Palestinian journalist accused of racism for calling Hakeem Jeffries ‘AIPAC monkey’

Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal faced accusations of racism on Friday after calling US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries an “AIPAC monkey.”

“His name is Hakeem. ‘Hakeem’ is an Arabic name which means ‘healer.’ He’s not a healer, he’s a divider,” Jebreal said during an appearance on New York Times columnist Wajahat Ali’s left-wing podcast “The Left Hook.”

“He is a bought and paid by AIPAC monkey,” she said, before adding, “with all due respect — and I don’t mean it in a racist way.”

“He is just basically an errand boy, and we’re done and tired,” Jebreal continued.

Jeffries, a Democrat, has reportedly received large donations linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobby group, throughout his political career.

Following Jebreal’s controversial remarks, Ali appeared to attempt to alleviate tension by noting that “using ‘monkey’ to anyone black… has terrible racial connotations, but I think you caught yourself and said that you didn’t mean it with any racial animosity.”

Jebreal claimed that she used the term, which has historically been used as a racist slur to dehumanize Black people, as a reference to the Japanese three wise monkeys, which see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.

Still, her statements triggered backlash from Black lawmakers.

“To be clear, there isn’t a non-racist way to call Leader Jeffries — a Black man — a ‘monkey’ or ‘errand boy,'” the Congressional Black Caucus posted on X. “We have to stop platforming and trafficking in anti-Black racism, whether it’s on the political right or the left.”

New York Representative Ritchie Torres, one of Israel’s most staunch defenders in Congress, also took to X to condemn Jebreal’s remarks.

When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. pic.twitter.com/HpigAsiO1m

— greg (@mistergeezy) September 4, 2026

“Calling a Black man a ‘monkey’ is racist. Full stop,” he wrote. “If Wajahat Ali and Rula Jebreal were on the far right, no one on the far left would have any trouble condemning them for dehumanizing a Black man in racist terms.”

Jeffries, meanwhile, did not publicly respond to Jebreal’s remarks.

Jebreal, a Haifa-born foreign policy analyst with dual Israeli and Italian citizenship, has long been a fierce critic of Israel and its treatment of Palestinians.

Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught, Jebreal — who has condemned the attack as a war crime — has repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid.