分类： politics

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a leading U.S. civil rights organization advocating for Arab-American communities, is facing unprecedented internal upheaval following the April 27 ousting of its longtime national executive director Abed Ayoub, a controversy that has exposed deep rifts over governance, workplace culture and accountability.

In the wake of Ayoub’s termination, growing public and internal pressure has mounted for the entire ADC board to step down to make way for a full organizational overhaul. But Board Chair Safa Rifka, an 80-year-old infertility and reproductive endocrinologist, has rejected these calls in an emailed statement to Middle East Eye (MEE), provided through the public relations firm Poston Communications. Rifka argues that any mass board resignation would capitulate to what he calls a social media-driven campaign of misinformation, and would betray ADC’s core mission at a moment of heightened urgency for Arab-Americans.

The chain of events that led to Ayoub’s removal began on April 1, when he submitted a 39-page formal restructuring proposal to the full ADC board. The document, titled *ADC/ADCRI Transformational Restructuring and Compliance Strengthening Plan* (ADCRI is ADC’s research arm), called for a 90-day institutional reset to address longstanding structural flaws. Ayoub’s plan centered on clarifying the long-muddled line between board governance and day-to-day management — a gap that he wrote had generated repeated concerns from community members over inconsistent treatment and unclear accountability. He proposed building a disciplined institutional framework that aligns organizational purpose, staffing, systems, authority and oversight, and shifting ADC from a personality-led operation to a transparent, accountable institutional model. Ayoub also called for full transparency around donation collection and expenditure, staff roles and compensation, and major decision-making processes.

Ayoub argued that the restructuring was critical because ADC had grown exponentially following the October 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza, events that upended U.S. civil society and triggered a sharp rise in anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian hate crimes, workplace retaliation and campus censorship across the country. Even critics of Ayoub acknowledge that ADC stepped up dramatically to defend its community during this period: the organization’s legal team has intervened in high-profile cases, from fighting the deportation of former Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil to defending University of Michigan students and staff disciplined for pro-Palestine advocacy, and filing a lawsuit against anti-Muslim Republican lawmaker Randy Fine. Ayoub noted in his proposal that while this rapid growth was a marker of the organization’s vital work, it had left outdated systems and governance structures unable to keep pace, creating a liability that undermined the group’s impact.

Three days after submitting his plan, on April 4, Ayoub filed an internal complaint alleging ongoing harassment and a hostile work environment at ADC. “I cannot effectively lead with board members who force us to fight internally and externally. No Executive Director can,” he wrote in the complaint, a copy of which MEE has reviewed. Ayoub told MEE that the board appointed an investigation committee staffed by the very members he had accused of misconduct, comparing the process to “Israel investigating itself.” He also alleged a pattern of personal belittlement during his tenure, as well as anti-Shia sentiment from some board members — claims that Rifka has denied, saying his leadership has always prioritized open dialogue across all segments of the Arab-American diaspora.

On April 11, Ayoub left for a pre-planned family vacation, and requested medical leave for an undisclosed health condition on April 21. Rifka claims that after Ayoub could not be reached to confirm a specific return date, the board had “no other choice but to assume [Ayoub’s] voluntary resignation.” The same day, the board appointed stewardship director Nabil Mohamed as Ayoub’s replacement, a change that was not announced publicly until May 1, despite being finalized in late April. Ayoub’s email access was revoked on April 23, and he received his formal termination notice four days later. He is now suing ADC, represented by the Nisar Law Group, calling his firing “unjust” and “unlawful,” the outcome of an orchestrated “smear campaign” against him. Ayoub has stated that if he receives any financial compensation from the lawsuit, he will donate all funds to create a “Survivor’s Fund” for more than a dozen women who have accused ADC of verbal abuse, sexual harassment and sexual assault dating back to 2006.

