Three retired generals have issued a letter to voters in Rep. Duncan Hunter’s congressional district claiming that his challenger — Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar — is a national security risk.

The claim, circulated by the Hunter campaign, was immediately denied by Campa-Najjar, whose team denounced the letter as part of a series of racist attacks — and noted that the generals are also lobbyists with interests before the congressional committee that Hunter has served on.

Campa-Najjar is a Palestinian Mexican-American. His paternal grandfather was Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar, head of the intelligence wing of Fatah, the political party founded by Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat.

Some Fatah members formed the Black September organization, a terrorist group that was responsible for a series of attacks against Israelis, including the 1972 killing of 11 athletes and coaches at the Munich Olympics.


Campa-Najjar has renounced the attacks and never met his grandfather, who died 16 years before he was born. The three generals nevertheless emphasized the candidate’s family background in their letter.

“If Democrat candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar should get elected and sees secret information on U.S. military operations that would endanger members of his Najjar family in the Middle East, would he compromise U.S. operations to protect his relatives, the Najjars?” the letter says. “We would not bet the lives of our troops on the gamble. We hope you wouldn’t either.”

The generals were identified as retired brigadier general Terry Paul and retired major generals Randall West and T.L. Corwin. None responded to telephone messages on Monday.

“In the history of California politics, there are, unfortunately, many negative political campaign hits pieces filled with deceptive and misleading information. But Rep. Hunter’s personal hatred and animosity know no bounds,” said Campa- Najjar campaign spokesman Nick Singer in a statement. “We call upon responsible members of the Republican leadership to condemn and reprimand Rep. Hunter for this race-baiting, hate-filled piece of propaganda.”


Singer added that Campa-Najjar underwent an FBI background check when he worked for the Department of Labor under former President Barack Obama.

The retired generals who signed the letter are all registered lobbyists who have advocated for legislation before the House Armed Services Committee, which Hunter served on.

According to federal lobbying records, the signers of the letter work for the lobbying firms Cassidy & Associates, Robison International Inc. and Blank Rome Government Relations LLC.

Hunter spokesman Mike Harrison said the retired generals wrote the letter independent of the campaign, but the campaign is distributing it.


Harrison denied that recent campaign attacks have been racist, saying that the congressmen views the questions the campaign is raising as important to national security and just a statement of facts.

“It has nothing to do with race, this has nothing to do with him being Palestinian,” Harrison said. “If you had a person of a different race… it would warrant the same concern.”

The Hunter campaign has also made an issue of Campa-Najjar’s recent name change, from Ammar Yasser Najjar to Ammar Campa-Najjar. According to the candidate, he has used the Campa-Najjar name for years, to honor his mother’s side of the family, and was simply formalizing it with a legal name change.

“I felt adding Campa was more transparent than less, and to omit this part of my heritage would be to omit these stories that show who I am,“ Campa-Najjar said during a recent interview with him and several members of the Campa side of the family.


Hunter, 41, of Alpine, represents a heavily Republican district including El Cajon, Alpine, Escondido and parts of Riverside County. His indictment — on charges he denies — has made the race more competitive that it might otherwise be.

His campaign has focused recently on Campa-Najjar’s heritage, including an attack ad with many of the same themes struck by the generals.

Two weeks ago, 70 national security experts signed a letter on behalf of Campa-Najjar.

“The ad is short on facts but long on some of the darkest forces of our society – bigotry, xenophobia and racism,” the letter said. “It makes unfounded accusations based on nothing more than Campa-Najjar’s heritage and skin color, which his opponent has repeated on the campaign trail.


“Campa-Najjar, like all of us, has served his country as a public official and worked on behalf of his fellow citizens with dedication and honor,” the statement continued. “That’s precisely why the baseless allegation that he is somehow a ‘security threat’ is an affront to our professionalism as national security experts, our American values, and our collective national dignity.”

Signatories includes Anthony Blinken, a former deputy national security adviser, and Matt Olsen, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Campa-Najjar, 29, of Jamul, often talks about his Christian faith on the campaign trail. During a recent telephone interview, his family members said that most of the maternal side of his family was raised Catholic and Campa-Najjar himself was baptized a Christian at EastLake Church many years ago.