Muslim Civil Rights Group Condemns GOP Senators’ Therapy Of Muslim Courtroom Decide

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the biggest Muslim civil rights group within the nation, on Friday denounced three Republican senators for his or her therapy of President Joe Biden’s historic judicial nominee Adeel Mangi throughout his latest affirmation listening to.

GOP Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Tom Cotton (Ark.) and Josh Hawley (Mo.) berated and interrupted Mangi in his Wednesday listening to within the Senate judiciary committee, demanding that Mangi, who’s Muslim, share his private views on the Sept. 11 terrorist assaults, the Oct. 7 terrorist assault in Israel and the Israeli-Hamas battle generally.

Mangi, if confirmed, would be the nation’s first ever Muslim American appeals court docket decide, and solely the third Muslim American federal decide. Biden nominated him to the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the third Circuit, primarily based in Philadelphia.

“We strongly condemn Senators Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley for subjecting Mr. Mangi to irrelevant, hostile questions on Israel and Palestine,” Edward Ahmed Mitchell, CAIR’s nationwide deputy director, stated in an announcement.

“Singling out a Muslim judicial nominee and forcing him to reply ‘gotcha questions’ concerning the Center East merely due to religion or due to his tangential connections to Muslims who touch upon the Center East is Islamophobic and un-American,” Mitchell stated. “So is elevating the hateful trope that presumptively assumes that Muslims are antisemitic.”

Mitchell known as on all senators “to reject this nonsense and begin assessing Muslim American judicial nominees primarily based on their experience and {qualifications}, like all different nominees.”

Questions on private views are inappropriate for any judicial nominee, as they’re solely supposed to speak about their authorized experience. Even so, the road of questioning that Mangi confronted was significantly offensive, given that he’s Muslim and repeatedly needed to attest that he wasn’t antisemitic or sympathetic to terrorists.

At greatest, the Republican senators’ questioning was horrible optics. At worst, it was plainly Islamophobic.

Throughout his listening to, Cruz repeatedly pressed Mangi, who’s a companion at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, to say the place he stands on the Israeli-Hamas battle and if he sees any justification for the Hamas militants’ terrorist assaults. Mangi repeatedly denounced terrorism.

“I’ve no persistence ― none ― for any makes an attempt to justify or defend these occasions,” Mangi stated of the Oct. 7 assaults, which killed some 1,200 Israelis.

Cruz additionally tried to tie Mangi to a professor at Rutgers Regulation Faculty who signed on to a 2021 pro-Palestinian letter denouncing the “colonial situations” that Palestinians dwell beneath. That professor was related to a middle at Rutgers Regulation for which Mangi served on a panel that met annually to advise on educational analysis.

“Do you imagine that Israel is an occupying drive in Palestine?” Cruz requested, referring to the letter that professor had signed.

Mangi stated he had no concept concerning the letter, and reiterated that he served on an advisory board that met yearly and centered solely on educational analysis on the legislation faculty.

However Cruz stored urgent him to say if he agreed with pro-Palestinian sentiments, and Mangi responded every time by saying he wasn’t ready to weigh in on coverage points and that he solely served on an instructional advisory panel.

Cruz’s questioning grew to become so hostile that Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Unwell.), the committee chair, banged his gavel a number of occasions to inform Cruz to knock it off.

Cotton equally tried to tie Mangi to a speaker at one of many middle’s occasions who claimed that Jewish persons are “colonial settlers” in Israel.

Mangi stated, once more, that his solely connection to Rutgers Regulation was the educational advisory panel that met annually, and that he didn’t know something about that occasion or its audio system. He additionally stated, once more, that the Israeli-Hamas battle is a coverage matter and inappropriate for him to weigh in on.

That didn’t cease Hawley from utilizing his time, too, to press Mangi on his views on Israel. He requested Mangi if believes that Israel is a colonial state. Mangi reiterated that he’s not an knowledgeable on the Center East, and that coverage questions on this weren’t related to why he was there that day.

“I’ve no foundation as a judicial nominee to solid a view on the Center East,” Mangi stated.

Durbin apologized to Mangi for the best way he was handled, and famous that his nomination was endorsed by the Nationwide Council of Jewish Ladies.

Republican senators have “reached a brand new low,” Durbin stated, “hurling unfounded accusations of antisemitism at an historic Muslim American judicial nominee in the present day.”

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), additionally on the committee, stated it was shameful to look at how Mangi was handled. Booker really helpful Mangi’s nomination to the White Home.

“I do know that Muslim Individuals who’ve sturdy views of condemning antisemitism, condemning terrorism, are sometimes compelled to reply questions like that again and again,” Booker stated. “That, in itself, for thus many Muslim Individuals is insulting and unlucky.”

Requests for remark from Cruz, Cotton and Hawley weren’t returned.