Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud Repeats the Genocide Lie

In the 1920s and 1930s, Dearborn, Michigan was the center of antisemitism in the United States. It was the city where Henry Ford’s antisemitic newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, was published. Later, Ford collected articles from the newspaper and published them in four volumes under the title The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem. Close to Dearborn, in Royal Oak, was where Father Charles Coughlin made his antisemitic broadcasts that in the 1930s attracted tens of millions of listeners across America. And now Dearborn, the “most Arab city in America,” is again a center of antisemitism, which both promotes and is promoted by, anti-Israel animus. More on Dearborn, and its Muslim Arab Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, can be found here: “Dearborn’s Mayor Helps Terrorize Diaspora Jews With Genocide Lie,” by Dexter Van Zile, CAMERA, August 14, 2026:

One of the most troubling threats to civil society—and Jewish safety—in the United States is the propagation of the false accusation of genocide against Israel. The genocide libel, which has been leveled at Israel for decades, has done more than legitimize violence against Israel before and after the October 7 massacre. It has also legitimized open hostility against Jews living in the Diaspora.  

People who, in previous eras, would have been reluctant to expose themselves as antisemites now express open support for terror organizations and shamelessly express their contempt for Israel and Jews—all in the name of “peace and justice” or faux concern for the Palestinians.  

This is particularly true in Dearborn, Michigan, where open support for Hamas and Hezbollah, terrorist organizations that have killed thousands of Israelis and American citizens over the past few decades, is not uncommon. For example, Dearborn newspaper publisher Osama Siblani, once expressed a willingness to be arrested for his support for Hezbollah and has used his newspaper, The Arab American News, to legitimize the October 7 massacre. And when a local pastor condemned Wayne County officials for naming a busy intersection after Siblani, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud called the pastor an “Islamophobe” and said he was not welcome in the city. 

The genocide lie served as the central component of a public ceremony in Dearborn, where city officials and elected representatives unveiled an outdoor art installation called the “Wall of Tears” which purports to list the names of all the children killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The city used its taxpayer-funded website to promote the event and quote Mayor Hammoud as follows: 

For nearly three years, the world has witnessed the Israeli government’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, a campaign that has taken the lives of tens of thousands of innocent children and families. That same destruction has spread to Lebanon, leaving millions displaced and entire villages wiped from the map. This monument stands in memory of those children and as a call to conscience, reminding future generations of the cost of silence and the responsibility to never look away. 

Similar rhetoric was evident at the unveiling of the display on June 11, 2026. During the ceremony, Mayor Hammoud and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) invoked the word “genocide” seven times while describing Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, with the mayor declaring that a genocide was still “unfolding in 2026.”  

Congresswoman Tlaib repeatedly framed U.S. policy as the primary enabler of an “awful horrific genocide.” Hammoud declared, “Our U.S. tax dollars should not go on to fund bombs that are being dropped by the Israeli government to decimate and murder children day in and day out.”  

Of course, at no point during the event did anyone acknowledge the systematic falsehoods that accompany the genocide slur, nor the role that Iran and Hamas played in starting the war that cost Palestinian and Israeli lives.  

Phil Buehler, the artist who created the display, provided Dearborn officials with a ready-made public platform for advancing the charge of Israeli genocide by highlighting the thousands of children who have died in Gaza since the 2023 massacre without acknowledging that these deaths would not have taken place if Hamas hadn’t attacked Israel on October 7. With his artwork and his talk at the unveiling during which he said he felt close to the Palestinian people, Buehler did the bidding of the now-dead Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who said civilian deaths in Gaza were “necessary sacrifices” and that “We have the Israelis right where we want them” as a result of the deaths of noncombattants in Gaza. 

Hammoud’s Longtime Habit 

The unveiling wasn’t the first time Hammoud leveled the accusation of genocide at Israel. In a February 2024 New York Times guest essay, Hammoud wrote that the inhabitants of his city have been unable to sleep “after 130 days of genocide in Gaza,” adding that “the phrase has taken on new meaning.” He went on to assert that U.S. support for Israel’s military campaign enabled the slaughter of relatives of his constituents.  

Here we go again. There is not now, and never has been, a “genocide” in Gaza. The crime of “genocide” requires intent, and the IDF has never shown an “intent to commit genocide.” Quite the opposite. It has made a tremendous effort to minimize civilian casualties, by dropping millions of leaflets, sending millions of text messages, and making millions of robocalls, all in order to warn civilians away from sites about to be targeted. The “genocidal” Israelis have also sent nearly two million tons of humanitarian aid — food and medicine — into Gaza. West Point Professor of Urban Warfare John Spencer, who studied the IDF campaign in Gaza, concluded that “Israel has done more to minimize civilian casualties than any military in history.” British Colonel Richard Kemp, the veteran of a half-dozen wars and the commander of the British troops in Afghanistan, came to a similar conclusion after spending time in Gaza. He reported that “the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) do more to safeguard civilians in combat zones than any other army in history.”

Abdullah Hammoud, the Mayor of Dearborn, is a worthy descendant of another Dearborn resident, the virulent antisemite Henry Ford. Hammoud has accused Israel of practicing apartheid at home and genocide abroad. He has praised Hamas not in spite of the atrocities the terror group carried out on October 7, 2023, but because of them. He used city funds to help publicize a “Wall of Tears” that purports to list the names of all the children in Gaza killed in Israel’s supposed “genocide.” In fact, Abdullah Hammoud cannot mention Israel without at the same time referring to that country’s “genocide” a half-dozen times. He named a city intersection after Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab Newsin Dearborn. Siblani has declared his admiration for the terror group Hezbollah, expressing the wish to join them in their murderous activities. In an opinion piece Hammoud published in the New York Times, he wrote that “U.S. tax dollars should not go on to fund bombs that are being dropped by the Israeli government to decimate and murder children day in and day out.” Given Mayor Hammoud’s repeated denunciations of Israel as a “genocidal” state, that has whipped up anti-Israel hate in his city, Jews are now afraid even to visit. The ghost of Henry Ford must be pleased. But for the rest of us, Mayor Hammoud leaves us with nothing but outrage and despair.