An Arab leader in San Francisco, California has lambasted the city's mayor Gavin Newsom for visiting Israel this week on a trip he charged was made "ostensibly to connect Bay Area and Israeli business leaders." Ramiz Rafeedie, an attorney and president of the Arab Resources and Organizing Center, wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle that the visit coinciding with Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day) "communicates a powerful message that Israel is a country to be celebrated, economically integrated and politically sustained."
He said his family next week will mark the English date of Israel's independence as "An-Nakba," the Arabic word for "the catastrophe." Rafeedie complained that Mayor Newsom's visit "achieves nothing toward bettering America's tattered image among Arabs and Muslims, whose resentment toward the United States' unconditional support of Israel is palpable."