An organization known as A New Policy Inc., an anti-Israel lobbying group, is ramping up efforts in Dearborn, Michigan—a city long viewed as a hub for anti-Israel activism—to raise money and pressure lawmakers to oppose legislation protecting Israel and Jewish students.
The organization, founded by former Biden administration officials Josh Paul and Tariq Habash, is using targeted Facebook ads to recruit Dearborn residents to fund what it calls a “professional lobbying force.” The group, according to Facebook data, has spent over $13,000 on ads accusing AIPAC of “weaponiz[ing] Jewish identity” and pushing “endless conflict.” One ad declares, “AIPAC has lobbyists. We’ve had to rely on outrage.”
Habash promoted A New Policy Inc. during a panel at the ArabCon conference in Dearborn last month, telling attendees, “There are organizations like mine, A New Policy. If you don’t know us, please you should know us.” He added that the goal is “to find levers to be able to influence members of Congress to counterbalance what the pro-Israel, pro-genocide lobby has been doing for decades.”
Dearborn, dubbed “America’s Jihad Capital,” has hosted rallies where protesters chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” Mayor Abdullah Hammoud attended one event where a local leader called Hezbollah’s chief a “hero.”
Paul, who resigned from the State Department after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, has since lobbied Congress against the Preventing Antisemitic Harassment on Campus Act. The group’s PAC has donated to left-wing candidates such as Rep. Summer Lee and Michigan state Rep. Donavan McKinney.