Internal accounts of Ayoub’s tenure are divided. A current part-time ADC staffer, connected to MEE by the organization’s PR firm, described the workplace as “chaotic” under Ayoub, claiming he often disappeared from the office and ignored staff concerns. Ayoub countered that he was always available to staff during working hours, and noted that he took second and third jobs in evenings and weekends to support his family. Ed Hasan, a governance expert appointed to the ADC board by Rifka in December who was himself ousted in April, told MEE that the organization suffers from an unprofessional work environment marked by conflicts of interest and lax handling of discrimination claims — but placed the blame not on Ayoub, but on board leadership.

The crisis deepened in late April, when U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American member of Congress, resurfaced decades-old allegations of misconduct against women at ADC that date back to 2006 and 2013 in an Instagram video. Since then, multiple current and former female staffers have shared their experiences on social media, with some defending Ayoub and others accusing him of downplaying harassment claims — claims Ayoub outright rejects. A group of anonymous current Arab-American female ADC employees launched an Instagram account on April 25 demanding the organization be returned to the community it serves. Since Jenin Younes was named the organization’s public face on April 24, the board has defended its actions, saying it maintains a zero-tolerance policy for harassment, discrimination, intimidation and retaliation, and encouraging anyone with concerns to submit reports directly to the organization. In a May 1 statement posted to its website, the board said it is “actively strengthening ADC’s structure and strategy to maximize our impact at a time when our community continues to face intensifying civil rights challenges.” Rifka also told MEE that the board had already been pursuing governance reforms, including bylaw updates and clearer separation of board and executive functions, and claimed these efforts may have prompted Ayoub to leave — a claim Ayoub rejects, asking “Why would I put that full plan together just to leave?”

The internal chaos now threatens ADC’s funding, as the organization’s largest individual donor has threatened to pull her support. In a May 1 email to Rifka and ADC staff obtained by MEE, California-based donor Diane Shammas — who has given a total of $500,000 to ADC over her years of support — said she is “frankly outraged by the abrupt removal of Abed Ayoub.” Shammas, who previously left the ADC board over complaints of dismissiveness and unequal treatment of female employees in the DC office, added that the ongoing concerns about governance, workplace culture and internal culture are “equally troubling.” Her longstanding support for the organization, she wrote, is “notably compromised,” and she will “regrettably have to reassess my continued involvement and financial support.” ADC’s latest public tax filing shows the organization recorded $675,000 in revenue in 2024, and has seen a dramatic budget boost in recent months, drawing some of its largest donations in a decade amid rising demand for its civil rights and advocacy work following the 2024 U.S. election.

In a clear indication that the Trump administration’s attention on the war-ravaged Gaza Strip is fading as it prioritizes its military campaign against Iran, the United States is moving forward with plans to close down the joint civil-military monitoring hub it set up in Israel to oversee the 2025 Gaza ceasefire agreement, according to recent regional reporting.

Reuters first confirmed the shutdown of the Civil-Military Coordination Centre (CMCC) in a Friday report, noting that the body’s core functions – which include monitoring ceasefire compliance and coordinating humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza – will be transferred to a US-led international stabilization task force that has been mandated to deploy to the besieged Palestinian enclave. The operation will be brought under the umbrella of the International Stabilisation Force (ISF), headed by US Major General Jasper Jeffers, but the future of that broader multinational force remains far from settled.

Per the report, the drawdown of US personnel at the former CMCC is already underway: the troop count will fall from roughly 190 service members to just 40, before those remaining military roles are ultimately taken over by civilian employees from third-party countries. To date, it remains unclear what tangible effects the closure will have on on-the-ground conditions in Gaza.

When the CMCC was first established, its primary mandate centered on facilitating and verifying the delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in the territory, which was heavily damaged by months of conflict. However, anonymous senior officials told Reuters that aid flows into Gaza have remained largely frozen since the center launched, even with the monitoring body in operation. While Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates took part in initial planning sessions at the hub in its first months of operation, most of these partner nations have all but stopped sending permanent representatives to the site in recent months.

