When a genocide hits close to home: Q&A with Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid
Illustration by Jasmin Hernandez
By Ankur Singh
Last summer, in August 2025, news broke that Khamis Ayyad, a Palestinian-American father of five who raised his family in Cicero, was killed in the West Bank by Israeli settlers. Ayyad moved back to the West Bank five years ago. His family claims that Israeli settlers had set fire to cars in his village and Ayyad was killed by inhaling smoke as he attempted to put out the flames.
CAIR Chicago, a civil rights organization, immediately demanded a full investigation by the Department of Justice into the killing. Present at their press conference was Illinois State Representative Abdelnasser Rashid, who represents parts of Cicero and surrounding suburbs, including Bridgeview, also known as Little Palestine.
Several months later, in November 2025, Cicero Independiente spoke to Rep. Rashid to talk about his proposed bill, called the Illinois Human Rights Advocacy and Protection Act (HB 2723) to revoke a law that penalizes companies for boycotting Israel, his experience as Illinois’s only Palestinian elected official, and the significance of the election of Zohran Mamdani in New York City who did not shy away from calling Israel’s violence a genocide.
Question by Ankur Singh: Could you describe what the past two years have been like for you as one of the only Palestinian elected officials in Springfield?
Answer from Rep Rashid: I am very honored and humbled to have been elected twice now to serve the 21st District. I take the responsibility very seriously of representing the voices of the entire district, but also carry the voices of the Palestinian community with me to Springfield as the only Palestinian legislator in our state. That means a responsibility to speak up for justice, for fairness, making sure that our state is not a part of the problem when it comes to the injustices and the human rights abuses that we see across the globe. I feel a combination of humility and responsibility in this role.
At the same time, it's been very difficult to see the videos and the images coming out of Gaza. Those aren't things that you can ever unsee. And of course, not just over the last two years, but when I was visiting my family in June of 2023 and the settlers invaded our village in broad daylight and torched an entire neighborhood. We weren't sure whether we would be killed. Just like many Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settler terrorism. That's something that has only gotten worse and not only has our country funded it, but our state has played a role in it as well. So the last two years, of course, have been the most horrific. We've seen a genocide unfold after Israeli leaders told us exactly what they intended to do when they said that they were not going to allow food into Gaza, fuel into Gaza. That there's no such thing as a civilian. These genocidal statements were dismissed as fringe, but they were not. They were very much mainstream Israeli government positions and they carried out what they said they were going to do. That is a stain on the world. That is a stain on the United States, on the state of Illinois. It's a stain on international governments and institutions that have enabled and been complicit in the genocide. It's on us to do better moving forward.
Q: This past summer, there was a father who had raised and brought up his family in Cicero who was killed by settlers in the West Bank. It brought the ongoing genocide very close to home here in Cicero. Why should people in Cicero care about what's happening in Palestine right now?
A: America is a very diverse nation. We have people from all over the world. Unless you're indigenous or unless your ancestors were forced to come to this country as slaves-- we are a nation of immigrants. In the Chicagoland area, in particular, in Illinois, we have the largest Palestinian population in the country. Just like we know people who are directly impacted by ICE terrorizing our communities and people who are impacted by Russia's aggression in Ukraine, we also know people who are directly impacted by Israeli terrorism against Palestinians.
I know Palestinians from Gaza who've lived in Chicago and have lost hundreds of family members. Hitting really close to home in Cicero, there's this father of five, who had been living in Cicero a few years ago, who was murdered by Israeli settlers while visiting his village in the West Bank. This is not some foreign policy issue that's across the world and is irrelevant. It's very much an issue that hits close to home because our neighbors are impacted by it and because our public policy, both on the federal and state level, contributes to the aggression and the injustice.
Q: Can you describe what the anti-boycott law is that's currently on the books? Why are you seeking to repeal it?
