With 12 candidates on the ballot in the 12th Congressional District, voters there had a long list to choose who will succeed retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman. In the June 2 primary, Egyptian-born surgeon Hamawy won with 27% followed by politician and surgeon Brad Cohen with 16%. Gregg Mele is the Republican candidate on the November ballot.
In political ads for Hamawy, he is praised for being a U.S. Army officer and Iraq War veteran. At a combat hospital in Baghdad in 2004, he used his medical skills to operate on a wounded Blackhawk helicopter pilot, current U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth.
Critics of Hamawy point farther back in time, to the 1990s, and his close association with the so-called “Blind Sheikh,” Omar Abdel-Rahman. During the Blind Sheikh’s federal trial in 1995, he was convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. At that trial, Hamawy served as a translator for Abdel-Rahman and his defense attorneys, but Hamawy had already worked closely and traveled with the terrorist mastermind for several years.
Asked to describe his association with Abdel-Rahman, Hamawy told The New York Times for a May 30 story he had worked with a “blind old man” who wasn’t preaching “death and destruction all the time.”
In a vague admission of the Blind Sheikh’s fiery sermons on jihad, Hamawy said Abdel-Rahman “had certain views that he spoke in certain forums, but that’s not what he did every single day.”
In a related article, The Free Press went back to the 1995 trial where Hawamy was put on the stand by prosecutors. He admitted under cross-examination that Abdel-Rahman often talked about jihad.
Beyond his close association with the jihad-preaching cleric, Hamawy also worked with a terrorist-supporting medical organization in Bosnia during the bloody civil war there. That group, the Benevolence International Foundation, was eventually shut down after it was discovered to be a front for the terrorist group Al-Qaida.
The Free Press story calls Hamawy’s candidacy and several others a “new test” for Democrats in the current midterm elections. Hoping to flip the House and Senate, Democrats are also standing behind Nazi tattoo-wearing candidate Graham Platner in Maine.
In a bid to defeat GOP Sen. Susan Collins, Platner's campaign has forced Gov. Janet Mills to suspend her own campaign that was trailing the rookie candidate in fundraising.
A more obscure controversy has emerged over a Pennsylvania candidate, Chris Rabb. He has blamed “Zionists” for the 2025 Bondi Beach attack in Australia that killed 15 people at a Hanukkah celebration.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Jewish Democrat from Florida, told The Free Press his party is making a “long-term mistake” after expanding its “tent” for people who don’t share the same values.
Reacting to Hamwamy’s win in the primary, Israel supporter Gary Bauer told American Family News it now seems likely Hawamy is going to Congress.
“This is bad news for the Democrat Party,” he said, “but even more important, it's bad news for America. "
