A candidate for the US Congress in the state of California is hoping to become its first Latino-Palestinian American member by capturing a district that has voted Republican for the past 30 years.
Ammar Campa-Najjar a 29-year-old former field campaign director for President Barack Obama White House staffer and a labour department official said he wants to bring positive change to California’s demographically changing 50th district.
Campa-Najjar who is of mixed Palestinian and Mexican heritage has promised voters to work on rebuilding jobs for the middle class instead of the wall that President Donald Trump intends to build on the Mexican border.
He has been endorsed by the California Democratic Party to stand against the Republican incumbent Duncan D Hunter.
He said his campaign is focused on helping the people of his district improve their living conditions and rebuild the middle class neglected by Hunter.
Congressional District 50 is located on the southern tip of California close to the Mexican border and includes parts of San Diego county.
Campa-Najjar does not shy away from either his Palestinian or Mexican heritage. However he insisted he is an “American first and foremost”.
He told Al Jazeera he is proud of being the son of a hard-working Mexican mother who struggled to raise him and his brother and a Palestinian father who strived to make peace between Palestinians and Israelis in the 1990s.
An Israeli newspaper reported that Campa-Najjar’s grandfather was a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization and was assassinated by an Israeli hit squad in 1973 after being accused of being a “terrorist” by Israel. Israel considered all members of the PLO to be “terrorists” before it recognised it as a legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and made the Oslo peace agreement with it in 1993.
He said he also opposes Trump’s travel ban because it is based on Islamophobia not on legitimate national security and legal concerns.
“The Trump travel ban is both unconstitutional and immoral because of its basis in Islamophobia. Despite the administration’s changing the letter of the law it’s the spirit of the law and original intent to ban all Muslims that makes it a violation of constitutional law.”