The ceasefire agreement that the CMCC was tasked to upholding has been systematically violated by Israeli forces since it took effect in October 2025, leading to a complete halt in all progress on reconstruction efforts across Gaza. Official data and UN reports confirm that more than 800 Palestinian civilians and fighters have been killed in ongoing Israeli strikes and incursions since the ceasefire was signed.

When the truce was first announced, then-President Donald Trump celebrated the deal with high-profile fanfare, embarking on a Middle East victory tour to mark the breakthrough. Speaking at a landmark peace summit hosted in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Trump declared publicly that “The war in Gaza is over…now the rebuilding begins.” But even at that time, diplomats and independent analysts warned Middle East Eye (MEE) that the White House would quickly lose interest in the agreement, and that the US would step back from enforcing Israeli compliance with its ceasefire commitments.

This week, Khaled Khiari, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for the Middle East, issued a stark warning reaffirming that the blockaded enclave continues to face “ongoing and deadly Israeli strikes” despite the US-brokered ceasefire arrangement. Critics have long noted that even when the CMCC was fully staffed and operational, there were almost no meaningful checks in place to prevent Israeli violations of the truce, and Israeli officials exercised disproportionate control over the center’s operations.

A December 2025 report from The Guardian exposed that Israeli intelligence carried out such extensive surveillance activities within the CMCC that US and other international partners formally lodged complaints. The Israeli military was found to be recording both open and closed discussions and meetings at the hub through overt and covert means, prompting the CMCC’s US commander, Lieutenant General Patrick Frank, to privately confront his Israeli counterpart and demand that the espionage campaign end.

The US secured a United Nations Security Council mandate to launch the ISF back in November 2025. Earlier this year, the initiative appeared to gain momentum: regional sources indicated Indonesia was preparing to deploy up to 8,000 troops to the force, while Jordan and Egypt began training security personnel aligned with the Palestinian Authority to support operations in Gaza. However, the recent US-Israeli military offensive against Iran has dramatically altered regional priorities, throwing the entire ISF deployment plan into doubt. A senior anonymous US official told MEE that key Arab and Muslim states that had previously committed to joining the force are now reassessing their participation in the project.

Middle East Eye, which provides independent, in-depth coverage of the Middle East and North Africa region, first reported on the growing uncertainty surrounding the monitoring center and the ISF deployment.

A new joint poll conducted by The Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos, released Friday, has revealed that more than 60 percent of U.S. adults now view President Donald Trump’s military conflict in Iran as a fundamental mistake. What makes this shift in public opinion extraordinary is how rapidly it has occurred: in just two months since the war began, the conflict has already hit levels of public disapproval that took previous, widely discredited U.S. wars years to reach.

CNN senior political analyst Aaron Blake notes that polling data stretching back decades puts this rapid backlash in stark context. It took more than three years of the Iraq War for a 60-percent majority of Americans to label the conflict a mistake, while the Vietnam War required six years of continuous fighting and tens of thousands of American troop deaths to cross the same threshold.

To understand how unprecedented this speed of disapproval is, it is necessary to look back at public opinion at the start of past major conflicts. When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 under President George W. Bush, even amid growing grassroots protest, 81 percent of voters backed the invasion in April 2003, with just 16 percent calling it a mistake. It was only as the occupation devolved into a years-long deadly quagmire, and it became clear the Bush administration’s justifications for the war – claims of weapons of mass destruction – were deliberate falsehoods, that public support eroded steadily, finally hitting 64 percent opposition by 2007.

Vietnam never commanded the overwhelming early backing that Iraq saw, but even so, 60 percent of Americans supported President Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 decision to deploy direct U.S. military intervention, with just 24 percent calling the move a mistake. While widespread anti-war protests became a defining cultural moment of the conflict, public opinion did not solidify against the war until 1968, and it was not until 1971 – after more than 50,000 U.S. troops had been killed in action – that a 61 percent majority called the war a mistake.

