Via INN:

The head of the New York branch of a Hamas-affiliated group is seeking a seat on the New York City Council.

The New York Daily News reported that Zead Ramadan formally announced on Tuesday his plans to run for the City Council seat being vacated by Councilman Robert Jackson, who plans to run for Manhattan Borough President.

Ramadan has already raised nearly $41,000, according to city CampaignFinance Board records, and says he would be the Council’s first-ever Arab-American member.

“I grew up in this community, and I know northern Manhattan as good as almost anybody,” Ramadan told the Daily News. “I’ve been part of this community since October 1971.”

Ramadan is a Palestinian Authority Arab who was born in Kuwait and immigrated to Washington Heights with his family, including seven siblings, as a kid and quickly assimilated, the report said.

He is, among other things, the president of the board of directors of the New York Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has a long history of anti-Israel rhetoric, accusing the Jewish state of perpetrating genocide and of being a terrorist state.