A: Years ago Governor Rauner signed legislation making Illinois the first state in the country to punish free speech by divesting from companies that boycott Israel. So if a company like Ben and Jerry's decided not to sell ice cream in the Israeli settlements, as they did, they were retaliated against by Illinois' pension funds. It's a way of using state power and the state's very large pension funds, which are 10s of billions of dollars, to impose state censorship on companies trying to stand up for human rights. That law is very significant. It directly punished companies like Ben and Jerry's. But also when Airbnb decided not to list units in Israeli settlements because of concern for Palestinian human rights, and then they reversed course, and said that one of the reasons that they were reversing course and continuing their problematic practice of having listings in settlements was because they were afraid of retaliation by Illinois' pension funds. So there's a real world impact of this law. It's not symbolic. It actually helps shape the actions of major corporations, and it's a shame. It's a shameful law. It's a stain on our state's history. We cannot claim to be a state that values justice and humanity and fairness with Democratic super majorities and Democratic control of all branches of government, yet be okay with a law that punishes dissent and that retaliates against companies standing up for human rights. So my bill seeks to repeal that.
Q: The Illinois state legislature just came out of the veto session in Springfield. What's the current status of the bill?
A: We are waiting for the bill to be assigned to committee in the House and in the Senate. There are two bills. They're identical. In the House, it's HB 2723 and in the Senate it's SB 2462. I'm the sponsor in the House. Senator Porfirio is the sponsor in the Senate. And procedurally for any bill, it needs to be assigned into committee and then if it makes it out of committee then you build support to make sure that it has the votes to get out on the House floor or the Senate floor. So we need 60 votes in the House and 30 votes in the Senate in order to get it to the Governor's desk. That's the project that I'm working on. Working both to get it assigned to committee, we're asking the Speaker and the Senate President to assign the bill to committee so that it can get a fair hearing and we're working to build up the support from legislators across our state, in both chambers, to make sure that we can get it to the Governor's desk.
EDITORS NOTE: On February 11, 2026 the bill was officially assigned to the International Relations subcommittee.
Q: What's the hold up in terms of why it hasn't come to committee yet?
A: Leadership hasn't assigned it to committee. We've been very clear, myself and other legislators, that it's absolutely time for legislative leaders in both chambers to allow this bill to get a fair hearing. You'd have to ask them as to why they haven't assigned it.
Q: Now that a ceasefire has been announced, why is it important to keep pushing for this bill?
A: The ceasefire simply means that Palestinians currently are getting a little bit of relief from from active genocide. Ceasefire does not mean that we have arrived at peace or justice. A ceasefire in Gaza, which I welcome, the stopping of the mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza doesn't mean that Palestinians in the West Bank are free from settler terrorism and occupation and apartheid. This will remain an issue until our country and our state stops enabling Israeli apartheid and Israeli human rights abuses against the Palestinian people.
Q: The recent election of Zohran Mamdani in New York City was huge in terms of someone who was very bold in his support for Palestine. What do you make of the shift in electoral politics of Democrats who are more willing to step up for Palestinians?
A: Every Democrat who has stood up in Illinois who stood up for Palestinian rights, whether by signing my letter on October 8, or co-sponsoring our law in the House or Senate has been re-elected in 2024.
American politics has shifted rapidly because people have seen exactly what Israel has carried out in Gaza. A live-stream genocide that shakes anyone who sees the videos and pictures to their core. It's not a surprise that there has been the shift and that shift has resulted in political support for Palestinian human rights like we've never seen before. Poll after poll shows that support for Palestinian human rights is not only increasing, but is actually for the first time, more American support is sympathetic to Palestinians than at any point in the history of polling that's asked that question. That has translated into electoral victories for people across the country, including, and very significantly, Zohran Mamdani's election in New York City.
Very important to note that the Washington Post recently released a survey showing that four in 10 American Jews believe that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. So this idea that the Jewish community stands in lockstep in support of Israeli Apartheid is completely false and is an insult to the many, many American Jews who stand firmly against Israel's actions in Gaza and in the West Bank. So, Zohran Mamdani's election is a significant statement because to get elected in the largest city in the country, while being unapologetically supportive of Palestinian human rights, correctly identifying Israel's actions as genocide, having sponsored legislation in New York to hold organizations funding settler terrorism accountable. For anyone who was skeptical that this is good politics, in addition to being the moral thing to do and the right thing to do, Zohran's election should put that question to rest.
As of January 2026, the bill still currently sits in the rules committee and is awaiting for both House and Senate leadership to assign it to committee before it can proceed to a vote. Learn more at https://www.ilchr.org/.
Ankur Singh is a Cicero-based, Chicago adjacent freelance journalist and organizer. His work has been published in The Washington Post, In These Times, Chicago Reader, Prism Reports, Truthout and more. He is a co-founder of the hyperlocal, bilingual news outlet Cicero Independiente.
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