Unlike both Iraq and Vietnam, Trump’s Iran war has never enjoyed even a fleeting period of broad public consensus. Just days after the launch of the campaign, branded “Operation Epic Fury” by the Trump administration, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 27 percent of Americans approved of the opening strikes that killed 555 Iranians, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and multiple senior Iranian officials. Even at that early stage, 43 percent already disapproved of the action, a gap far wider than that seen at the start of any prior major U.S. conflict, with the remaining 30 percent of respondents still undecided.

Over the following two months, that undecided bloc has swung firmly against the conflict. Multiple damaging developments have fueled the shift: public confirmation that a U.S. double-tap airstrike on an Iranian school killed at least 155 people, 120 of them children; Iranian retaliation that blocked oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, pushing U.S. gasoline prices soaring above $4 per gallon; and increasingly aggressive rhetoric from Trump that critics have labeled an overtly genocidal posture toward Iran, which has made any peaceful negotiated resolution increasingly remote even under the current fragile ceasefire.

Friday’s poll confirms that while the war retains a core loyal base of 36 percent of Americans who still view it as the right decision – nearly all of whom identify as Republican – this base is heavily outnumbered by the 61 percent who now call the conflict a mistake.

Majorities of respondents across all demographic groups also linked the war to a range of serious national risks: 61 percent said it has increased the threat of terrorist attacks targeting Americans, 60 percent said it raises the risk of the U.S. economy tipping into recession, and 56 percent said it has damaged the United States’ relationships with its key global allies.

A deeper breakdown of polling data exposes a particularly troubling trend for the Trump administration: the war has almost no support outside the president’s most dedicated base. 91 percent of self-identified Democrats now label the conflict a mistake, and 71 percent of independent voters – a large majority of whom were undecided when the war began – have also turned against it, leaving just 24 percent of independents in support.

Even within the Republican Party, the war has created a sharp divide. 86 percent of self-identified MAGA Republicans still back the conflict, but moderate non-MAGA Republicans are deeply split: 50 percent still call the war the right decision, while 49 percent now view it as a mistake. Many of these Republican skeptics were rattled by Trump’s threatening remark last month that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran refused to accept a negotiating deal on his terms. A majority of all Republicans, 53 percent, said they viewed that incendiary threat negatively.

It remains unclear whether even Trump’s most loyal supporters will continue backing the war if the conflict drags on, and recent public remarks from top administration officials suggest the White House remains in denial about the scale of public opposition. On Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared before Congress, where Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, pressed him on the administration’s failure to build broad public support for the conflict, noting that three out of five Americans now oppose it. Hegseth rejected the premise outright, claiming “I believe we do have the support of the American people.” He pushed back on critics by noting the conflict is only two months old, arguing that calls for withdrawal are premature – a curious framing, given Trump himself initially claimed the war would last only four to five weeks.

During his testimony, Hegseth compared the Iran conflict to past long-running U.S. wars, arguing “Iraq took how many years? Afghanistan took how many years? And they were nebulous missions that people went along with. This is different.” That claim of a clear mission, however, falls flat: the Trump administration has offered a constantly shifting set of justifications for the war, ranging from regime change in Tehran, defending Iranian anti-government protesters, destroying Iran’s nuclear program, eliminating its ballistic missile arsenal, seizing Iranian oil fields, defending Israel, and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

A public dispute has erupted between the organisers of London’s recurring pro-Palestine ceasefire marches and the head of London’s Metropolitan Police, after Commissioner Mark Rowley claimed protest leaders have repeatedly sought to route demonstrations near Jewish synagogues — allegations organisers and prominent Jewish community figures have vehemently rejected as false and inflammatory.

Rowley made the remarks during an interview with *Good Morning Britain* earlier Friday, when he was pressed over how his force is safeguarding London’s Jewish community following a stabbing attack that injured two people in Golders Green, a north London neighbourhood with a large Jewish population. Rowley told reporters he was “really troubled” by what he described as intentional planning to march near synagogues, adding that police had been forced to impose route restrictions every time to block the move. “Even that intent causes me concern that they repeatedly ask to do such things,” he said.

