After a deadly attack at San Diego’s largest mosque, thousands in the community gathered Thursday for a funeral to honor the three men killed by teenage shooters who reportedly left behind a hateful manifesto and were wearing Nazi symbols.
Ammar Campa-Najjar grew up in the mosque community, attended school there as a child, and was friends with one of the victims - 78-year-old Mansour Kaziha (also known as Abu Ezz). The Mexican-Palestinian-American Navy reserve officer is now running for Congress in California’s competitive 48th district, a key race for Democratic hopes to take back the House – and pro-Israel groups have spent nearly $2 million against him.
Campa-Najjar tells Mehdi the attack on the mosque “did not happen in a vacuum,” but rather in a political environment that is filled with xenophobia and Islamophobia.
“Advisers to this president, including Laura Loomer, who literally said that I’m trying to ‘Islamify’ the military,” Campa-Najjar says, “what she doesn’t understand is that Muslims serve our country every single day, like the security guard who protected those children. Like military officers who serve alongside me, who go to this mosque.”
Campa-Najjar talks about his primary campaign with Mehdi, who challenges him on his position on US funding for the Iron Dome as well as the Super PACs backing him. The two also discuss Campa-Najjar’s childhood in Gaza, far-right claims that his grandfather was a ‘Palestinian terrorist,’ and the need for Medicare-for-All.
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