Adam Hamawy, a New Jersey Democratic candidate for the U.S. House, worked for an Illinois-based charity in Bosnia during the 1990s that both the U.S. government and the United Nations later identified as a clandestine funding source for Al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden. The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that Hamawy described his role at Benevolence International Foundation in a 1996 interview, and that his campaign declined to respond to requests for comment.
Hamawy has collected endorsements from Rep. Ilhan Omar, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. When questions about his past surfaced earlier this month, he dismissed critics in comments to InsiderNJ: "As a Muslim, they're always going to find something to attack."
That framing, casting legitimate scrutiny as bigotry, deserves pushback. The issue is not Hamawy's faith. The issue is a pattern of associations with organizations and individuals linked to terrorism, and the willingness of prominent Democrats to look the other way.
Benevolence International Foundation operated out of Illinois and presented itself as a humanitarian relief organization. In 1994, a U.S. envoy under President Bill Clinton visited a BIF director and "praised BIF and its efforts to provide humanitarian relief." The foundation worked alongside the World Health Organization, the UN's International Children's Emergency Fund, and the Red Crescent.
That public face concealed something darker. A 2002 federal investigation uncovered extensive communications between BIF and Al-Qaida, financial transactions, and internal records describing a plan to "establish a base for operations in Europe against al Qaeda's true enemy, the United States." Both the U.S. government and the United Nations designated BIF as a clandestine funding source for Al-Qaida and bin Laden. The foundation was eventually shut down.
Hamawy worked for BIF in approximately 1994, the same year the Clinton envoy praised the organization. In a 1996 interview with the Newark Star-Ledger, later cited by Jewish Insider, Hamawy described his assignment:
"I worked in Sarajevo for 10 days and then the rest in Zenica, a large regional center in central Bosnia. We went out to hospitals around the area and in the mountains to check what supplies they needed and we tried to deliver them."
No evidence has emerged that Hamawy personally communicated with Al-Qaida operatives or participated in anything beyond humanitarian work for BIF. That distinction matters. But the broader question, why a man now seeking a seat in Congress chose to associate with BIF, and what due diligence he performed, remains unanswered. His campaign offered no response to the Daily Caller News Foundation's inquiry.
BIF is not the only troubling association in Hamawy's past. In 1996, he served as a translator and defense witness for Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the convicted terrorist mastermind known as "the Blind Sheikh", during Abdel-Rahman's federal trial in New York. Abdel-Rahman and his co-defendants were convicted for their roles in the deadly 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist plots.
Hamawy addressed his involvement with Abdel-Rahman in comments to The Philadelphia Inquirer. He acknowledged that the sheikh "did speak about violent things that I think most people disagree with and most people condemn, including myself." But he quickly added: "But it wasn't the only thing he spoke about."
That qualifier is worth pausing over. The man Hamawy helped defend was not accused of jaywalking. He was convicted of masterminding attacks that killed Americans. The suggestion that his violent rhetoric was only one part of a broader message does not inspire confidence in the judgment of someone who wants to make federal law.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, who endorsed Hamawy, has faced her own sustained scrutiny over questions of accountability. The DOJ investigation into Omar confirmed by Vice President JD Vance underscores that the congresswoman's own conduct remains under official review.
Hamawy's defenders will point to a résumé that includes genuine service. He was born in Egypt, served as a doctor for the U.S. military during the Iraq War, and responded to the aftermath of 9/11. The New Jersey Globe reported that he helped save the life of Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth after she sustained severe injuries in Iraq.
More recently, Hamawy worked as a medical responder in Gaza following the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel. That work, too, is part of his public record.
None of it erases the questions. Military service and medical heroism do not immunize a candidate from scrutiny over his voluntary associations with a convicted terrorist and a charity that funneled money to Al-Qaida. Voters are entitled to weigh the full picture, not just the parts the campaign highlights in press releases.
Omar's endorsement of Hamawy fits a pattern. The Minnesota congresswoman has drawn repeated questions about her own accountability, including her decision to skip a fraud hearing that a Minnesota state lawmaker demanded she attend.
The list of Democrats lining up behind Hamawy reads like a roster of the party's progressive wing: Omar, Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and unnamed other "high-profile Democrats." Each of these figures has built a brand on moral authority. Each has demanded opponents answer for their associations, their donors, their past statements.
The standard should apply in both directions. Did any of these endorsers review Hamawy's work for BIF before putting their names behind him? Did they ask about the Blind Sheikh trial? Or did they simply see an Egyptian-born, Muslim, Iraq War veteran and decide the biography was too useful to question?
The broader context in Omar's home state raises its own concerns. A sixth member of the Mohamed family recently pleaded guilty in the massive Minnesota nutrition fraud case, a scandal that has exposed deep failures of oversight in the very communities Omar represents.
Several questions remain open. The specific congressional district Hamawy is seeking has not been identified in reporting. The exact timeline of BIF's closure and formal designation as a terror-financing entity is unclear. The scope and content of Hamawy's testimony on behalf of Abdel-Rahman have not been detailed. And no reporting indicates whether any law enforcement or regulatory body has ever investigated Hamawy himself.
Those gaps matter. They do not prove wrongdoing on Hamawy's part. But they also do not exonerate him, and his campaign's silence, no response to the Daily Caller News Foundation's request for comment, does nothing to fill them.
Hamawy's preferred response to scrutiny is to call it anti-Muslim bias. That framing shuts down questions rather than answering them. It treats legitimate vetting of a congressional candidate as an act of prejudice. And it asks voters to accept a remarkable set of associations, a charity that funded bin Laden, a trial appearance for the architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, without so much as an explanation.
The federal court records speak for themselves. BIF maintained extensive communications with Al-Qaida. BIF conducted financial transactions with Al-Qaida. BIF possessed records describing a plan to build a European operations base targeting the United States. These are not allegations from political opponents. They are findings from a federal investigation, documented in court filings.
Hamawy chose to work for that organization. He chose to testify for a convicted terrorist. He now wants a seat in Congress, and the progressive establishment wants to help him get there.
Voters in New Jersey deserve a candidate who answers hard questions instead of hiding behind accusations of bigotry. And the Democrats endorsing him owe the public an explanation for why none of this gave them pause.
When you dismiss every question as prejudice, you guarantee that the real answers never come.
