John Fetterman’s first primary challenger is a progressive born in Gaza

It took just days after Democrats’ resounding victory in the midterm elections for a challenger to Donald Trump’s “favorite Democrat”—Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman—to emerge. Ahmed Moor, a Philadelphia foreign policy analyst and writer, is the first candidate to announce his entry into what will likely be a crowded primary field. The 42-year-old Moor was born in Gaza, and has lost family in Israel’s genocide—most recently a 19-year-old cousin killed by an Israeli sniper in Rafah. 

That history alone puts Moor at odds with Fetterman, who has become one of the most stridently pro-Israel voices in Congress and has threatened to leave the Democratic Party if it moves against Israel. But without his swing vote, Moor said, Fetterman will be “irrelevant”—and with only 13 percent of Pennsylvania Democrats reporting a favorable opinion of him in an October Quinnipiac poll, exceptionally vulnerable to a primary challenge. 

Moor is not alone in eyeing Fetterman’s seat: state legislators Chris Deluzio and Malcolm Kenyatta are both reportedly likely challengers. Former Pennsylvania House Rep. Conor Lamb, who lost a primary to Fetterman in 2022, has also been floated as a candidate, but has so far denied any plans to run. 

For now, Moor has a head start on pitching what he calls his “dignity agenda”— Medicare for All, an end to the US war on Iran, universal childcare, and a billionaire wealth tax—to the people of Pennsylvania. 

I spoke with Moor via Zoom the day after he launched his campaign. We discussed data centers, his plans to impose sanctions on Israel if elected, and his ongoing lawsuit against the State Department. 

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. 

So, you’re new to politics—who exactly am I speaking with today? 

I’m a Palestinian American writer, formerly a journalist. I worked in financial services in the past as well. And I’m a foreign policy guy. I just finished up a fellowship at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. I’m running for US Senate here in Pennsylvania, targeting the seat that John Fetterman currently holds. 

It would be untruthful to say that I didn’t come to this decision through genocide. I was born in Palestine, I was born in Gaza, and I have family there today. But genocide doesn’t happen overnight. Genocide is just the worst manifestation of what it means for our public policy to be captured by special interests, in this case by the Israel lobby.

I think you can broaden that analysis and say that generally we suffer from a deficit of democratic governance in America. That all of our public policy has been captured by special interests. And you see that in the way that data centers have sprung up across our landscape in Pennsylvania. You see that in the way that AI has begun to intrude into our daily lives unbidden. We didn’t have a conversation about this.

We’re being told today that the equivalent of 9 percent of GDP is being spent on the AI buildout and it’s going to cause massive job losses. Well, let’s have that conversation.  I don’t think it’s a good idea—but I’m insisting that we need to have a conversation about it. So that’s who I am, that’s why I’m running. 

Why Fetterman’s seat? 

Look, Fetterman’s story’s over. I’m not really running against Fetterman. No matter what happens in 2028, that man is irrelevant. I’m running for the future. I’ve got three young girls.

The idea that my kids’ decision set—that in the future, their rights will be more circumscribed than the rights I have, that their mother has—that’s intolerable to me. It makes me angry, and I’m unwilling to accept that. 

Thomas Jefferson wrote the words of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness just a few miles away from where I’m sitting now. The idea that people have liberty without having access to everything they need to live a dignified life—I don’t believe that. I think there’s no liberty in poverty. 

You’ve spoken about a “dignity agenda.” What does that mean in practice? 

When you walk down the street and you see somebody who’s unhoused, when you walk around and you see people who are economically insecure or or you drive through rural Pennsylvania and you see communities that are decrepit, where people are generally hopeless, they’re not living dignified lives.

Fundamentally, I think dignity means providing the basics, the material basics—and thereafter, go out and volunteer, or go out and make a million dollars, if that’s what you want, or write a book, or do whatever it is that’s going to make you happy, because that’s what it means to be a free person in a free society. And I have no prescription for what happiness means. I know what happiness means to me. I hope everybody figures it out on their own terms. But I do know that there’s no possibility of self-actualization if you’re lying awake at 3:00 a.m. on a Sunday worrying about how you’re going to pay for your kids’ dentist bill. That’s not freedom.

You’ve also talked about sanctioning Israel, often referencing the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, which levied sanctions against apartheid South Africa. What would that look like? 

In 1986, we enacted legislation targeting South African apartheid on the basis of the idea that it’s inconsistent with our values as Americans. We litigated the question of separate and unequal on the battlefield 160 years ago, and we came down pretty firmly on one side of that conversation. We know how we feel about separate and unequal in America. So the idea that Jews have superior rights in Palestine, I’ve never believed in it. I don’t understand. It’s unreasonable to tell me as a Palestinian-American man that somehow Jewish people deserve more rights in the country that I was born in.

So, it’s just the idea of equal rights. Let’s enforce legislation that we enacted 40 years ago in a new context. 

You’re one of the plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit against the State Department for failing to enforce the Leahy Laws, which should theoretically require that the US stop providing military aid to Israel while it’s being credibly accused of human rights abuses. 

