RFK Jr accused of ‘blatant bigotry’ over criticism of Arabs

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has invited uproar by claiming Arabs do not produce great contributions to science or literature.

Kennedy was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Monday to visit the headquarters of Corewell Health to discuss improving hospital food when he was asked about the state’s midterms Senate battle between Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.

The latter, a progressive former public health official, has faced repeated attacks from the right, with President Donald Trump calling him a “Jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member” and suggesting he would have to pass through a metal detector before being allowed into the U.S. Senate.

El-Sayed has repeatedly denied any association with the Islamist group. Kennedy, speaking in Grand Rapids, explained it was founded in 1928 and offered “a new ideology that departed from traditional Islam in a very, very dangerous way”.

He claimed it was a “death cult” that had victimized Palestinians and left Arabic culture “atrophied and stagnant” after a millennia of high culture.

“That’s why you don’t see any Muslims, any Arab Muslims winning the Nobel,” he said.

“There’s 500 million Arabs in the world,” Kennedy continued. “And yet they don’t produce science. They don’t win the Nobel Prize. They don’t win the Fields Prize. They don’t win the Wolf Prize. They don’t produce literature.”

He went on to claim modern Islamist groups delivered only “hate, war and victimization.”

Responding to the secretary’s comments, Jenin Younes, President and Legal Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, told The Independent: “Blaming Islam or the Muslim Brotherhood for Nobel outcomes is blatant anti-Arab bigotry, not to mention factually inaccurate.

“Arabs and Muslims, both from the Middle East and living elsewhere, have made and continue to make significant contributions to science, literature, mathematics, and more.”

The Independent has reached out to Kennedy and the Arab American Institute for further comment.

A list of recent Nobel prize winners debunks one of Kennedy’s points; Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988, his countryman Ahmed Zewail won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1999, Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman was a joint recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 and Jordanian chemist Omar M Yaghi shared the Chemistry prize in 2025.

Other prominent Arab scientists include Lebanese geneticist Huda Zoghbi, Moroccan scientist Rachid Yazami and Egyptian astronomer Farouk El-Baz, all of whom have made major contributions to their respective fields and enjoyed distinguished careers in the U.S.

As for literature, celebrated Arabic writing stretches from the One Thousand and One Nights to The Golden Ode by Imrul Qays and The Epistle of Forgiveness by Abu Al Alaa Al Maarri to, more recently, Mahfouz’s celebrated Cairo Trilogy (1956-57), Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North (1966) and Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013).

Kennedy was speaking in a state that has the largest Arab population in the U.S. – the community accounting for 2.2 percent of its total citizens, according to 2024 American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau – of which El-Sayed is a part.

The candidate has previously called Rogers’ attempt to associate him with the Muslim Brotherhood “shameful” and recently accepted a challenge by a voter at a town hall in Caro inviting him to disavow the organization.

“You’re asking the question because implicitly you assume that I’ll have dual loyalties,” the Democrat said to the attendee. “You assume that somehow I wouldn’t disavow. Or that I’ll have some higher order, allegiance than to the Constitution.

“I’m gonna swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States. And that Constitution guarantees us all the right to practice whatever faith we want or no faith at all.”