Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), who's actively considering a 2028 presidential run, was the keynote speaker this week at a gala hosted by the virulently anti-Israel organization Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), which notoriously targeted prominent Jewish Americans affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) by slapping their names and faces on a deck of playing cards à la the famous U.S. hit list on Iraqi leaders like Saddam Hussein.
The Monday evening gala featured a rogues' gallery of antisemites and Israel-haters, including the United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, and Council on American-Islamic Relations executive director Nihad Awad, who said he was "happy to see" Hamas's Oct. 7 terror spree just weeks after the attack. Other featured guests included radical D.C. restaurateur Anas "Andy" Shallal, owner of the far-left hangout Busboys and Poets, and former DAWN executive director Sarah Leah Whitson, who bizarrely griped during the COVID pandemic that Israelis were not sufficiently suffering, saying the nation was "missing a tablespoon of blood."
Before that crowd, Van Hollen cemented his anti-Israel bona fides by delivering a keynote address, though no video has been publicly posted and the senator's office did not respond to a Washington Free Beacon inquiry about the content of his remarks. Van Hollen's office also would not address DAWN's infamous 2025 deck of playing cards, which listed the identities of more than 50 AIPAC leaders, fueling significant concerns about their safety amid rising antisemitic violence across the United States, fueled in part by claims the pro-Israel lobbying group manipulates American foreign policy. Van Hollen has positioned himself in recent years as one of the Democratic Party's leading Israel critics, most recently in a video calling Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu "a wanted war criminal."
Last week, Van Hollen told the fiercely anti-Israel firebrand Mehdi Hasan that he is "kicking the tires on a 2028 national campaign." Should Van Hollen seek the Democratic nomination, he will likely have to face off with fellow Marylander Wes Moore, who's widely believed to be planning a run himself.
Van Hollen's decision to hobnob with DAWN drew backlash from multiple watchdog groups that spoke to the Free Beacon.
"Senator Chris Van Hollen's decision to keynote DAWN's gala is a slap in the face to his Jewish constituents and Jewish communities nationwide," the organization StopAntisemitism told the Free Beacon in a statement. "It is deeply troubling that a senator who claims to be committed to combating antisemitism would use his Senate platform to support an organization whose campaigns have targeted Jewish and pro-Israel advocates, including its 'Faces of AIPAC' initiative, which invoked longstanding tropes about Jewish political power. By choosing to stand with DAWN, Senator Van Hollen is sending a deeply troubling message to the Jewish community about whose concerns he is willing to take seriously."
During the gala, DAWN presented its "Jamal Khashoggi Defender of Justice Award" to Tanya Haj-Hassan, a Jordanian-American doctor who has peddled claims that Israel is wantonly targeting health care workers in Gaza. The second recipient, Kuwaiti journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, routinely chastises Western media outlets for protecting Israel from criticism.
"The evening will also bring together leading voices to discuss DAWN's work to challenge U.S. support for repressive governments in the region and will offer a look at our renewed vision and strategy for the year ahead," the organization said in its online invitation.
DAWN has been a leading force in the movement to sever America's close alliance with Israel and cut off critical weapons shipments. The Free Beacon first reported in May 2024 that senior Biden administration officials closely coordinated with DAWN to isolate Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Internal government emails revealed that officials at both the State and War Departments fielded concerns from DAWN, which sparked an internal push at both departments to stop American officials from engaging with Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank and other contested areas of Jerusalem.
The following year, DAWN published its AIPAC hit list, putting the names, faces, and titles of pro-Israel Americans on playing cards that were reminiscent of how the United States used playing cards to build a most wanted list of Iraqi officials during the 2003 war.
"AIPAC is not an abstraction," DAWN states on its website, where the list remains publicly accessible. "It is run by 50 people who make decisions: 41 board members who govern the organization and 9 executives who implement its strategies."
DAWN evokes classic antisemitic tropes when it accuses AIPAC and Jewish officials of exercising outsized influence on American foreign policy and having dual loyalty to Israel. AIPAC is an American pro-Israel lobby and does not work at Israel's behest.
"AIPAC represents one of the least transparent modes of influence on U.S. foreign policy," DAWN states. "Its scope is difficult to understand without transparency around staff members' identities, employment histories, and professional connections."
DAWN did not respond to a Free Beacon email seeking comment on the gala and a request to produce video of Van Hollen's remarks.
NGO Monitor, the watchdog group that first flagged DAWN's anti-AIPAC playing cards campaign, told the Free Beacon "there is no justification for a U.S. senator headlining the fundraiser for a blatantly antisemitic NGO that endangers the lives of Jewish Americans."
"Under the facade of promoting 'Democracy in the Arab World Now,' DAWN propaganda embraces heinous terrorists," NGO Monitor founder and president Gerald Steinberg told the Free Beacon. "And the NGO published names and faces of AIPAC's leadership on playing cards – famously used in Iraq to identify 'most wanted' targets. In addition to Senator Van Hollen, the gala also featured disgraced antisemitic U.N. rapporteur Francesca Albanese."
