Dearborn, Michigan is changing with the times, and reflects the new America. In several important respects, that is not a good thing.
Ever since 1869, a street that goes through Dearborn has been named Warren Avenue, after a forgotten Revolutionary War hero, General Joseph Warren, who was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. American schoolchildren of past ages, in Michigan at very least, would have learned about Joseph Warren, but no one remembers him now, and so when Dearborn’s current leaders decided to honor a respected and accomplished resident, they decided that it would be absolutely wonderful to rename a stretch of Warren Avenue after him.
And so a portion of Warren Avenue in the heart of Dearborn has been renamed for Osama Siblani, the longtime publisher of Arab American News. That publication on Friday hailed the renaming as “an unprecedented milestone for the Arab American community in Michigan,” and said that Osama Siblani had been chosen for this singular honor “in recognition of his professional career and pioneering role in serving and advancing the Arab American community.”
The Arab American News article added that “the honorary sign highlights Siblani’s leadership in helping transform Arab Americans from a marginalized group in the 1980s into one of the most visible and influential ethnic communities in Michigan and across the United States.”
That all sounds swell and multicultural and all that, but wouldn’t you know it, there are the inevitable naysayers. Some people have had the poor taste to point out that Siblani, as the Washington Free Beacon pointed out, “has for years defended and praised Hamas and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist groups. At a rally in Dearborn he organized on Sept. 25, [2024], Siblani hailed then-Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as a ‘hero.’”
Siblani said: "They want us to be afraid of praising our leaders and martyrs, but today we say to them that our martyrs are heroes and our leaders are great, especially the great Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah." The crowd started chanting “Death to Israel,” whereupon Siblani said: "Believe me, they will take care of the job."
Dearborn, however, has a Muslim mayor and a large Muslim population, and Siblani’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah didn’t slow down for even a moment the rush to give him this honor. However, not everyone was happy. At a City Council meeting last Wednesday, a Dearborn resident, Ted Barham, said this about the Osama Siblani street signs: “I feel like having that sign up there is almost like naming a street Hezbollah Street or Hamas Street. Hezbollah bombed the embassy in Beirut, including many Americans. I just feel it’s quite inappropriate."
MUST WATCH 🔴
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 16, 2025
A Dearborn, Michigan resident opposed naming a street after pro-Hezbollah figure Osama Siblani
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud responded to the resident: “You do not belong in this city, Islamophobe! Get out!, you are not welcomed here” pic.twitter.com/Eq1vdY2ys8
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud was enraged. He shot back: “You’re an Islamophobe. And although you live here, I want you to know as mayor you are not welcome here. The day you move out of the city will be the day I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of the city."
Well, gosh. It has been a long time, if it has ever happened at all, that a mayor told a law-abiding citizen to leave his city, and said that he would celebrate when he did. All Ted Barham did was register his disapproval of what the Dearborn authorities had decided to do with a stretch of Warren Avenue. Is Dearborn now intolerant of political dissent?
Related: Okay, Now Leftists Are Posting Hit Lists of the People They Want to Murder Next
In Dearborn, and elsewhere as well, thanks to the left’s increasingly violent intolerance of opposing voices, it looks as if the end result of multiculturalism and diversity is a society that is decidedly monochromatic. Ted Barham is only welcome to continue to live in Dearborn if he falls into lockstep with what the mayor considers to be acceptable opinion. What is going on up there? Does Abdullah Hammoud think he is an official of the Biden administration?
Despite Hammoud’s outburst, the story isn’t over. Michigan News Source reported Wednesday that “no one is tearing up Warren Avenue’s original nameplates. General Joseph Warren’s sacrifice at Bunker Hill still technically anchors the boulevard. But the new ‘Osama Siblani’ markers now stand along with his, fusing Revolutionary history with today’s culture wars.” Indeed, and that’s not good: “For longtime residents, that juxtaposition feels less like unity and more like rewriting the story of who – and what – Dearborn chooses to honor. And if city hall meetings are any guide, the battle over that story is only just beginning.”
Yes, but if demographic trends are any indication, the forces of patriotism are beginning this fight at a significant disadvantage.
