disagree on next steps. The UAE, says Hamdi, is okay with Israel taking Gaza and Jared Kushner building a seaside resort with a colonic spa on it, but it is not okay with annexation of the West Bank. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are reportedly at odds over a framework for rebuilding and who will lead it. And there’s Egypt and Syria and Jordan, too, who do not want Palestinian refugees driven over their borders. The Middle East is one complicated falafel, even if Jared Kushner has read 25 books about it.
And, Hamdi has pointed out, even Donald John Trump himself is sick of Netanyahu’s expansionist ambitions and wants to move on to a new phase of stability, but Netanyahu won’t let that happen. Israel dragged Trump in by attacking Iran, and then bombed Doha last month, seemingly without even notifying Trump about it ahead of time. Then Trump made Netanyahu sit in his office like a naughty schoolboy and call up Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and apologize for the bombing, and Trump released a royal decree that hereafter the US would defend Qatar against any future attacks. And then Trump pushed for the hostage exchange and a ceasefire two weeks ago. But Israel has killed at least 100 Palestinians since then, claiming that Hamas violated the truce first and killed two Israeli soldiers in Rafah. Hamas has denied it.
And, as Hamdi points out, there’s a fracture in the Republican party at home, as well. America Firsters don’t like to see Israel bossing the US around. But then there’s all of that delicious AIPAC money, and pro-Israel billionaire donors like Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer and Jeff Yass. Hamdi believes that’s what is behind the hardline pro-Netanyahu stance of wannabe Trump successors like Marco Rubio, puffing up his chest and trying to be the most pro-Israel of all, by going after students, tourists and anybody else who says they don’t like how Netanyahu has gone about things.
Trump is walking a fine tightrope to try to keep all of his friends and donors happy! And Marco Rubio, it seems, has ordered Hamdi arrested for pointing these things out. He really doesn’t like it.
Until Hamdi gets out of wherever he is being held, we have his TikToks, or you can check out some of his podcast appearances, and on SkyNews, talking about the complexities of making a Middle East peace, especially for Trump, who just wants a headline and a Nobel Prize and is getting made a donkey of:
Doesn’t seem like we get that sort of nuanced perspective from American media so much anymore.
[CNN / Politico archive link]
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