But senior leaders of the UK’s Palestine Solidarity movement immediately pushed back against Rowley’s claims, framing the comments as dishonest and dangerously divisive at a time of already elevated community tension across the UK. Ryvka Bernard, deputy director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), the lead organiser of the central London marches, called Rowley’s intervention reckless, arguing it would only stoke unnecessary fear.

“It’s shocking that Rowley would make such dishonest and reckless comments in a moment when his police force should be focused on protecting vulnerable people,” Bernard said. She emphasized the movement has consistently rejected any effort to conflate the Jewish community with the actions of the Israeli government, adding that “this dangerous misinformation … will only serve to create more fear and anxiety.”

Bernard flatly denied Rowley’s core accusation: “None of our marches or proposed march routes has ever targeted a synagogue or even directly passed one along its route, and the Met Police knows that.” She clarified that the demonstrations are rooted in solidarity with Palestinians facing Israeli military action in Gaza and opposition to the UK government’s support for Israel’s campaign, a mission that will hold for the upcoming 16 March march as well.

Lindsey German, convener of the Stop the War Coalition, another key organising partner for the protests, echoed the denial, calling Rowley’s claims “simply untrue.” “We have never set out with intent to march near a synagogue and we have never intentionally held a demonstration outside or near to one,” German said, noting that organisers intentionally plan routes to keep far away from Jewish places of worship.

She pointed to a high-profile January dispute as evidence of organisers’ willingness to compromise. During that demonstration, police blocked organisers from assembling near the BBC’s London headquarters over the presence of a synagogue several hundred yards away, forcing the group to shift a static gathering to near the UK Parliament and leading to the arrest of senior organisers who attempted to walk to the BBC to lay a wreath for Palestinian children killed in Gaza. German said organisers had already offered multiple adjustments to the timing and route ahead of the event to avoid disrupting worshippers, only to have those compromises rejected.

The latest controversy comes amid growing political pressure on UK police to crack down on large pro-Palestine demonstrations, which have drawn hundreds of thousands of participants since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in October 2023. Last week, Jonathan Hall, the UK’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, called for a formal “moratorium” on the recurring marches, citing a recent uptick in antisemitic attacks across London tied to demonstrations.

But many prominent Jewish community leaders have pushed back against that narrative, including senior north London Rabbi Herschel Gluck, who explicitly rejected any link between the pro-Palestine marches and the Golders Green stabbing Wednesday. “It is certainly not the marches that caused the tragic stabbing attacks on Wednesday in Golders Gluck,” Gluck told Middle East Eye.

Gluck, who also serves as president of the Shomrim neighbourhood patrol group that serves London’s Jewish communities, noted that a large proportion of regular march participants are Jewish, saying “pro rata, there are more Jews than any other community” taking part in the demonstrations. He added that banning the protests over antisemitism concerns would be counterproductive, noting that restricting free speech runs counter to longstanding Jewish values.

He also argued that police are facing undue political pressure to harden their stance on the marches, accusing politicians from the Labour, Conservative, and Reform UK parties of exploiting concerns over antisemitism to distract voters from pressing domestic issues including sluggish economic growth, the ongoing cost of living crisis, and global instability. “They are just using the situation for their own ends and not really caring for the Jewish community. They are using the conflict to create more conflict,” Gluck said.

Gluck called on political leaders to engage with all segments of the UK Jewish community, including those that speak out against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. “They’re not marginal, but sadly, certain politicians choose not to listen also to these Jewish voices. And I think that again borders on antisemitism, when they decide not to listen to the concerns, feelings, and strong sentiments of a very large segment of the Jewish community. We need to enable and foster a more peaceful and harmonious atmosphere.”

The ongoing row has raised concerns among protest organisers that Rowley’s comments will erode already fragile trust between demonstration leaders and law enforcement, while amplifying harmful narratives that incorrectly paint all pro-Palestine activism as inherently antisemitic. Despite the public conflict, organisers confirmed the 16 May march will proceed as planned, reaffirming their longstanding commitment to peaceful protest and opposition to all forms of racism.