RFK Jr. attacks Arab societies at Michigan rally, blaming Muslim Brotherhood for ‘stagnation’ and antisemitism

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched a sweeping attack on Arab societies and the Muslim Brotherhood at a campaign rally for Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Monday.

Kennedy claimed that roughly 500 million Arabs “don’t produce science,” win major scientific prizes or “produce literature,” arguing that a long tradition of Islamic scientific and cultural achievement had been destroyed by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Those assertions are demonstrably inaccurate. Jordan-born Arab-American chemist Omar Yaghi won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the 2018 Wolf Prize, while Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Kennedy contrasted Arab countries with Israel, calling Israel a high-tech superpower and attributing differences in development to the Muslim Brotherhood. He characterized the movement’s ideology as rooted in hatred of Jews, the United States and Western civilization and said it sought to replace democracy with rule under Sharia law.

He also argued that antisemitism within the Muslim Brotherhood predated Israel’s creation and described the organization as viewing Islam as engaged in an existential struggle with Jews and Christians. Those broad descriptions reflect Kennedy’s characterization of the movement rather than a single agreed assessment of its diverse branches and history.

Kennedy cited the near-disappearance of Jewish communities from several Arab countries, saying there were only four Jews in Syria and none in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Libya or Algeria. His claim about Tunisia is false: the country still has an established Jewish community numbering roughly 1,500 people. Recent reporting has put Syria’s remaining Jewish population at around six.

Kennedy called the decline of Jewish populations across Arab countries “the real genocide in the Middle East.” The term is his characterization; population decline through expulsion, persecution, migration and other causes does not by itself establish genocide as a matter of international law.