Not theoretically—concretely. The law is very clear. The Israelis committed genocide, they’ve committed war crimes, atrocities; they ought to be sanctioned for it in line with existing law. We as Americans lead with our values. I believe that. I believe that cynical people in positions of authority have undermined that argument, and made a lot of people feel that our speech is one thing and our actions another. I’d like to bring those things into coherence. 

We are people who value the lives of children. The Israelis have killed 21,000 children in Gaza. They’ve killed 100,000 innocent people. We really don’t know how many people they’ve killed because they won’t allow any journalists into Gaza. And the genocide is ongoing–that bears saying as well. 

And so there’s a moment of urgency that isn’t being met by any of our public policy. But about that lawsuit–you know, I’m a rule-of-law guy. I’ve got three little kids, and they’ve got to be able to enjoy Halloween and trick-or-treat in safety.

I believe that should be true for everybody else’s kids. I was talking about the pursuit of happiness earlier. If we don’t have safety, we’re not free people either. I think when the rule of law begins to break down even at the highest levels, that percolates throughout society. 

When you see the blatant disregard coming out of the Biden and Trump administrations for the rule of law, for ideas that we’ve articulated and then enacted through legislation that are supposed to govern how we interact with the world, everything else breaks down. So the lawsuit is about enforcing the rule of law. We’ve got laws. Let’s adhere to them. And then we’ve got to hold bad actors to account.

Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Brett McGurk, Jon Finer, and [Samantha Power], who wrote the book on genocide, I think it was a how-to, possibly. 

Speaking of all those figures you just named, you wrote a few articles during the 2024 election about why you weren’t voting for Biden that year. I suspect some Democrats might come for you on that front. What would you have to say to them? 

I am the best representation today of what it means to engage authentically and enthusiastically with American democracy. I don’t like the leadership in the Democratic Party. I think most Americans in the midterms would say they voted against the war, against the Republicans, rather than for the Democrats. I am not committed to a party as such.

I’m committed to ideas, I’m committed to principles. The Democratic Party can become the party that rejects war and extermination.

But I’m not going to vote for a genocidal leadership. Instead, I’m going to seek to eject that leadership. And there’s a contest now—Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, these are people who are bought and paid for by AIPAC, which is a pollutant in our political environment. 

I represent the future of the Democratic Party. People are fed up with bad behavior across the board. It’s my Democratic Party, not Joe Biden’s Democratic Party. 

And you’re running as a DSA member, right? 

DSA had me at anti-genocide. Those guys are values-first people. The DSA is the values arm of the Democratic Party. I love those guys. 

On the theme of accountability, I wanted to ask you about ICE. 

ICE is best understood as a paramilitary militia. It is not a policing force. ICE has to be disbanded. The politicians on both sides who voted to fund ICE need to be held accountable at the ballot box.

We’re talking about rebuilding American institutions. It’s not a small task. 

The people who murdered Alex Pretti and Renee Good have to be held accountable for their behavior. We need to drag bad actors into an environment of accountability. And if you’re going to wear a mask and you’re going to go kick down somebody’s door, think twice. We’re going to be in an environment of accountability soon.

You’ve started your campaign quite early. It’s two years out from 2028. How do you plan to spend that time? 

This is the bullhorn. This campaign is a vehicle for maintaining pressure on the leadership of the Democratic Party, working for renewal. I’m running for two years because I want to telegraph these arguments into every living room in America and every living room across Pennsylvania. I’m going to go to every one of those 67 counties. 

I’m going to meet with people on the left and right—I think Americans are committed to constitutional democracy. And that includes the Second Amendment, you know? You’re not going to convince a man with his origin in Palestine that it’s a good idea for the federal government to seize everybody’s guns.

Alex Pretti was availing himself of the best argument for the Second Amendment. He was confronting a tyrannical regime in an American street, and he was executed. I don’t know what he should have done in that instance. 

And I want to have these conversations earnestly and in good faith with every voter in the state and every non-voter too. 

Prior to this run, you were best known as a writer, editor, political analyst—you edited the book After Zionism—what from that world do you plan to bring into the Senate? 

Principles. In the darkest moments I’ve had, where I’ve felt afloat and unmoored from anything else, a reversion to the principles that mattered to me has helped to guide me. 

We’ve got to recommit to our guiding principles, the Bill of Rights, articulated 240 years ago. The Declaration of Independence 250 years ago. Those are good ideas, and the job of US senators to take those ideas and see them rendered in the real world. 

That means free speech, which was assailed and undermined by both the Biden and Trump administrations. The IHRA definition of antisemitism is a severe curtailment of speech in America. So let’s keep people safe, yes, but let’s also honor the rights, the civil liberties that make America worth fighting for. There’s this left-right contest, which is real—I’m a man of the left. We can litigate these questions. But what’s inviolable to me is the shape of the sandbox. 

And that’s the common thread. I’ve always argued that equal rights should exist in Palestine, Israel. There’s nothing inherently superior about anybody. We’re all just people. That’s the principle that’s always guided me and my work on foreign policy. And it guides me in thinking through the contours of what an American future can look like.