Palestinian journalist and author Rula Jebreal sparked backlash after labeling House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries an ‘AIPAC monkey’ during a Friday podcast, criticizing his support for Israel.
She said, “He is a bought-and-paid-for AIPAC monkey,” referring to the Black lawmaker. “With all due respect—I don’t intend this as a racist remark. He is essentially an errand boy, and we’ve had enough.”
The podcast host intervened, noting that while the word “monkey” carries terrible racial connotations, they believed Jebreal had caught herself and clarified she didn’t mean it with racial animosity.
Jebreal responded that she was invoking the imagery of the three monkeys—see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
“It reminds me of those three monkeys,” she said.
The Congressional Black Caucus dismissed her explanation in a post on X/Twitter.
The caucus wrote, “There is no non‑racist way to refer to Leader Jeffries, a Black man, as a ‘monkey’ or an ‘errand boy.'”
New York Representative Richie Torres echoed the sentiment on X, stating, “Calling a Black man a ‘monkey’ is racist. Period.”
Jebreal later posted on X, first expressing disgust that Hakeem Jeffries accepts money from AIPAC amid Israel’s actions in Palestine, then acknowledging that her term was inappropriate and offensive and should not have been used.
“I offer my unconditional apology,” she wrote.
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