CHANTILLY, Va. â Three days after Abdul El-Sayed won a historic election as America’s first Muslim senator, a driver navigating a black luxury GMC Yukon Denali SUV pulled into a parking space beside a side security entrance of an upscale Marriott conference center here in this suburb of Washington, D.C., at 7:39 p.m. on Friday.
A man jumped out of the front passenger seat and opened the rear door, from which El-Sayed emerged for an appearance at the Arab America Foundation’s “CONNECT Empowerment Summit,” hosted by the 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose leaders had supported his election.
As the man extended an arm to shield El-Sayed, the senator-elect dipped out of the SUV, slipping on a jacket as he climbed the steps toward the entrance. The Democratic Party’s newly minted rock star had arrived, in more ways than one.
ABDUL EL-SAYED DELIVERS MAJOR BLOW TO GOP IN MICHIGAN AFTER BRUISING SENATE RACE
The ensuing 45 minutes offered a window into some of the activists, organizations, political rhetoric and cultural forces surrounding the El-Sayed’s dramatic rise, buoyed by an increasingly powerful coalition that includes many disaffected Democrats, but also outright Islamists and communists in an unlikely alliance.
Inside, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, a far-left nonprofit, paced in the hallway in a fuchsia tunic over leggings and white boots.
CodePink is a pro-communist, pro-China nonprofit funded by Neville Roy Singham, an American-born, Shanghai-based tycoon whose financing of left-wing nonprofits has drawn congressional and prosecutorial scrutiny. CodePink’s other co-founder, Jodie Evans, is married to Singham.
Nearby, Benjamin’s husband and fellow CodePink activist, Tighe Barry, wore a traditional Chinese jacket under a khaki Mao-style cap emblazoned with a five-point star associated with communist iconography. He carried a backpack patterned with a keffiyeh pattern and watermelons, symbols adopted by pro-Palestinian activists.
Benjamin and Barry weren’t political outliers in El-Sayed’s orbit.
His political rise has been supported by prominent anti-Israel activists including Linda Sarsour and left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who has called Hamas “1,000 times better” than Israel, a remark he later described as intentionally provocative.
Friday night provided a firsthand view of another part of that coalition.
They were among activists and representatives of organizations from different ideological traditions that have converged around El-Sayed â part of what Fox News Digital has examined as a “red-green” network linking elements of the socialist and communist hard-left with Muslim and Arab advocacy organizations.
The gathering itself didn’t fit neatly into a fundamentalist religious mold, amid questions about Islamism, or political Islam, and the Muslim Brotherhood that have followed El-Sayed. He has denied being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, although his family reportedly has ties to the organization and he himself has written favorably about the organization’s leaders.
Women danced and sang with bare shoulders and flowing hair, underscoring the secular and openly cultural character of much of the celebration. A table for Jinba Village and School outside Hebron in the West Bank displayed a flyer reading, “End Settler Outposts: Make Palestinian Villages Safe. Email Congress.”
Another table offered keffiyehs with designs replacing the traditional fishbone patte
