A nonprofit in Dearborn, Mich., that has received $24 million in taxpayer funds under the Biden-Harris administration will host dozens of physicians, government officials, and activists at an "Arab health summit" next week to address "health amidst conflict and crisis" in the Middle East. The conference will feature multiple anti-Israel speakers, some of whom have defended the 9/11 terrorist attacks and cheered the "brave" Hamas fighters who attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert and British-Palestinian plastic surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah will headline the annual conference for the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), scheduled for Oct. 21-23 at Dearborn’s Henry Hotel.
ACCESS touts the urgency of the conference given the "escalating conflicts and aggression" in the Middle East. But the involvement of Gilbert, Abu-Sittah, and other anti-Israel speakers suggests that blaming the Jewish state for the ongoing conflict will be at the top of the agenda for the conference.
Gilbert has defended the 9/11 terrorist attacks, stating that the "oppressed also have a moral right to attack the USA with any weapon they can come up with." He called Hamas fighters "brave" after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and praised the terrorist group for fighting Israelis "man to man." Hamas slaughtered 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, raped Israeli women, and took hundreds of civilians hostage.
Abu-Sittah, the rector of the University of Glasgow, praised Hamas leader Ahmad Jarrar, who masterminded the drive-by murder of Israeli rabbi Raziel Shevack. Abu-Sittah called Jarrar a "hero" for fighting the "Zionist regime" after he was killed by IDF forces in 2018. A year later, Abu-Sittah attended the funeral of a prominent leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Both Gilbert and Abu-Sittah worked in Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack. The White House has said Hamas used the facility as a military base.
ACCESS’s courtship of terrorist sympathizers is likely to raise questions for the Biden-Harris administration, as well as some major corporations that fund the nonprofit. The Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and National Endowment for the Humanities have given more than $24 million in taxpayer funds to ACCESS since 2021, a four-fold increase over the number of grants awarded during the Trump administration.
There’s a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a display at the Arab American National Museum, which ACCESS operates, $4 million for construction of an ACCESS facility, $2.8 million from the Department of Health and Human Services to help immigrants access health services in Michigan, $1.1 million to implement "trauma systems therapy" for refugees in the Dearborn area, and $774,000 to provide "holistic" services to "torture survivors in greater Detroit."
ACCESS also distributes funds for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The ACCESS conference is sponsored by the University of Michigan, Wayne State University, and Michigan State University, along with health industry giants like Corewell Health, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Gilead Sciences, and UnitedHealth. None of the organizations responded to questions about the controversial speakers who will appear at the event. At least one federal official, Lynda Zeller of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, will speak at the conference. The agency did not respond to a request for comment.
Gilbert and Abu-Sittah are far from the only anti-Israel speakers scheduled to appear at the conference. Anti-Semitic Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib is scheduled to give a keynote speech on Oct. 22. Dearborn mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who recently spoke at a rally in which protesters chanted "death to Israel," and other speakers called on Jews to be sent "back to Poland," will speak at a session with ACCESS’s chief executive.
A panel to discuss "Rebuilding public health infrastructure in Gaza" features Akihiro Seita, the director of health for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, a group closely linked to Hamas.
Sabah Jabr, a psychiatrist who is slated to speak on a panel about mental health care for Arab Americans, has denied the right of Israel to exist and said "resistance to the occupation … is very important" for the psychological health of Palestinians.
"Not only for political and pragmatic reasons Palestinians should never recognize ‘Israel’s right to exist,’" she wrote in the Palestine Chronicle, a news organization linked to Hamas operatives and the Iranian government.
ACCESS did not respond to a request for comment.