Dems Elect Al-Qaeda Member – The Islamist Party Is Here

New Jersey Democrats just handed their congressional primary to a candidate who once rode 13 hours in a van with the “Blind Sheikh” — and the district he wants to represent is where Todd Beamer, the man who said “Let’s roll” before charging the 9/11 hijackers on Flight 93, is buried.

Story Snapshot

Adam Hamawy won the New Jersey 12th Congressional District Democratic primary despite documented ties to convicted terrorist Omar Abdel-Rahman and a charity later designated as an Al-Qaeda front.
Hamawy testified as a defense witness at Abdel-Rahman’s 1995 terrorism trial and admitted in a 1996 interview to volunteering in Bosnia with Benevolence International Foundation, later shut down by the government as an Al-Qaeda financing operation.
Hamawy was never charged with any crime, and his campaign describes his 1995 trial testimony as a civic act — but the facts of his associations are not in dispute.
The district Hamawy seeks to represent includes the gravesite of Todd Beamer, the passenger whose final words before rushing Flight 93’s cockpit on September 11, 2001 became a national symbol of defiance against terror.

The Candidate, the Blind Sheikh, and a 13-Hour Van Ride

Omar Abdel-Rahman was not a fringe figure. The Egyptian cleric known as the “Blind Sheikh” was convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy for masterminding plots to blow up New York City landmarks, and he died in federal prison in 2017. Adam Hamawy, now a Democratic congressional candidate, was close enough to Abdel-Rahman in the early 1990s that he was called as a defense witness at the sheikh’s federal terrorism trial — and testified under oath about accompanying him on a 13-hour van ride to a conference in Michigan. ^[2]

That alone would be enough to raise eyebrows. But Hamawy’s past doesn’t stop with a van trip. A 1996 interview recovered by Jewish Insider shows Hamawy acknowledging that he volunteered in Bosnia during the summer of 1994 with Benevolence International Foundation — an organization the U.S. government later shut down and designated as a financial front for Al-Qaeda. ^[1] His campaign’s response is that his testimony was a “civic and legal” act, and that he was never charged with any wrongdoing. Both of those things can be true and still leave voters with serious, legitimate questions.

No Charges Filed — But the Associations Are Not in Dispute

The “he was never charged” defense is worth examining honestly. Hamawy was indeed never charged with any crime related to these associations. ^[2] That is a factual statement and it matters. But the absence of criminal charges is not the same as the absence of judgment. Americans make character assessments about candidates all the time based on who they chose to align with, travel with, and advocate for — especially when the person they aligned with was later convicted of terrorism-related conspiracy. Voters are entitled to weigh that. Prosecutors declining to charge someone is not a voter’s obligation to ignore the record.

What makes this harder to dismiss as simple guilt by association is the specificity of what’s documented. This wasn’t a chance meeting at a community event. Hamawy testified under oath in a terrorism trial on behalf of a man who plotted mass murder in the United States. He volunteered with an organization that the government determined was funneling money to Al-Qaeda. ^[1] These are not allegations — they are facts Hamawy himself confirmed in court and on the record. The debate is only about what those facts mean, not whether they occurred.

The District Where “Let’s Roll” Still Echoes

The geographic dimension of this story is not incidental. New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District includes Cranbury, where Todd Beamer is buried. Beamer was the 32-year-old Oracle software account manager who, on the morning of September 11, 2001, helped lead the passenger revolt on United Flight 93 — the plane hijacked by Al-Qaeda operatives that crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back. His final words, overheard on a phone call, were “Let’s roll.” The idea that a candidate with documented ties to Al-Qaeda-linked organizations and a convicted Al-Qaeda-inspiring cleric could represent that ground is not an abstraction. It is a provocation to the memory of what that district lost.

Dr. Adam Hamawy won NJ-12 Democratic primary. As a young medical student in the early 1990s, he knew Omar Abdel-Rahman ("Blind Sheikh," convicted 1995 of seditious conspiracy linked to 1993 WTC bombing) via NJ Egyptian community. He joined one 1991 trip and testified as defense…

— Grok (@grok) June 4, 2026

Progressive heavyweights including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders backed Hamawy in the primary. ^[3] Their endorsements helped him win. Whether those endorsements survive the general election scrutiny of his record is another question entirely — and one New Jersey voters in November will have to answer for themselves. The facts are on the table. The van ride happened. The testimony happened. The Bosnia volunteer work happened. What voters do with that is the only thing still undecided.