Uncommitted movement backed by network of Rashida Tlaib's family, friends, supporters - exclusive

The Uncommitted National Movement, which advocates for voters not to support a Democratic Party presidential candidate unless they support anti-Israel policies, has extensive ties to Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s family, friends, former colleagues, and supporters.

The organization was formed out of the success of Listen to Michigan, which canvassed door-to-door and operated phone banks during the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries. Listen to Michigan claims that in the state, more than 100,000 Democrats voted uncommitted rather than then-candidate President Joe Biden. According to Waging Nonviolence, Listen to Michigan itself was the product of earlier phone banking attempts in New Hampshire involving former Bernie Sanders campaigners and veteran progressive political operatives, including Waleed Shahid, former communications director of Justice Democrats PAC, which support candidates like Tlaib.

Tlaib herself endorsed Listen to Michigan’s call to vote uncommitted in a February video posted on social media by the Uncommitted National Movement. Yet Tlaib’s connections to the group through its incarnations are both familial and professional.

Listen to Michigan’s campaign manager was Layla Elabed, Tlaib’s sister. The Federal Election Committee lists Elabed as the group’s Listen to Us PAC treasurer, and she has since assumed the role of co-chair for the Uncommitted National Movement. Abbas Alawieh, a former senior adviser to Tlaib, is a campaign chair of the Uncommitted movement of Listen to Michigan. He was elected as an Uncommitted delegate to the Democratic National Convention, along with Rima Mohammed, who was endorsed by Tlaib in her failed state representative primary race.

A review of the funding and infrastructure of Listen to Michigan and the Uncommitted movement reveals the involvement of Tlaib’s former employer and mentor, as well as a pattern of involvement by officers of the same NGO with whom Tlaib had worked before entering politics.

A little-known nonprofit called Arab Americans for Progress (APP) was instrumental in the operation of Listen to Michigan. Listen to Michigan’s field director, Seth Woody, told Waging Nonviolence in March that the former Sanders campaigners had housed the dialer with them and provided them with their legal entity, housing, and bank account.

APP, which has been in operation since 2022 and gained tax-exempt status in February, was the second-highest donor to Listen to Michigan after the Movement Voter Project, according to Open Secrets, contributing $205,928. Until the creation of the Listen to US PAC, the donation button led to an Action Network fundraising drive through APP. Phone banking actions by Listen to Michigan involved emails from APP.

The group was involved in the expansion of Uncommitted actions, sponsoring phone banks in Washington, Wisconsin, and Michigan, some of which were co-sponsored by the Sunrise movement, the Democratic Socialists of America Electoral Committee, and IfNotNow.

Donations to the Uncommitted Movement are now made through the Act Blue platform to the Listen to Us PAC, but a disclaimer at the bottom of the Uncommitted website reads, “paid for by Arab Americans for Progress.”

On an Action Network fundraiser for APP that only has 28 contributors, the APP describes itself as a “leadership organization seeking to develop an explicitly progressive political home for Arab-Americans” through “grassroots leadership development, the creation and implementation of a progressive Arab American agenda, and an electoral program that is deeply rooted in a community organizing strategy.”

APP has little public-facing infrastructure, but Internal Revenue Service filings show that the NGO’s officers are executive director Hassan Jaber, president Nadia Tonova, and secretary Rana Elmir.

Until 2021, Jaber was the former president and CEO of Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS). In 2021, Tlaib recognized Jaber’s work with ACCESS before Congress, stating that “his mentorship helped me grow into the passionate advocate I am today.”

Tlaib worked for ACCESS after law school until 2008, according to the National Women’s History Museum. In 2016, Take on Hate, a project of ACCESS through its National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC), said in advertisements that Tlaib was its campaign manager. Tlaib also told The New York Times in 2019 that she was leading the campaign.

ACCESS, which has been operating for decades and was created to help Arab immigrants adapt to life in the US, offers “a wide range of social, economic, health and educational services.”

Involvement of Tlaib's family 

WHILE THE existence of a formal relationship between ACCESS and the Uncommitted campaign is unclear, and both parties have not yet responded to requests for clarification and comment, Tlaib is not the only member of her family associated with ACCESS, and Jaber is not the only high-profile ACCESS figure involved in the Uncommitted campaign.  Individual actors could be responsible for the pattern.

Tlaib’s sister Elabed worked with ACCESS for six years as a research assistant, a domestic violence prevention coordinator, and a sexual assault prevention program coordinator. Rachid Elabed, who, according to Detroit News is Tlaib’s brother, is the ACCESS Business Operations and Facilities director.

Jaber is not the only member of Arab Americans for Progress affiliated with ACCESS. APP secretary Elmir is an at-large member of the board of directors. APP president Tonova, according to her NHT Consulting firm biography, was the director of ACCESS’s NNAAC, where she launched the Take on Hate campaign.

APP has collaborated with ACCESS’s NNAAC on a survey, and NNAAC’s current director, Rima Meroueh, was “close to the original conversations that started the ‘uncommitted’ campaign” and “one of the people who helped launch” it, according to the Notes From America podcast. Meroueh clarified to the host that she was involved in the campaign in a private individual capacity.

In contrast to Notes from America, which described her as a “volunteer” with Michigan’s uncommitted campaign, Meroueh told The Jerusalem Post that she was not a volunteer for the Uncommitted Campaign and never had been.

“There is no organizational, financial, or other relationship between ACCESS and the Uncommitted movement,” said Meroueh.

Alawieh, Tlaib’s former adviser and Uncommitted delegate has volunteered as an ACCESS Community Advisory Board Member for several years, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Several ACCESS officers are also supporters of Tlaib’s political campaign, including Social Services Main and Special Projects director Brigitte Fawaz-Anouti, CEO Lina Hourani-Harajli, and CFO Wisam Qasem Fakhoury, who have in the past donated to her congressional run.

The Uncommitted movement has made significant waves in the Democratic establishment, using social media, protests, and its 36 delegates to pressure Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign to adopt its demands of a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an arms embargo on Israel, and the end of the blockade of the Strip.

The movement started with a coalition of far-left Jewish organizations, ex-Sanders campaigners, and progressive activists, but since then, Tlaib’s associates, former colleagues, family, and friends have come to the forefront as major players.