After a months-long delay that saw two other Arab American Trump allies receive their ambassadorships, the mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan, Amer Ghalib, finally had the chance to make his case publicly to lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday.
Ghalib, a Democrat-turned-Donald Trump supporter who was the first Muslim mayor to endorse the president last year, was nominated in March to become the US ambassador to Kuwait.
But his outspoken criticism of Israel and other comments on social media from his days as a private citizen have emerged as a major obstacle to his confirmation, particularly after being amplified by the staunchly pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and some right-wing news outlets.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, grilled Ghalib on his comments from last year in which he called reports of sexual violence committed by Hamas "a campaign of lies and deception by the Biden administration".
"There is well-documented evidence. Evidence that I have seen personally that Hamas terrorists deliberately use sexual violence against women and children," Shaheen said.
