Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced widespread criticism Tuesday from civil rights groups, health care advocates and Democrats over anti-Arab comments that the Council on American-Islamic Relations called “a classic display of unvarnished racism and intolerance.”
In his remarks Monday at a campaign event in Michigan where Republican Mike Rogers is running for U.S. Senate against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, Kennedy falsely claimed that Arabs had not won major international awards and were “not producing” science and literature.
“There are 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don’t produce science, they don’t win the Nobel Prize, they don’t win the Fields Prize, they don’t win the Wolf Prize, they don’t produce literature,” he said.
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El-Sayed responds to Trump’s attacks on his name and faith
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The Arabs won all these prizes. Peter Hotez, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine who specializes in vaccine development and tropical medicine, said his late colleague, Nobel Prize winner Ahmed Zewail, an Arab who died in 2016, “would not agree” with Kennedy’s comments.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
U.S. human rights advocates have raised concerns over escalating rhetoric against Muslims, Arabs, immigrants and ethnic minorities by President Donald Trump and his allies during the current midterm election campaign.
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vile anti-Arab diatribes are a classic display of unvarnished racism and intolerance,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which documents hatred against Muslims and Arabs in the United States, said Tuesday.
“His widespread erasure of Arab contributions to humanity is not only maliciously wrong, but it also fans the flames of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hatred at a time when communities are already vulnerable to sectarian attacks from other public officials across the country. »
Kennedy said the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist groups, founded almost a century ago, had “created stagnant societies.”
Republicans have claimed, without evidence, that El-Sayed has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, even as the Democrat has publicly disavowed the group and denied any ties to it.
El-Sayed, a physician and former public health official who would be the first Muslim U.S. senator if elected, faced numerous anti-Muslim attacks during the campaign. Over the weekend, Trump invoked the September 11, 2001 attacks when talking about El-Sayed, whom he also repeatedly and falsely called a “jihadist.”
A spokesperson for El-Sayed’s campaign on Tuesday accused Kennedy of making racist remarks in an attempt to influence voters.
“It’s great to see an anti-scientist come to Michigan to lecture a doctor with two doctorates who has spent his entire career working in public health,” said Cole Wozniak, the spokesman.
Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, also criticized Kennedy’s comments.
“I really think everyone needs to pay attention to this coordinated campaign to delegitimize Muslim Americans — not just as citizens but as humans,” he said in an article on X.
The American health care advocacy organization and nonprofit Protect Our Care called Kennedy’s comments an “extremely racist tirade.”
Kennedy, who has pushed his anti-vaccine views in his role as its top health official, was also in Michigan on Monday to promote funding for Detroit’s health department and touted deals with hospitals to offer healthier diets.
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