Scoop: Instagrammer sends Abe Hamadeh hate mail

Politics is hard in 2024 no matter who you are. But if you’re a staunchly pro-Israel Druze candidate running in a Republican primary, it’s harder than diamonds.

Abe Hamadeh is competing for the Republican nomination to replace Debbie Lesko in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District. He has earned the coveted endorsement of President Trump, who even hosted a splashy poolside funder for the candidate at Mar-a-Lago. But as occurs whenever a seat in a reliably red district opens up, there are several strong candidates vying for the nomination.

Arizona speaker Ben Toma has been campaigning hard, while the unsuccessful GOP nominee for the US Senate in 2022, Blake Masters, has been spending a chunk of his personal fortune trying to kick Hamadeh in the teeth.

Some of that kicking has taken an extraordinarily nasty tone. The American Principles Project PAC, which is backing Masters, put out an over-the-top ad earlier this month that shows photos of Muslims at prayer while referring to Hamadeh as a “terrorist sympathizer.” Hamadeh is a former U.S. Army Reserve Captain and Intelligence Officer, where one of his duties included vetting terrorist threats. He is also a former Maricopa county prosecutor. So he’s hardly a “terrorist sympathizer.”

At the same time, Hamadeh is the son of Druze immigrants from Syria. So the ad Masters supporting PAC isn’t exactly an anti-Muslim “dog whistle”; it’s more like a megaphone. According to reporting by Tara Kavaler, the Masters campaign has also paid for street signs that feature a photo of Hamadeh meant to cast doubt on his American normalness. Even to calloused observers of low-blow politics, these tactics are pretty grotesque.

Ironically, Hamadeh also has to take abuse from Muslims over his staunchly pro-Israel views.

The Globe can exclusively report that Hamadeh received a creepy and weird threat from an Instagram user named “jademan3000”:

“The Arizona Palestinians and Arabs already got you on the shit list if you didn’t know. Your grandparents are rolling in their graves right now. Keep supporting the genocide we recording who’s with us and who’s against us.”

No one can say how widespread this sentiment is, and jademan3000 has only 248 followers to his account, which is illustrated by a demonstrator masked in a keffiyah triumphantly waving a Palestinian flag. But it’s worth pointing out that Masters is taking shots at Hamadeh for being too sympathetic to Muslims at the exact same time that a scary rando is sending a threat over Hamadeh being too sympathetic to Israel.

Asked about the troubling Instagram DM, Hamadeh told the Globe, “Israel is our most reliable and important ally that stands for freedom and democracy in a region that’s filled with corruption, deception, and terror. I will never apologize for defending Israel’s right to exist and their commitment to eradicate terror. As a former Army reserve intelligence officer who was deployed to the region, I know the same threats that Israel faces are the ones that could face the United States if we don’t remain firm in our alliances.”

With about six weeks remaining until the primary takes place on July 30, expect things to get even nastier. If that’s possible.